3 ms·
It's not that bad, and a lot of people like to own their own land rather than never get to own anything.
by 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 agoI 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 agoHe 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 agoThe 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 agothere 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 agoWhat 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 agoyou 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.
- baremetal 4y agofair point. i think i am trying to solve a different problem. and incorrectly drew inferences.