5 ms·

Depends what "poverty" means. A lot of poor people were subsistance farmers, able to hold property and carve a space for themselves and their families in the wo

Depends what "poverty" means. A lot of poor people were subsistance farmers, able to hold property and carve a space for themselves and their families in the world. That's something that will be out of reach for many "rich" people in the upcoming decades.

jolux 4y ago
Subsistence farming is a nightmare, I can all but guarantee that no living subsistence farmer would choose that life over renting an apartment and having disposable income.
- Ambolia 4y ago
  It's not that bad, and a lot of people like to own their own land rather than never get to own anything.
  - Adraghast 4y ago
    - Ambolia 4y ago
      I am not saying I would like to be a subsistence farmer, but I would give up a lot of things to own a house. And I mean actually own it, not a mortgage.
    - baremetal 4y ago
      He was seen by the philosopher Aristippus, who lived comfortably by flattering the king. Said Aristippus, "If you would learn to be subservient to the king you would not have to live on lentils." Said Diogenes, "Learn to live on lentils and you will not have to be subservient to the king." There are tradeoffs for everything.
      - jolux 4y ago
        The thing is it’s not a choice between living on lentils and fancier food, it’s a choice between having a stable food source and having a food source that is dependent on huge amounts of your own manual labor which will still sometimes fail to feed you through no fault of your own, leaving you or your partner or children to go hungry and possibly starve to death. Ergo: nightmare.
        baremetal 4y ago
        there are boom years and bust years like anything else. you "make hay while the sun shines", and store up for the lean years. and you form bonds with your neighbors. but there isnt a public safety net, other than the one you create for yourself. its most certainly riskier, but it is also a freer way to live. it is very empowering to be self-sufficient. everything has its costs and benefits.
        jolux 4y ago
        What if there are too many bust seasons in a given period and you and all your neighbors’ stocks are depleted? These are the real problems with subsistence farming and they’re the primary reason nobody wants to do it given a choice. There’s ultimately very little freedom in the sort of precarity that subsistence farming entails: all aspects of your life are dominated by the success of your harvest, which requires constant attention.
        baremetal 4y ago
        you assume the only life worth valuing is one that you know. fetishsizing risk is not what subsistence farmers do. look at the amish. when i am in the field, it is as if there is nothing going wrong in the world. headlines dont pierce the stillness. something ineffable has been lost.
        jolux 4y ago
        > you assume the only life worth valuing is one that you know. No, I think all life is worth valuing, it's just an objective fact that the vast majority of people would prefer not to be subsistence farming. > look at the amish. The Amish are not pure subsistence farmers. Many of them shop at Costco and Wal-Mart if it's accessible to them. They are also dependent on the rest of society for emergency services and healthcare, just like us. Their daily existence is far closer to ours than that of a subsistence farmer in sub-Saharan Africa. > when i am in the field, it is as if there is nothing going wrong in the world. headlines dont pierce the stillness. something ineffable has been lost. That's all well and good, I like being in nature and getting away from it all too, but there's no sense in romanticizing poverty like you're doing here. Subsistence farming is pain and suffering for huge numbers of people, not just an escape from the over-technologized mainstream culture of wealthy countries.
rayiner 4y ago
Dude. Go move to my dad’s village in Bangladesh for a year, so what they do, then come back and post on HN.
- SkyMarshal 4y ago
  Let’s assume all of us are curious about what we would learn doing that, but none of us are probably willing or able to actually do that. What would we learn if we did?
  - rayiner 4y ago
    Being a subsistence farmer is really hard. When my dad was growing up, 1 out of 4 kids died before age 5. Getting in boats to go to school was a thing during monsoon season. Moreover, most people don’t own their land—they’re what Americans would call share croppers or what Europeans would call peasants. There’s certain benefits, of course. The communities are tightly knit and there is a predictable social hierarchy. But it’s a rigid one, and the rigidity is driven by the realities of subsistence farming. It’s pretty great if you’re a landowner, but if you’re not born into one of those families then you can’t “work your way up.” Indeed, a lot of the things we think of as “more enlightened” attitudes in the modern west are really the product of us being free from the constraints of subsistence farming. You don’t get to be “child free” (or openly gay) in an economy where having lots of kids and hoping enough survive to take care of you in your old age is the only retirement plan. Men’s dominance over women, likewise, arises naturally in an economy where people are at the edge of survival and doing extremely physically demanding work keeps the community alive. My mom grew up reading Russian literature and got a master’s degree in chemistry and edited a history of the Bangladeshi independence movement. Not because her father was enlightened, though he was, but because he was a wealthy landowner and didn’t need his daughters to be in the fields harvesting rice, or to get married off quickly so some other man could support them.
- mardifoufs 4y ago
  Yeah wow, I always cringe whenever I hear people unashamedly talking about "degrowth" in poor countries because hey they like it anyways! I mean they are alive so it can't be too bad? As if there's no reason why those subsistence farmers do everything they can to either get themselves out of that situation if they get the chance or at least sacrifice everything to make sure their kids don't have to live the same life. They should've just read about the virtues of minimalist living online and like, reconnect with nature bro. This is one of the reason why i just can't get into most modern western environmentalist movements , it actually gets uncomfortable how they fetishise misery and stagnation knowing damn well that they themselves won't ever have to experience any major deprivation. Because let's be honest, even if western countries make concessions of course they will never sacrifice more than comforts/superfluous things. abject poverty farming for thee, and at the very very worse "degrowing" a few percentage of GDP for me.

jolux 4y ago

Subsistence farming is a nightmare, I can all but guarantee that no living subsistence farmer would choose that life over renting an apartment and having disposable income.

Ambolia 4y ago
It's not that bad, and a lot of people like to own their own land rather than never get to own anything.
- Adraghast 4y ago
  - Ambolia 4y ago
    I am not saying I would like to be a subsistence farmer, but I would give up a lot of things to own a house. And I mean actually own it, not a mortgage.
  - baremetal 4y ago
    He was seen by the philosopher Aristippus, who lived comfortably by flattering the king. Said Aristippus, "If you would learn to be subservient to the king you would not have to live on lentils." Said Diogenes, "Learn to live on lentils and you will not have to be subservient to the king." There are tradeoffs for everything.
    - jolux 4y ago
      The thing is it’s not a choice between living on lentils and fancier food, it’s a choice between having a stable food source and having a food source that is dependent on huge amounts of your own manual labor which will still sometimes fail to feed you through no fault of your own, leaving you or your partner or children to go hungry and possibly starve to death. Ergo: nightmare.
      - baremetal 4y ago
        there are boom years and bust years like anything else. you "make hay while the sun shines", and store up for the lean years. and you form bonds with your neighbors. but there isnt a public safety net, other than the one you create for yourself. its most certainly riskier, but it is also a freer way to live. it is very empowering to be self-sufficient. everything has its costs and benefits.
        jolux 4y ago
        What if there are too many bust seasons in a given period and you and all your neighbors’ stocks are depleted? These are the real problems with subsistence farming and they’re the primary reason nobody wants to do it given a choice. There’s ultimately very little freedom in the sort of precarity that subsistence farming entails: all aspects of your life are dominated by the success of your harvest, which requires constant attention.
        baremetal 4y ago
        you assume the only life worth valuing is one that you know. fetishsizing risk is not what subsistence farmers do. look at the amish. when i am in the field, it is as if there is nothing going wrong in the world. headlines dont pierce the stillness. something ineffable has been lost.
        jolux 4y ago
        > you assume the only life worth valuing is one that you know. No, I think all life is worth valuing, it's just an objective fact that the vast majority of people would prefer not to be subsistence farming. > look at the amish. The Amish are not pure subsistence farmers. Many of them shop at Costco and Wal-Mart if it's accessible to them. They are also dependent on the rest of society for emergency services and healthcare, just like us. Their daily existence is far closer to ours than that of a subsistence farmer in sub-Saharan Africa. > when i am in the field, it is as if there is nothing going wrong in the world. headlines dont pierce the stillness. something ineffable has been lost. That's all well and good, I like being in nature and getting away from it all too, but there's no sense in romanticizing poverty like you're doing here. Subsistence farming is pain and suffering for huge numbers of people, not just an escape from the over-technologized mainstream culture of wealthy countries.

rayiner 4y ago

Dude. Go move to my dad’s village in Bangladesh for a year, so what they do, then come back and post on HN.

SkyMarshal 4y ago
Let’s assume all of us are curious about what we would learn doing that, but none of us are probably willing or able to actually do that. What would we learn if we did?
- rayiner 4y ago
  Being a subsistence farmer is really hard. When my dad was growing up, 1 out of 4 kids died before age 5. Getting in boats to go to school was a thing during monsoon season. Moreover, most people don’t own their land—they’re what Americans would call share croppers or what Europeans would call peasants. There’s certain benefits, of course. The communities are tightly knit and there is a predictable social hierarchy. But it’s a rigid one, and the rigidity is driven by the realities of subsistence farming. It’s pretty great if you’re a landowner, but if you’re not born into one of those families then you can’t “work your way up.” Indeed, a lot of the things we think of as “more enlightened” attitudes in the modern west are really the product of us being free from the constraints of subsistence farming. You don’t get to be “child free” (or openly gay) in an economy where having lots of kids and hoping enough survive to take care of you in your old age is the only retirement plan. Men’s dominance over women, likewise, arises naturally in an economy where people are at the edge of survival and doing extremely physically demanding work keeps the community alive. My mom grew up reading Russian literature and got a master’s degree in chemistry and edited a history of the Bangladeshi independence movement. Not because her father was enlightened, though he was, but because he was a wealthy landowner and didn’t need his daughters to be in the fields harvesting rice, or to get married off quickly so some other man could support them.
mardifoufs 4y ago
Yeah wow, I always cringe whenever I hear people unashamedly talking about "degrowth" in poor countries because hey they like it anyways! I mean they are alive so it can't be too bad? As if there's no reason why those subsistence farmers do everything they can to either get themselves out of that situation if they get the chance or at least sacrifice everything to make sure their kids don't have to live the same life. They should've just read about the virtues of minimalist living online and like, reconnect with nature bro. This is one of the reason why i just can't get into most modern western environmentalist movements , it actually gets uncomfortable how they fetishise misery and stagnation knowing damn well that they themselves won't ever have to experience any major deprivation. Because let's be honest, even if western countries make concessions of course they will never sacrifice more than comforts/superfluous things. abject poverty farming for thee, and at the very very worse "degrowing" a few percentage of GDP for me.