11 ms·

How to Drop Out (2004)

180 points by curmudgeon22 5y ago

rsanek 5y ago
Interesting article, but I couldn't help but feel that much of it wasn't really 'dropping out' but more of relying on others. These passages in particular struck me as basically taking something from the system without paying into it: > If you're charming, you can find a partner or spouse who will "support" you by permitting you to sleep and cook someplace without asking for money. I couldn't tell how tongue-in-cheek this was, but clearly you're relying on your partner not to 'drop out' in this case. > I stopped buying music and books (exceptions in exceptional cases) and got in the habit of using the library. Who pays for these music and books if you don't contribute almost anything in taxes?
curmudgeon22 5y ago
> What I recommend instead is to separate your money from your love. Get the most low-stress source of income that you can find, and then do exactly what you love for free. It might eventually make you money or it might not. "Do what you love and the money will follow" is mostly false. The real rule is: "If you're doing what you love, you won't care if you never make any money from it -- but you still need money."
- jasfi 5y ago
- KineticLensman 5y ago
  But he also has an important caveat: "But if you make an effort to combine your income and your love, you are likely to end up compromising both, making a poverty income by doing something you don't quite love, or no longer love." I love photography and for a while (approx 20 years ago) considered moving to it as a full-time job. But it quickly became obvious that the actual shutter-clicking would be a tiny part of running an overall photography business (and then smartphones and Alamy happened and the bottom dropped out of stock photography). So I'm glad I stuck with my mainstream job. It paid well enough to live and afford expensive lenses and the wildlife trips where I could put them through their paces. And from my current 60-year-old perspective, it also paid for retirement savings and pensions which I wouldn't have now if I'd tried to be a wedding photographer, say. The other thing that is sometimes overlooked is the importance of health. If you drop out and then get very ill, and have a very seat-of-the-pants lifestyle, things can get dark and uncomfortable very quickly. Not to say which is the right approach, just pointing out that it's worth considering how different future-yous will look back on your decision now. One who prioritises memories over possessions. One who isn't healthy and feels the cold. One who wants children. Etc
- btrettel 5y ago
  What are some low-stress jobs that pay well? I've thought that some IT jobs might fit the bill, particularly if one only needs to work a small number of hours each day. When I was a teenager, I worked at a gas station, which was mostly low-stress and even had a lot of down time that I could use for reading. But the pay was terrible and I had no benefits.
  - nicbou 5y ago
    Various forms of self-employment, but getting to the stress-free part is a bumpy ride.
  - schwartzworld 5y ago
    > What are some low-stress jobs that pay well? It probably depends on what you're used to and how you handle stress. I'm a web developer and find it incredibly low-stress in comparison to my previous lives. No back-to-back double shifts, no risk of working a full day and not getting paid for it, no abusive management, no rampant substance abuse at work, no "if you have time to lean, you have time to clean", no pressure to come into work when you're sick, no getting written up or even fired for being <5minutes late to work, no punitive scheduling... I could go on. I see people complaining about the software industry and I really don't get it. This shit is so comfortable, easy and straightforward in comparison to the kind of work most people have to do.
jer0me 5y ago
(2004)
- curmudgeon22 5y ago
  With significant notes in 2008 and 2014 :)
cko 5y ago
My favorite and most entertaining essay to read. Reading his other later writings it looks like his views are not rigid and are always evolving. The blog as been quite impressionable on me since the mid to late 2000s as a university student.
SCUSKU 5y ago
This was really great to read. Recently, I read Ted Kaczynski's "Industrial Society and its Future", aka the Unabomber Manifesto. The idea of anarcho-primitivist living is actually really attractive in theory, and this is a great example of someone actually living this lifestyle in practice. It seems tough. I'm not so sure I could essentially live a life of vagrancy and dumpster diving. Maybe I have been overly socialized and sold ideas that status and comfort are more important than freedom from "wage slavery". But I think author also concedes that there is a spectrum for everyone, and just doing your best to reduce reliance on society will be to your benefit. At least for me, a step in this direction would be to go thrift shopping from here on out for clothing, and to learn how to repair clothing. Also, living in SF, there is a bakery nearby that puts their unsold baguettes for free on the street every night. I shouldn't think of myself being above picking some of those up. I guess the idea is just to live a little more sustainably and produce less waste.
- number6 5y ago
  All fun and games until you start to blow up people
- JackMorgan 5y ago
  Thrift shopping is one way I deal with the ethical dilemma of overseas wage slavery. If possible, I try to buy things used. Stuff like furniture, clothes, and decor often can be found in excellent condition used, sometimes even substantially cheaper. I do not try quite so hard with performance gear (I'm an athlete) or food. The amount of time and risks are just much higher for both of those categories. For example, trail runners are just destroyed after 500 miles, but often look the same as a pair with 50. Also electronics, I'll definitely pay full price for RAM, hard drives, etc.
- telesilla 5y ago
  >I'm not so sure I could essentially live a life of vagrancy and dumpster diving Isn't this essentially a hunter-gatherer life? Our brains are really good at this.
  - mikelevins 5y ago
j7ake 5y ago
Nice essay. I wonder where does helping family come into play here? Let’s say your family is poor and could use extra help. It seems selfish to deliberately take a lower paying job when a higher paying job could help your loved ones. Also what happens when you meet someone and want to start a family? Although the author may be ok with certain constraints in living, their spouse and children may have different preferences. In that situation it also seems selfish to pursue this low income life. All in all the essay seems to work well for people who are okay with living alone and apart from their family and loved ones.
- vladvasiliu 5y ago
  > Also what happens when you meet someone and want to start a family? Although the author may be ok with certain constraints in living, their spouse and children may have different preferences. In that situation it also seems selfish to pursue this low income life. I'd expect lifestyle to be one of the things people take into account when considering starting a life together. So if the potential spouse had different, incompatible, preferences, I'd expect the couple to not get to the point of starting a family. The question still stands for the kinds, though, but I'd expect this to always be the case. Kids practically never get a say in their parents' choices and have to make do.
- ge96 5y ago
  Heh I think about this, I could have paid off my student loans but instead I helped my families the last two years and ongoing. It's like this tax but I just push myself to make more. It's a good cause I mean I literally got them a well one time in their village you know that sucks not having immediate access to water... but then it spreads ah man. You get over a hundred requests on FB all these people finding out who you are/asking you for money. Anyway I ended up deleting my FB account and just keeping in contact with my blood family on another account. Side note Wise is the least PITA way to move money and no these people don't know how to use crypto.
  - bckr 5y ago
    thanks for a different perspective on this. I think the idea of "dropping out" is largely by and for "children of empire"--whatever their socioeconomic background
dvne 5y ago
geohotz ?
- remmargorp64 5y ago
  Ran Prieur, not George Hotz
- pingeroo 5y ago
  Oh yeah I remember he brought this up once
Apocryphon 5y ago
Goes to show the antiwork ethos long predates the subreddit.
- robtherobber 5y ago
  Oh, the ethos is old indeed, much older than that. Paul Lafargue's "The Right To Be Lazy" was written in 1883 and, if we're to make an abstraction of the formulations ever so typical for that time and the historical context, as well as the strong ideology that underpins the work, it makes for an entirely interesting read: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/paul-lafargue-the-right-to-be-lazy https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/paul-lafargue-the-ri...
  - mynameishere 5y ago
    old indeed, much older [proceeds to mention someone from 1883] The obvious "old" example would be Diogenes from ~400 BC. But there are older still outside of the Western tradition.
llaolleh 5y ago
Been doing so much lately ML so I thought this was gonna be a guide on dropout.
shisisms 5y ago
> Some of the happiest people I know have dropped out only a short distance. One of the greatest problems with the concept of “just dropping out” is the attachment to the idea of happiness. Happiness being one of the most oppressive demands of society and yet the narrowest of requirements. Would be interesting to live in an environment where happiness wasn’t the primary goal. That seems like true freedom and entirely compatible with dropping-in or out.
- blymphony 5y ago
  Definitely, agree. And before someone argues with the expected rebuttal, I think there’s a difference between chasing happiness and rationally acting upon your wants. In the US at least, “the pursuit of happiness” is such a fundamental concept, people really aren’t challenged to question it.
- klik99 5y ago
  As my Grandpa (child of the great depression) said in his typical ineloquent yet wise way: "Back in my day, when we weren't happy we were fine with it!"
- wnolens 5y ago
  Agree. In the last few years I've tried to shift from seeking happiness to seeking meaningfulness as the first order pursuit. Happiness is like a red herring for meaning, or it's a side effect of a meaningful activity. Or it's something you seek when you experience a dearth of meaning.. not sure. But it's certainly just one or a narrow set of experiences that make up being human.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
cushychicken 5y ago
I like this philosophy but find the execution a bit extreme. I don't really want to harvest food from a dumpster. This reads like "FIRE as explained by a crust punk". In broad strokes, we agree. In the specifics, we differ substantially.
goldtownjac 5y ago
One of my favorite websites. Ran has changed the way I think about a lot of things, especially urban living vs rural homesteading. Well worth reading through the archives, watching the short documentary about him on youtube, or grabbing a copy of his old zine “Civilization Will Eat Itself”.
- ComradePhil 5y ago
  Documentary link (27 minutes long): https://youtu.be/hL3eqiHk4nM https://youtu.be/hL3eqiHk4nM
wnolens 5y ago
Wish I read this (with preface) before I "dropped out" and experienced the descension he outlines. > Do not drop out. Instead, try to stop yourself from committing suicide until you can find a job that is so non-hellish that it does not make you suicidal Immediately after quitting my job, I rode a high of investing my time in all of those things I loved. A year later the best I could do was ping pong back and forth between the same set of things, giving up before receiving any rewards. Eventually I found myself in bed overwhelmed by my meaninglessness, trying to rationalize why I should not kill myself. It took getting a job, which I don't even like, to help drag me out of the gutter.
- mancerayder 5y ago
  Is part of the problem the nature of the work? I have fantasies of specific jobs that are completely out of my industry (IT). They pay a lot less. Finding meaning in that is how I would pursue it if I had the cash. It sounds like you took time off to find yourself but came up short with the long-term job plan, doing what you loved?
  - wallflower 5y ago
    If you are considering skilled manual labor, you might find it interesting to read the comments from current and former plumbers and electricians and others in this thread. The tldr is your body will wear out much faster than your mind will. https://reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/sm54ri/anyone_else_feel_the_constant_urge_to_leave_the/ https://reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/sm54ri/anyon...
  - wnolens 5y ago
    I, too, fantasize about leaving IT and just working behind a bar. But just like in engineering, every path has its own set of trade-offs. And part of the pay trade-off is that while I can live comfortably on smaller pay, I can earn my financial independence WAYYY earlier on tech bucks, then suddenly pay becomes a non issue. I came up short in finding something that felt worth my time/energy, even if it didn't pay. Part of it is as the author suggests, that it can be hard to sustain a love for something that you're also trying to make economically viable. They are to some degree competing concerns (not everyone loves entrepreneurship). But also there's value in something being scarce. Which is why in the first few months I was "working" 40h weeks on projects that I had only been giving 3-5h/week before. But eventually having 100% of my own time became status quo, and that fire was gone.
spaetzleesser 5y ago
I always wonder if people like this guy have some resources like family money in the background that can rescue them if things go wrong. I could imagine myself dropping out and living a simple life but I have no safety net in the background so I would fear problems if there are serious problems like health. And the older you get the more difficult it is to turn things around on your own. I think this very similar to risk taking as entrepreneur. It's much easier to do if you know that in case everything goes to hell there is a backup plan. You may never use it but it relieves a lot of *justified) anxiety.
- kilpikaarna 5y ago
  It's all documented on his blog/website, but basically yes. A few years after writing this, he received an inheritance that allowed him to buy a subutban house and stash away enough to secure his (still very frugal) lifestyle. I'm sure a financially stable family made it easier even before then. He caught quite a lot of flack from some former followers when the windfall happened. But he has always maintained that his goal isn't ideological purity pr proscribing something anyone can follow, but maximizing his own free time using whatever reaources he can. Btw Hi Ran, I know you read HN!
  - spaetzleesser 5y ago
    I assume the windfall didn’t come as total surprise but he knew that it would be coming one day. He should have named his article not “how to drop out” but “how I dropped out” and also disclosed the full picture.
- nickjj 5y ago
  Yeah for sure. > I think this very similar to risk taking as entrepreneur. It's much easier to do if you know that in case everything goes to hell there is a backup plan. It's really hard to get past the idea of a safety net, but I think that net is mostly an illusion -- although a very helpful one which also has real world non-illusion benefits but those benefits end up being for things that are outside of our direct control. For example: Person A has 3 million in the bank that's tucked away in case disaster strikes, how it got there isn't important but it's there. They decide to quit their job that provides income to work on a "passion project business" where the goal is to do what they like while also making money (ignoring the advice in the author's drop out article). They don't make anything substantial for 1 year but eventually and gradually turn it into a $500,000 / year business over the next 3 years. You could read that and be like "wow it's so easy for them, with FU money sitting in the bank they could tolerate the risk and even if they failed it's not a problem at all" and I think to a high degree that's right. If you do the same thing but as Person B and have $100,000 in the bank this changes everything. Technically you could live on that for a few years ($30k / year is very achievable if you're single while still living comfortably in most places in the US) but there's this idea that if your business fails that 100k is gone and now you have $0 savings where as if Person A failed they probably made more than 100k in interest off that 3 million in the worst case scenario. So where does that leave us? There's no doubt that Person A is in a better position, but I think if you decouple the safety net from any decision making around running your business for those 3-4 years and both people executed on their idea as if they had 3 million in the bank then maybe the outcome would be the same which means the safety net never gets used in which case it's an illusion. I think folks without the safety net might make hasty decisions or give up sooner because their decisions are tied into money instead of letting things unwind on their own terms, they never get to mentally free themselves of obligations because they're still always on the clock. This gets further amplified if we introduce Person C who has $0 savings and instead takes out a business loan from the government or a bank, they are geared up for failure because they have to pay that loan back or face serious consequences where as Person B "only" drained their savings. I would love to hear some stories of folks being successful in this case. To wrap things up, I understand that it's much more than an illusion because there's definitely not a 100% success rate here, Person A could have just as easily tanked that business and they're in a much better spot than the person with 100k, but what this really boils down to is having more chances to try. Since success isn't guaranteed in either case (big safety net vs not so big safety net) and independent businesses can either succeed or fail on their own I think our only choice is to accept reality for what it is and roll the dice.
csdvrx 5y ago
I've read that again, and still I don't get it. To me, learning to live on the cheap to drop out, and planning to FIRE are essentially the same thing: removing the "work" part from life, because you don't love it, or divorcing what you do on the weekend (work of love that brings no money) from what you do during the week (stuff you hate but brings money) Personally, I love working and doing interesting things, and being with other people and society itself! So my personal plan is the opposite of FIRE: work until I die regardless of what happens on the side like payouts, because I enjoy what I do: stopping what I do just because something happened on the side would be like punishing myself, then waiting to die out of boredom? Doesn't seem like such a bright idea to me! Maybe it's different if you don't like modern society, or maybe other people, or the idea of work itself? I would recommend this alternative approach instead: embracing ikigai: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikigai https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikigai From https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20170807-ikigai-a-japanese-concept-to-improve-work-and-life https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20170807-ikigai-a-japan... "To those in the West who are more familiar with the concept of ikigai, it’s often associated with a Venn diagram with four overlapping qualities: what you love, what you are good at, what the world needs, and what you can be paid for."
Paianni 5y ago
These sorts of articles don't help me as much as they might, because my motivation to work isn't really 'doing what I love', it's more 'making the changes I want to see'.
- tehdgvtd 5y ago
  Ah, to be a young manager
kilpikaarna 5y ago
I first discovered Ran's site (through this essay) around 15 years ago, and it's been a big influence on me. I ended up following most of How to Drop Out more or less by accident. I think it's generally good advice for a certain type of person. Someone who resonates with this part: "If you have the mental focus and self-discipline to be successful in the dominant society, but you don't like it, here's how you can change your value system to reduce your need for money and status, and gain some benefits of industrial civilization without being in a position of forced obedience." It's true like someone said that it's basically a crustier version of FIRE, but probably more achievable for most people.
hamiltonians 5y ago
dropping out is so fun. no more taking orders from anyone.
tomohawk 5y ago
> Even medieval serfs worked fewer hours, and at a slower pace, than modern industrialized workers. What a bunch of bunk. If you're reading this, you likely have an amazingly cushy job by historical standards.
_9omd 5y ago
Cool to see a link to Ran's writing on here. I've followed his blog for something like 12+ years. I'm pretty sure his writings were some of my first exposure to the ideas of dropping out, primitivist philosophy, and FIRE (were people calling it FIRE back then)? I kept coming back to his site because he always seemed to offer viewpoints on things I'd never considered or seen others say. He could distill long articles down into a few articulate ideas that really made me think in new ways and turned my brain on. He had quite an influence on my own personal journey in life. I was already becoming quite dissatisfied with a life in tech, cranking out code for companies I didn't care about, when I found his blog in my mid 20s. I got pretty hooked on a lot of the more hardcore philosophy around dropping out, primitivism, homesteading, etc. I also became fixated on the idea of saving/investing and retiring early, and that formed my main life goal for nearly a decade. I did manage to FIRE and mellowed out a lot on the more radical ideas of dropping out, and developed a more balanced view towards tech instead of disdain for it. The world is complicated, and the idea of just dropping all tech and going back to the past sounds so silly and infantile to me now, but I guess it comforted me in a time of existential dread. Anyway, not sure why I'm launching into a story of my life here, just felt nostalgic seeing this link up on HN today.

180 points by curmudgeon22 5y ago

Interesting article, but I couldn't help but feel that much of it wasn't really 'dropping out' but more of relying on others. These passages in particular struck me as basically taking something from the system without paying into it: > If you're charming, you can find a partner or spouse who will "support" you by permitting you to sleep and cook someplace without asking for money. I couldn't tell how tongue-in-cheek this was, but clearly you're relying on your partner not to 'drop out' in this case. > I stopped buying music and books (exceptions in exceptional cases) and got in the habit of using the library. Who pays for these music and books if you don't contribute almost anything in taxes?

curmudgeon22 5y ago

> What I recommend instead is to separate your money from your love. Get the most low-stress source of income that you can find, and then do exactly what you love for free. It might eventually make you money or it might not. "Do what you love and the money will follow" is mostly false. The real rule is: "If you're doing what you love, you won't care if you never make any money from it -- but you still need money."

jasfi 5y ago
KineticLensman 5y ago
But he also has an important caveat: "But if you make an effort to combine your income and your love, you are likely to end up compromising both, making a poverty income by doing something you don't quite love, or no longer love." I love photography and for a while (approx 20 years ago) considered moving to it as a full-time job. But it quickly became obvious that the actual shutter-clicking would be a tiny part of running an overall photography business (and then smartphones and Alamy happened and the bottom dropped out of stock photography). So I'm glad I stuck with my mainstream job. It paid well enough to live and afford expensive lenses and the wildlife trips where I could put them through their paces. And from my current 60-year-old perspective, it also paid for retirement savings and pensions which I wouldn't have now if I'd tried to be a wedding photographer, say. The other thing that is sometimes overlooked is the importance of health. If you drop out and then get very ill, and have a very seat-of-the-pants lifestyle, things can get dark and uncomfortable very quickly. Not to say which is the right approach, just pointing out that it's worth considering how different future-yous will look back on your decision now. One who prioritises memories over possessions. One who isn't healthy and feels the cold. One who wants children. Etc
btrettel 5y ago
What are some low-stress jobs that pay well? I've thought that some IT jobs might fit the bill, particularly if one only needs to work a small number of hours each day. When I was a teenager, I worked at a gas station, which was mostly low-stress and even had a lot of down time that I could use for reading. But the pay was terrible and I had no benefits.
- nicbou 5y ago
  Various forms of self-employment, but getting to the stress-free part is a bumpy ride.
- schwartzworld 5y ago
  > What are some low-stress jobs that pay well? It probably depends on what you're used to and how you handle stress. I'm a web developer and find it incredibly low-stress in comparison to my previous lives. No back-to-back double shifts, no risk of working a full day and not getting paid for it, no abusive management, no rampant substance abuse at work, no "if you have time to lean, you have time to clean", no pressure to come into work when you're sick, no getting written up or even fired for being <5minutes late to work, no punitive scheduling... I could go on. I see people complaining about the software industry and I really don't get it. This shit is so comfortable, easy and straightforward in comparison to the kind of work most people have to do.

jer0me 5y ago

(2004)

curmudgeon22 5y ago
With significant notes in 2008 and 2014 :)

cko 5y ago

My favorite and most entertaining essay to read. Reading his other later writings it looks like his views are not rigid and are always evolving. The blog as been quite impressionable on me since the mid to late 2000s as a university student.

SCUSKU 5y ago

This was really great to read. Recently, I read Ted Kaczynski's "Industrial Society and its Future", aka the Unabomber Manifesto. The idea of anarcho-primitivist living is actually really attractive in theory, and this is a great example of someone actually living this lifestyle in practice. It seems tough. I'm not so sure I could essentially live a life of vagrancy and dumpster diving. Maybe I have been overly socialized and sold ideas that status and comfort are more important than freedom from "wage slavery". But I think author also concedes that there is a spectrum for everyone, and just doing your best to reduce reliance on society will be to your benefit. At least for me, a step in this direction would be to go thrift shopping from here on out for clothing, and to learn how to repair clothing. Also, living in SF, there is a bakery nearby that puts their unsold baguettes for free on the street every night. I shouldn't think of myself being above picking some of those up. I guess the idea is just to live a little more sustainably and produce less waste.

number6 5y ago
All fun and games until you start to blow up people
JackMorgan 5y ago
Thrift shopping is one way I deal with the ethical dilemma of overseas wage slavery. If possible, I try to buy things used. Stuff like furniture, clothes, and decor often can be found in excellent condition used, sometimes even substantially cheaper. I do not try quite so hard with performance gear (I'm an athlete) or food. The amount of time and risks are just much higher for both of those categories. For example, trail runners are just destroyed after 500 miles, but often look the same as a pair with 50. Also electronics, I'll definitely pay full price for RAM, hard drives, etc.
telesilla 5y ago
>I'm not so sure I could essentially live a life of vagrancy and dumpster diving Isn't this essentially a hunter-gatherer life? Our brains are really good at this.
- mikelevins 5y ago

j7ake 5y ago

Nice essay. I wonder where does helping family come into play here? Let’s say your family is poor and could use extra help. It seems selfish to deliberately take a lower paying job when a higher paying job could help your loved ones. Also what happens when you meet someone and want to start a family? Although the author may be ok with certain constraints in living, their spouse and children may have different preferences. In that situation it also seems selfish to pursue this low income life. All in all the essay seems to work well for people who are okay with living alone and apart from their family and loved ones.

vladvasiliu 5y ago
> Also what happens when you meet someone and want to start a family? Although the author may be ok with certain constraints in living, their spouse and children may have different preferences. In that situation it also seems selfish to pursue this low income life. I'd expect lifestyle to be one of the things people take into account when considering starting a life together. So if the potential spouse had different, incompatible, preferences, I'd expect the couple to not get to the point of starting a family. The question still stands for the kinds, though, but I'd expect this to always be the case. Kids practically never get a say in their parents' choices and have to make do.
ge96 5y ago
Heh I think about this, I could have paid off my student loans but instead I helped my families the last two years and ongoing. It's like this tax but I just push myself to make more. It's a good cause I mean I literally got them a well one time in their village you know that sucks not having immediate access to water... but then it spreads ah man. You get over a hundred requests on FB all these people finding out who you are/asking you for money. Anyway I ended up deleting my FB account and just keeping in contact with my blood family on another account. Side note Wise is the least PITA way to move money and no these people don't know how to use crypto.
- bckr 5y ago
  thanks for a different perspective on this. I think the idea of "dropping out" is largely by and for "children of empire"--whatever their socioeconomic background

dvne 5y ago

geohotz ?

remmargorp64 5y ago
Ran Prieur, not George Hotz
pingeroo 5y ago
Oh yeah I remember he brought this up once

Apocryphon 5y ago

Goes to show the antiwork ethos long predates the subreddit.

robtherobber 5y ago
Oh, the ethos is old indeed, much older than that. Paul Lafargue's "The Right To Be Lazy" was written in 1883 and, if we're to make an abstraction of the formulations ever so typical for that time and the historical context, as well as the strong ideology that underpins the work, it makes for an entirely interesting read: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/paul-lafargue-the-right-to-be-lazy https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/paul-lafargue-the-ri...
- mynameishere 5y ago
  old indeed, much older [proceeds to mention someone from 1883] The obvious "old" example would be Diogenes from ~400 BC. But there are older still outside of the Western tradition.

llaolleh 5y ago

Been doing so much lately ML so I thought this was gonna be a guide on dropout.

shisisms 5y ago

> Some of the happiest people I know have dropped out only a short distance. One of the greatest problems with the concept of “just dropping out” is the attachment to the idea of happiness. Happiness being one of the most oppressive demands of society and yet the narrowest of requirements. Would be interesting to live in an environment where happiness wasn’t the primary goal. That seems like true freedom and entirely compatible with dropping-in or out.

blymphony 5y ago
Definitely, agree. And before someone argues with the expected rebuttal, I think there’s a difference between chasing happiness and rationally acting upon your wants. In the US at least, “the pursuit of happiness” is such a fundamental concept, people really aren’t challenged to question it.
klik99 5y ago
As my Grandpa (child of the great depression) said in his typical ineloquent yet wise way: "Back in my day, when we weren't happy we were fine with it!"
wnolens 5y ago
Agree. In the last few years I've tried to shift from seeking happiness to seeking meaningfulness as the first order pursuit. Happiness is like a red herring for meaning, or it's a side effect of a meaningful activity. Or it's something you seek when you experience a dearth of meaning.. not sure. But it's certainly just one or a narrow set of experiences that make up being human.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

cushychicken 5y ago

I like this philosophy but find the execution a bit extreme. I don't really want to harvest food from a dumpster. This reads like "FIRE as explained by a crust punk". In broad strokes, we agree. In the specifics, we differ substantially.

goldtownjac 5y ago

One of my favorite websites. Ran has changed the way I think about a lot of things, especially urban living vs rural homesteading. Well worth reading through the archives, watching the short documentary about him on youtube, or grabbing a copy of his old zine “Civilization Will Eat Itself”.

ComradePhil 5y ago
Documentary link (27 minutes long): https://youtu.be/hL3eqiHk4nM https://youtu.be/hL3eqiHk4nM

wnolens 5y ago

Wish I read this (with preface) before I "dropped out" and experienced the descension he outlines. > Do not drop out. Instead, try to stop yourself from committing suicide until you can find a job that is so non-hellish that it does not make you suicidal Immediately after quitting my job, I rode a high of investing my time in all of those things I loved. A year later the best I could do was ping pong back and forth between the same set of things, giving up before receiving any rewards. Eventually I found myself in bed overwhelmed by my meaninglessness, trying to rationalize why I should not kill myself. It took getting a job, which I don't even like, to help drag me out of the gutter.

mancerayder 5y ago
Is part of the problem the nature of the work? I have fantasies of specific jobs that are completely out of my industry (IT). They pay a lot less. Finding meaning in that is how I would pursue it if I had the cash. It sounds like you took time off to find yourself but came up short with the long-term job plan, doing what you loved?
- wallflower 5y ago
  If you are considering skilled manual labor, you might find it interesting to read the comments from current and former plumbers and electricians and others in this thread. The tldr is your body will wear out much faster than your mind will. https://reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/sm54ri/anyone_else_feel_the_constant_urge_to_leave_the/ https://reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/sm54ri/anyon...
- wnolens 5y ago
  I, too, fantasize about leaving IT and just working behind a bar. But just like in engineering, every path has its own set of trade-offs. And part of the pay trade-off is that while I can live comfortably on smaller pay, I can earn my financial independence WAYYY earlier on tech bucks, then suddenly pay becomes a non issue. I came up short in finding something that felt worth my time/energy, even if it didn't pay. Part of it is as the author suggests, that it can be hard to sustain a love for something that you're also trying to make economically viable. They are to some degree competing concerns (not everyone loves entrepreneurship). But also there's value in something being scarce. Which is why in the first few months I was "working" 40h weeks on projects that I had only been giving 3-5h/week before. But eventually having 100% of my own time became status quo, and that fire was gone.

spaetzleesser 5y ago

I always wonder if people like this guy have some resources like family money in the background that can rescue them if things go wrong. I could imagine myself dropping out and living a simple life but I have no safety net in the background so I would fear problems if there are serious problems like health. And the older you get the more difficult it is to turn things around on your own. I think this very similar to risk taking as entrepreneur. It's much easier to do if you know that in case everything goes to hell there is a backup plan. You may never use it but it relieves a lot of *justified) anxiety.

kilpikaarna 5y ago
It's all documented on his blog/website, but basically yes. A few years after writing this, he received an inheritance that allowed him to buy a subutban house and stash away enough to secure his (still very frugal) lifestyle. I'm sure a financially stable family made it easier even before then. He caught quite a lot of flack from some former followers when the windfall happened. But he has always maintained that his goal isn't ideological purity pr proscribing something anyone can follow, but maximizing his own free time using whatever reaources he can. Btw Hi Ran, I know you read HN!
- spaetzleesser 5y ago
  I assume the windfall didn’t come as total surprise but he knew that it would be coming one day. He should have named his article not “how to drop out” but “how I dropped out” and also disclosed the full picture.
nickjj 5y ago
Yeah for sure. > I think this very similar to risk taking as entrepreneur. It's much easier to do if you know that in case everything goes to hell there is a backup plan. It's really hard to get past the idea of a safety net, but I think that net is mostly an illusion -- although a very helpful one which also has real world non-illusion benefits but those benefits end up being for things that are outside of our direct control. For example: Person A has 3 million in the bank that's tucked away in case disaster strikes, how it got there isn't important but it's there. They decide to quit their job that provides income to work on a "passion project business" where the goal is to do what they like while also making money (ignoring the advice in the author's drop out article). They don't make anything substantial for 1 year but eventually and gradually turn it into a $500,000 / year business over the next 3 years. You could read that and be like "wow it's so easy for them, with FU money sitting in the bank they could tolerate the risk and even if they failed it's not a problem at all" and I think to a high degree that's right. If you do the same thing but as Person B and have $100,000 in the bank this changes everything. Technically you could live on that for a few years ($30k / year is very achievable if you're single while still living comfortably in most places in the US) but there's this idea that if your business fails that 100k is gone and now you have $0 savings where as if Person A failed they probably made more than 100k in interest off that 3 million in the worst case scenario. So where does that leave us? There's no doubt that Person A is in a better position, but I think if you decouple the safety net from any decision making around running your business for those 3-4 years and both people executed on their idea as if they had 3 million in the bank then maybe the outcome would be the same which means the safety net never gets used in which case it's an illusion. I think folks without the safety net might make hasty decisions or give up sooner because their decisions are tied into money instead of letting things unwind on their own terms, they never get to mentally free themselves of obligations because they're still always on the clock. This gets further amplified if we introduce Person C who has $0 savings and instead takes out a business loan from the government or a bank, they are geared up for failure because they have to pay that loan back or face serious consequences where as Person B "only" drained their savings. I would love to hear some stories of folks being successful in this case. To wrap things up, I understand that it's much more than an illusion because there's definitely not a 100% success rate here, Person A could have just as easily tanked that business and they're in a much better spot than the person with 100k, but what this really boils down to is having more chances to try. Since success isn't guaranteed in either case (big safety net vs not so big safety net) and independent businesses can either succeed or fail on their own I think our only choice is to accept reality for what it is and roll the dice.

csdvrx 5y ago

I've read that again, and still I don't get it. To me, learning to live on the cheap to drop out, and planning to FIRE are essentially the same thing: removing the "work" part from life, because you don't love it, or divorcing what you do on the weekend (work of love that brings no money) from what you do during the week (stuff you hate but brings money) Personally, I love working and doing interesting things, and being with other people and society itself! So my personal plan is the opposite of FIRE: work until I die regardless of what happens on the side like payouts, because I enjoy what I do: stopping what I do just because something happened on the side would be like punishing myself, then waiting to die out of boredom? Doesn't seem like such a bright idea to me! Maybe it's different if you don't like modern society, or maybe other people, or the idea of work itself? I would recommend this alternative approach instead: embracing ikigai: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikigai https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikigai From https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20170807-ikigai-a-japanese-concept-to-improve-work-and-life https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20170807-ikigai-a-japan... "To those in the West who are more familiar with the concept of ikigai, it’s often associated with a Venn diagram with four overlapping qualities: what you love, what you are good at, what the world needs, and what you can be paid for."

Paianni 5y ago

These sorts of articles don't help me as much as they might, because my motivation to work isn't really 'doing what I love', it's more 'making the changes I want to see'.

tehdgvtd 5y ago
Ah, to be a young manager

kilpikaarna 5y ago

I first discovered Ran's site (through this essay) around 15 years ago, and it's been a big influence on me. I ended up following most of How to Drop Out more or less by accident. I think it's generally good advice for a certain type of person. Someone who resonates with this part: "If you have the mental focus and self-discipline to be successful in the dominant society, but you don't like it, here's how you can change your value system to reduce your need for money and status, and gain some benefits of industrial civilization without being in a position of forced obedience." It's true like someone said that it's basically a crustier version of FIRE, but probably more achievable for most people.

hamiltonians 5y ago

dropping out is so fun. no more taking orders from anyone.

tomohawk 5y ago

> Even medieval serfs worked fewer hours, and at a slower pace, than modern industrialized workers. What a bunch of bunk. If you're reading this, you likely have an amazingly cushy job by historical standards.

_9omd 5y ago

Cool to see a link to Ran's writing on here. I've followed his blog for something like 12+ years. I'm pretty sure his writings were some of my first exposure to the ideas of dropping out, primitivist philosophy, and FIRE (were people calling it FIRE back then)? I kept coming back to his site because he always seemed to offer viewpoints on things I'd never considered or seen others say. He could distill long articles down into a few articulate ideas that really made me think in new ways and turned my brain on. He had quite an influence on my own personal journey in life. I was already becoming quite dissatisfied with a life in tech, cranking out code for companies I didn't care about, when I found his blog in my mid 20s. I got pretty hooked on a lot of the more hardcore philosophy around dropping out, primitivism, homesteading, etc. I also became fixated on the idea of saving/investing and retiring early, and that formed my main life goal for nearly a decade. I did manage to FIRE and mellowed out a lot on the more radical ideas of dropping out, and developed a more balanced view towards tech instead of disdain for it. The world is complicated, and the idea of just dropping all tech and going back to the past sounds so silly and infantile to me now, but I guess it comforted me in a time of existential dread. Anyway, not sure why I'm launching into a story of my life here, just felt nostalgic seeing this link up on HN today.