9 ms·

How to Drop Out

125 points by gnosis 17y ago

gsteph22 17y ago
This is actually quite salient advice. There's so many blogs that just say, "OMG do it!". You need to be rational and have a plan.
cma 17y ago
How Not to Drop Out: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=917395 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=917395
- peterwwillis 17y ago
  I did something like this. Living as a homeless person is probably the biggest perception change you can have without drugs.
talkingtiki 17y ago
Ugh, this nonsense again?
- davi 17y ago
  Better criticism (or link thereto) please.
  - tjpick 17y ago
    ugh, this stick-it-to-the-man, non-conformist, I'm-special, anti-progress, touchy-feely, the-whole-world-is-wrong nonsense again?
    - davi 17y ago
      Upmodded despite disagreeing with you. At least now we get some idea about what your problem with the article is.
      - JeremyStein 17y ago
        Are you assuming that talkingtiki agrees with tjpick?
        davi 17y ago
        Whoops, you're right, I missed the username change while monitoring via the 'threads' link.
        Tichy 17y ago
        To be fair, their usernames look vaguely similar :-)
    - abefortas 17y ago
      I don't understand. Have you actually read it? Where does he say anything about sticking it to the man, touching and feeling, or being special? I assume you think progress is good and the world is right, but you haven't explained why. You're being very dismissive.
tptacek 17y ago
A "dirty" environment strengthens the immune system, and if I were a toddler again, I'd much rather live in a cool abandoned house or junkyard or shack in the woods than in a sterile room with a television where I wasn't allowed to touch anything. Douche.
- zackattack 17y ago
  Reference the character "Cameron" from Ferris Beuller's Day Off. I don't want to whine, or I'd chime in with my own experiences.
  - tptacek 17y ago
    You're a douche if you write an essay seriously advocating for raising children "outside the system" in a junkyard. That's all.
    - dunstad 17y ago
      He didn't advocate raising kids in a junkyard, he said he'd find a junkyard preferable to a clean prison with a TV. He never said either was a desirable scenario. "I'd love to have a couple kids, but I won't do it without a physical location that's owned and paid for, and without someone besides myself to help out the mother, and without the means to dodge the institutions, whether through excellent legal help or through the institutions breaking down." If you're going to namecall, at least do it based on fact.
      - tptacek 17y ago
        You're purposely misreading him, and you managed to misquote a passage that I actually quoted in this very thread --- he never said "prison". He's envisioning "dodging the authorities" because they demand that he provide medical care, secure shelter, and education. He'd love to have a couple kids and raise them in a junkyard. He can't, because it's illegal to do so. So, because he doesn't have the wherewithal to handle the institutional friction involved in raising children as crypto-homeless vagabonds, he won't do it. What a prince.
azanar 17y ago
I honestly an unable to take this author very seriously, in spite of a few insightful nuggets he has within his article. The minimalistic approach he takes is one I follow to a degree myself, but for radically different reasons than he does. I've found that having extraneous things don't make me any happier. Actively rejecting them as part of a radical lifestyle doesn't make me happier either. I am happy because I don't notice them missing, because I don't need them and don't have anyone around reminding me that I should or shouldn't. The reason I define his lifestyle as radical is because of this. "I hate civilization as much as anyone, but in these last few years before it crashes, we should appreciate and use what it offers." Civilization is not going to fail any more than every time prior where it was purportedly on the brink. If you are using this as an excuse for anything, please stop now. You are actively contributing to problems that, if civilization could fail, might cause it to do so. As romantic of a notion as this might be, it will suck beyond belief if it actually happens. The other notion, that somehow our economy must either be Utopian or negatively-amortizing itself into oblivion, is stated as truth with nothing more than sneering toward idiots, elites, and robber barons as the perpetrators. I normally try to be more cool-headed than this, but this claim is bullshit. There are other options, and given incentives and perspective, people will pursue them. And the incentives are there, for them and everyone else, if people would knock off all of these various scorched earth policies. The perspective this author offers will keep them from pursuing those options, if people listen to him. I want to liken him to a reader of tea leaves, who's motives may not be less than wholesome; is the tasseographer offering a vision into your future, or are they merely attempting to influence your frame of mind for their own benefit? It is that frame of mind which determines whether or not you think doing hard work that you love for money is possible or desirable. I think it is possible; I've seen people do it. The author would like me to believe these people are living a lie, and are probably depressed and putting on an fake image for me. I wonder if he believes any of the depressed people are faking it? As to whether it is desirable, this depends on one's frame of mind. Do you believe that a difficult problem you solve today will matter tomorrow? Do you believe that, if someone pays you to solve that difficult problem, it will matter less than one you solved for free? Do you believe that your work will benefit both yourself and society in some tangible and sustainable way? Do you believe that some impending catastrophe will render all of your work irrelevant? How much of this is passive believe, and how much of what you believe dictates your actions and the influence you have over the eventual outcome? This really comes down to frame of mind, which seem more and more like matters of faith. You might think civilization sucks; you might think money sucks; you might think doing anything but the bare minimum amount of work to survive another day sucks. I would disagree with all of these claims, but how would I have a reasonable discussion about this? How do you change someone's frame of mind when the validation they've been seeking for years might finally come to pass tomorrow? In a way, I think the first step is realizing that our frames of mind are not without consequence.
nzmsv 17y ago
His advice makes sense, but only if you believe what he believes, namely that it's ok to mooch off others, and call that "dropping out". Now, the article explicitly bashes self-sufficiency, so I guess it's just a matter of which viewpoint you subscribe to.
- stcredzero 17y ago
  So long as you can fit into the economic order without stealing or vandalizing or otherwise being a nuisance, you are not a "mooch" in my book. I think that any viable theory of "dropping out" will take market forces into account. I find that this article does some of that, though it seems to me that it doesn't go far enough. (In particular, he notes that trying to do what you love resulting in doing what you no longer love. Market forces can explain this one quite handily!)
  - nzmsv 17y ago
    I'd argue that saying "I'm free" and then continuing with "I've been doing lots of house-sitting" and "find a partner who will support you" isn't exactly something to be proud of.
    - stcredzero 17y ago
      I had a friend who did a lot of house sitting before moving to Atlanta to make her living off of Bellydance instruction/performance. (And in contradiction to the article, she is doing her dream job, without compromise to her art. In fact, stylistic purity is one of the hallmarks of her "brand.") Also, "find a partner who will support you," is exactly what my mom did. Being a homemaker and mother is a legitimate full time job, one which our society should highly prize. Anyone who says otherwise is inattentive or hasn't really thought things through.
      - randallsquared 17y ago
        Being a homemaker and mother is a legitimate full time job ...and therefore not "dropping out", right?
enjo 17y ago
shrugs Call me old-fashioned, but I see work as the ultimate form of decency.
- stingraycharles 17y ago
  Call me old-fashioned, but I see work as the ultimate form of decency. Why ?
  - aaronblohowiak 17y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_work_ethic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_work_ethic
    - zmoney 17y ago
      A strong work ethic may make a lot of sense if you're primarily working for yourself and your family. The author of the How To Drop Out document seems to be more concerned with the great majority of the public who slaves away to make ends meet while the boss gets richer (often, obscenely richer) -- which is of course inherent in the capitalist system. I would argue that a work ethic under these conditions is not decent at all, and looking at the big picture may even be immoral because the worker is not rewarded proportionally to their work.
    - rikthevik 17y ago
      It's funny the biases you grow up with that you're oblivious to. My family is Danish by background and in my household it was always understood that you had a job. Not paying your way or pulling your weight is the worst thing you can do in my family and I inherited it. I mean, even when I'm on company time I feel guilty spending their money on business expenses. Needless to say, I'm working hard to get over that feeling. :)
    - dschobel 17y ago
      That does explain a lot. I had a coworker at my last job who was appalled that I could quit and not have other work lined up (I just went and bummed around Zurich for the summer). This guy was in his late 30's, single, had a low-level IT job and plainly said that the only reason he gets out of bed in the morning is to come to work (a job which he bitched about endlessly). I could never understand the psychology of it.
notauser 17y ago
I rather liked this bit: "If you require a motivational writer or speaker to live differently, then as soon as that external energy shot wears off, you will fizzle and burn out. But if everyone is trying to discourage you from doing something, and you do it anyway, then you have the internal motivation to persist and succeed." This probably applies to start ups too. Starting up on my own has been 1% partying at cool start up events and 99% quietly getting on with stuff that needs to be done. This is not exactly how it is sold to people - one great idea, 15 minutes of hacking to a suitably cool soundtrack, then off to the nightclub to flagrantly spend the IPO money. Possibly you might have to suffer a back alley chase or two with agents dispatched from the Yamicroogle offices to steal your technology, but that's about the extent of the sacrifice. The 1% is fun! But if you aren't the kind of person who also enjoys the other 99% I don't know how you would cope.
- zackattack 17y ago
  Can you break down how you spend the other 99% please? Into percentage brackets, please? Thank you so much, it would be very insightful.
  - notauser 17y ago
    http://theplanis.com/blog/preview/10/ http://theplanis.com/blog/preview/10/ might be of interest. The technical work is about 50% working on new features and 50% tracking down customer issues. The non-technical stuff is a mix of blogging, twitter, going to events, public speaking, e-mailing prospects, calling people, customer support and enterprise sales ground work. The percentages vary wildly depending on what is going on at the time.
xsmasher 17y ago
I remember staring at the computer screen--light green letters on dark--then at the clock, and finally at my outstretched fingers held a foot in front of my face. And then it dawned on me: selling the hours of my life was no different from selling my fingers one by one. We've only so many hours, so many fingers; when they're gone, they're gone for good. - Derrick Jensen
RyanMcGreal 17y ago
> Get the most low-stress source of income that you can find, and then do exactly what you love for free. That's what I do.
- qubit 17y ago
  What type of low-stress work do you do? I am currently looking for a similar situation.
  - RyanMcGreal 17y ago
    Programmer for a large corporation - interesting work, steady hours, reasonable job security. My place of employment is a ten minute bike ride from home, so my commute is short and pleasant. I also don't have TV cable or satellite. Because I don't spend a lot of time commuting or staring at a one-way communications channel, I have more time to spend on the things I enjoy.
- Tichy 17y ago
  The thought occurred to me at times, but I must admit, I would also feel a bit bad about it. It was OK when I was a student, and I wish I had taken on more cool jobs (if only to work as a waiter and get to know people). But know I feel bad for the people who don't have the education I have. I have the possibility to get a high paying IT job - they don't, and rely on the "normal" jobs. I don't want to take it away from them. Though I admit I am undecided, sometimes I feel like whatever, just do what I need.
  - eru 17y ago
    You can't take away jobs (in the big picture and long run).
    - Tichy 17y ago
      Why not? Unless you assume an infinite supply of skilled IT workers - and granted why not. But if there is a shortage of IT workers, but not of waiters, and I choose to work as a waiter instead of in IT, another waiter is out of luck?
lsc 17y ago
personally, I disagree with point 5. I think is is possible to separate the bullshit surrounding work for your love of creating the things you create. I spent five years pouring all the money I got from being a SysAdmin into my hosting business. The business is ramen profitable now, and growing quickly. Key, I think, is to separate yourself from the company you work for. think of it as being a contractor. "I'm giving you the best advice I can. If you don't take it, well, I've still done my job" and "I will work for you as long as the money is worth my time. I understand that the opposite also applies, and I don't take it personally if an employer feels they can do better." (then, you also need to deal with personal failure, but that is true even after you become independent. Though, personally, I find it is easier to say "oh, you didn't like my services? here's a full refund" now that I'm a product company and the things I'm selling are not as limited as my hours. Not giving people refunds when I personally fucked up was one of the things I liked least about selling my hours. But it is just very difficult to do so.)
hegemonicon 17y ago
I didn't read the whole thing, so correct this if it's wrong but... He hasn't dropped out at all - he's just found a way to live within the system such that he can take from it without giving back. He benefits enormously from the very system he denigrates. If anything that's a statement of how amazing our society is, that it's successful enough that people can live largely off its freebies and its waste products. I'm sure for some peope society is awful and living away from it really is the very best option. But society wasn't foisted on us without our consent. At one point we were ALL living off the land - and we didn't like it. So we built civilization.
- gnosis 17y ago
  "he's just found a way to live within the system such that he can take from it without giving back" is a very poor summary of a complex article rich with ideas and insight. You should read the whole thing. Also see his page of criticism and response: http://ranprieur.com/essays/dropoutcrit.html http://ranprieur.com/essays/dropoutcrit.html
  - nzmsv 17y ago
    His response to the criticism is not very well thought out, but takes an amazingly popular viewpoint. Namely, that life used to be so much better in the "olden days". Just because believing this makes many people feel warm and fuzzy on the inside does not make it true. Here's a list: - All problems in Africa are caused by "development" Oh really? Spread of AIDS because people think having sex with a virgin will cure them, and kids dying of diarrhea too? - Before the 20th century people lived off the land, and all was good Actually, people lived like this in the 20th century too. And many live like that now. In fact, my grandparents did. They and all the kids had to work very, very hard to feed themselves. If this guy thinks farm labour is an easy occupation, it's only because his idea of where food comes from is the dumpster behind a grocery store.
    - camccann 17y ago
      Some people would argue that in the long term, psychologically speaking, hard labor to scrape a mostly independent living in a "direct" fashion (e.g. subsistence farming) feels more intrinsically rewarding than comparatively easy work with no obvious impact in an authoritarian hierarchy (e.g., generic corporate desk job). People in general are usually pretty terrible at making choices that would improve their happiness. So even though almost anyone would pick modern life in the USA if given the choice, it's entirely possible that people in the bad old days actually were more satisfied with their lives on average. Well, except for possibly when they were dying in childbirth, starving in famines, succumbing to infectious diseases, or enduring other temporarily unpleasant states of affairs, anyway. Actually, the idea "being happier working very hard in hopes to make a living, producing something tangible without being subject to arbitrary authority" sounds a lot like the startup mindset as well.
zmoney 17y ago
I think this is super-interesting, not because I have any real desire to couch surf (or squat in an abandoned building), but because it gives more perspective on the scope of what's possible. Personally, I'm working 60hrs/week at a job that pays very well but the commute and hours suck up all of my energy and is filled with people that suck even more. I don't see myself becoming a dumpster-diver, but what I really want is employment that occupies a limited space in my life -- and still pays the bills. So this piece is inspiring in that it shows that you can create the life you want, if you're willing to do things differently and take risks.
rikthevik 17y ago
...For very young people there are also two universes. Squatting over a tub of warm water is a much cheaper and healthier way to give birth than lying on your back in a harsh hospital room where the high priest will take the infant away from the mother to teach it alienation... Arghhh. Having children is _not easy_. There's a reason we still say "Mom and baby are healthy and happy." For a long time we lost one or both pretty regularly. I don't agree with all aspects of western society, but clean hospitals and infant intensive care units are most of the reason infant mortality has dropped.
- zackattack 17y ago
  That's actually not true. Better doctor hygiene practices is most of the reason infant mortality has dropped.
  - ianferrel 17y ago
    I'm pretty sure that's what he meant by "clean hospitals".
    - burnsobright1 17y ago
      but can be achieved in the home with a hygenic midwife and surroundings
- cpr 17y ago
  Childbirth is not _easy_, but it's certainly a normal part of life, and treating it like a sickness, requiring hospitalization, is perverse. We had the last 4 of our 8 at home, with, yes, one close call, but with a competent midwife, that's par for the course.
  - philwelch 17y ago
    Childbirth isn't done in hospitals because it's a sickness, it's done in hospitals in case an emergency happens. I couldn't have been born at home--my mother would have to have been whisked away to a hospital for a c-section anyway. The fact that she was already in the hospital and attended to by an obstetrician made that process considerably safer and more reliable.
chrislloyd 17y ago
I'd prefer the term "simplist" rather than "dropout". I think it further emphasises that it's a gradual, not a radical, change of dependance on the world.
moron4hire 17y ago
He falls into a number of fundamental paradoxes in his reasoning. He asserts that profit is evil, which is essentially saying that time spent procuring resources is not a cost that can be recuperated through monetary compensation. He almost even comes out and says time isn't a cost when he says he'd think it evil to sell something he found while dumpster diving, "how can you sell something you get for free?". He didn't get it for free, he got it through the time effort of dumpster diving, a recurring cost that has a random (though apparently positive) payoff. Yet his entire motivation for "dropping out" is to use his time as he sees fit, because it is the most precious thing to him. He asserts that trade requires someone to be "the sucker", yet he justifies his couch surfing by offering his friends services instead of money. Trade fundamentally requires that both parties agree that the trade action is advantageous to both of them; total value increases for both parties, separately and combined. He is absolutely engaged in a purely capitalistic system of free trade, completely unfettered by the dead-weight loss of tax systems, and does nothing but deride the one economic system that dragged the human race out of abject poverty.
- zenocon 17y ago
  nail on head. he should read Murray Rothbard's paper, "What Has Government Done to Our Money?" http://mises.org/money.asp http://mises.org/money.asp
- modeless 17y ago
  I think he's deluding himself. The way he lives off of thrown-out food, secondhand clothes, and couch-surfing his friends and family means he's just as dependent on the system he despises as any "wage slave". He's not living free from the influence of money; he's just found ways to use other people's money to his advantage. I would love to see his reaction to a society that had collapsed in the way he predicts. What would he do without "wage slaves" around to throw away food, give away clothes, and let bums sleep in their houses?
  - burnsobright1 17y ago
    He has ten acres in Eastern Washington that he has an orchard on and is planning on building a cabin on. If/when the society collapses, there won't be any shortage of clothes, he could always just walk into a department store and take some, because no one owns them anymore.
fuzzmeister 17y ago
"Here's a test: when Thoreau was living at Walden Pond, he would often go into town for dinners with his family." As an aside, its amusing how many people come to Concord and are stunned to learn that Walden Pond is only a little over a mile from the center of town - not exactly the middle of nowhere.
- LogicHoleFlaw 17y ago
  I think anywhere can be the middle of nowhere, if you put your mind to it.
Mz 17y ago
I find stuff like this interesting to read but also a bit sad. Rebelling by doing the "opposite" of something is a poor substitute for real choice because you are still defined by the thing you reject. Generally speaking, I prefer pursuing "the third option" (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TakeAThirdOption http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TakeAThirdOption). I do currently live without a car and I'm happier this way. But, having spent many years as a homemaker, I don't think there is some inherent virtue in not having money of one's own or an income. I did get to live for many years in a way that taught me inherent value over "price". Lots of people these days seem to equate placing a dollar amount on something with real value, but it's not the same thing. Perhaps that is a mental model this individual was struggling with when the original essay was written. He does indicate he has since bought land. Presumably his thinking has evolved over time and he might not say the same things now that he said when this was written. Maybe he has found his own third option now, one where his idea of "freedom" involves more real choice rather than reactionary rejection of money.
sown 17y ago
One one hand it is still part of the system he dislikes. He takes what he can and doesn't "give" anything back. Some might call him a moocher. The idea of profit as inherently evil seems like saying atomic power is also such. On the other, I can understand that one shouldn't feel grateful towards a system that feels unfair or is somehow harmful. I'm at work today and as I watch this cluster flux-up in progress I sometimes wonder what am I doing with myself? Are all jobs like this? Do they at least start out not like this? It's an insult to me and my co workers (we need to write less bugs, people) and even some of my managers but this is the way the project is put together by outside forces. It'll probably fail anyways but has a higher chance of doing so if we rush rush rush. And I'll get laid off anyways, no matter how much or little I work at it.
- ido 17y ago
  Get another job if you can.
techwriter1 17y ago
Having read Ran for many years, I can tell you that he is definitely "giving back" by sharing with his readers and the world his thoughts and himself in a most honest and kind way while living according to his principles. Yes his ideas are provocative, and I wish more of us were able to critique our own thinking, our own group-think, and our own society as he does. He reminds us constantly how our willingness and need to identify--our allegances--become an easy way for us to stop thinking for ourselves. It takes real work to maintain a remove from the propoganda around us, to be able to see it for what it is, and act against it by helping others to open their minds a little (or a lot). A couple of you have noticed his "Land Blog." See how he uses his land project as a laboratory for his own thinking, and to test the concepts that so many people are only talking about yet seem to have such strong opinions on while never having actually DONE anything like that. It might also interest some of you to know that he used to accept donations, but lately due to having come into a small amount of money, discourages them. Though he has manners and will accept a gift graciously. It is clear that so many of the commenters here work quite dilligently to defend their own closely held beliefs and ways of living, while trying to find faults with alternative ideas that are not THAT far removed from your own. What is the threat you perceive? That maybe some of the life choices you have made and the belief systems you have invested in may have been a wrong turn, a dead-end, or at least not the ones that create joy and happiness? Rigidity of thinking is widespread, and some of the most rigid minds I've encountered are those that consider themselves far-left new-agers! (though I don't mean to suggest that describes the posters here).
joss82 17y ago
From the article's "criticism and response" page : Q:What you're suggesting is parasitism. A:Industrial civilization is parasitic, because it takes more from its environment than it gives back, and if we remove ourselves from roles that feed that behavior, we are anti-parasites. That does not make sense. If he is parasiting a parasite, he is still a parasite. He's not causing sufficient harm to destroy society, but still he profits from it, by diving into dumpsters.
- normative 17y ago
  Parasitism causes a reduction in fitness to the host, if anything most of these strategies would be better defined as commensal, i.e. beneficial to the fitness of the symbiont but having no positive or negative effect on the host.

125 points by gnosis 17y ago

This is actually quite salient advice. There's so many blogs that just say, "OMG do it!". You need to be rational and have a plan.

cma 17y ago

How Not to Drop Out: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=917395 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=917395

peterwwillis 17y ago
I did something like this. Living as a homeless person is probably the biggest perception change you can have without drugs.

talkingtiki 17y ago

Ugh, this nonsense again?

davi 17y ago
Better criticism (or link thereto) please.
- tjpick 17y ago
  ugh, this stick-it-to-the-man, non-conformist, I'm-special, anti-progress, touchy-feely, the-whole-world-is-wrong nonsense again?
  - davi 17y ago
    Upmodded despite disagreeing with you. At least now we get some idea about what your problem with the article is.
    - JeremyStein 17y ago
      Are you assuming that talkingtiki agrees with tjpick?
      - davi 17y ago
        Whoops, you're right, I missed the username change while monitoring via the 'threads' link.
        Tichy 17y ago
        To be fair, their usernames look vaguely similar :-)
  - abefortas 17y ago
    I don't understand. Have you actually read it? Where does he say anything about sticking it to the man, touching and feeling, or being special? I assume you think progress is good and the world is right, but you haven't explained why. You're being very dismissive.

tptacek 17y ago

A "dirty" environment strengthens the immune system, and if I were a toddler again, I'd much rather live in a cool abandoned house or junkyard or shack in the woods than in a sterile room with a television where I wasn't allowed to touch anything. Douche.

zackattack 17y ago
Reference the character "Cameron" from Ferris Beuller's Day Off. I don't want to whine, or I'd chime in with my own experiences.
- tptacek 17y ago
  You're a douche if you write an essay seriously advocating for raising children "outside the system" in a junkyard. That's all.
  - dunstad 17y ago
    He didn't advocate raising kids in a junkyard, he said he'd find a junkyard preferable to a clean prison with a TV. He never said either was a desirable scenario. "I'd love to have a couple kids, but I won't do it without a physical location that's owned and paid for, and without someone besides myself to help out the mother, and without the means to dodge the institutions, whether through excellent legal help or through the institutions breaking down." If you're going to namecall, at least do it based on fact.
    - tptacek 17y ago
      You're purposely misreading him, and you managed to misquote a passage that I actually quoted in this very thread --- he never said "prison". He's envisioning "dodging the authorities" because they demand that he provide medical care, secure shelter, and education. He'd love to have a couple kids and raise them in a junkyard. He can't, because it's illegal to do so. So, because he doesn't have the wherewithal to handle the institutional friction involved in raising children as crypto-homeless vagabonds, he won't do it. What a prince.

azanar 17y ago

I honestly an unable to take this author very seriously, in spite of a few insightful nuggets he has within his article. The minimalistic approach he takes is one I follow to a degree myself, but for radically different reasons than he does. I've found that having extraneous things don't make me any happier. Actively rejecting them as part of a radical lifestyle doesn't make me happier either. I am happy because I don't notice them missing, because I don't need them and don't have anyone around reminding me that I should or shouldn't. The reason I define his lifestyle as radical is because of this. "I hate civilization as much as anyone, but in these last few years before it crashes, we should appreciate and use what it offers." Civilization is not going to fail any more than every time prior where it was purportedly on the brink. If you are using this as an excuse for anything, please stop now. You are actively contributing to problems that, if civilization could fail, might cause it to do so. As romantic of a notion as this might be, it will suck beyond belief if it actually happens. The other notion, that somehow our economy must either be Utopian or negatively-amortizing itself into oblivion, is stated as truth with nothing more than sneering toward idiots, elites, and robber barons as the perpetrators. I normally try to be more cool-headed than this, but this claim is bullshit. There are other options, and given incentives and perspective, people will pursue them. And the incentives are there, for them and everyone else, if people would knock off all of these various scorched earth policies. The perspective this author offers will keep them from pursuing those options, if people listen to him. I want to liken him to a reader of tea leaves, who's motives may not be less than wholesome; is the tasseographer offering a vision into your future, or are they merely attempting to influence your frame of mind for their own benefit? It is that frame of mind which determines whether or not you think doing hard work that you love for money is possible or desirable. I think it is possible; I've seen people do it. The author would like me to believe these people are living a lie, and are probably depressed and putting on an fake image for me. I wonder if he believes any of the depressed people are faking it? As to whether it is desirable, this depends on one's frame of mind. Do you believe that a difficult problem you solve today will matter tomorrow? Do you believe that, if someone pays you to solve that difficult problem, it will matter less than one you solved for free? Do you believe that your work will benefit both yourself and society in some tangible and sustainable way? Do you believe that some impending catastrophe will render all of your work irrelevant? How much of this is passive believe, and how much of what you believe dictates your actions and the influence you have over the eventual outcome? This really comes down to frame of mind, which seem more and more like matters of faith. You might think civilization sucks; you might think money sucks; you might think doing anything but the bare minimum amount of work to survive another day sucks. I would disagree with all of these claims, but how would I have a reasonable discussion about this? How do you change someone's frame of mind when the validation they've been seeking for years might finally come to pass tomorrow? In a way, I think the first step is realizing that our frames of mind are not without consequence.

nzmsv 17y ago

His advice makes sense, but only if you believe what he believes, namely that it's ok to mooch off others, and call that "dropping out". Now, the article explicitly bashes self-sufficiency, so I guess it's just a matter of which viewpoint you subscribe to.

stcredzero 17y ago
So long as you can fit into the economic order without stealing or vandalizing or otherwise being a nuisance, you are not a "mooch" in my book. I think that any viable theory of "dropping out" will take market forces into account. I find that this article does some of that, though it seems to me that it doesn't go far enough. (In particular, he notes that trying to do what you love resulting in doing what you no longer love. Market forces can explain this one quite handily!)
- nzmsv 17y ago
  I'd argue that saying "I'm free" and then continuing with "I've been doing lots of house-sitting" and "find a partner who will support you" isn't exactly something to be proud of.
  - stcredzero 17y ago
    I had a friend who did a lot of house sitting before moving to Atlanta to make her living off of Bellydance instruction/performance. (And in contradiction to the article, she is doing her dream job, without compromise to her art. In fact, stylistic purity is one of the hallmarks of her "brand.") Also, "find a partner who will support you," is exactly what my mom did. Being a homemaker and mother is a legitimate full time job, one which our society should highly prize. Anyone who says otherwise is inattentive or hasn't really thought things through.
    - randallsquared 17y ago
      Being a homemaker and mother is a legitimate full time job ...and therefore not "dropping out", right?

enjo 17y ago

shrugs Call me old-fashioned, but I see work as the ultimate form of decency.

stingraycharles 17y ago
Call me old-fashioned, but I see work as the ultimate form of decency. Why ?
- aaronblohowiak 17y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_work_ethic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_work_ethic
  - zmoney 17y ago
    A strong work ethic may make a lot of sense if you're primarily working for yourself and your family. The author of the How To Drop Out document seems to be more concerned with the great majority of the public who slaves away to make ends meet while the boss gets richer (often, obscenely richer) -- which is of course inherent in the capitalist system. I would argue that a work ethic under these conditions is not decent at all, and looking at the big picture may even be immoral because the worker is not rewarded proportionally to their work.
  - rikthevik 17y ago
    It's funny the biases you grow up with that you're oblivious to. My family is Danish by background and in my household it was always understood that you had a job. Not paying your way or pulling your weight is the worst thing you can do in my family and I inherited it. I mean, even when I'm on company time I feel guilty spending their money on business expenses. Needless to say, I'm working hard to get over that feeling. :)
  - dschobel 17y ago
    That does explain a lot. I had a coworker at my last job who was appalled that I could quit and not have other work lined up (I just went and bummed around Zurich for the summer). This guy was in his late 30's, single, had a low-level IT job and plainly said that the only reason he gets out of bed in the morning is to come to work (a job which he bitched about endlessly). I could never understand the psychology of it.

notauser 17y ago

I rather liked this bit: "If you require a motivational writer or speaker to live differently, then as soon as that external energy shot wears off, you will fizzle and burn out. But if everyone is trying to discourage you from doing something, and you do it anyway, then you have the internal motivation to persist and succeed." This probably applies to start ups too. Starting up on my own has been 1% partying at cool start up events and 99% quietly getting on with stuff that needs to be done. This is not exactly how it is sold to people - one great idea, 15 minutes of hacking to a suitably cool soundtrack, then off to the nightclub to flagrantly spend the IPO money. Possibly you might have to suffer a back alley chase or two with agents dispatched from the Yamicroogle offices to steal your technology, but that's about the extent of the sacrifice. The 1% is fun! But if you aren't the kind of person who also enjoys the other 99% I don't know how you would cope.

zackattack 17y ago
Can you break down how you spend the other 99% please? Into percentage brackets, please? Thank you so much, it would be very insightful.
- notauser 17y ago
  http://theplanis.com/blog/preview/10/ http://theplanis.com/blog/preview/10/ might be of interest. The technical work is about 50% working on new features and 50% tracking down customer issues. The non-technical stuff is a mix of blogging, twitter, going to events, public speaking, e-mailing prospects, calling people, customer support and enterprise sales ground work. The percentages vary wildly depending on what is going on at the time.

xsmasher 17y ago

I remember staring at the computer screen--light green letters on dark--then at the clock, and finally at my outstretched fingers held a foot in front of my face. And then it dawned on me: selling the hours of my life was no different from selling my fingers one by one. We've only so many hours, so many fingers; when they're gone, they're gone for good. - Derrick Jensen

RyanMcGreal 17y ago

> Get the most low-stress source of income that you can find, and then do exactly what you love for free. That's what I do.

qubit 17y ago
What type of low-stress work do you do? I am currently looking for a similar situation.
- RyanMcGreal 17y ago
  Programmer for a large corporation - interesting work, steady hours, reasonable job security. My place of employment is a ten minute bike ride from home, so my commute is short and pleasant. I also don't have TV cable or satellite. Because I don't spend a lot of time commuting or staring at a one-way communications channel, I have more time to spend on the things I enjoy.
Tichy 17y ago
The thought occurred to me at times, but I must admit, I would also feel a bit bad about it. It was OK when I was a student, and I wish I had taken on more cool jobs (if only to work as a waiter and get to know people). But know I feel bad for the people who don't have the education I have. I have the possibility to get a high paying IT job - they don't, and rely on the "normal" jobs. I don't want to take it away from them. Though I admit I am undecided, sometimes I feel like whatever, just do what I need.
- eru 17y ago
  You can't take away jobs (in the big picture and long run).
  - Tichy 17y ago
    Why not? Unless you assume an infinite supply of skilled IT workers - and granted why not. But if there is a shortage of IT workers, but not of waiters, and I choose to work as a waiter instead of in IT, another waiter is out of luck?

lsc 17y ago

personally, I disagree with point 5. I think is is possible to separate the bullshit surrounding work for your love of creating the things you create. I spent five years pouring all the money I got from being a SysAdmin into my hosting business. The business is ramen profitable now, and growing quickly. Key, I think, is to separate yourself from the company you work for. think of it as being a contractor. "I'm giving you the best advice I can. If you don't take it, well, I've still done my job" and "I will work for you as long as the money is worth my time. I understand that the opposite also applies, and I don't take it personally if an employer feels they can do better." (then, you also need to deal with personal failure, but that is true even after you become independent. Though, personally, I find it is easier to say "oh, you didn't like my services? here's a full refund" now that I'm a product company and the things I'm selling are not as limited as my hours. Not giving people refunds when I personally fucked up was one of the things I liked least about selling my hours. But it is just very difficult to do so.)

hegemonicon 17y ago

I didn't read the whole thing, so correct this if it's wrong but... He hasn't dropped out at all - he's just found a way to live within the system such that he can take from it without giving back. He benefits enormously from the very system he denigrates. If anything that's a statement of how amazing our society is, that it's successful enough that people can live largely off its freebies and its waste products. I'm sure for some peope society is awful and living away from it really is the very best option. But society wasn't foisted on us without our consent. At one point we were ALL living off the land - and we didn't like it. So we built civilization.

gnosis 17y ago
"he's just found a way to live within the system such that he can take from it without giving back" is a very poor summary of a complex article rich with ideas and insight. You should read the whole thing. Also see his page of criticism and response: http://ranprieur.com/essays/dropoutcrit.html http://ranprieur.com/essays/dropoutcrit.html
- nzmsv 17y ago
  His response to the criticism is not very well thought out, but takes an amazingly popular viewpoint. Namely, that life used to be so much better in the "olden days". Just because believing this makes many people feel warm and fuzzy on the inside does not make it true. Here's a list: - All problems in Africa are caused by "development" Oh really? Spread of AIDS because people think having sex with a virgin will cure them, and kids dying of diarrhea too? - Before the 20th century people lived off the land, and all was good Actually, people lived like this in the 20th century too. And many live like that now. In fact, my grandparents did. They and all the kids had to work very, very hard to feed themselves. If this guy thinks farm labour is an easy occupation, it's only because his idea of where food comes from is the dumpster behind a grocery store.
  - camccann 17y ago
    Some people would argue that in the long term, psychologically speaking, hard labor to scrape a mostly independent living in a "direct" fashion (e.g. subsistence farming) feels more intrinsically rewarding than comparatively easy work with no obvious impact in an authoritarian hierarchy (e.g., generic corporate desk job). People in general are usually pretty terrible at making choices that would improve their happiness. So even though almost anyone would pick modern life in the USA if given the choice, it's entirely possible that people in the bad old days actually were more satisfied with their lives on average. Well, except for possibly when they were dying in childbirth, starving in famines, succumbing to infectious diseases, or enduring other temporarily unpleasant states of affairs, anyway. Actually, the idea "being happier working very hard in hopes to make a living, producing something tangible without being subject to arbitrary authority" sounds a lot like the startup mindset as well.

zmoney 17y ago

I think this is super-interesting, not because I have any real desire to couch surf (or squat in an abandoned building), but because it gives more perspective on the scope of what's possible. Personally, I'm working 60hrs/week at a job that pays very well but the commute and hours suck up all of my energy and is filled with people that suck even more. I don't see myself becoming a dumpster-diver, but what I really want is employment that occupies a limited space in my life -- and still pays the bills. So this piece is inspiring in that it shows that you can create the life you want, if you're willing to do things differently and take risks.

rikthevik 17y ago

...For very young people there are also two universes. Squatting over a tub of warm water is a much cheaper and healthier way to give birth than lying on your back in a harsh hospital room where the high priest will take the infant away from the mother to teach it alienation... Arghhh. Having children is _not easy_. There's a reason we still say "Mom and baby are healthy and happy." For a long time we lost one or both pretty regularly. I don't agree with all aspects of western society, but clean hospitals and infant intensive care units are most of the reason infant mortality has dropped.

zackattack 17y ago
That's actually not true. Better doctor hygiene practices is most of the reason infant mortality has dropped.
- ianferrel 17y ago
  I'm pretty sure that's what he meant by "clean hospitals".
  - burnsobright1 17y ago
    but can be achieved in the home with a hygenic midwife and surroundings
cpr 17y ago
Childbirth is not _easy_, but it's certainly a normal part of life, and treating it like a sickness, requiring hospitalization, is perverse. We had the last 4 of our 8 at home, with, yes, one close call, but with a competent midwife, that's par for the course.
- philwelch 17y ago
  Childbirth isn't done in hospitals because it's a sickness, it's done in hospitals in case an emergency happens. I couldn't have been born at home--my mother would have to have been whisked away to a hospital for a c-section anyway. The fact that she was already in the hospital and attended to by an obstetrician made that process considerably safer and more reliable.

chrislloyd 17y ago

I'd prefer the term "simplist" rather than "dropout". I think it further emphasises that it's a gradual, not a radical, change of dependance on the world.

moron4hire 17y ago

He falls into a number of fundamental paradoxes in his reasoning. He asserts that profit is evil, which is essentially saying that time spent procuring resources is not a cost that can be recuperated through monetary compensation. He almost even comes out and says time isn't a cost when he says he'd think it evil to sell something he found while dumpster diving, "how can you sell something you get for free?". He didn't get it for free, he got it through the time effort of dumpster diving, a recurring cost that has a random (though apparently positive) payoff. Yet his entire motivation for "dropping out" is to use his time as he sees fit, because it is the most precious thing to him. He asserts that trade requires someone to be "the sucker", yet he justifies his couch surfing by offering his friends services instead of money. Trade fundamentally requires that both parties agree that the trade action is advantageous to both of them; total value increases for both parties, separately and combined. He is absolutely engaged in a purely capitalistic system of free trade, completely unfettered by the dead-weight loss of tax systems, and does nothing but deride the one economic system that dragged the human race out of abject poverty.

zenocon 17y ago
nail on head. he should read Murray Rothbard's paper, "What Has Government Done to Our Money?" http://mises.org/money.asp http://mises.org/money.asp
modeless 17y ago
I think he's deluding himself. The way he lives off of thrown-out food, secondhand clothes, and couch-surfing his friends and family means he's just as dependent on the system he despises as any "wage slave". He's not living free from the influence of money; he's just found ways to use other people's money to his advantage. I would love to see his reaction to a society that had collapsed in the way he predicts. What would he do without "wage slaves" around to throw away food, give away clothes, and let bums sleep in their houses?
- burnsobright1 17y ago
  He has ten acres in Eastern Washington that he has an orchard on and is planning on building a cabin on. If/when the society collapses, there won't be any shortage of clothes, he could always just walk into a department store and take some, because no one owns them anymore.

fuzzmeister 17y ago

"Here's a test: when Thoreau was living at Walden Pond, he would often go into town for dinners with his family." As an aside, its amusing how many people come to Concord and are stunned to learn that Walden Pond is only a little over a mile from the center of town - not exactly the middle of nowhere.

LogicHoleFlaw 17y ago
I think anywhere can be the middle of nowhere, if you put your mind to it.

Mz 17y ago

I find stuff like this interesting to read but also a bit sad. Rebelling by doing the "opposite" of something is a poor substitute for real choice because you are still defined by the thing you reject. Generally speaking, I prefer pursuing "the third option" (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TakeAThirdOption http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TakeAThirdOption). I do currently live without a car and I'm happier this way. But, having spent many years as a homemaker, I don't think there is some inherent virtue in not having money of one's own or an income. I did get to live for many years in a way that taught me inherent value over "price". Lots of people these days seem to equate placing a dollar amount on something with real value, but it's not the same thing. Perhaps that is a mental model this individual was struggling with when the original essay was written. He does indicate he has since bought land. Presumably his thinking has evolved over time and he might not say the same things now that he said when this was written. Maybe he has found his own third option now, one where his idea of "freedom" involves more real choice rather than reactionary rejection of money.

sown 17y ago

One one hand it is still part of the system he dislikes. He takes what he can and doesn't "give" anything back. Some might call him a moocher. The idea of profit as inherently evil seems like saying atomic power is also such. On the other, I can understand that one shouldn't feel grateful towards a system that feels unfair or is somehow harmful. I'm at work today and as I watch this cluster flux-up in progress I sometimes wonder what am I doing with myself? Are all jobs like this? Do they at least start out not like this? It's an insult to me and my co workers (we need to write less bugs, people) and even some of my managers but this is the way the project is put together by outside forces. It'll probably fail anyways but has a higher chance of doing so if we rush rush rush. And I'll get laid off anyways, no matter how much or little I work at it.

ido 17y ago
Get another job if you can.

techwriter1 17y ago

Having read Ran for many years, I can tell you that he is definitely "giving back" by sharing with his readers and the world his thoughts and himself in a most honest and kind way while living according to his principles. Yes his ideas are provocative, and I wish more of us were able to critique our own thinking, our own group-think, and our own society as he does. He reminds us constantly how our willingness and need to identify--our allegances--become an easy way for us to stop thinking for ourselves. It takes real work to maintain a remove from the propoganda around us, to be able to see it for what it is, and act against it by helping others to open their minds a little (or a lot). A couple of you have noticed his "Land Blog." See how he uses his land project as a laboratory for his own thinking, and to test the concepts that so many people are only talking about yet seem to have such strong opinions on while never having actually DONE anything like that. It might also interest some of you to know that he used to accept donations, but lately due to having come into a small amount of money, discourages them. Though he has manners and will accept a gift graciously. It is clear that so many of the commenters here work quite dilligently to defend their own closely held beliefs and ways of living, while trying to find faults with alternative ideas that are not THAT far removed from your own. What is the threat you perceive? That maybe some of the life choices you have made and the belief systems you have invested in may have been a wrong turn, a dead-end, or at least not the ones that create joy and happiness? Rigidity of thinking is widespread, and some of the most rigid minds I've encountered are those that consider themselves far-left new-agers! (though I don't mean to suggest that describes the posters here).

joss82 17y ago

From the article's "criticism and response" page : Q:What you're suggesting is parasitism. A:Industrial civilization is parasitic, because it takes more from its environment than it gives back, and if we remove ourselves from roles that feed that behavior, we are anti-parasites. That does not make sense. If he is parasiting a parasite, he is still a parasite. He's not causing sufficient harm to destroy society, but still he profits from it, by diving into dumpsters.

normative 17y ago
Parasitism causes a reduction in fitness to the host, if anything most of these strategies would be better defined as commensal, i.e. beneficial to the fitness of the symbiont but having no positive or negative effect on the host.