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Beautiful analysis on the less tangible benefits of van life. The benefit of van life for me it was the fact that if you're not rich, you spend all your time s

Beautiful analysis on the less tangible benefits of van life. The benefit of van life for me it was the fact that if you're not rich, you spend all your time simply surviving in this current economy and can never truly thrive and follow your dreams, whether that's meeting people, or chasing a hobby project, or working a lower paying job to make the world a better place. Your job is to just survive. For example: 30%+ of our income goes to taxes 20%-30%+ to rent + utilities 15% to student loans(if you have any). 10%+ (or way more if you're sick) to healthcare 5% to a car payment + insurance + gas After all of that you only get 20%ish of your paycheck? Then you have retirement to worry about because you can't rely on social security anymore. Slavery still exists it's just expanded to include every race. Van life at least frees you from that extra 20% plus it frees you from signing a 2 year lease obligation just to have a place to live. And in a job market that is chaotic you may have to move sooner than that so van life gives you the freedom to choose your life a lot better and is actually a lot more financially responsible.

neaden 7y ago
"Slavery still exists it's just expanded to include every race." This is a very tasteless comment. It's also just flat out wrong. For the vast majority of human history, and in many countries today, people had to work more than 40 hours a week just to supply themselves and their family with food, shelter, and clothing. We live in a time of immense wealth and leisure relative to the lives of most people.
- Miner49er 7y ago
  The average American works more today then a medieval peasant. https://allthatsinteresting.com/medieval-peasants-vacation-more https://allthatsinteresting.com/medieval-peasants-vacation-m... We live in a time of immense wealth, but not leisure.
  - neaden 7y ago
    This is only true because the authors are trying to use a capitalist definition of work to a precaptialist society. There was a huge amount of time spent on household tasks like mending clothes, preparing food, doing repairs, spinning clothes etc. The article also talks about how peasants took frequent rests, but this is because they were doing extremely physically demanding work, not because they had a chill schedule. Edit: A great example is that in Mexico and the American Southwest one of a woman's traditional tasks was grinding corn by hand, which could take up to 5 hours for her families supply. Other areas of the world that ate grains and didn't have access to mills would have had to spend a similar amount of time.
    - Miner49er 7y ago
      Idk, Americans also spend a lot of time on things that are necessary like that: Cleaning, paying taxes, commuting, exercise (because most workers don't get it at work anymore), buying and cooking food, taking care of house and car, laundry, etc. I huge amount of time is spent on those things and that wasn't included in the 40 hours.
      - neaden 7y ago
        You're right that I shouldn't have used the 40 hours in my first most as it isn't an apples to apples comparison. The fact remains though that in comparison people in first world countries today have much more time that doesn't have to be spent on productive tasks then people in most of history. Cooking food list in your example took much more time in the past, and cars require much less maintenance then a car.
  - ryanmercer 7y ago
    >The average American works more today then a medieval peasant The average medieval peasant was illiterate, slept on straw, had to work if they were sick and God forbid they broke a bone they would likely have the bone set incorrectly handicapping them to varying degrees for the rest of their life. The average American has air conditioning, electric or gas heat, a smartphone, watches television several hours a week and rarely has to worry about food poisoning or getting intestinal parasites. Give up the air conditioning, the car, the 3000$ laptop every 2-3 years, the 1200$ smartphone every 18-24 months, the Netflix/Hulu/Disney+/Spotify subscriptions, never purchase a single item that is (or contains a component that was) imported, the exotic vacations 0.5-4x a year, the 4-9$ cup of coffee 1-3x a day and that food delivery service you use 1-7x a week, running water and all electricity at your residence and you too could work considerably less.
    - lonelappde 7y ago
      So, like van life?
      - ryanmercer 7y ago
        I'm taking it you've never been to subs like /r/vandwellers where it's all "what do you do for a washing machine" "what do you do for internet" "what do you do for heating" "what do you do for air conditioning" "what is your toilet setup" "what do you cook on" "what sort of PV system do you have"
gnaritas 7y ago
Having to work is not slavery. Wild animals work and they're as free as free gets. Work is a necessity of survival, the necessities of life require labor to create/get and it's on you to carry your own weight, that's not slavery, that's reality.
- nickthemagicman 7y ago
  This is such an antiquated heavy handed perspective. How much work is the right amount of work? 40 hours? 80 hours? Are people working 2 jobs but still not making ends meet not 'pulling their own weight'? How does supply and demand figure into this? Are people who get automated out of a job no longer pulling their own weight? Does the fact that someone exploits their employees and only pays them 10% of the value that they generate while keeping the 90% meant that business owner is just 'pulling their own weight'? According to your missing definition of 'pulling your own weight' slavery back in the 1800 could be viewed as just people 'pulling their own weight'. Are people in towns where no jobs are available even though they want to work...just not 'pulling their own weight'? Your simplifications are not well thought out and frankly stupid.

neaden 7y ago

"Slavery still exists it's just expanded to include every race." This is a very tasteless comment. It's also just flat out wrong. For the vast majority of human history, and in many countries today, people had to work more than 40 hours a week just to supply themselves and their family with food, shelter, and clothing. We live in a time of immense wealth and leisure relative to the lives of most people.

Miner49er 7y ago
The average American works more today then a medieval peasant. https://allthatsinteresting.com/medieval-peasants-vacation-more https://allthatsinteresting.com/medieval-peasants-vacation-m... We live in a time of immense wealth, but not leisure.
- neaden 7y ago
  This is only true because the authors are trying to use a capitalist definition of work to a precaptialist society. There was a huge amount of time spent on household tasks like mending clothes, preparing food, doing repairs, spinning clothes etc. The article also talks about how peasants took frequent rests, but this is because they were doing extremely physically demanding work, not because they had a chill schedule. Edit: A great example is that in Mexico and the American Southwest one of a woman's traditional tasks was grinding corn by hand, which could take up to 5 hours for her families supply. Other areas of the world that ate grains and didn't have access to mills would have had to spend a similar amount of time.
  - Miner49er 7y ago
    Idk, Americans also spend a lot of time on things that are necessary like that: Cleaning, paying taxes, commuting, exercise (because most workers don't get it at work anymore), buying and cooking food, taking care of house and car, laundry, etc. I huge amount of time is spent on those things and that wasn't included in the 40 hours.
    - neaden 7y ago
      You're right that I shouldn't have used the 40 hours in my first most as it isn't an apples to apples comparison. The fact remains though that in comparison people in first world countries today have much more time that doesn't have to be spent on productive tasks then people in most of history. Cooking food list in your example took much more time in the past, and cars require much less maintenance then a car.
- ryanmercer 7y ago
  >The average American works more today then a medieval peasant The average medieval peasant was illiterate, slept on straw, had to work if they were sick and God forbid they broke a bone they would likely have the bone set incorrectly handicapping them to varying degrees for the rest of their life. The average American has air conditioning, electric or gas heat, a smartphone, watches television several hours a week and rarely has to worry about food poisoning or getting intestinal parasites. Give up the air conditioning, the car, the 3000$ laptop every 2-3 years, the 1200$ smartphone every 18-24 months, the Netflix/Hulu/Disney+/Spotify subscriptions, never purchase a single item that is (or contains a component that was) imported, the exotic vacations 0.5-4x a year, the 4-9$ cup of coffee 1-3x a day and that food delivery service you use 1-7x a week, running water and all electricity at your residence and you too could work considerably less.
  - lonelappde 7y ago
    So, like van life?
    - ryanmercer 7y ago
      I'm taking it you've never been to subs like /r/vandwellers where it's all "what do you do for a washing machine" "what do you do for internet" "what do you do for heating" "what do you do for air conditioning" "what is your toilet setup" "what do you cook on" "what sort of PV system do you have"

gnaritas 7y ago

Having to work is not slavery. Wild animals work and they're as free as free gets. Work is a necessity of survival, the necessities of life require labor to create/get and it's on you to carry your own weight, that's not slavery, that's reality.

nickthemagicman 7y ago
This is such an antiquated heavy handed perspective. How much work is the right amount of work? 40 hours? 80 hours? Are people working 2 jobs but still not making ends meet not 'pulling their own weight'? How does supply and demand figure into this? Are people who get automated out of a job no longer pulling their own weight? Does the fact that someone exploits their employees and only pays them 10% of the value that they generate while keeping the 90% meant that business owner is just 'pulling their own weight'? According to your missing definition of 'pulling your own weight' slavery back in the 1800 could be viewed as just people 'pulling their own weight'. Are people in towns where no jobs are available even though they want to work...just not 'pulling their own weight'? Your simplifications are not well thought out and frankly stupid.