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“Despite the bitter Maine winters, when temperatures can plummet to -20C, Knight says he never lit a fire, in case the smoke attracted attention.” He dropped o
by GuardianCaveman 7y ago
“Despite the bitter Maine winters, when temperatures can plummet to -20C, Knight says he never lit a fire, in case the smoke attracted attention.”
He dropped off the grid a few miles from thousands of cabins and survived exclusively on the contents of those cabins and the work of other people who filled those cabins with supplies. Had he truly survived alone in Wilderness instead of the equivalent of camping in the backyard and going inside the house for snacks he could have afforded to light a fire instead of pacing at 3AM to keep warm. He’s a parasite in the way he lived - not some noble outdoorsman. He’s a criminal.
- rlt 7y ago> He’s a parasite This guy’s cost to society is likely far lower than your average homeless person in a city like San Francisco, which spends something like $250,000,000 per year on the problem. That said, I’m not saying putting homeless people in the woods to steal from nearby cabins is a scalable solution.
- mushbino 7y agoSpending on the homeless in SF was just recently increased to $600,000,000.
- ashildr 7y agoI don’t think that being a hermit (avoiding any social interaction in ‘nature’) and being a criminal (acting against law) are mutually exclusive. And I think it’s very interesting to read about people who chose to become hermits, because I don’t understand the motivation and may learn something. I find it less interesting to discuss stolen batteries, because I understand that motivation and logic. You may choose to not understand things that you don’t agree with, being that kind of intellectual hermit is your proper, if sad, choice as a free human.
- CGamesPlay 7y ago> I don’t think that being a hermit (avoiding any social interaction in ‘nature’) and being a criminal (acting against law) are mutually exclusive. I don’t think anyone here disagrees with this. But this man was certainly more in the latter category than the former. He was just as dependent on civilization putting groceries in the supermarket as any of your suburban neighbors, except instead of paying for those groceries, he stole them. Sure, he also lived in nature and didn’t talk to people.
- komali2 7y agoOk sure but he's in jail now so you don't need to worry about people normalizing the behavior - so why not talk instead about the hermitude itself?
- 6thaccount2 7y agoIs he still in jail? I thought he was caught ages ago and had a sentence less than a year? I remember reading about his talk on living in prison...30 years in nature and then absolute filth.
- lonelappde 7y agoAbiding the law is a privilege of the rich. wikipedia.org/wiki/Walden (Thoreau)