28 ms·

A Victoria man has gone two decades without money

189 points by 8bitsrule 5y ago

mjfl 5y ago
he still uses money. Just indirectly, spent by others. He lives off the charity of other people.
- INTPenis 5y ago
  >He claims he hasn’t spent any money since. It’s true, his friends have told me. No money at all. This quote was kinda funny to me, because the online text doesn't convey any sarcasm or tone. But considering he's actually just a mooch I sort of implied the tone of that comment to be quite snarky. "Yeah, no money at all, he won't spend a dime" - this guy's poor friend.
- Aaargh20318 5y ago
  Exactly. If you want to live without money, that should be doable, but this isn't it. You can live on a homestead in the middle of nowhere, grow your own crops, raise your own cattle, barter with neighbours and be completely self-sufficient without money. This guy just lets other spend money for him.
  - kylec 5y ago
    Yeah, I'm much more impressed with Scott & Helen Nearing, who did basically that: http://goodlife.org http://goodlife.org
    - kangnkodos 5y ago
      Is it basically a commune? If so, who washes the dishes? What are the incentives? What is the punishment for skipping dishwasher duty? Every time I read about communes, I get so excited. I always get inspired by the ideals they are trying to live by. But then when I hear the details about the day to day logistics and governance, it always ends up sounding like a terrible place to live. --- I can't tell. It looks more like an organic farm with a few caretakers living on the farm, and financially supported by the community. I like that.
      - kylec 5y ago
        Not a commune, they were a couple that lived off the land in Maine, and built everything there themselves. Nowadays their home is staffed by volunteers and open to visitors to see how they lived.
  - MajorBee 5y ago
    Wouldn't you still have to pay property taxes (in money) on that homestead?
    - mikem170 5y ago
      I assume so. I was curious how modern society deals with quakers and the amish in this regard, and found this: > The Amish are subject to sales and property taxes. As they seldom own motor vehicles, they rarely have occasion to pay motor vehicle registration fees or spend money in the purchase of fuel for vehicles.[114] Under their beliefs and traditions, generally the Amish do not agree with the idea of Social Security benefits and have a religious objection to insurance.[115][116] On this basis, the United States Internal Revenue Service agreed in 1961 that they did not need to pay Social Security-related taxes. In 1965, this policy was codified into law.[117] Self-employed individuals in certain sects do not pay into or receive benefits from the United States Social Security system. This exemption applies to a religious group that is conscientiously opposed to accepting benefits of any private or public insurance, provides a reasonable level of living for its dependent members, and has existed continuously since December 31, 1950.[118] The U.S. Supreme Court clarified in 1982 that Amish employers are not exempt, but only those Amish individuals who are self-employed. [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amish#Life_in_the_modern_world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amish#Life_in_the_modern_world
- pipingdog 5y ago
  A man with sufficient free cash flow but no capital.
- chmod775 5y ago
  He won't be living on much then. And that is only if you consider throwing food in the trash charity.
  - salamandersauce 5y ago
    He's not just living off trash. People give him food too, his friend has spent money on him for things like printing his book. He's indirectly using cash.
- pacifika 5y ago
  He would live just as well if the people around him didn’t spend money and lives like him, so that’s not his choice
  - CydeWeys 5y ago
    If everyone else around him lived like this he'd starve pretty quickly, as no one would be doing the actual work required to keep society running.
- paulcole 5y ago
  sounds like he should apply for the next YC batch
  - raverbashing 5y ago
    "We want $10Mi to get rid of money (as in, monetary tokens)"
inawarminister 5y ago
This guy is a monk. So that's how they got invented the first time, huh. Well, if he teaches others what he know and they emulate him, while the general populace tolerate and support them, a new ascetic movement would be made easily. Still, my heart is with his estranged SO and their children. Ascetics can't support others that well after all.
- nsb1 5y ago
  Just so long as he doesn't teach too many others - this sort of thing doesn't scale well.
  - guerrilla 5y ago
    It scaled fine in India and China. That's exactly what Buddhism was. They worked though, just not in lay jobs.
- peterburkimsher 5y ago
  I agree. Even though money is bad, I believe that it's excusable to help others. (No, the ends don't always justify the means. In the case of community and the greater good, my moral expectations on others are much lower than the strictness with which I judge myself, and I will break my own rules if it means being a better guest/host).
peterburkimsher 5y ago
I admire his resolve, though it's not something I'd like to take to the extreme. Spending more time with people who have less money (e.g. CouchSurfing -> BeWelcome, hitchhiking, dumpster diving) has been an immensely rewarding experience. Last week, I heard a message about investment, which said that the 3 ways to store wealth are stocks in companies, bonds in governments, and property (owned by banks or rich people). A few days later, I read about GitLab making it their policy to help people get visas (shouldn't that be a government choice?). Privatisation is also taking over police departments, prisons, bus services, etc. I don't trust that the shareholders' best interests are the same as the needs of the people. War helps private companies, at the expense of governments & property. I'm not hopeful for peace in the next 50 years. What about investing in people? Not saving wealth, but giving it away! People will try hard to save their own lives in a war (and if I die, I don't need the return on investment anyway). It's a personal contact, so I think it's highly resistant to inflation. Building community is, in my opinion, more important than storing up wealth. I guess this view is similar to 關係 guanxi. It's democratic: if I do something silly and lose face, then it has consequences. I don't think it's authoritarian communism, where 單位 dictate who you can marry or what kind of job you can do, but a community-focussed lifestyle where newcomers are welcome, and share freely within the group. I'm still trying to figure this concept out though, so other suggestions of philosophical readings are welcome :)
- knocte 5y ago
  > A few days later, I read about GitLab making it their policy to help people get visas link?
  - david_allison 5y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27899918 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27899918
- sokoloff 5y ago
  > [Company] making it their policy to help people get visas (shouldn't that be a government choice?) Of course it's the government choice to grant the visa or not. It's the company choice as to how much support (financial, HR/legal advice, other) to extend to their employees [and their household].
k__ 5y ago
Reminds me of some German Youtuber, the "Zirkeldreher". He talks about living without money, but basically mooches on his parents.
kypro 5y ago
I don't see how taking from everyone and giving very little in return is moral. If everyone did this we'd all live in a far worse world. This is basically the antithesis of my own moral code to give more than I receive. I relate to him in that I value money very little as a medium to facilitate my own happiness, but I still want to make a lot of it so I can give more. He seems sweet though. I think I would get on with him were we to ever meet.
- theonlybutlet 5y ago
  Agreed don't think this guy really deserves much praise, if he were adding value to society and bartering for his needs that would be different.
- yboris 5y ago
  I wonder if you've heard of Effective Altruism - it's, broadly speaking, about using evidence and our resources to help others the most. It's a great community where I think you'd fit in: https://www.effectivealtruism.org/ https://www.effectivealtruism.org/
- brnt 5y ago
  You assume all objects, experiences and behaviours are priced accurately. Something I would certainly not assume.
  - Proven 5y ago
    > behaviours are priced accurately. Something I would certainly not assume. He didn't guess how you value or should value that kind of a lifestyle, he merely commented on the morality of it. If you value parasitism, that fine, you're free to do that. But it's still immoral. > Go back further in time and he'd have been ostracized from his hunter-gatherer community for not contributing, and would've lived a short life as a hermit. Because productivity was low, its wasn't much of a choice - there was little to give. Today he can make it because the moral desire to create more than one takes - contrary to what he promotes - has prevailed. You wouldn't need to go back in time a single second to see how long would his life be in a society that consisted of only useless eaters such as himself. He wouldn't last past next winter.
L-four 5y ago
Why doesn't the audio player have volume controls???
kangnkodos 5y ago
He wants everyone to suddenly stop using money. If that happened, who would wash the dishes? Many communes have failed over this exact issue. They go on for several years with several people, usually women, making the sacrifice and doing what needs to be done. But eventually, the people who do the dishes get fed up and stop, or leave. And then the whole thing collapses. The alternative is for the leaders to have some type of power to compel people to do the dishes, and some type of punishment to mete out. There are certain tasks in society that no one wants to do. In order to get them done, you have to choose the carrot or the stick. Money or punishment. If the society has no money, there's going to be a whole lot of punishment going on. It can work in theory, but in practice, a society based on punishment tends to snowball out of control, with the people in charge of punishment going too far. The people in charge make a small mistake in the size of punishment relative to the transgression. With money, small mistakes like this happen constantly, and they are constantly being adjusted by changing prices and salaries. The garbage man makes a higher salary than other manual laborers. But without money, the process has more steps, and is harder to get right. People protest, the leaders listen to the protests, go through the rule changing process, and eventually adjust the punishment to fit the transgression. Without money, more people are involved in the process. Some are removed from the actual issue. It takes longer for the adjustment to be made. With only the tool of punishment available, it's more difficult to fine tune every mismatch. In practice, it's really, really hard to get a punishment based society just right.
- sumnole 5y ago
  Devil's advocate here. Failing sufficient encouragement to do tasks (psychological/sociological rewards as got through volunteering), most of those tasks can be automated or replaced by an alternative.
  - lotu 5y ago
    Not in a reasonable time frame. Do you really believe we could fully automate all dishwashing over the next decade?
    - 5y ago
ronyfadel 5y ago
> While meditating down at the ocean—and tripping on acid courtesy of the motorbike’s new owner—he experienced what would become for him unshakable insights having to do with patience, fate, and love. I was waiting for that part since I started reading the article. Isn’t this what the hippies in the 60’s figured out as well?
- bbarnett 5y ago
  It's what everyone figured out, always. Christ was a hippie. People has preached love, casting off money and such since the dawn of time. Usually youth, who then in their 30s decide they'd rather like money.
  - ronyfadel 5y ago
    I’m sure Christ didn’t figure it out on acid though. I was referring to that bit specifically.
    - bbarnett 5y ago
      He probably used shrooms, which is close enough. :P
chasing 5y ago
He uses money, it’s just other people’s.
lioeters 5y ago
An assortment of quotes from the article.. > ..Refusing to spend money is the only moral way to live. > ..Not only did money enable what he deemed insane behaviour on a grand scale, the dependence on it, the fear of losing it, the focus on acquiring it wrecked people’s lives and drove them to be dishonest with themselves and others. > ..People are putting themselves through hell, living in situations that are just making them nuts to avoid being homeless. > Every taxpayer is an indentured servant until this debt is paid. > Only one solution appears just and good, and that is a society without money.
I_complete_me 5y ago
Here's a link to the same idea https://www.moneylessmanifesto.org/ https://www.moneylessmanifesto.org/ and a link to the book by Mark Boyle https://www.amazon.co.uk/Moneyless-Man-Year-Freeconomic-Living/dp/1851687874 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Moneyless-Man-Year-Freeconomic-Livi.... Mark Boyle went on to write another book which I enjoyed called "The Way Home"
dghughes 5y ago
>For all Johnston’s proselytizing, he lacks a pushiness. Instead, he exudes—and has worked on cultivating—patience and calm He's a con man and a mooch. Nothing special. He just mooches off other people's effort.
helsinkiandrew 5y ago
I’m not sure living in the city off handouts, charity, and free tax payer provided facilities exactly promotes his no money philosophy. His life relies on the things he despises, if the economic collapse he predicts comes he will be among the first to starve to death. Go into the wild and grow/hunt food or trade some skill - the post money society doesn’t need philosopher poets scavenging cigarettes from trash cans
- bserge 5y ago
  Haha, I was expecting a story about living off grid, not this. In my home country we actually still have people living off their land and animals, off hand dug wells and cut down trees, using no money. That's rather extreme, though, most villages have electricity at least.
- Aeolun 5y ago
  > the post money society doesn’t need philosopher poets scavenging cigarettes from trash cans Supporting the odd philosopher poet is the exact function of society, in my opinion. Some good things come out of having them that do not come out of having another corporate drone.
  - SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
    > Supporting the odd philosopher poet is the exact function of society, in my opinion. Have you considered that society should also be the natural predator of the odd philosopher poet so that their numbers do not become problematic for their environment?
    - wizzwizz4 5y ago
      Look: a “social Darwinist”! I should get a spotter's guide. If society preys on philosopher poets, we don't get philosophy or poetry, our ethics never develops, and the fundamental principles of society don't improve, limiting how much technological progress can raise the standard of living. I personally call that a bad outcome.
booleandilemma 5y ago
This only works if not everyone in society does it. It’s easy for a lone person to ride on the backs of others, who are actually, you know, working for money, but if tomorrow we got rid of money society would collapse. With the way NYC is, I could quit my job tomorrow and mooch off others (SO many do). I’d be uncomfortable, but I’d live. If everyone did this there wouldn’t be a NYC anymore.
- gimmeThaBeet 5y ago
  I agree, if your grand answer to the torments of society is to just rely on that exact society to sustain you, it's not a sustainable answer. Even just something as simple as the cigarettes he scavenges, where does he think those are coming from? Like I'm sure you could grow some sort of nicotiana in BC, but it's not exactly North Carolina, and he's not exactly Thoreau. It's kind of stunning how close this guy is to Diogenes. Hates the Athens marketplace, never leaves (until captured by pirates). Tangential, but I tend to feel this way about a segment of van life philosophy, it's sort of the next level. People want to escape the drudgery of conventional society, so try to be a van life influencer, and have your life hinge on a large (van/bus) vehicle running on refined petroleum, probably the avatar of global industrialization. It relies exclusively on people who specifically do what you won't.
  - mikem170 5y ago
    > Tangential, but I tend to feel this way about a segment of van life philosophy Ah, I know what you mean. I've thought about this myself. One of those "it wouldn't work if everyone did it" kind of things. You could do van life while working for an oil company, there's people with all kinds of van life jobs, it's a way to cut expenses and have more time outside of work. But things would need to be quite different if everyone did it. But then again, if everyone wanted to escape the drudgery of conventional society we would end up with different conventions. I don't think it's any wrong for this guy to do what he does, or van life people. It seems like it would be wrong to expect/force everyone to adhere to our current conventions when they don't want to. At least ideally. And he's no more of a mooch than the rentier rich and corporations who plunder the common good for profit. I found it interesting how money and productivity are such trigger issues for many people. Perhaps because we all work a lot more than we'd like to, and aren't rich, and resent those who don't buy into the same rules.
jokoon 5y ago
Sounds like a modern day Diogenes. Money is the most basic social contract everyone agrees with. The problem of money today is that it overrides politics, so it shifts problems from one place to another side of the planet. Tax evasion or dodging, social darwinism and social inequality, money laundering, etc, money have always posed great problems... People will call money a great and indispensable evolution of human civilization, while arguing that socialism leads directly to gulags and famine (which is the worst strawman argument of people who will defend market essentialism). Money is a tool, but honestly, it's not very good at what it does. Governments and institutions already achieve most of what human needs, by allocating resources through political decisions and law. Banks are always privatized for some weird reasons and never do anything right and never improve the interest of the public. Doomists will say "we don't want to be hunters and gatherers again", yet cannot prove that capitalism allowed the apparition of science, technology and industry.
joelbondurant 5y ago
Nothing makes communists more angry than tax cattle out of their pen.
eplanit 5y ago
A clever bum, for sure. "Johnston’s feelings about money are inextricably bound up in his certainty that refusing to spend it is the only moral way to live." It's ok for others to spend on his behalf, though. It sounds like he is applying an effective story to a nicely vulnerable population of marks. While his philosophy is BS, I cynically admire his hustle.
nootropicat 5y ago
Alternative title: a bum glamorizes his parasitic lifestyle. Money is one of many solutions designed to allocate resources on a large scale. Of course, there are others, but he doesn't propose any alternative system. He's just a parasite. A pre-industrial society most likely wouldn't be able to support his existence so easily and he would either starve to death or start working.
- manmal 5y ago
  I agree to some extent, but what’s the purpose of using such dehumanizing language?
- mikem170 5y ago
  > He's just a parasite. He's less of a parasite than many rich people! I'm thinking of those who are nothing better than rentiers and/or running cartels, commandeering common resources for their own profits, accumulating money for themselves at the expense of society, who glamorize materialism and moralize hard work because that's what keeps the money rolling in from the plebes, and having the support of the government to keep them on top. They seem to be have done, and are doing, way more harm to our society than this guy.
staticman2 5y ago
In the anime Haibane Renmei there are angel-like characters who are allowed to barter for goods but not allowed to use money- presumably because of an association between money and sin. This reminded me of that- though it doesn't seem that Johnston is doing any bartoring.
zests 5y ago
Of course it would be impossible for modern society to stop using money altogether despite what this man might hope. Its easy to see this person as someone who just doesn't want to work. At the same time, I read a historical religious fiction book that describes monks going from town to town offering enlightenment in exchange for food and presumably shelter. Is this any different? All of modern society joining a monastery or becoming enlightened is perhaps an even bigger ask.
okareaman 5y ago
Money is only one kind of power as I learned from going from working stiff to millionaire (thanks software biz!) to homeless broke person (cursed alcohol.) There is the shamanic-like power of a deeply spiritual person. There is the leadership power of a good manufacturing supervisor or ship captain. There is the moral power of Martin Luther King or Solzhenitsyn. I've come to the conclusion that accumulating money is how people who otherwise wouldn't have any power to purchase it. There's a easy test I do in this industry when a rich person publishes a thought piece that doesn't move me: Would this person have any power if they weren't rich? A lot of times the answer is no. This Victoria man has another kind of power: The power that gets other people to take care of his needs for him without objecting or rejecting him.
- kevmo 5y ago
  > Would this person have any power if they weren't rich? A lot of times the answer is no. In my experience, the answer is no like a solid 90-99% of the time. At least in America, the wealthy buy their kids into elite high schools, which feed into elite colleges, which feed into jobs at elite, increasingly monolithic institutions/corporations. Junior gets to fail again and again until they succeed, and then the return on capital further institutionalizes their family's power. It's just aristocracy, but with more steps.
  - okareaman 5y ago
    I feel a bit sorry for them, because with money you can build yourself a really nice gilded cage (or be born in one), which is extremely difficult to escape from because it would take giving up the money. This makes it hard to develop the other kinds of powers I mentioned. I believe these thoughts are not my own, but are the basis of ideas like "The love of money is the root of all evil" and "Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God." (I am not a Christian but I am familiar with it - I'm sure I could find similar thoughts in other religions)
  - imtringued 5y ago
    >In my experience, the answer is no like a solid 90-99% of the time. At least in America, the wealthy buy their kids into elite high schools, which feed into elite colleges, which feed into jobs at elite, increasingly monolithic institutions/corporations. Well, this may be bad but what is the alternative? It's not like the life of an average citizen is any different other than in degree. They also use money to go to a good school and good college to get good jobs at good companies. I don't see the injustice here as substantial. I see bigger flaws in the money system than our society maintaining itself.
motohagiography 5y ago
This makes sense if you have ever been to Victoria. It's the closest thing to a real life hobbit village you will ever see from a culture perspective.
- wk_end 5y ago
  ...have you been to Victoria? In the past twenty years? Forgive me for getting defensive, but as someone who lives here, you don't know what you're talking about. The days of the "home of the newlywed and nearly-dead" stereotype are over (maybe except for in Oak Bay). We're a solidly medium-sized city, the capital of BC, with multiple universities, significant naval presence, a booming population, and strong tourism industry. And also one of the most expensive and desirable housing markets in the country. And FWIW, I'm not sure how going for decades without money is more feasible in a cultural hobbit village, whatever that means, than anywhere else. No, it makes sense that he can do this in Victoria because we have the best year-round weather in the country and lots of support available for the homeless.
giantg2 5y ago
It's not exactly like he's gone 2 decades without money. He just relies on other people who have money to give him things.
aazaa 5y ago
> As we walk through the city, Johnston offers a small disclaimer, putting out in the open what he calls his one “debatable” act of spending, post-31st birthday. If you count a gift card that someone gave him back in 2012, which he used on Big Macs and coffee, then, he says, he’s been money-free for only nine years. This raises a point that article doesn't address: what is "money"? If Johnson trades those cigarettes he makes from tossed butts for food, is he using money? Cigarettes have been used as currency in some special situations like war time. Likewise, if Johnson accepts a product created through the use of money, isn't he in fact using money, if only indirectly? Then there's the big question that never gets asked or answered: what happens if every single person on earth lived like Johnson? Money is fundamentally a way to fulfill future needs and wants. Abandoning money is really abandoning a path to build a future deliberately. Storing grain, smoking meat, or building a shelter serve exactly the same purpose as money in this context. They are ways to make the future more predictable. They also have the interesting property that they can be traded for other ways to make the future more predictable. And that leads to the main problem that Johnson seems to be trying to solve: how to stop focusing on optimizing one's future through the accumulation of things that can make the future more certain. What does a world of people who have abandoned the idea of making a future for themselves actually look like?
bouncycastle 5y ago
In countryside Japan, I notice that people get a lot of their vegetables and rice from family members who have a plot of something. Some have rice, some have carrots, potatoes and so on. Giving whatever excess stuff you have from your field and get reciprocated with other stuff you don't have, no money needed.
advertising 5y ago
Money is but a reflection of what we value. Money is not evil, but the abstraction of “value” in modern life does cause the problems he blames money for. Perhaps the jungle/forest tribes way of life is the best and simple way we can be happy. Yet tent communes like Johnston’s seem to be setup in the middle of a town square or within close proximity of a city, and not in nature somewhere actually sustaining themselves. In the end if we blew it all up we would arrive back to same evolution of living we find ourselves in today.
paulpauper 5y ago
Homeless people, indigenous people,disabled and institutionalized people, prisoners seem to manage without money, too . nothing noteworthy about this.
MrRiddle 5y ago
Why should we care about a story from a homeless person with mental health issues?
- cashrules 5y ago
  From what disorder do you suspect this man suffers?
IkmoIkmo 5y ago
I really can't stand these long-form articles that just take ages to get anywhere. For example, at some point the article notes he didn't get to the truth until two epiphanies that obliterated his self-image. Then there's literally 9 paragraphs of other text. Then it follows with the 10th paragraph: "Then came the Epiphanies." Long-form is great, but it feels as if each page is just loaded with stuff other than the point of the article. If it's written in poetic form, contains beautiful photography, or actually interesting anecdotes, sure. But none of it was there and the larger point never did arrive, either. As for the Victoria man... completely misguided. Every street he walks on, every piece of cloth he wears, the coffee he drinks, the food he eats, the phone he uses, the internet he uses, was produced or maintained by someone else. Money is merely a medium of exchange to allow people to exchange their contribution to society, for other contributions, in a feasible (i.e. not barter-based) manner. There's tons of legitimate criticisms on capitalism, on our economic structures, on unequal opportunity/ability, monopolies, corruption, concentration of wealth etc etc, which makes our socioeconomic system imperfect. But the idea that money (as an invention/tool) is the root of the problem is entirely misguided and frankly, entirely unfounded. Nothing in this article really substantiates this wild claim he makes, and nowhere does the interviewer even remotely challenge him on it. Unfortunate that I had to read the whole thing to find that out.
imtringued 5y ago
>The pandemic has made the idea of economic collapse easier for the Average Joes to imagine, he says. As a result, the time could be ripe for considering alternatives to the status quo. Ideas previously believed too radical for consideration have already entered the mainstream, like a universal basic income. I don't understand this. The idea of economic collapse? Did people miss the biggest economic collapse that just happened last year? It's already over. What could possibly be worse for an economy than a permanent lockdown? It's absurd how people are scared of full employment.
glitchc 5y ago
The monks of old (Eastern and Western philosophies) would live off the largesse of others in terms of food, clothing and shelter. They gave back in the form of teachings and wisdom or a temporary place to stay for travelers, without judgement or payment. This man is just taking, and not giving anything back. That makes him a mooch, and little more.
anm89 5y ago
This guy isn't living without money. He's just living with other people's money. If he was living off the land that would be cool but that's not what's going on here.
- manmal 5y ago
  He’s trading his attention for other services and goods. Some people are paid for talking to other people - he just receives food and shelter instead.
noduerme 5y ago
> “It would be a lot easier if everyone quit money at the same time, make a day of it, and then everyone can co-ordinate and start planting.” > He takes a drag on his cigarette. “Yeah, it would be a shitshow. But there's certain steps that need to be taken, and I'm sort of the disposable one that can't be bought. So I can make the horrifying decisions that no one else can make." The guy says he doesn't believe in evil. The only time in history that money has been abolished was under the Khmer Rouge. They also had no concept of evil, and made a good many horrifying decisions in service of total economic equality through forced poverty and mass enslavement. Because of course the people who don't want to quit earning, spending, owning and trading their goods and services need to be forced to do so, or else be eliminated.
tills13 5y ago
He's not living off _his_ money. He's living off my money -- literally, being a tax-payer in Victoria. Additionally, he's actively using resources designed to help people who are in situations where they cannot work or cannot find stable income. What a jerk.
- mikem170 5y ago
  Are you sure he's asking for any of your tax money? I didn't notice in the article any mention of him collecting benefits. He dumpster dives for food if nothing else. People give him some things, of their own free will. And don't forget about all the rich people that your tax monies subsidize [0]. Those are people who have money, and are being given more from your taxes. How much different is this guy than those rich people getting tax breaks? Which begs the question why there is such a visceral reaction against this poor guy, but not all the rich who get propped up by the government. I guess we aspire to be one of those rich people who do nothing, and resent the people who choose not to play the game that most of us aren't winning. [0] https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/02/24/tax-loopholes-canada-toby-sanger_n_9309578.html https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/02/24/tax-loopholes-canad...
  - tills13 5y ago
    The article mentions he gets his coffee from a local food kitchen. > And don't forget about all the rich people that your tax monies subsidize This is What-about-ism. I can be upset about both.
    - mikem170 5y ago
      Point taken on what-about-ism. I find that I do that perhaps too often. But these connections keep jumping into my mind. I wonder if people get mad about one thing, but not the other. I wonder what the commonalities are, what the differences are. I grant that it can lead to tangents, but I guess I find value in it. For example, in this case, does society cut the mooching rich more slack than the mooching poor? It seems that many of us aspire to be rich, and that many consider the poor to be lazy. Our system seems to have a lot of bias built into it. I wondered if I was seeing that in your comment, and threw my reply out there. Maybe I should have worded it differently? Anyways, back to the guy in the article, lots of other taxpayers are happy to support local food kitchens, that's why we have them. He didn't "take" the coffee, they gave it to him. I understand that you disagree. Other people feel different. That's politics.
srvmshr 5y ago
* Intentional destruction of currency tenders is a criminal offense in most countries. There is nothing worthy of hero-worship here. * The guy leeches off the goodwill of others. He doesn't internalize that the amenities offered to him as charity, are being bought with someone's money. Food & coffee doesn't grow on trees. Heaters in winters don't work on magic spells. He doesn't spend his money. It is someone else's. Public money mostly, and the charity of sympathetic Samaritans The glamorous-pious/moral-homeless trope is BS. If he wants to do better, then live in one of the BC forests. Into the wild, all the way in. Seriously, if you take out these nutcase views/agenda, he is no different from garden variety homeless. Most people I have seen are destitute by their bad luck or lack of opportunity & education. This guy is a wreck by his parasitic fetishes.
- floppydiskette 5y ago
  Not disagreeing with you, but this statement seems pretty false: > Food & coffee doesn't grow on trees.
cbanek 5y ago
> Epiphany Two happened a few months after they met, on June 27, 2003, almost six years to the day after Epiphany One. Johnston’s father had sent him $50 for his birthday. With it, he bought beer, pot, and cigarettes, and then threw himself a small party at Beacon Hill Park. He overdid it and found himself lying on his side behind a bush. “I was just pukey drunk,” he says. “It was embarrassing. And then it just hit me. Like, I've had enough of this. I'm not playing this game anymore. And I was done. I had no use for money.” Uh, I'm not sure that's what I would have taken away from this.
- AutumnCurtain 5y ago
  And ironically he did not choose to abstain from drugs (cigarettes at a minimum) afterwards which seems like the much more direct lesson
miga 5y ago
All of us have to use money, so we make every excuse to say it is the only way of life. Homeless, jobless people prove otherwise. You can live without money, but the standard seems quite low. I hear it is possible to survive without society too. But the standard seems even lower.
rasengan0 5y ago
There is a whole community of people with a similar mindset re: money, practiced over many years https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/ariyesako/layguide.html#money https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/ariyesako/laygui...
carl_sandland 5y ago
Really interesting discussion here; it's heartening to feel the underlying desire by commentators to find effective moral principles. It strikes me that what we have now has evolved into an economic/money system that is complex, dynamic and probably the "least worst" we can achieve. We do live together in a miracle. I'm happy we still have space for monastic energies to survive. I do fear the coming resource scarcity and slowing tech adaption rate.
Tomminn 5y ago
"The nicer flute arrived the next day. “I'm sitting at the harbour. And some guy is sort of dressed like me, I guess casual, has this three-foot-long bamboo flute and a cup of coffee, and he is walking. And I say, ‘Can I have a sip of your coffee?’ ‘Is that a flute?’ ‘Can I try it?’” The man gave Johnston permission for both requests—and then he gave Johnston the flute. Stuff like that “happens constantly,” he tells me." There's a second interpretation of this interaction. I'd like to hear it from the other side.
- crazydoggers 5y ago
  Yeah. I’m not sure how that can’t be taken for parasitism. You can be pleasant about things as he seems to be, and still be a parasite. I’m sure he knew when he asked to try the flute he might end up with it. Ultimately his lifestyle is supported by the community around him and the hard work of others.
movedx 5y ago
Money is simply a storage of future labour. You're given it in return for the labour you perform today for someone else (or as a benefit from society due to not being able to perform laborious tasks.) Money isn't evil. How you utilise it is evil. > Epiphany Two happened a few months after they met, on June 27, 2003, almost six years to the day after Epiphany One. Johnston’s father had sent him $50 for his birthday. With it, he bought beer, pot, and cigarettes, and then threw himself a small party at Beacon Hill Park. He overdid it and found himself lying on his side behind a bush. “I was just pukey drunk,” he says. “It was embarrassing. And then it just hit me. Like, I've had enough of this. I'm not playing this game anymore. And I was done. I had no use for money.” The lesson here hasn't been learned. Simply don't exchange money for those things. Exchange them for something else, something healthy, and you'll be fine. I feel like this kind of protest stems from a degree of immaturity with money; not knowing how-to utilise it, what its reasons for existing are.
thomasfl 5y ago
People living their life completely without money, can teach us all a few good lessons. If some people can live completely without money, then the rest of us probably spendt too much time hoatding money. Happiness is possible without money.
- stevejb 5y ago
  The good lesson it can teach is that there are hypocrites in the world, and that at the present time there is enough excess productivity in the system that people who contribute nothing can basically ride for free, and the value they contribute is that they serve as props for a fantasy discussion that is delusional at best.
jwilber 5y ago
Enlightenment from an acid trip. This guy just reminds me of my friends who took too many psychedelics and didn’t mature out of the stage in life they were in when they took them. We have a word for this: fried.
deleted 5y ago
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mgh2 5y ago
Isn't his unwillingness to provide for his family a lack of responsibility and integrity, therefore rendering his thesis invalid?
smsm42 5y ago
One can find a lot of words to describe this lifestyle, but I think one that fits the most is "parasite". And as most healthy organisms, a modern city in a modern society can tolerate a number of parasites, and they may not even do any harm when they're in small quantities. But if it spreads beyond certain measure, the lives of both the host and the parasites become very miserable.
France_is_bacon 5y ago
He is still spending money, no matter what. Just because he doesn't touch the money, what does that have to do with anything. If someone like Queen Elizabeth never touches the money herself, mean that she does not spend money? If Jeff Bezos has a person following behind him 24/7 and never touches money, does that mean he has no money and doesn't spend? Of course not. If someone gives the dude food for free, the homeless guy still paid money for it. Maybe not cash, but he paid some form of money. The person purchasing the sandwich loaned or gave the homeless dude money, and then paid for the sandwich on behalf of the homeless guy. The homeless guy spends money living in the guy's house. Not only that, the sandwich he received for free is taxable by the IRS. It's like on those game shows where you win a car for free, you still have to pay taxes on it. That is because it is legit income, as in money to you. The gameshow gave you money for the car, but the gameshow then bought it for you, hid it behind a wall, and made you work for it. If the guy needs healthcare and goes to the hospital for free, he's not going for free. The doctors and nurses and rent and utilities and tools all cost money that someone pays. Nobody is working for free. The homeless guy is getting money from everyone, he just doesn't touch the actual cash, but it is all the same thing. He is spending $10,000 or $50,000 or $150,000 or whatever the medical care may cost, in value.
peanut_worm 5y ago
Living in a city with no money is just living off other people’s money.

189 points by 8bitsrule 5y ago

mjfl 5y ago

he still uses money. Just indirectly, spent by others. He lives off the charity of other people.

INTPenis 5y ago
>He claims he hasn’t spent any money since. It’s true, his friends have told me. No money at all. This quote was kinda funny to me, because the online text doesn't convey any sarcasm or tone. But considering he's actually just a mooch I sort of implied the tone of that comment to be quite snarky. "Yeah, no money at all, he won't spend a dime" - this guy's poor friend.
Aaargh20318 5y ago
Exactly. If you want to live without money, that should be doable, but this isn't it. You can live on a homestead in the middle of nowhere, grow your own crops, raise your own cattle, barter with neighbours and be completely self-sufficient without money. This guy just lets other spend money for him.
- kylec 5y ago
  Yeah, I'm much more impressed with Scott & Helen Nearing, who did basically that: http://goodlife.org http://goodlife.org
  - kangnkodos 5y ago
    Is it basically a commune? If so, who washes the dishes? What are the incentives? What is the punishment for skipping dishwasher duty? Every time I read about communes, I get so excited. I always get inspired by the ideals they are trying to live by. But then when I hear the details about the day to day logistics and governance, it always ends up sounding like a terrible place to live. --- I can't tell. It looks more like an organic farm with a few caretakers living on the farm, and financially supported by the community. I like that.
    - kylec 5y ago
      Not a commune, they were a couple that lived off the land in Maine, and built everything there themselves. Nowadays their home is staffed by volunteers and open to visitors to see how they lived.
- MajorBee 5y ago
  Wouldn't you still have to pay property taxes (in money) on that homestead?
  - mikem170 5y ago
    I assume so. I was curious how modern society deals with quakers and the amish in this regard, and found this: > The Amish are subject to sales and property taxes. As they seldom own motor vehicles, they rarely have occasion to pay motor vehicle registration fees or spend money in the purchase of fuel for vehicles.[114] Under their beliefs and traditions, generally the Amish do not agree with the idea of Social Security benefits and have a religious objection to insurance.[115][116] On this basis, the United States Internal Revenue Service agreed in 1961 that they did not need to pay Social Security-related taxes. In 1965, this policy was codified into law.[117] Self-employed individuals in certain sects do not pay into or receive benefits from the United States Social Security system. This exemption applies to a religious group that is conscientiously opposed to accepting benefits of any private or public insurance, provides a reasonable level of living for its dependent members, and has existed continuously since December 31, 1950.[118] The U.S. Supreme Court clarified in 1982 that Amish employers are not exempt, but only those Amish individuals who are self-employed. [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amish#Life_in_the_modern_world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amish#Life_in_the_modern_world
pipingdog 5y ago
A man with sufficient free cash flow but no capital.
chmod775 5y ago
He won't be living on much then. And that is only if you consider throwing food in the trash charity.
- salamandersauce 5y ago
  He's not just living off trash. People give him food too, his friend has spent money on him for things like printing his book. He's indirectly using cash.
pacifika 5y ago
He would live just as well if the people around him didn’t spend money and lives like him, so that’s not his choice
- CydeWeys 5y ago
  If everyone else around him lived like this he'd starve pretty quickly, as no one would be doing the actual work required to keep society running.
paulcole 5y ago
sounds like he should apply for the next YC batch
- raverbashing 5y ago
  "We want $10Mi to get rid of money (as in, monetary tokens)"

inawarminister 5y ago

This guy is a monk. So that's how they got invented the first time, huh. Well, if he teaches others what he know and they emulate him, while the general populace tolerate and support them, a new ascetic movement would be made easily. Still, my heart is with his estranged SO and their children. Ascetics can't support others that well after all.

nsb1 5y ago
Just so long as he doesn't teach too many others - this sort of thing doesn't scale well.
- guerrilla 5y ago
  It scaled fine in India and China. That's exactly what Buddhism was. They worked though, just not in lay jobs.
peterburkimsher 5y ago
I agree. Even though money is bad, I believe that it's excusable to help others. (No, the ends don't always justify the means. In the case of community and the greater good, my moral expectations on others are much lower than the strictness with which I judge myself, and I will break my own rules if it means being a better guest/host).

peterburkimsher 5y ago

I admire his resolve, though it's not something I'd like to take to the extreme. Spending more time with people who have less money (e.g. CouchSurfing -> BeWelcome, hitchhiking, dumpster diving) has been an immensely rewarding experience. Last week, I heard a message about investment, which said that the 3 ways to store wealth are stocks in companies, bonds in governments, and property (owned by banks or rich people). A few days later, I read about GitLab making it their policy to help people get visas (shouldn't that be a government choice?). Privatisation is also taking over police departments, prisons, bus services, etc. I don't trust that the shareholders' best interests are the same as the needs of the people. War helps private companies, at the expense of governments & property. I'm not hopeful for peace in the next 50 years. What about investing in people? Not saving wealth, but giving it away! People will try hard to save their own lives in a war (and if I die, I don't need the return on investment anyway). It's a personal contact, so I think it's highly resistant to inflation. Building community is, in my opinion, more important than storing up wealth. I guess this view is similar to 關係 guanxi. It's democratic: if I do something silly and lose face, then it has consequences. I don't think it's authoritarian communism, where 單位 dictate who you can marry or what kind of job you can do, but a community-focussed lifestyle where newcomers are welcome, and share freely within the group. I'm still trying to figure this concept out though, so other suggestions of philosophical readings are welcome :)

knocte 5y ago
> A few days later, I read about GitLab making it their policy to help people get visas link?
- david_allison 5y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27899918 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27899918
sokoloff 5y ago
> [Company] making it their policy to help people get visas (shouldn't that be a government choice?) Of course it's the government choice to grant the visa or not. It's the company choice as to how much support (financial, HR/legal advice, other) to extend to their employees [and their household].

k__ 5y ago

Reminds me of some German Youtuber, the "Zirkeldreher". He talks about living without money, but basically mooches on his parents.

kypro 5y ago

I don't see how taking from everyone and giving very little in return is moral. If everyone did this we'd all live in a far worse world. This is basically the antithesis of my own moral code to give more than I receive. I relate to him in that I value money very little as a medium to facilitate my own happiness, but I still want to make a lot of it so I can give more. He seems sweet though. I think I would get on with him were we to ever meet.

theonlybutlet 5y ago
Agreed don't think this guy really deserves much praise, if he were adding value to society and bartering for his needs that would be different.
yboris 5y ago
I wonder if you've heard of Effective Altruism - it's, broadly speaking, about using evidence and our resources to help others the most. It's a great community where I think you'd fit in: https://www.effectivealtruism.org/ https://www.effectivealtruism.org/
brnt 5y ago
You assume all objects, experiences and behaviours are priced accurately. Something I would certainly not assume.
- Proven 5y ago
  > behaviours are priced accurately. Something I would certainly not assume. He didn't guess how you value or should value that kind of a lifestyle, he merely commented on the morality of it. If you value parasitism, that fine, you're free to do that. But it's still immoral. > Go back further in time and he'd have been ostracized from his hunter-gatherer community for not contributing, and would've lived a short life as a hermit. Because productivity was low, its wasn't much of a choice - there was little to give. Today he can make it because the moral desire to create more than one takes - contrary to what he promotes - has prevailed. You wouldn't need to go back in time a single second to see how long would his life be in a society that consisted of only useless eaters such as himself. He wouldn't last past next winter.

L-four 5y ago

Why doesn't the audio player have volume controls???

kangnkodos 5y ago

He wants everyone to suddenly stop using money. If that happened, who would wash the dishes? Many communes have failed over this exact issue. They go on for several years with several people, usually women, making the sacrifice and doing what needs to be done. But eventually, the people who do the dishes get fed up and stop, or leave. And then the whole thing collapses. The alternative is for the leaders to have some type of power to compel people to do the dishes, and some type of punishment to mete out. There are certain tasks in society that no one wants to do. In order to get them done, you have to choose the carrot or the stick. Money or punishment. If the society has no money, there's going to be a whole lot of punishment going on. It can work in theory, but in practice, a society based on punishment tends to snowball out of control, with the people in charge of punishment going too far. The people in charge make a small mistake in the size of punishment relative to the transgression. With money, small mistakes like this happen constantly, and they are constantly being adjusted by changing prices and salaries. The garbage man makes a higher salary than other manual laborers. But without money, the process has more steps, and is harder to get right. People protest, the leaders listen to the protests, go through the rule changing process, and eventually adjust the punishment to fit the transgression. Without money, more people are involved in the process. Some are removed from the actual issue. It takes longer for the adjustment to be made. With only the tool of punishment available, it's more difficult to fine tune every mismatch. In practice, it's really, really hard to get a punishment based society just right.

sumnole 5y ago
Devil's advocate here. Failing sufficient encouragement to do tasks (psychological/sociological rewards as got through volunteering), most of those tasks can be automated or replaced by an alternative.
- lotu 5y ago
  Not in a reasonable time frame. Do you really believe we could fully automate all dishwashing over the next decade?
  - 5y ago

ronyfadel 5y ago

> While meditating down at the ocean—and tripping on acid courtesy of the motorbike’s new owner—he experienced what would become for him unshakable insights having to do with patience, fate, and love. I was waiting for that part since I started reading the article. Isn’t this what the hippies in the 60’s figured out as well?

bbarnett 5y ago
It's what everyone figured out, always. Christ was a hippie. People has preached love, casting off money and such since the dawn of time. Usually youth, who then in their 30s decide they'd rather like money.
- ronyfadel 5y ago
  I’m sure Christ didn’t figure it out on acid though. I was referring to that bit specifically.
  - bbarnett 5y ago
    He probably used shrooms, which is close enough. :P

chasing 5y ago

He uses money, it’s just other people’s.

lioeters 5y ago

An assortment of quotes from the article.. > ..Refusing to spend money is the only moral way to live. > ..Not only did money enable what he deemed insane behaviour on a grand scale, the dependence on it, the fear of losing it, the focus on acquiring it wrecked people’s lives and drove them to be dishonest with themselves and others. > ..People are putting themselves through hell, living in situations that are just making them nuts to avoid being homeless. > Every taxpayer is an indentured servant until this debt is paid. > Only one solution appears just and good, and that is a society without money.

I_complete_me 5y ago

Here's a link to the same idea https://www.moneylessmanifesto.org/ https://www.moneylessmanifesto.org/ and a link to the book by Mark Boyle https://www.amazon.co.uk/Moneyless-Man-Year-Freeconomic-Living/dp/1851687874 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Moneyless-Man-Year-Freeconomic-Livi.... Mark Boyle went on to write another book which I enjoyed called "The Way Home"

dghughes 5y ago

>For all Johnston’s proselytizing, he lacks a pushiness. Instead, he exudes—and has worked on cultivating—patience and calm He's a con man and a mooch. Nothing special. He just mooches off other people's effort.

helsinkiandrew 5y ago

I’m not sure living in the city off handouts, charity, and free tax payer provided facilities exactly promotes his no money philosophy. His life relies on the things he despises, if the economic collapse he predicts comes he will be among the first to starve to death. Go into the wild and grow/hunt food or trade some skill - the post money society doesn’t need philosopher poets scavenging cigarettes from trash cans

bserge 5y ago
Haha, I was expecting a story about living off grid, not this. In my home country we actually still have people living off their land and animals, off hand dug wells and cut down trees, using no money. That's rather extreme, though, most villages have electricity at least.
Aeolun 5y ago
> the post money society doesn’t need philosopher poets scavenging cigarettes from trash cans Supporting the odd philosopher poet is the exact function of society, in my opinion. Some good things come out of having them that do not come out of having another corporate drone.
- SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
  > Supporting the odd philosopher poet is the exact function of society, in my opinion. Have you considered that society should also be the natural predator of the odd philosopher poet so that their numbers do not become problematic for their environment?
  - wizzwizz4 5y ago
    Look: a “social Darwinist”! I should get a spotter's guide. If society preys on philosopher poets, we don't get philosophy or poetry, our ethics never develops, and the fundamental principles of society don't improve, limiting how much technological progress can raise the standard of living. I personally call that a bad outcome.

booleandilemma 5y ago

This only works if not everyone in society does it. It’s easy for a lone person to ride on the backs of others, who are actually, you know, working for money, but if tomorrow we got rid of money society would collapse. With the way NYC is, I could quit my job tomorrow and mooch off others (SO many do). I’d be uncomfortable, but I’d live. If everyone did this there wouldn’t be a NYC anymore.

gimmeThaBeet 5y ago
I agree, if your grand answer to the torments of society is to just rely on that exact society to sustain you, it's not a sustainable answer. Even just something as simple as the cigarettes he scavenges, where does he think those are coming from? Like I'm sure you could grow some sort of nicotiana in BC, but it's not exactly North Carolina, and he's not exactly Thoreau. It's kind of stunning how close this guy is to Diogenes. Hates the Athens marketplace, never leaves (until captured by pirates). Tangential, but I tend to feel this way about a segment of van life philosophy, it's sort of the next level. People want to escape the drudgery of conventional society, so try to be a van life influencer, and have your life hinge on a large (van/bus) vehicle running on refined petroleum, probably the avatar of global industrialization. It relies exclusively on people who specifically do what you won't.
- mikem170 5y ago
  > Tangential, but I tend to feel this way about a segment of van life philosophy Ah, I know what you mean. I've thought about this myself. One of those "it wouldn't work if everyone did it" kind of things. You could do van life while working for an oil company, there's people with all kinds of van life jobs, it's a way to cut expenses and have more time outside of work. But things would need to be quite different if everyone did it. But then again, if everyone wanted to escape the drudgery of conventional society we would end up with different conventions. I don't think it's any wrong for this guy to do what he does, or van life people. It seems like it would be wrong to expect/force everyone to adhere to our current conventions when they don't want to. At least ideally. And he's no more of a mooch than the rentier rich and corporations who plunder the common good for profit. I found it interesting how money and productivity are such trigger issues for many people. Perhaps because we all work a lot more than we'd like to, and aren't rich, and resent those who don't buy into the same rules.

jokoon 5y ago

Sounds like a modern day Diogenes. Money is the most basic social contract everyone agrees with. The problem of money today is that it overrides politics, so it shifts problems from one place to another side of the planet. Tax evasion or dodging, social darwinism and social inequality, money laundering, etc, money have always posed great problems... People will call money a great and indispensable evolution of human civilization, while arguing that socialism leads directly to gulags and famine (which is the worst strawman argument of people who will defend market essentialism). Money is a tool, but honestly, it's not very good at what it does. Governments and institutions already achieve most of what human needs, by allocating resources through political decisions and law. Banks are always privatized for some weird reasons and never do anything right and never improve the interest of the public. Doomists will say "we don't want to be hunters and gatherers again", yet cannot prove that capitalism allowed the apparition of science, technology and industry.

joelbondurant 5y ago

Nothing makes communists more angry than tax cattle out of their pen.

eplanit 5y ago

A clever bum, for sure. "Johnston’s feelings about money are inextricably bound up in his certainty that refusing to spend it is the only moral way to live." It's ok for others to spend on his behalf, though. It sounds like he is applying an effective story to a nicely vulnerable population of marks. While his philosophy is BS, I cynically admire his hustle.

nootropicat 5y ago

Alternative title: a bum glamorizes his parasitic lifestyle. Money is one of many solutions designed to allocate resources on a large scale. Of course, there are others, but he doesn't propose any alternative system. He's just a parasite. A pre-industrial society most likely wouldn't be able to support his existence so easily and he would either starve to death or start working.

manmal 5y ago
I agree to some extent, but what’s the purpose of using such dehumanizing language?
mikem170 5y ago
> He's just a parasite. He's less of a parasite than many rich people! I'm thinking of those who are nothing better than rentiers and/or running cartels, commandeering common resources for their own profits, accumulating money for themselves at the expense of society, who glamorize materialism and moralize hard work because that's what keeps the money rolling in from the plebes, and having the support of the government to keep them on top. They seem to be have done, and are doing, way more harm to our society than this guy.

staticman2 5y ago

In the anime Haibane Renmei there are angel-like characters who are allowed to barter for goods but not allowed to use money- presumably because of an association between money and sin. This reminded me of that- though it doesn't seem that Johnston is doing any bartoring.

zests 5y ago

Of course it would be impossible for modern society to stop using money altogether despite what this man might hope. Its easy to see this person as someone who just doesn't want to work. At the same time, I read a historical religious fiction book that describes monks going from town to town offering enlightenment in exchange for food and presumably shelter. Is this any different? All of modern society joining a monastery or becoming enlightened is perhaps an even bigger ask.

okareaman 5y ago

Money is only one kind of power as I learned from going from working stiff to millionaire (thanks software biz!) to homeless broke person (cursed alcohol.) There is the shamanic-like power of a deeply spiritual person. There is the leadership power of a good manufacturing supervisor or ship captain. There is the moral power of Martin Luther King or Solzhenitsyn. I've come to the conclusion that accumulating money is how people who otherwise wouldn't have any power to purchase it. There's a easy test I do in this industry when a rich person publishes a thought piece that doesn't move me: Would this person have any power if they weren't rich? A lot of times the answer is no. This Victoria man has another kind of power: The power that gets other people to take care of his needs for him without objecting or rejecting him.

kevmo 5y ago
> Would this person have any power if they weren't rich? A lot of times the answer is no. In my experience, the answer is no like a solid 90-99% of the time. At least in America, the wealthy buy their kids into elite high schools, which feed into elite colleges, which feed into jobs at elite, increasingly monolithic institutions/corporations. Junior gets to fail again and again until they succeed, and then the return on capital further institutionalizes their family's power. It's just aristocracy, but with more steps.
- okareaman 5y ago
  I feel a bit sorry for them, because with money you can build yourself a really nice gilded cage (or be born in one), which is extremely difficult to escape from because it would take giving up the money. This makes it hard to develop the other kinds of powers I mentioned. I believe these thoughts are not my own, but are the basis of ideas like "The love of money is the root of all evil" and "Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God." (I am not a Christian but I am familiar with it - I'm sure I could find similar thoughts in other religions)
- imtringued 5y ago
  >In my experience, the answer is no like a solid 90-99% of the time. At least in America, the wealthy buy their kids into elite high schools, which feed into elite colleges, which feed into jobs at elite, increasingly monolithic institutions/corporations. Well, this may be bad but what is the alternative? It's not like the life of an average citizen is any different other than in degree. They also use money to go to a good school and good college to get good jobs at good companies. I don't see the injustice here as substantial. I see bigger flaws in the money system than our society maintaining itself.

motohagiography 5y ago

This makes sense if you have ever been to Victoria. It's the closest thing to a real life hobbit village you will ever see from a culture perspective.

wk_end 5y ago
...have you been to Victoria? In the past twenty years? Forgive me for getting defensive, but as someone who lives here, you don't know what you're talking about. The days of the "home of the newlywed and nearly-dead" stereotype are over (maybe except for in Oak Bay). We're a solidly medium-sized city, the capital of BC, with multiple universities, significant naval presence, a booming population, and strong tourism industry. And also one of the most expensive and desirable housing markets in the country. And FWIW, I'm not sure how going for decades without money is more feasible in a cultural hobbit village, whatever that means, than anywhere else. No, it makes sense that he can do this in Victoria because we have the best year-round weather in the country and lots of support available for the homeless.

giantg2 5y ago

It's not exactly like he's gone 2 decades without money. He just relies on other people who have money to give him things.

aazaa 5y ago

> As we walk through the city, Johnston offers a small disclaimer, putting out in the open what he calls his one “debatable” act of spending, post-31st birthday. If you count a gift card that someone gave him back in 2012, which he used on Big Macs and coffee, then, he says, he’s been money-free for only nine years. This raises a point that article doesn't address: what is "money"? If Johnson trades those cigarettes he makes from tossed butts for food, is he using money? Cigarettes have been used as currency in some special situations like war time. Likewise, if Johnson accepts a product created through the use of money, isn't he in fact using money, if only indirectly? Then there's the big question that never gets asked or answered: what happens if every single person on earth lived like Johnson? Money is fundamentally a way to fulfill future needs and wants. Abandoning money is really abandoning a path to build a future deliberately. Storing grain, smoking meat, or building a shelter serve exactly the same purpose as money in this context. They are ways to make the future more predictable. They also have the interesting property that they can be traded for other ways to make the future more predictable. And that leads to the main problem that Johnson seems to be trying to solve: how to stop focusing on optimizing one's future through the accumulation of things that can make the future more certain. What does a world of people who have abandoned the idea of making a future for themselves actually look like?

bouncycastle 5y ago

In countryside Japan, I notice that people get a lot of their vegetables and rice from family members who have a plot of something. Some have rice, some have carrots, potatoes and so on. Giving whatever excess stuff you have from your field and get reciprocated with other stuff you don't have, no money needed.

advertising 5y ago

Money is but a reflection of what we value. Money is not evil, but the abstraction of “value” in modern life does cause the problems he blames money for. Perhaps the jungle/forest tribes way of life is the best and simple way we can be happy. Yet tent communes like Johnston’s seem to be setup in the middle of a town square or within close proximity of a city, and not in nature somewhere actually sustaining themselves. In the end if we blew it all up we would arrive back to same evolution of living we find ourselves in today.

paulpauper 5y ago

Homeless people, indigenous people,disabled and institutionalized people, prisoners seem to manage without money, too . nothing noteworthy about this.

MrRiddle 5y ago

Why should we care about a story from a homeless person with mental health issues?

cashrules 5y ago
From what disorder do you suspect this man suffers?

IkmoIkmo 5y ago

I really can't stand these long-form articles that just take ages to get anywhere. For example, at some point the article notes he didn't get to the truth until two epiphanies that obliterated his self-image. Then there's literally 9 paragraphs of other text. Then it follows with the 10th paragraph: "Then came the Epiphanies." Long-form is great, but it feels as if each page is just loaded with stuff other than the point of the article. If it's written in poetic form, contains beautiful photography, or actually interesting anecdotes, sure. But none of it was there and the larger point never did arrive, either. As for the Victoria man... completely misguided. Every street he walks on, every piece of cloth he wears, the coffee he drinks, the food he eats, the phone he uses, the internet he uses, was produced or maintained by someone else. Money is merely a medium of exchange to allow people to exchange their contribution to society, for other contributions, in a feasible (i.e. not barter-based) manner. There's tons of legitimate criticisms on capitalism, on our economic structures, on unequal opportunity/ability, monopolies, corruption, concentration of wealth etc etc, which makes our socioeconomic system imperfect. But the idea that money (as an invention/tool) is the root of the problem is entirely misguided and frankly, entirely unfounded. Nothing in this article really substantiates this wild claim he makes, and nowhere does the interviewer even remotely challenge him on it. Unfortunate that I had to read the whole thing to find that out.

imtringued 5y ago

>The pandemic has made the idea of economic collapse easier for the Average Joes to imagine, he says. As a result, the time could be ripe for considering alternatives to the status quo. Ideas previously believed too radical for consideration have already entered the mainstream, like a universal basic income. I don't understand this. The idea of economic collapse? Did people miss the biggest economic collapse that just happened last year? It's already over. What could possibly be worse for an economy than a permanent lockdown? It's absurd how people are scared of full employment.

glitchc 5y ago

The monks of old (Eastern and Western philosophies) would live off the largesse of others in terms of food, clothing and shelter. They gave back in the form of teachings and wisdom or a temporary place to stay for travelers, without judgement or payment. This man is just taking, and not giving anything back. That makes him a mooch, and little more.

anm89 5y ago

This guy isn't living without money. He's just living with other people's money. If he was living off the land that would be cool but that's not what's going on here.

manmal 5y ago
He’s trading his attention for other services and goods. Some people are paid for talking to other people - he just receives food and shelter instead.

noduerme 5y ago

> “It would be a lot easier if everyone quit money at the same time, make a day of it, and then everyone can co-ordinate and start planting.” > He takes a drag on his cigarette. “Yeah, it would be a shitshow. But there's certain steps that need to be taken, and I'm sort of the disposable one that can't be bought. So I can make the horrifying decisions that no one else can make." The guy says he doesn't believe in evil. The only time in history that money has been abolished was under the Khmer Rouge. They also had no concept of evil, and made a good many horrifying decisions in service of total economic equality through forced poverty and mass enslavement. Because of course the people who don't want to quit earning, spending, owning and trading their goods and services need to be forced to do so, or else be eliminated.

tills13 5y ago

He's not living off _his_ money. He's living off my money -- literally, being a tax-payer in Victoria. Additionally, he's actively using resources designed to help people who are in situations where they cannot work or cannot find stable income. What a jerk.

mikem170 5y ago
Are you sure he's asking for any of your tax money? I didn't notice in the article any mention of him collecting benefits. He dumpster dives for food if nothing else. People give him some things, of their own free will. And don't forget about all the rich people that your tax monies subsidize [0]. Those are people who have money, and are being given more from your taxes. How much different is this guy than those rich people getting tax breaks? Which begs the question why there is such a visceral reaction against this poor guy, but not all the rich who get propped up by the government. I guess we aspire to be one of those rich people who do nothing, and resent the people who choose not to play the game that most of us aren't winning. [0] https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/02/24/tax-loopholes-canada-toby-sanger_n_9309578.html https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/02/24/tax-loopholes-canad...
- tills13 5y ago
  The article mentions he gets his coffee from a local food kitchen. > And don't forget about all the rich people that your tax monies subsidize This is What-about-ism. I can be upset about both.
  - mikem170 5y ago
    Point taken on what-about-ism. I find that I do that perhaps too often. But these connections keep jumping into my mind. I wonder if people get mad about one thing, but not the other. I wonder what the commonalities are, what the differences are. I grant that it can lead to tangents, but I guess I find value in it. For example, in this case, does society cut the mooching rich more slack than the mooching poor? It seems that many of us aspire to be rich, and that many consider the poor to be lazy. Our system seems to have a lot of bias built into it. I wondered if I was seeing that in your comment, and threw my reply out there. Maybe I should have worded it differently? Anyways, back to the guy in the article, lots of other taxpayers are happy to support local food kitchens, that's why we have them. He didn't "take" the coffee, they gave it to him. I understand that you disagree. Other people feel different. That's politics.

srvmshr 5y ago

* Intentional destruction of currency tenders is a criminal offense in most countries. There is nothing worthy of hero-worship here. * The guy leeches off the goodwill of others. He doesn't internalize that the amenities offered to him as charity, are being bought with someone's money. Food & coffee doesn't grow on trees. Heaters in winters don't work on magic spells. He doesn't spend his money. It is someone else's. Public money mostly, and the charity of sympathetic Samaritans The glamorous-pious/moral-homeless trope is BS. If he wants to do better, then live in one of the BC forests. Into the wild, all the way in. Seriously, if you take out these nutcase views/agenda, he is no different from garden variety homeless. Most people I have seen are destitute by their bad luck or lack of opportunity & education. This guy is a wreck by his parasitic fetishes.

floppydiskette 5y ago
Not disagreeing with you, but this statement seems pretty false: > Food & coffee doesn't grow on trees.

cbanek 5y ago

> Epiphany Two happened a few months after they met, on June 27, 2003, almost six years to the day after Epiphany One. Johnston’s father had sent him $50 for his birthday. With it, he bought beer, pot, and cigarettes, and then threw himself a small party at Beacon Hill Park. He overdid it and found himself lying on his side behind a bush. “I was just pukey drunk,” he says. “It was embarrassing. And then it just hit me. Like, I've had enough of this. I'm not playing this game anymore. And I was done. I had no use for money.” Uh, I'm not sure that's what I would have taken away from this.

AutumnCurtain 5y ago
And ironically he did not choose to abstain from drugs (cigarettes at a minimum) afterwards which seems like the much more direct lesson

miga 5y ago

All of us have to use money, so we make every excuse to say it is the only way of life. Homeless, jobless people prove otherwise. You can live without money, but the standard seems quite low. I hear it is possible to survive without society too. But the standard seems even lower.

rasengan0 5y ago

There is a whole community of people with a similar mindset re: money, practiced over many years https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/ariyesako/layguide.html#money https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/ariyesako/laygui...

carl_sandland 5y ago

Really interesting discussion here; it's heartening to feel the underlying desire by commentators to find effective moral principles. It strikes me that what we have now has evolved into an economic/money system that is complex, dynamic and probably the "least worst" we can achieve. We do live together in a miracle. I'm happy we still have space for monastic energies to survive. I do fear the coming resource scarcity and slowing tech adaption rate.

Tomminn 5y ago

"The nicer flute arrived the next day. “I'm sitting at the harbour. And some guy is sort of dressed like me, I guess casual, has this three-foot-long bamboo flute and a cup of coffee, and he is walking. And I say, ‘Can I have a sip of your coffee?’ ‘Is that a flute?’ ‘Can I try it?’” The man gave Johnston permission for both requests—and then he gave Johnston the flute. Stuff like that “happens constantly,” he tells me." There's a second interpretation of this interaction. I'd like to hear it from the other side.

crazydoggers 5y ago
Yeah. I’m not sure how that can’t be taken for parasitism. You can be pleasant about things as he seems to be, and still be a parasite. I’m sure he knew when he asked to try the flute he might end up with it. Ultimately his lifestyle is supported by the community around him and the hard work of others.

movedx 5y ago

Money is simply a storage of future labour. You're given it in return for the labour you perform today for someone else (or as a benefit from society due to not being able to perform laborious tasks.) Money isn't evil. How you utilise it is evil. > Epiphany Two happened a few months after they met, on June 27, 2003, almost six years to the day after Epiphany One. Johnston’s father had sent him $50 for his birthday. With it, he bought beer, pot, and cigarettes, and then threw himself a small party at Beacon Hill Park. He overdid it and found himself lying on his side behind a bush. “I was just pukey drunk,” he says. “It was embarrassing. And then it just hit me. Like, I've had enough of this. I'm not playing this game anymore. And I was done. I had no use for money.” The lesson here hasn't been learned. Simply don't exchange money for those things. Exchange them for something else, something healthy, and you'll be fine. I feel like this kind of protest stems from a degree of immaturity with money; not knowing how-to utilise it, what its reasons for existing are.

thomasfl 5y ago

People living their life completely without money, can teach us all a few good lessons. If some people can live completely without money, then the rest of us probably spendt too much time hoatding money. Happiness is possible without money.

stevejb 5y ago
The good lesson it can teach is that there are hypocrites in the world, and that at the present time there is enough excess productivity in the system that people who contribute nothing can basically ride for free, and the value they contribute is that they serve as props for a fantasy discussion that is delusional at best.

jwilber 5y ago

Enlightenment from an acid trip. This guy just reminds me of my friends who took too many psychedelics and didn’t mature out of the stage in life they were in when they took them. We have a word for this: fried.

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mgh2 5y ago

Isn't his unwillingness to provide for his family a lack of responsibility and integrity, therefore rendering his thesis invalid?

smsm42 5y ago

One can find a lot of words to describe this lifestyle, but I think one that fits the most is "parasite". And as most healthy organisms, a modern city in a modern society can tolerate a number of parasites, and they may not even do any harm when they're in small quantities. But if it spreads beyond certain measure, the lives of both the host and the parasites become very miserable.

France_is_bacon 5y ago

He is still spending money, no matter what. Just because he doesn't touch the money, what does that have to do with anything. If someone like Queen Elizabeth never touches the money herself, mean that she does not spend money? If Jeff Bezos has a person following behind him 24/7 and never touches money, does that mean he has no money and doesn't spend? Of course not. If someone gives the dude food for free, the homeless guy still paid money for it. Maybe not cash, but he paid some form of money. The person purchasing the sandwich loaned or gave the homeless dude money, and then paid for the sandwich on behalf of the homeless guy. The homeless guy spends money living in the guy's house. Not only that, the sandwich he received for free is taxable by the IRS. It's like on those game shows where you win a car for free, you still have to pay taxes on it. That is because it is legit income, as in money to you. The gameshow gave you money for the car, but the gameshow then bought it for you, hid it behind a wall, and made you work for it. If the guy needs healthcare and goes to the hospital for free, he's not going for free. The doctors and nurses and rent and utilities and tools all cost money that someone pays. Nobody is working for free. The homeless guy is getting money from everyone, he just doesn't touch the actual cash, but it is all the same thing. He is spending $10,000 or $50,000 or $150,000 or whatever the medical care may cost, in value.

peanut_worm 5y ago

Living in a city with no money is just living off other people’s money.