4 ms·

I relate to this quite a lot actually. Not the taking of charity type thing, I choose a somewhat similar lifestyle but I acknowledge that it is a choice, so I d

I relate to this quite a lot actually. Not the taking of charity type thing, I choose a somewhat similar lifestyle but I acknowledge that it is a choice, so I don't take freebies. Particularly > I would be working 40 hours a week and would get exactly nothing out of it, financially speaking. I relate to that a lot. And all the stuff after it. I don't consider it poverty, just a simpler way of living. I cut my monthly expenses down by 80% by downsizing my life, and I actually got more space, freedom, independence, less neighbors, parking, silly rules and miscelanious bullshit. I just don't understand people that choose to live and work in cities. It always felt like spinning my wheels, and the whole "diversity of food options" struck me as a little snotty. You like diversity because it enables you to pay brown people to cook for you? I just cook for myself. Mostly when people explain to me why they choose the rat race (as I see it) it strikes me as excuses to continue because they don't know how to do anything else, or theyre hung up on status in the eyes of people who don't give a shit about them, or they have a sunk cost fallacy relationship with their student loans or something like that. I'll take a shack and a propane tank in the sticks to a nice apartment a 5 minute walk from whole foods any day. I'm lucky to have found a partner who is somewhat similar, and we intend to raise our children this way as well. Clean home, but a simple home. Clean clothes and healthy food, but simple. Life is about discovery, adventure, and creation, not consumption. I hope they're happy as adults about their childhoods, I think they will be.

ehnto 4y ago
> You like diversity because it enables you to pay brown people to cook for you? This comes across as a shallow understanding of food, culture and the makeup of cities. Cities are often very multi-cultural, all over the world, and not just for food. All races can enjoy that diversity and a somewhat fairer playing field (depending on exactly where you live).
- friend_and_foe 4y ago
  Not to insult, but this sounds like cope and rationalization to me. I could be wrong, but I don't think so. I come from a very, very diverse background and have a very diverse family, including my own personal one. There are 5 ethnicities in my immediate family. I've lived in a couple of very diverse cities most of my life. I've had all the food. It's nice, it's good. But when I hear people say they want to stay in a city due to "diversity" and usually mentioning Chinese take out and sushi, all I hear is a daft white person not realizing they're saying they like cities because the poor immigrants perform services that make their lives better.
  - ehnto 4y ago
    The link you are imagining between enjoying varied food and hierarchical racism is an insane leap to make so generally. You must see that. It seems that you think cities only exist to serve white people but as is the point, cities are often diverse, which is why they can support restaurants that serve different cuisines. This isn't a very productive discussion, we could both be imagining entirely different cities and situations. I live in Australia, so I can't speak for American cities. The diversity in cuisine here comes from our now decades of immigration policies, people tend to immigrate for study or work, both of those things concentrate in cities, voila you have massive mixed communities serving mixed cuisines to that now multi-generational mixed community.
  - vuln 4y ago
    > all I hear is a daft white person not realizing they're saying they like cities because the poor immigrants perform services that make their lives better. Your comments and thought process is racist as fuck. Do BIPOC not enjoy “ethnic food”? Do you not have any BIPOC friends? These “daft white person” you converse with what’s their educational background look like?
    - friend_and_foe 4y ago
      Lol I'm racist. For calling out upper middle class white people who treat immigrants as some resource to enjoy at their leisure. You sound defensive. Immigrants usually don't leave their homelands to move to a foreign country to eat the food. Usually they do it to improve their financial lives. They probably enjoy it, but if you ask them "why did you move to Atlanta from Mogadishu" the restaurants probably won't be at the top of the list like it is for snotty white people. Nobody calls themselves BIPOC. That's another thing snotty white people do. Yes I have friends from different backgrounds, also family. Probably more than you do TBH. The people I converse with that say this stuff, usually it's people with backgrounds probably like the average on this site. Probably quite like you if I had to guess.
dukeyukey 4y ago
People move to cities because of the people. They want to meet people who get them, to work on stuff together, and to find people wildly different to them. I grew up in an isolated farming town and now live in London. Don't get me wrong, I _probably_ won't live here for the rest of my life, but I'm never moving back to my hometown. Not because it's uniquely bad, but because there was _so much_ stuff I wanted to do as a kid that I couldn't. Like join a martial arts club. Or be a regular at a comic book store. To go to gigs, learn an unusual instrument, visit a zoo, and yes, try sushi. The internet helped. Amazon helped quite a bit. But we're social animals, and having _your_ people around helps so much. And it's hard to do that when you live in the sticks.
- emptystation 4y ago
  Agree, cities are just plain more interesting for many. I also believe that life should be about discovery and creating but I'm not exactly sure what can be discovered in a shack in a middle of nowhere unless you're very outdoorsy to begin with. I grew up in a town that didn't have a movie theater (or any theater for that matter) or any type of music venue. Interesting books? Not available - low tech area, Internet was not a big thing yet, one bookstore in town, underfunded library filled with Soviet leftovers and some classics. I wanted to learn a language my grandparents spoke and I couldn't do it properly - no classes or speakers in the area. Hell, we didn't have a modern well-stocked grocery store for the majority of my childhood. When the first local pizzeria opened, people, myself included, were raving. I had only seen pizza on TV prior to that. I'm not going to even mention the social aspect and the loneliness. These days I am an avid cinephile, I adore listening to live music, picked up two music instruments myself, go raves occasionally, have access to any book imaginable. Meet people, meet friends, start romantic relationships and maybe a family, pick new projects, new interests, etc. Having varied food too is also cool. Sure, it's not the biggest thing it life but it adds so much flavor (pun intended). I've tried spinach for the first time when I was 23 when I moved to a city in a spinach-obsessed country. I had wanted to try it for years and finally got a chance. Loved it! Cook with it all the time now, spinach is great. :D I don't ever want to go back to a place where the opportunity for new experiences is scarce.

ehnto 4y ago

> You like diversity because it enables you to pay brown people to cook for you? This comes across as a shallow understanding of food, culture and the makeup of cities. Cities are often very multi-cultural, all over the world, and not just for food. All races can enjoy that diversity and a somewhat fairer playing field (depending on exactly where you live).

friend_and_foe 4y ago
Not to insult, but this sounds like cope and rationalization to me. I could be wrong, but I don't think so. I come from a very, very diverse background and have a very diverse family, including my own personal one. There are 5 ethnicities in my immediate family. I've lived in a couple of very diverse cities most of my life. I've had all the food. It's nice, it's good. But when I hear people say they want to stay in a city due to "diversity" and usually mentioning Chinese take out and sushi, all I hear is a daft white person not realizing they're saying they like cities because the poor immigrants perform services that make their lives better.
- ehnto 4y ago
  The link you are imagining between enjoying varied food and hierarchical racism is an insane leap to make so generally. You must see that. It seems that you think cities only exist to serve white people but as is the point, cities are often diverse, which is why they can support restaurants that serve different cuisines. This isn't a very productive discussion, we could both be imagining entirely different cities and situations. I live in Australia, so I can't speak for American cities. The diversity in cuisine here comes from our now decades of immigration policies, people tend to immigrate for study or work, both of those things concentrate in cities, voila you have massive mixed communities serving mixed cuisines to that now multi-generational mixed community.
- vuln 4y ago
  > all I hear is a daft white person not realizing they're saying they like cities because the poor immigrants perform services that make their lives better. Your comments and thought process is racist as fuck. Do BIPOC not enjoy “ethnic food”? Do you not have any BIPOC friends? These “daft white person” you converse with what’s their educational background look like?
  - friend_and_foe 4y ago
    Lol I'm racist. For calling out upper middle class white people who treat immigrants as some resource to enjoy at their leisure. You sound defensive. Immigrants usually don't leave their homelands to move to a foreign country to eat the food. Usually they do it to improve their financial lives. They probably enjoy it, but if you ask them "why did you move to Atlanta from Mogadishu" the restaurants probably won't be at the top of the list like it is for snotty white people. Nobody calls themselves BIPOC. That's another thing snotty white people do. Yes I have friends from different backgrounds, also family. Probably more than you do TBH. The people I converse with that say this stuff, usually it's people with backgrounds probably like the average on this site. Probably quite like you if I had to guess.

dukeyukey 4y ago

People move to cities because of the people. They want to meet people who get them, to work on stuff together, and to find people wildly different to them. I grew up in an isolated farming town and now live in London. Don't get me wrong, I _probably_ won't live here for the rest of my life, but I'm never moving back to my hometown. Not because it's uniquely bad, but because there was _so much_ stuff I wanted to do as a kid that I couldn't. Like join a martial arts club. Or be a regular at a comic book store. To go to gigs, learn an unusual instrument, visit a zoo, and yes, try sushi. The internet helped. Amazon helped quite a bit. But we're social animals, and having _your_ people around helps so much. And it's hard to do that when you live in the sticks.

emptystation 4y ago
Agree, cities are just plain more interesting for many. I also believe that life should be about discovery and creating but I'm not exactly sure what can be discovered in a shack in a middle of nowhere unless you're very outdoorsy to begin with. I grew up in a town that didn't have a movie theater (or any theater for that matter) or any type of music venue. Interesting books? Not available - low tech area, Internet was not a big thing yet, one bookstore in town, underfunded library filled with Soviet leftovers and some classics. I wanted to learn a language my grandparents spoke and I couldn't do it properly - no classes or speakers in the area. Hell, we didn't have a modern well-stocked grocery store for the majority of my childhood. When the first local pizzeria opened, people, myself included, were raving. I had only seen pizza on TV prior to that. I'm not going to even mention the social aspect and the loneliness. These days I am an avid cinephile, I adore listening to live music, picked up two music instruments myself, go raves occasionally, have access to any book imaginable. Meet people, meet friends, start romantic relationships and maybe a family, pick new projects, new interests, etc. Having varied food too is also cool. Sure, it's not the biggest thing it life but it adds so much flavor (pun intended). I've tried spinach for the first time when I was 23 when I moved to a city in a spinach-obsessed country. I had wanted to try it for years and finally got a chance. Loved it! Cook with it all the time now, spinach is great. :D I don't ever want to go back to a place where the opportunity for new experiences is scarce.