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Yesterday I visited an old, but still reasonably healthy man who has been living in Thailand for 40 years now, maybe longer. Reasonably healthy as in: he doesn'
by wsc981 4y ago
Yesterday I visited an old, but still reasonably healthy man who has been living in Thailand for 40 years now, maybe longer. Reasonably healthy as in: he doesn't need to visit hospital or use medicine, but his power is now waning a bit due to age.
A man originally from Switzerland. 88 years old now. When he arrived in Thailand he bought a nice plot of land and made a quite beautiful garden there, with many fruits and vegetables and trees. Also many salas spread throughout the 8000 m2 terrain. And chickens, dogs, cats walking around and about.
The man has had quite an adventurous live in the past, back when the world was more adventurous as well, perhaps ...
Anyway, the man is content just tending to his plants. And reading and writing in one of the salas that he uses as a (kind of) outdoor office. In the past he also used to paint, but he's not able to do this anymore.
Maybe we'd all be happier with just a nice plot of land and some plants to tend to and perhaps some hobbies to keep us busy. And maybe it would keep us healthier (both mentally as well as physically) as well.
- stemlord 4y agoI won't be able to afford a plot of land without a job. I feel like we're on the verge of cataclysmic unemployment and I have absolutely no desire to wait in squalor for legislation to catch up with the nifty little UBI idea floating around which seems like should have been sorted yesterday.
- bryanlarsen 4y agoAn acre of farmland costs $2000 in North Dakota. You need 5000 of them to make a living growing wheat, but an acre should be enough to feed a family, maybe a few more if you want meat.
- Aeolun 4y ago50-70 bushels of wheat per acre. $7.5 dollars per bushel of wheat. Still, every year you’d have like 2 tons of wheat from your acre. You’d be able to live on that, even if your diet is a bit colorless.
- CydeWeys 4y agoBeing a subsistence farmer is terrible though. There's a reason 99% of Americans stopped doing it just as soon as they were able to. It's certainly not a comfortable retirement!
- PragmaticPulp 4y agoWhenever somebody claims it would be easy to feed a family from some small farmland, it’s very clear that they’ve never had to live anywhere near that lifestyle. It’s terribly difficult and unpredictable.
- kcb 4y agoNature destroys crops = dead?
- wsc981 4y agoI think growing a single crop is risky, makes it harder to be self-reliant. My girlfriend grows many different fruits and vegetables, so we’re less bothered by the price changes each season or year. And we can be sure our own food includes a lot of organic produce.
- 7speter 4y agoYesterday? Everyday since 2020 people on here and every other forum on the internet have been blaming the $1200 check for bringing on the apocalypse
- lezojeda 4y ago[dead]
- SECProto 4y ago> Maybe we'd all be happier with just a nice plot of land and some plants to tend to and perhaps some hobbies to keep us busy. And enough money saved up to buy land in Thailand and retire at 48, without worrying about how he's going to pay for taxes for the rest of his life, or how he will buy food to supplement what he's growing in case of issues there, or...
- JeremyNT 4y agoSadly, we are not headed to such a future. The economic benefits of these LLMs will go only to the capitalists, and any labor savings will allow them to reduce wages and headcount while leaving workers unemployed or with less bargaining power. AI will be yet another tool to further wealth inequality. We won't be able to afford retiring and tending to our plants.
- chriscappuccio 4y agoSolution: be a capitalist
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- borissk 4y agoThis is a solution that will work for a very small percentage of the people - those who were born in rich families and those who are a lot more driven and/or smarter and/or luckier than the average. What about the other 99%? As they say a revolution is three missed meals away...
- lezojeda 4y ago[dead]
- RDaneel0livaw 4y ago"Maybe we'd all be happier with just a nice plot of land and some plants to tend to and perhaps some hobbies to keep us busy. And maybe it would keep us healthier (both mentally as well as physically) as well. " And where is the fantasy world where "we all" have enough money for this?
- wsc981 4y agoI don’t think huge wealth is needed, but it very much depends where you buy the land. Coastal land or land near big cities will be much more expensive than land in a remote village.
- coffeebeqn 4y agoAlso you forget that there are 8 billion people who would need some acres of arable land
- johnwalkr 4y agoWhat's your point? Many people would be happy if they are lucky enough to be born in a wealthy country and save a bunch of money by the time they're 48 and retire, move to a poorer country and be happy tending a garden. Not many people are this lucky and it will be harder going forward as such desirable cheap places are becoming less cheap rapidly, and less accessible. "Golden visas" in such places are under scrutiny as they are just driving up real estate prices with little benefit to locals.
- biztos 4y agoAlso foreigners can’t own land in Thailand, so while I hope the Swiss gentleman has many more years of happiness, it was never his garden, which might be a turnoff to the techno-libertarians out there.
- wsc981 4y agoNot 100% true, foreigners can own up to 1 rai (1600 m2) once they gain citizenship (which takes a bit of effort and a lot of time).
- biztos 4y agoMy working definition of “foreigner” excludes Thai citizens, though maybe it’s more subtle than that: I didn’t know naturalized citizens were subject to ownership limits.
- blackoil 4y agoThis romantic affair works only for rich. Pretty sure the man also has maids, support staff and vendors working for him.
- wsc981 4y agoHe has not, but has a wife and daughter. Possibly other kids. I did not get the impression from him that he was rich, but he did get lucky to buy a large plot of land for cheap due to: A) living in a remote village B) Currency conversion The house itself was also pretty cheap, being a traditional Thai wooden house and not particularly huge.
- patja 4y agoSounds like the conclusion of Candide. When confronted by the misery of Pangloss' best of all possible worlds, we must cultivate our garden.
- rcpt 4y agoNo. God no are you kidding? Subsistence farming? We did that for thousands of years it was horrible.