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It's interesting how quality of life baselines have increased so much in the last century. If you wanted to have the QOL of someone that lived in the American W

It's interesting how quality of life baselines have increased so much in the last century. If you wanted to have the QOL of someone that lived in the American West a hundred years ago, it could be done today for probably $100 a month all-inclusive of food, clothing, and shelter. But you'd be eating the same 5-10 things repeatedly, wearing the same clothes, have a few books for entertainment, minimal or no electronics, no car, and so on. This was typical, to be expected a century ago, but with the nature of marketing and social pressure, almost no one is willing to make that kind of sacrifice today. I am somewhat surprised that there aren't more cheap-living communes in the US. A few thousand dollars could probably pay the living expenses of a few dozen people – assuming they are all on-board with such a materially minimalist lifestyle.

HPsquared 3y ago
You could probably set up a business of "economical retreats"... Live in the old fashion for a week or so. Very low costs to the business owner, and an interesting experience for the patrons. Call it "the simple life". You'd need to arrange things for them to do as well. Edit: perhaps not possible, as most people would lack the skills to e.g. wash clothes or cook manually. Maybe it could have instructors and classes too. All paper and verbal, no devices!
- herpdyderp 3y ago
  Call it Westworld
- bombcar 3y ago
  This is called camping.
  - HPsquared 3y ago
    Camping is pretty high-tech with all the waterproof materials, preserved foods etc. Amish-style camping would be very different.
- cko 3y ago
  Eco-tourism combined with glamping business?
- jslabovitz 3y ago
  For four years, I ran something similar to this: an artist residency, in rural Appalachia. I charged a low fee to folks who came, and kept the experience fairly simple and self-catered. However, it really wasn't sustainable. People who came invariably expected more — whether more infrastructure or more community or more subsidies/scholarships or more politics — and genuinely 'simple' folks were very rare. The fees I charged barely covered utility/transportation costs, and were never enough to cover property taxes, much less paying me even a minimal salary. I could have raised fees, but that would have raised expectations and assumptions, too. Furthermore, all my attempts to obtain professional help were a complete failure — whether getting a CPA/bookeeper (to manage the taxes I was required by the state to collect), an attorney (for making it a legal nonprofit to avoid those taxes), or an insurance broker (for liability insurance because people will sue you). Providers around here looked at my project and just said, 'Meh, I don't understand it. I'm not interested,' or quoted fuck-you prices, like $10K/year for liability! Providers closer to the city might have helped, but for even higher fees. Sure, I could have — and did — do without all those things. But one realizes, the further one is off that branch, the more unstable things become. Our society is built for either individual/family scale, or corporate scale. It's very, very difficult to find a place in between that will work for more than a short time. Try to run a project in the US that is not a business but not just an individual hobby: you'll find few options, outside of established structures like churches. And even those have much bigger budgets and organizations than you might think. Nuthin's easy, son.
kzrdude 3y ago
I think we talk of a housing crisis, but the people who are living stably around me (i.e "not struggling") are living with ample space for themselves or their family. I think many are living in bigger houses and sharing less than ever (no multigenerational homes, less live-in renters and so on). (Sweden) And that each person lives bigger or more alone than before is part of the explanation why even with modest population increases, the need for (new) housing continues.
jasode 3y ago
>I am somewhat surprised that there aren't more cheap-living communes in the US. A few thousand dollars could probably pay the living expenses of a few dozen people – assuming they are all on-board with such a materially minimalist lifestyle. A monastery of nuns or monks is something like that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosed_religious_orders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosed_religious_orders Even though the members live a minimal lifestyle of near-poverty, many monasteries are still not truly financially self-sufficient because their funding comes from an associated church's donations. Amish communities may be an example of lower-cost living while being financially self-sufficient via selling crafts and furniture. (They're even financially independent enough to be exempt from paying and receiving government Social Security money.) It would be interesting to know of other communities that deliberately replicated Amish living (for cost/benefits) without being Amish.
- chongli 3y ago
  One thing everyone forgets is that the Amish people benefit from police and national defence, like everyone else. Their simple, peaceful life would not be possible if they comprised their own sovereign nation in a region surrounded by hostile actors. With no military of their own, they’d be annexed instantly. This means they aren’t truly independent. They’re dependent in a way they could never afford to pay for themselves. They get by as free riders while everyone else pays for them.
  - keiferski 3y ago
    Do they claim to be truly independent? Or just to operate in the way they want to inside the same system as everyone else? The relevant comparison here is to other citizens, not to other states.
    - chongli 3y ago
      I don't think it matters what they claim or don't claim. The way to evaluate the position is to imagine what the US would be like if 100% of its population lived in Amish communities, with an Amish lifestyle and religion+ideology. Yes, this hypothetical country would be peaceful and immune to the (justified) criticism the US receives over its intervention in foreign wars. However, think of all it (and the world) would lose. The rest of NATO would have to invest way more in defence in order to hold off Russia and China. The rest of the world would have to invest a huge amount in R&D for things like medicine and technology. And the only thing keeping this hypothetical "Amish United States" from being invaded are the oceans. It's hard to take these sorts of counterfactuals too far though. On the one hand I might say "then the drug cartels in Mexico could invade the Amish United States and enslave everyone" but then it would also be equally valid to say the cartels would never exist in the first place if it weren't for drug prohibition and the demand for illegal drugs in the US. Still, I don't see how one big Amish nation would defend itself from gangs moving in and stealing everything they've got and enslaving people.
Podgajski 3y ago
I have a very low material quantity of life, but my spiritual quality of life is pretty good even as I live homeless with a disability in a minivan in the United States. Americans are way too materialistic and there needs to be a reckoning of this if anything is going to change. Even people I meet that live in other minivans or RVs want to have every single creature comfort they had when they were living in a house. I decided that in my van I would only carry what I need for the van or things I can easily put in the backpack and walk away with. I definitely use the free places. They list in the Reddit post. At west I always stay on the BLM lands.
- coolThingsFirst 3y ago
  What's the hardest thing about your life?
  - Podgajski 3y ago
    Thanks! I would say the loneliness because of the stigma of both how I live, and my mental illness. Even when I am out on the BLM land with people with other campers the fact that I live in a minivan is looked down upon. And since I have to drive around so much to follow the weather It’s very hard to have long-term meaningful friendships. The other thing is lack of stable healthcare but I am slowly weaning myself off of Western medicine so that has becoming less of a concern. It’s not that I want to live this way, it’s the only solution I have right now unfortunately.
    - ysavir 3y ago
      What do you consider to be the ideal solution?
      - Podgajski 3y ago
        If I had a simple clean studio I would be fine. I am not asking for much, just clean and stable. But even a mess of a studio costs $800 a month which I can’t afford. even if I had a place to park that was stable I wouldn’t mind either. Just something close to a town with food and place to shower, etc.
high_5 3y ago
Here's a guy living quite close to 0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ir3eJ1t13fk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ir3eJ1t13fk Still, he'll have to pay off the land he bought.
- dorfsmay 3y ago
  I haven't watched the video, but paying off implies owning a title to the land which means paying taxes on it.
  - Aachen 3y ago
    The topic of how he got or paid for the land actually doesn't come up in the video. I found the whole thing pretty fascinating though, also in terms of what he believes about us here in Europe (we're not free anymore) or that USA government is moving towards making the Bible illegal, yet also having a lot of beliefs and knowledge that I consider exceptionally good, like not eating meat or animal products. I don't manage the latter myself but it would be the right thing to do and he just does it. Oh, and that his biggest mentioned expense is 90 dollars every month for a landline phone. Holy crap, for that you get 10 gigabit symmetrical around here if you're on the right fiber network, or otherwise the fastest Internet+phone+TV they can offer! Amazing he can make enough money raising horses to pay that bill every month on top of a few smaller expenses like dog food (it totaled up to 140/month, though I expect there's some forgotten/irregular costs). Who else has >50% of their living expenses be a phone contract!
    - high_5 3y ago
      > The topic of how he got or paid for the land actually doesn't come up in the video. It does get mentioned. He loaned the money from his father and he's repaying it back slowly.
      - Aachen 3y ago
        Oh! I missed that. Weird because I did watch the whole thing actually, didn't expect to when starting
softg 3y ago
> This was typical, to be expected a century ago, but with the nature of marketing and social pressure It might be typical and expected but that doesn't mean it was desirable even then. People lived that way because they had to. It was always considered a difficult way of life. It's more likely that people gave it up as soon as they could when they had the chance. I think there are two different concepts here. You can be materially minimalist, i.e. you can refuse to buy superfluous consumer products that are pushed by marketing etc. You will still need housing, healthcare and transportation (assuming that you have to drive to work). Those things have very real objective benefits and their widespread adoption can't be explained with marketing or social pressure. And you won't be able to get those for 100 dollars a month (correct me if I'm wrong). If you are foregoing those as well you're not just materially minimalist, you're basically going off-grid and abandoning civilization altogether.
- keiferski 3y ago
  You don’t need to go back that far. Even the quality of life circa 1950 would be very inexpensive to have today. But then you have less electronics, toys, clothes, food variety etc. This would cost more than $100 a month today, but it would be dramatically cheaper than the typical modern lifestyle. With remote work, I’m not sure you really need transportation. If you do, a bicycle is $50. But again I’m not sure why you’d be commuting to a job daily in a car if the presumed objective is to have less expenses so you can work less. We could quibble about the exact numbers, but my general point is just that quality of life expectations have increased so much, that if one can somehow "hack" this, living very inexpensively is quite doable – and comparable to how everyone lived not so long ago.
  - softg 3y ago
    The variety of electronics, toys, clothes or food available to an average person has definitely increased and I agree that one can spend less and maybe even work less (depending on what line of work they are in) by avoiding them. That's true. The problem is they are not the big expenses that improve someone's quality of life. Decent housing, health insurance/healthcare, education and transportation are the big spending items for most people, not toys or even phones. Most of the things you mentioned are affordable to almost everyone in the developed world, maybe in an inferior form (like a huawei instead of an apple, h&m instead of gap) but still available. For an average joe who has two kids and has to be at work because most people can't and don't work remotely even today, "hacking" inexpensive living isn't so much about giving up on their huawei phone or h&m clothes. It's more about giving up on having a decent place to live, giving up on their children's education, not being able to commute to work, etc. And that's not quite doable at all.
hkt 3y ago
Interesting that you say that about books - libraries were common (in the UK at least) even before the 1870 education act. It would be a cheap subscription and the subscribers would choose what filled the shelves, often with direction from newspaper reviews or publications from intellectuals of various stripes, eg, the Harvard classics bookshelf. Re: communes, this is a great observation. Again in the UK, there was a lot of growth with these things in the 1970s and they often involved lots of labour saving arrangements like doing work in groups, for the group. Meals are a good example of this, likewise laundry, cleaning etc. Anecdotally I've always found it easier to do most work when others are doing it too. It seems like a nice way to live.
- TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
  It sounds like a nice way to live, as long as it works as it should. But communes usually failed because self-sufficiency is really, really hard. And also because there were political struggles - usually around power, status, and sex. If you live as a couple you only have to deal with each other, and the kids, if there are any. That's often plenty for many people. In a commune you get less stress from shared chores but more from living in a group of differing personalities. It's possible with maturity, but it only takes one Cluster B personality to make it toxic and unworkable.
deleted 3y ago
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lotsofpulp 3y ago
> but with the nature of marketing and social pressure, almost no one is willing to make that kind of sacrifice today. Maybe people prefer having pressurized clean tap water and sewer systems due to something other than marketing and social pressure. I know the women in my life would definitely prefer it compared to my grandmothers who had to travel to get water from the well everyday.
- keiferski 3y ago
  I thought it was obvious that I was referring to consumer goods like clothing and food, not tap water and sewer systems. But alas, if there is any opportunity to misinterpret a comment in the least obvious way possible, someone in the comments will be sure to do so.
  - Larrikin 3y ago
    Did they purposefully misinterpret or was the original comment poorly thought out dismissal of modern life that ignores, very real things like medicine and clean water?
    - keiferski 3y ago
      No, I’m pretty certain it’s just nitpicking and uncharitable interpretations that quibble over irrelevant details and miss the bigger point being made.
      - bigfudge 3y ago
        I think it’s more complicated than that though. Whether a nitpick or not in that comment, the money to sustain modern levels of infrastructure to support, clean, water, sewage, healthcare, et cetera are probably only possible because of the consumer economy more broadly.
      - ryandrake 3y ago
        > No, I’m pretty certain it’s just nitpicking and uncharitable interpretations that quibble over irrelevant details and miss the bigger point being made. Welcome to the Hacker News comment section. I've lost track of how many times I've posted three paragraphs of thoughts and ideas and maybe some nuance, only to have someone leave a drive-by reply of "Ahh, but in paragraph 2, sentence 8, you said 'all' when in reality it's 'most'. Gotcha! Your entire comment is flawed!" I do this too though once in a while, so I guess nobody's perfect.
vivekd 3y ago
Cost of land fertilizer transportation animals etc have gone up to the point that I didn't think that life is possible for 100 a month Consider that If this was possible I could work at McDonald's for two years and then retire to that kind of life. Obviously that's not realistic
- oooyay 3y ago
  Is it possible to make a system that sustains itself? Right now I've got a worm farm going that produces viable compost pretty often, but the Berkely Method would be faster. I have four chickens that produce yards and yards of compost every 3 months and require about a cup of corn a day. You'd need to scale the chicken operation to cover whatever your three month compost needs are and you'd need people to eat or use the eggs relatively quickly. You could produce, dry, and store the corn on site. What am I missing?
  - LeafItAlone 3y ago
    > Is it possible to make a system that sustains itself? Oh, definitely. We are doing it on a universal scale right now. If you meant smaller than that, then what are you restrictions?
    - TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
      We really aren't doing that on any lasting timescale. You can burn your furniture to stay warm, and congratulate yourself on how well you're doing. But it doesn't take long to run out of furniture. The fact that "long" here means less than a century or so doesn't alter that point. It just turns it into a generational problem rather than an immediate personal one. in fact more and more people are being affected by climate damage, food shortages, and pollution with lasting effects. But apparently most of suburbia won't notice until it starts happening there too.
    - oooyay 3y ago
      Right now? Space to grow food. I grow tomatoes, lemons, basil, cucumbers, and strawberries in the basement. Most of that isn't good for chickens or worms, though. I'd need to scale my food production to a bigger variety for the system to feed itself so it does still take some input from me other than sweat equity. The thing I started doing all of this for was renewable compost, though, so at least that goal is met. I also don't give away my yard trash anymore (leaves, clippings). They go into the compost piles and get spread across the yard a few months later. My question moreso centered around fertilizer - why do we keep needing synthetic fertilizer if we can produce renewable compost chains?
eesmith 3y ago
> the QOL of someone that lived in the American West a hundred years ago I don't think you have a good idea of what life was like in the 1920s, even in the American West. Here is what Cheyenne looked like in the 1910s - http://www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/cheyenne1900s.html http://www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/cheyenne1900s.html . People had cars then - and horses. Train service started in 1867. The local library started in 1886 so you could get books for entertainment. You can see in the pictures there was even phone service. Sears was making millions each year as a catalog mail-order company, so even if you lived in the middle of nowhere you could order just about anything for your house - including the house! In their 1920 book they wrote "Sears, Roebuck and Co. supply the needs of more than eight million families." https://archive.org/details/storyofsearsroeb00sear/page/2/mode/2up?q=million https://archive.org/details/storyofsearsroeb00sear/page/2/mo... So, go back another 50 years, to the 1870s of "Little House in the Big Woods". The family had venison, fish, pork, bear meat, squirrel, rabbit, "potatoes and carrots, the beets and turnips and cabbages" from their garden, red peppers, pumpkins, squashes, and yellow cheeses - all in the first chapter. Plus maple sugar, store sugar, honey from the bee tree, berries, pickles, milk from the cows, and made from all of those, "pumpkin pies and dried berry pies and cookies and cakes ... salt-rising bread" https://www.gutenberg.ca/ebooks/wildersewell-woods/wildersewell-woods-01-h-dir/wildersewell-woods-01-h.html https://www.gutenberg.ca/ebooks/wildersewell-woods/wildersew... Rather more than "the same 5-10 things repeatedly".
- campboy 3y ago
  > So, go back another 50 years, to the 1870s of "Little House in the Big Woods". It’s cute for sure but I don’t know if I’d use a novel for children as an accurate portrayal of the median subsistence living experience 150 years ago.
  - tonyedgecombe 3y ago
    Thoreau was talking about the perils of excess consumption in Walden, published in the 1850's.
    - giantrobot 3y ago
throw0101b 3y ago
> It's interesting how quality of life baselines have increased so much in the last century. From John Maynard Keynes, "Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren" (1930): > > Now it is true that the needs of human beings may seem to be insatiable. But they fall into two classes --those needs which are absolute in the sense that we feel them whatever the situation of our fellow human beings may be, and those which are relative in the sense that we feel them only if their satisfaction lifts us above, makes us feel superior to, our fellows. Needs of the second class, those which satisfy the desire for superiority, may indeed be insatiable; for the higher the general level, the higher still are they. But this is not so true of the absolute needs-a point may soon be reached, much sooner perhaps than we are all of us aware of, when these needs are satisfied in the sense that we prefer to devote our further energies to non-economic purposes. * http://www.econ.yale.edu/smith/econ116a/keynes1.pdf http://www.econ.yale.edu/smith/econ116a/keynes1.pdf
- keiferski 3y ago
  Yes, which is why I don’t think any “post-work” society will ever happen on a mass scale. People will invent jobs if they feed a social need.
  - V__ 3y ago
    There was a line in the show Orville which stuck with me. The gist was: In a post scarcity society people started to value other for their compassion and "work ethic". If someone wants to read all day and learn, or be a bartender etc. then that is all the same, only laziness and not pursuing something was looked down upon.
    - sdwr 3y ago
      A post-scarcity society is kind of a present-day reality for people with enough $$$ in the bank (including Seth McFarlene). Maybe that's the attitude he's cultivated. He's certainly no stranger to labors of love - I just found his old-school-crooner-style albums on youtube last week.
bannedbybros 3y ago
[dead]
stetrain 3y ago
I think it comes down to the same reasons people pay insane housing costs to live in major cities rather than buying a $50k house in the rustbelt. The former is often more net profitable due to job prospects, despite the higher cost of living. In addition to non-work amenities like social circles and dating pools. Maybe you can live for $100/mo somewhere, if you can solve the part of actually getting the deed to some land and splitting taxes, cost of basic infrastructure, etc. with enough people. But could you earn an income to support this indefinitely? Would you find satisfying social relationships, friends, a spouse? Perhaps in the American West you could get a job as a farm hand, where they wouldn't care so much whether you showered daily or had presentable modern clothing. Do those jobs still exist? Would they expect you to have your own transportation, rather than the old-fashioned style of providing worker housing? At some point the gears of your life need to mesh at least a little with some other gears around you, unless you have built up a large capital fund by participating in society first and then wish to disappear from it altogether.
- Ancapistani 3y ago
  > Do those jobs still exist? Yes, albeit in a slightly different form. There are still lots of family farms out there, and they need workers of several stripes. Migrant labor for harvesting produce is commonly known, but there’s also a class of jobs out there where you basically act as an “apprentice farmer”. A family we’re close to has a poultry operation. They have around 15 houses (as in “chicken houses”), probably fifty or so acres of hay, and various equipment and infrastructure to support it all. They do well for themselves, but absolutely cannot leave for more than a day at a time, because someone has to be caring for the animals and watching to make sure things don’t break. They own a small home on the property that they don’t use for themselves. Instead, that home is part of the compensation for the “farm hand”. In exchange for doing whatever needs to be done around the farm during the week and coordinating any time away with them (so they can ensure someone is there to cover things), the farm hand gets to live in the house and is paid about $1,500 per month. They also get use of a pickup that belongs to the farm for both personal and professional use. The house isn’t a shack or something either - it’s an older farm house, but it’s a three bedroom, two bath home that was remodeled not long ago and has a half acre or so of yard. It would be a great place to raise a family. They’re having a lot of trouble finding people who they can trust to take that job. In the past couple of years I know they’ve hired three people, none of which lasted very long. The first one did great for a few months but ended up getting drunk and driving a tractor through the side of a chicken house at 2am. They would have been willing to let that go with a warning if it hadn’t ended up costing something like $50k to repair once the cost of the animals that were killed or lost are considered. The second was on heroin, though they didn’t know that at the time. Things went well until about six weeks in - he’d gotten paid at the end of the first month, spent it all on drugs, but had managed to keep that hidden well enough that he wasn’t fired for it. Two weeks later he ran out of money and decided the best way to handle that was to steal equipment and pawn it. Our friend discovered this when he noticed his chainsaw sitting on the shelf at a pawn shop in town. That whole ordeal ended up costing ~$25k. Most of the stolen items were recovered, but the house had been damaged pretty badly. The third one was better, and they thought they’d found a long term employee. Almost a year in, they trusted him to the point that they finally felt comfortable traveling a few hours away for their wedding anniversary. The second night there, they got a call from the neighboring farm - there were “a bunch of cops” at their place. Turns out the guy had an outstanding warrant in another state. They had to cut short their first trip away in years and come home to deal with animals. All of that said - farmers like that don’t see their long-term help as just “employees”. They feel responsible for their welfare, and end up seeing them as part of the family. It’s not at all uncommon for them to inherit substantial land and assets when an older farmer dies, nor is it uncommon for a “farm hand” to end up borrowing money from their employer to start their own farm nearby. The salary isn’t impressive, but you get a large amount of freedom, opportunity to learn an important and difficult to acquire skillset, and a support system. In short… being a “farm hand” these days isn’t easy and you won’t get rich in that position, but it’s not just a job. In a lot of ways, it’s the way you enter the farming community.
actuallyalys 3y ago
Housing co-ops are somewhat in line with what you’re describing but cost more. The home is owned by a not-for-profit entity controlled by its residents. The ones in my area charge around $100 or more per month for food and $200-400 for the room (and most people buy food on top of that), but that’s still cheaper than most people spend and you don’t have to buy extra food. The challenge is that you need money in the first place to purchase the home. I think the reason co-ops don’t aggressively reduce costs like you describe despite being frugal is that having more varied food and clothing, entertainment, and electronics are worth it for most people. I think people would have to give up quite a bit of personal space as well, which I don’t think appeals to many people.
coldtea 3y ago
>But you'd be eating the same 5-10 things repeatedly, wearing the same clothes, have a few books for entertainment, minimal or no electronics, no car, and so on Where do I sign up? I'm already in line with wearing a few of the same clothes, having books for entertainment, no car, and eating the same 5-10 things repeatedly. I still have a few electronics though, but I could make do with just a computer with internet access (don't really need a smartphone) - not even constant one, a few hours per day would be enough. I wouldn't easily give away running water and heating though.
antisthenes 3y ago
> If you wanted to have the QOL of someone that lived in the American West a hundred years ago, it could be done today for probably $100 a month all-inclusive of food, clothing, and shelter. No, not even close. People didn't live in tents without utilities in 1923. And they certainly didn't eat 1/3 of the calories of 2023 humans.

HPsquared 3y ago

You could probably set up a business of "economical retreats"... Live in the old fashion for a week or so. Very low costs to the business owner, and an interesting experience for the patrons. Call it "the simple life". You'd need to arrange things for them to do as well. Edit: perhaps not possible, as most people would lack the skills to e.g. wash clothes or cook manually. Maybe it could have instructors and classes too. All paper and verbal, no devices!

herpdyderp 3y ago
Call it Westworld
bombcar 3y ago
This is called camping.
- HPsquared 3y ago
  Camping is pretty high-tech with all the waterproof materials, preserved foods etc. Amish-style camping would be very different.
cko 3y ago
Eco-tourism combined with glamping business?
jslabovitz 3y ago
For four years, I ran something similar to this: an artist residency, in rural Appalachia. I charged a low fee to folks who came, and kept the experience fairly simple and self-catered. However, it really wasn't sustainable. People who came invariably expected more — whether more infrastructure or more community or more subsidies/scholarships or more politics — and genuinely 'simple' folks were very rare. The fees I charged barely covered utility/transportation costs, and were never enough to cover property taxes, much less paying me even a minimal salary. I could have raised fees, but that would have raised expectations and assumptions, too. Furthermore, all my attempts to obtain professional help were a complete failure — whether getting a CPA/bookeeper (to manage the taxes I was required by the state to collect), an attorney (for making it a legal nonprofit to avoid those taxes), or an insurance broker (for liability insurance because people will sue you). Providers around here looked at my project and just said, 'Meh, I don't understand it. I'm not interested,' or quoted fuck-you prices, like $10K/year for liability! Providers closer to the city might have helped, but for even higher fees. Sure, I could have — and did — do without all those things. But one realizes, the further one is off that branch, the more unstable things become. Our society is built for either individual/family scale, or corporate scale. It's very, very difficult to find a place in between that will work for more than a short time. Try to run a project in the US that is not a business but not just an individual hobby: you'll find few options, outside of established structures like churches. And even those have much bigger budgets and organizations than you might think. Nuthin's easy, son.

kzrdude 3y ago

I think we talk of a housing crisis, but the people who are living stably around me (i.e "not struggling") are living with ample space for themselves or their family. I think many are living in bigger houses and sharing less than ever (no multigenerational homes, less live-in renters and so on). (Sweden) And that each person lives bigger or more alone than before is part of the explanation why even with modest population increases, the need for (new) housing continues.

jasode 3y ago

>I am somewhat surprised that there aren't more cheap-living communes in the US. A few thousand dollars could probably pay the living expenses of a few dozen people – assuming they are all on-board with such a materially minimalist lifestyle. A monastery of nuns or monks is something like that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosed_religious_orders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosed_religious_orders Even though the members live a minimal lifestyle of near-poverty, many monasteries are still not truly financially self-sufficient because their funding comes from an associated church's donations. Amish communities may be an example of lower-cost living while being financially self-sufficient via selling crafts and furniture. (They're even financially independent enough to be exempt from paying and receiving government Social Security money.) It would be interesting to know of other communities that deliberately replicated Amish living (for cost/benefits) without being Amish.

chongli 3y ago
One thing everyone forgets is that the Amish people benefit from police and national defence, like everyone else. Their simple, peaceful life would not be possible if they comprised their own sovereign nation in a region surrounded by hostile actors. With no military of their own, they’d be annexed instantly. This means they aren’t truly independent. They’re dependent in a way they could never afford to pay for themselves. They get by as free riders while everyone else pays for them.
- keiferski 3y ago
  Do they claim to be truly independent? Or just to operate in the way they want to inside the same system as everyone else? The relevant comparison here is to other citizens, not to other states.
  - chongli 3y ago
    I don't think it matters what they claim or don't claim. The way to evaluate the position is to imagine what the US would be like if 100% of its population lived in Amish communities, with an Amish lifestyle and religion+ideology. Yes, this hypothetical country would be peaceful and immune to the (justified) criticism the US receives over its intervention in foreign wars. However, think of all it (and the world) would lose. The rest of NATO would have to invest way more in defence in order to hold off Russia and China. The rest of the world would have to invest a huge amount in R&D for things like medicine and technology. And the only thing keeping this hypothetical "Amish United States" from being invaded are the oceans. It's hard to take these sorts of counterfactuals too far though. On the one hand I might say "then the drug cartels in Mexico could invade the Amish United States and enslave everyone" but then it would also be equally valid to say the cartels would never exist in the first place if it weren't for drug prohibition and the demand for illegal drugs in the US. Still, I don't see how one big Amish nation would defend itself from gangs moving in and stealing everything they've got and enslaving people.

Podgajski 3y ago

I have a very low material quantity of life, but my spiritual quality of life is pretty good even as I live homeless with a disability in a minivan in the United States. Americans are way too materialistic and there needs to be a reckoning of this if anything is going to change. Even people I meet that live in other minivans or RVs want to have every single creature comfort they had when they were living in a house. I decided that in my van I would only carry what I need for the van or things I can easily put in the backpack and walk away with. I definitely use the free places. They list in the Reddit post. At west I always stay on the BLM lands.

coolThingsFirst 3y ago
What's the hardest thing about your life?
- Podgajski 3y ago
  Thanks! I would say the loneliness because of the stigma of both how I live, and my mental illness. Even when I am out on the BLM land with people with other campers the fact that I live in a minivan is looked down upon. And since I have to drive around so much to follow the weather It’s very hard to have long-term meaningful friendships. The other thing is lack of stable healthcare but I am slowly weaning myself off of Western medicine so that has becoming less of a concern. It’s not that I want to live this way, it’s the only solution I have right now unfortunately.
  - ysavir 3y ago
    What do you consider to be the ideal solution?
    - Podgajski 3y ago
      If I had a simple clean studio I would be fine. I am not asking for much, just clean and stable. But even a mess of a studio costs $800 a month which I can’t afford. even if I had a place to park that was stable I wouldn’t mind either. Just something close to a town with food and place to shower, etc.

high_5 3y ago

Here's a guy living quite close to 0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ir3eJ1t13fk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ir3eJ1t13fk Still, he'll have to pay off the land he bought.

dorfsmay 3y ago
I haven't watched the video, but paying off implies owning a title to the land which means paying taxes on it.
- Aachen 3y ago
  The topic of how he got or paid for the land actually doesn't come up in the video. I found the whole thing pretty fascinating though, also in terms of what he believes about us here in Europe (we're not free anymore) or that USA government is moving towards making the Bible illegal, yet also having a lot of beliefs and knowledge that I consider exceptionally good, like not eating meat or animal products. I don't manage the latter myself but it would be the right thing to do and he just does it. Oh, and that his biggest mentioned expense is 90 dollars every month for a landline phone. Holy crap, for that you get 10 gigabit symmetrical around here if you're on the right fiber network, or otherwise the fastest Internet+phone+TV they can offer! Amazing he can make enough money raising horses to pay that bill every month on top of a few smaller expenses like dog food (it totaled up to 140/month, though I expect there's some forgotten/irregular costs). Who else has >50% of their living expenses be a phone contract!
  - high_5 3y ago
    > The topic of how he got or paid for the land actually doesn't come up in the video. It does get mentioned. He loaned the money from his father and he's repaying it back slowly.
    - Aachen 3y ago
      Oh! I missed that. Weird because I did watch the whole thing actually, didn't expect to when starting

softg 3y ago

> This was typical, to be expected a century ago, but with the nature of marketing and social pressure It might be typical and expected but that doesn't mean it was desirable even then. People lived that way because they had to. It was always considered a difficult way of life. It's more likely that people gave it up as soon as they could when they had the chance. I think there are two different concepts here. You can be materially minimalist, i.e. you can refuse to buy superfluous consumer products that are pushed by marketing etc. You will still need housing, healthcare and transportation (assuming that you have to drive to work). Those things have very real objective benefits and their widespread adoption can't be explained with marketing or social pressure. And you won't be able to get those for 100 dollars a month (correct me if I'm wrong). If you are foregoing those as well you're not just materially minimalist, you're basically going off-grid and abandoning civilization altogether.

keiferski 3y ago
You don’t need to go back that far. Even the quality of life circa 1950 would be very inexpensive to have today. But then you have less electronics, toys, clothes, food variety etc. This would cost more than $100 a month today, but it would be dramatically cheaper than the typical modern lifestyle. With remote work, I’m not sure you really need transportation. If you do, a bicycle is $50. But again I’m not sure why you’d be commuting to a job daily in a car if the presumed objective is to have less expenses so you can work less. We could quibble about the exact numbers, but my general point is just that quality of life expectations have increased so much, that if one can somehow "hack" this, living very inexpensively is quite doable – and comparable to how everyone lived not so long ago.
- softg 3y ago
  The variety of electronics, toys, clothes or food available to an average person has definitely increased and I agree that one can spend less and maybe even work less (depending on what line of work they are in) by avoiding them. That's true. The problem is they are not the big expenses that improve someone's quality of life. Decent housing, health insurance/healthcare, education and transportation are the big spending items for most people, not toys or even phones. Most of the things you mentioned are affordable to almost everyone in the developed world, maybe in an inferior form (like a huawei instead of an apple, h&m instead of gap) but still available. For an average joe who has two kids and has to be at work because most people can't and don't work remotely even today, "hacking" inexpensive living isn't so much about giving up on their huawei phone or h&m clothes. It's more about giving up on having a decent place to live, giving up on their children's education, not being able to commute to work, etc. And that's not quite doable at all.

hkt 3y ago

Interesting that you say that about books - libraries were common (in the UK at least) even before the 1870 education act. It would be a cheap subscription and the subscribers would choose what filled the shelves, often with direction from newspaper reviews or publications from intellectuals of various stripes, eg, the Harvard classics bookshelf. Re: communes, this is a great observation. Again in the UK, there was a lot of growth with these things in the 1970s and they often involved lots of labour saving arrangements like doing work in groups, for the group. Meals are a good example of this, likewise laundry, cleaning etc. Anecdotally I've always found it easier to do most work when others are doing it too. It seems like a nice way to live.

TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
It sounds like a nice way to live, as long as it works as it should. But communes usually failed because self-sufficiency is really, really hard. And also because there were political struggles - usually around power, status, and sex. If you live as a couple you only have to deal with each other, and the kids, if there are any. That's often plenty for many people. In a commune you get less stress from shared chores but more from living in a group of differing personalities. It's possible with maturity, but it only takes one Cluster B personality to make it toxic and unworkable.

deleted 3y ago

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lotsofpulp 3y ago

> but with the nature of marketing and social pressure, almost no one is willing to make that kind of sacrifice today. Maybe people prefer having pressurized clean tap water and sewer systems due to something other than marketing and social pressure. I know the women in my life would definitely prefer it compared to my grandmothers who had to travel to get water from the well everyday.

keiferski 3y ago
I thought it was obvious that I was referring to consumer goods like clothing and food, not tap water and sewer systems. But alas, if there is any opportunity to misinterpret a comment in the least obvious way possible, someone in the comments will be sure to do so.
- Larrikin 3y ago
  Did they purposefully misinterpret or was the original comment poorly thought out dismissal of modern life that ignores, very real things like medicine and clean water?
  - keiferski 3y ago
    No, I’m pretty certain it’s just nitpicking and uncharitable interpretations that quibble over irrelevant details and miss the bigger point being made.
    - bigfudge 3y ago
      I think it’s more complicated than that though. Whether a nitpick or not in that comment, the money to sustain modern levels of infrastructure to support, clean, water, sewage, healthcare, et cetera are probably only possible because of the consumer economy more broadly.
    - ryandrake 3y ago
      > No, I’m pretty certain it’s just nitpicking and uncharitable interpretations that quibble over irrelevant details and miss the bigger point being made. Welcome to the Hacker News comment section. I've lost track of how many times I've posted three paragraphs of thoughts and ideas and maybe some nuance, only to have someone leave a drive-by reply of "Ahh, but in paragraph 2, sentence 8, you said 'all' when in reality it's 'most'. Gotcha! Your entire comment is flawed!" I do this too though once in a while, so I guess nobody's perfect.

vivekd 3y ago

Cost of land fertilizer transportation animals etc have gone up to the point that I didn't think that life is possible for 100 a month Consider that If this was possible I could work at McDonald's for two years and then retire to that kind of life. Obviously that's not realistic

oooyay 3y ago
Is it possible to make a system that sustains itself? Right now I've got a worm farm going that produces viable compost pretty often, but the Berkely Method would be faster. I have four chickens that produce yards and yards of compost every 3 months and require about a cup of corn a day. You'd need to scale the chicken operation to cover whatever your three month compost needs are and you'd need people to eat or use the eggs relatively quickly. You could produce, dry, and store the corn on site. What am I missing?
- LeafItAlone 3y ago
  > Is it possible to make a system that sustains itself? Oh, definitely. We are doing it on a universal scale right now. If you meant smaller than that, then what are you restrictions?
  - TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
    We really aren't doing that on any lasting timescale. You can burn your furniture to stay warm, and congratulate yourself on how well you're doing. But it doesn't take long to run out of furniture. The fact that "long" here means less than a century or so doesn't alter that point. It just turns it into a generational problem rather than an immediate personal one. in fact more and more people are being affected by climate damage, food shortages, and pollution with lasting effects. But apparently most of suburbia won't notice until it starts happening there too.
  - oooyay 3y ago
    Right now? Space to grow food. I grow tomatoes, lemons, basil, cucumbers, and strawberries in the basement. Most of that isn't good for chickens or worms, though. I'd need to scale my food production to a bigger variety for the system to feed itself so it does still take some input from me other than sweat equity. The thing I started doing all of this for was renewable compost, though, so at least that goal is met. I also don't give away my yard trash anymore (leaves, clippings). They go into the compost piles and get spread across the yard a few months later. My question moreso centered around fertilizer - why do we keep needing synthetic fertilizer if we can produce renewable compost chains?

eesmith 3y ago

> the QOL of someone that lived in the American West a hundred years ago I don't think you have a good idea of what life was like in the 1920s, even in the American West. Here is what Cheyenne looked like in the 1910s - http://www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/cheyenne1900s.html http://www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/cheyenne1900s.html . People had cars then - and horses. Train service started in 1867. The local library started in 1886 so you could get books for entertainment. You can see in the pictures there was even phone service. Sears was making millions each year as a catalog mail-order company, so even if you lived in the middle of nowhere you could order just about anything for your house - including the house! In their 1920 book they wrote "Sears, Roebuck and Co. supply the needs of more than eight million families." https://archive.org/details/storyofsearsroeb00sear/page/2/mode/2up?q=million https://archive.org/details/storyofsearsroeb00sear/page/2/mo... So, go back another 50 years, to the 1870s of "Little House in the Big Woods". The family had venison, fish, pork, bear meat, squirrel, rabbit, "potatoes and carrots, the beets and turnips and cabbages" from their garden, red peppers, pumpkins, squashes, and yellow cheeses - all in the first chapter. Plus maple sugar, store sugar, honey from the bee tree, berries, pickles, milk from the cows, and made from all of those, "pumpkin pies and dried berry pies and cookies and cakes ... salt-rising bread" https://www.gutenberg.ca/ebooks/wildersewell-woods/wildersewell-woods-01-h-dir/wildersewell-woods-01-h.html https://www.gutenberg.ca/ebooks/wildersewell-woods/wildersew... Rather more than "the same 5-10 things repeatedly".

campboy 3y ago
> So, go back another 50 years, to the 1870s of "Little House in the Big Woods". It’s cute for sure but I don’t know if I’d use a novel for children as an accurate portrayal of the median subsistence living experience 150 years ago.
- tonyedgecombe 3y ago
  Thoreau was talking about the perils of excess consumption in Walden, published in the 1850's.
  - giantrobot 3y ago

throw0101b 3y ago

> It's interesting how quality of life baselines have increased so much in the last century. From John Maynard Keynes, "Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren" (1930): > > Now it is true that the needs of human beings may seem to be insatiable. But they fall into two classes --those needs which are absolute in the sense that we feel them whatever the situation of our fellow human beings may be, and those which are relative in the sense that we feel them only if their satisfaction lifts us above, makes us feel superior to, our fellows. Needs of the second class, those which satisfy the desire for superiority, may indeed be insatiable; for the higher the general level, the higher still are they. But this is not so true of the absolute needs-a point may soon be reached, much sooner perhaps than we are all of us aware of, when these needs are satisfied in the sense that we prefer to devote our further energies to non-economic purposes. * http://www.econ.yale.edu/smith/econ116a/keynes1.pdf http://www.econ.yale.edu/smith/econ116a/keynes1.pdf

keiferski 3y ago
Yes, which is why I don’t think any “post-work” society will ever happen on a mass scale. People will invent jobs if they feed a social need.
- V__ 3y ago
  There was a line in the show Orville which stuck with me. The gist was: In a post scarcity society people started to value other for their compassion and "work ethic". If someone wants to read all day and learn, or be a bartender etc. then that is all the same, only laziness and not pursuing something was looked down upon.
  - sdwr 3y ago
    A post-scarcity society is kind of a present-day reality for people with enough $$$ in the bank (including Seth McFarlene). Maybe that's the attitude he's cultivated. He's certainly no stranger to labors of love - I just found his old-school-crooner-style albums on youtube last week.

bannedbybros 3y ago

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stetrain 3y ago

I think it comes down to the same reasons people pay insane housing costs to live in major cities rather than buying a $50k house in the rustbelt. The former is often more net profitable due to job prospects, despite the higher cost of living. In addition to non-work amenities like social circles and dating pools. Maybe you can live for $100/mo somewhere, if you can solve the part of actually getting the deed to some land and splitting taxes, cost of basic infrastructure, etc. with enough people. But could you earn an income to support this indefinitely? Would you find satisfying social relationships, friends, a spouse? Perhaps in the American West you could get a job as a farm hand, where they wouldn't care so much whether you showered daily or had presentable modern clothing. Do those jobs still exist? Would they expect you to have your own transportation, rather than the old-fashioned style of providing worker housing? At some point the gears of your life need to mesh at least a little with some other gears around you, unless you have built up a large capital fund by participating in society first and then wish to disappear from it altogether.

Ancapistani 3y ago
> Do those jobs still exist? Yes, albeit in a slightly different form. There are still lots of family farms out there, and they need workers of several stripes. Migrant labor for harvesting produce is commonly known, but there’s also a class of jobs out there where you basically act as an “apprentice farmer”. A family we’re close to has a poultry operation. They have around 15 houses (as in “chicken houses”), probably fifty or so acres of hay, and various equipment and infrastructure to support it all. They do well for themselves, but absolutely cannot leave for more than a day at a time, because someone has to be caring for the animals and watching to make sure things don’t break. They own a small home on the property that they don’t use for themselves. Instead, that home is part of the compensation for the “farm hand”. In exchange for doing whatever needs to be done around the farm during the week and coordinating any time away with them (so they can ensure someone is there to cover things), the farm hand gets to live in the house and is paid about $1,500 per month. They also get use of a pickup that belongs to the farm for both personal and professional use. The house isn’t a shack or something either - it’s an older farm house, but it’s a three bedroom, two bath home that was remodeled not long ago and has a half acre or so of yard. It would be a great place to raise a family. They’re having a lot of trouble finding people who they can trust to take that job. In the past couple of years I know they’ve hired three people, none of which lasted very long. The first one did great for a few months but ended up getting drunk and driving a tractor through the side of a chicken house at 2am. They would have been willing to let that go with a warning if it hadn’t ended up costing something like $50k to repair once the cost of the animals that were killed or lost are considered. The second was on heroin, though they didn’t know that at the time. Things went well until about six weeks in - he’d gotten paid at the end of the first month, spent it all on drugs, but had managed to keep that hidden well enough that he wasn’t fired for it. Two weeks later he ran out of money and decided the best way to handle that was to steal equipment and pawn it. Our friend discovered this when he noticed his chainsaw sitting on the shelf at a pawn shop in town. That whole ordeal ended up costing ~$25k. Most of the stolen items were recovered, but the house had been damaged pretty badly. The third one was better, and they thought they’d found a long term employee. Almost a year in, they trusted him to the point that they finally felt comfortable traveling a few hours away for their wedding anniversary. The second night there, they got a call from the neighboring farm - there were “a bunch of cops” at their place. Turns out the guy had an outstanding warrant in another state. They had to cut short their first trip away in years and come home to deal with animals. All of that said - farmers like that don’t see their long-term help as just “employees”. They feel responsible for their welfare, and end up seeing them as part of the family. It’s not at all uncommon for them to inherit substantial land and assets when an older farmer dies, nor is it uncommon for a “farm hand” to end up borrowing money from their employer to start their own farm nearby. The salary isn’t impressive, but you get a large amount of freedom, opportunity to learn an important and difficult to acquire skillset, and a support system. In short… being a “farm hand” these days isn’t easy and you won’t get rich in that position, but it’s not just a job. In a lot of ways, it’s the way you enter the farming community.

actuallyalys 3y ago

Housing co-ops are somewhat in line with what you’re describing but cost more. The home is owned by a not-for-profit entity controlled by its residents. The ones in my area charge around $100 or more per month for food and $200-400 for the room (and most people buy food on top of that), but that’s still cheaper than most people spend and you don’t have to buy extra food. The challenge is that you need money in the first place to purchase the home. I think the reason co-ops don’t aggressively reduce costs like you describe despite being frugal is that having more varied food and clothing, entertainment, and electronics are worth it for most people. I think people would have to give up quite a bit of personal space as well, which I don’t think appeals to many people.

coldtea 3y ago

>But you'd be eating the same 5-10 things repeatedly, wearing the same clothes, have a few books for entertainment, minimal or no electronics, no car, and so on Where do I sign up? I'm already in line with wearing a few of the same clothes, having books for entertainment, no car, and eating the same 5-10 things repeatedly. I still have a few electronics though, but I could make do with just a computer with internet access (don't really need a smartphone) - not even constant one, a few hours per day would be enough. I wouldn't easily give away running water and heating though.

antisthenes 3y ago

> If you wanted to have the QOL of someone that lived in the American West a hundred years ago, it could be done today for probably $100 a month all-inclusive of food, clothing, and shelter. No, not even close. People didn't live in tents without utilities in 1923. And they certainly didn't eat 1/3 of the calories of 2023 humans.