3 ms·

I'm always amused by people who equate a parasitic existence with a truly independent one.

daeken 17y ago
I agree, and while I can appreciate the sentiment of wanting to go 'cashless' (hey, who here doesn't want to run a startup? (too easy)), trading goods and services is the same thing, just a different currency. There's a level of indirection, but the fundamental concepts are the same.
- bad_user 17y ago
  Actually ... spending money is a lot different from barter. If you're producing honey, you can't directly change that for guns. The fundamental concepts are really different ... previously owning $10 bill would mean that your bank stores an equivalent quantity in gold for you. Now $10 just means someone owes the bank $10 ... and it's really a useless piece of paper with an unrealistic value. That's really the reason behind an economic crisis. I wouldn't ever go and live cashless simply because it's like swimming against the tide, but it's true that money disconnects people from the goods they are buying, from the real cost of manufacturing, and ultimately ... from other people.
  - pedrocr 17y ago
    Actually ... spending money is a lot different from barter. If you're producing honey, you can't directly change that for guns. What stops you? If the gun manufacturer wants honey you can trade. If that direct trade doesn't work you could do some intermediate ones till you got to the gun and that is the same as just issuing money, just more difficult to do. Why do people like bartering so much? Money is a better solution for the same problem. The fundamental concepts are really different ... previously owning $10 bill would mean that your bank stores an equivalent quantity in gold for you. Now $10 just means someone owes the bank $10 ... and it's really a useless piece of paper with an unrealistic value. That's really the reason behind an economic crisis. All money is debt, be it gold or not. All it means for me to have $10 is that society has agreed to give me that amount of goods or services in return for giving it back. It is always a debt, if it is represented in gold, paper or a number in a computer. In the previous model where the bank held $10 worth of gold for your bill if you redeem the bill for the gold what can you do with it now? There are industrial and decorative purposes but for you as an individual, what good does it do? I don't understand these arguments that gold is some kind of one-true-currency. The only thing having a gold standard does is set a fixed monetary policy. The monetary base cannot be expanded as the amount of gold is fixed. But the Fed could set the same policy without having to handle gold. Having the physical metal is just an implementation detail that used to be important but isn't anymore. If it's the monetary policy you don't like fight against that. Putting value in gold also motivates people to go digging around looking for this largely useless metal. That in itself is a drag on the economy as those people could be doing something more productive with their time.
  - Tichy 17y ago
    "Now $10 just means someone owes the bank $10 ... and it's really a useless piece of paper with an unrealistic value." It's more complicated than that: of course if somebody asks you to give you something in return for a debt (a ka money), trust enters the picture. The less you trust that person, the less the money is worth. If a a person/bank says "tee he, I am not giving you anything in return for your debt/money anymore", you will not do any transactions with that entity anymore in the future. In that sense the system regulates itself - there is a risk attached to money, just like to anything else. People just took too much risk in the current crisis, powered by greed. Also of course because the risks were cleverly hidden, but it is not true that nobody had doubts. As for honey, of course you can exchange it for guns. Disconnecting from goods: it is not possible to manufacture everything yourself anymore. Of course that might be the real point of simple living: trying to only rely on stuff that you can manufacture yourself. But what if you get sick and need expensive medical equipment? I am very connected to the cost of "manufacturing" software atm...
donaq 17y ago
Indeed. It is also highly ironic how he uses a laptop and has a blog, both of which require the existence of a technologically advanced society.
- metellus 17y ago
  and got a free caravan for shelter, and a solar panel, and...
- robryan 17y ago
  I don't think he wanted to completely free himself of a modern world, just free himself from money which he has done. Unlike a lot of similar stories you read I don't think he was really trying to prove anything.
ghshephard 17y ago
Agreed. I was reading through this and thinking that he was living as independent a live as a typical Burner is "self reliant" at Burning Man. If anybody is _really_ interested in independent living, I cannot recommend highly enough "Primitive Wilderness Living & Survival Skills: Naked into the Wilderness " - by John Mcpherson. Any book that starts off with "In the spring of 1986 I, John, first published a 48 page book on brain tanning. I had spent years searching for - mostly thru trial and error - a recipe for this project. I had found nothing in print that was to be of much help." you just _know_ is going to draw you in.
patio11 17y ago
Indeed. I'm reminded of the story of Bush the Elder at the supermarket, amazed by a barcode reader, which he had not interacted with previously. It is quite likely that Bush the Elder does not routinely interact with money -- because he has people for that. This is "having people for that", albeit having less expensive people. He received compensation in kind from an agribusiness for services rendered -- they handled the cash, not him, crisis of conscience at being employed averted (he describes it as "volunteering", which apparently means "employment in an industry I like"). He used the telephone, but through the magic of creative spiritual accounting, only other people got charged eco-karma for the calls.
chipsy 17y ago
I'm sorry, but you must have read a different story. There is no mention of being "independent." He only set out to "live without money" and with one exception, did so. His goal was never the off-grid cabin-in-the-woods situation. That much should have been apparent because he was interacting with his local community in many ways.
- ghshephard 17y ago
  But almost _every single thing_ he had was a result of a vast, vast, vast chain of money. If all he was trying to do was exist without cash soiling his hands, then he could simply have engaged in a barter existence and done very well for himself. I hate being such a negative on this one, because, in general, I'm enthusiastic about people trying new things, and living differently - but I read that article _twice_ just to see if I could understand what the heck he was trying to accomplish - I just didn't get it.
  - chipsy 17y ago
    > If all he was trying to do was exist without cash soiling his hands, then he could simply have engaged in a barter existence and done very well for himself. Well, yeah, that's what he did. That is the point. He forced himself to deeply - even intimately - engage with the markets for every good he used, on a level that is unattainable through the largely anonymous transactions made with money. Money only communicates price. Barter tells you about the other dependencies. Since his purpose was to learn about forms of waste in society, I think his strategy is quite good.
    - ghshephard 17y ago
      Well, true if everyone was engaging in Barter - but that wasn't the case here. Ideally you find something that you are good at - Firewood, Jams, Honey, Art - make lots of it, and exchange that for the stuff you need, using other people as your proxies for cash.

I agree, and while I can appreciate the sentiment of wanting to go 'cashless' (hey, who here doesn't want to run a startup? (too easy)), trading goods and services is the same thing, just a different currency. There's a level of indirection, but the fundamental concepts are the same.

bad_user 17y ago
Actually ... spending money is a lot different from barter. If you're producing honey, you can't directly change that for guns. The fundamental concepts are really different ... previously owning $10 bill would mean that your bank stores an equivalent quantity in gold for you. Now $10 just means someone owes the bank $10 ... and it's really a useless piece of paper with an unrealistic value. That's really the reason behind an economic crisis. I wouldn't ever go and live cashless simply because it's like swimming against the tide, but it's true that money disconnects people from the goods they are buying, from the real cost of manufacturing, and ultimately ... from other people.
- pedrocr 17y ago
  Actually ... spending money is a lot different from barter. If you're producing honey, you can't directly change that for guns. What stops you? If the gun manufacturer wants honey you can trade. If that direct trade doesn't work you could do some intermediate ones till you got to the gun and that is the same as just issuing money, just more difficult to do. Why do people like bartering so much? Money is a better solution for the same problem. The fundamental concepts are really different ... previously owning $10 bill would mean that your bank stores an equivalent quantity in gold for you. Now $10 just means someone owes the bank $10 ... and it's really a useless piece of paper with an unrealistic value. That's really the reason behind an economic crisis. All money is debt, be it gold or not. All it means for me to have $10 is that society has agreed to give me that amount of goods or services in return for giving it back. It is always a debt, if it is represented in gold, paper or a number in a computer. In the previous model where the bank held $10 worth of gold for your bill if you redeem the bill for the gold what can you do with it now? There are industrial and decorative purposes but for you as an individual, what good does it do? I don't understand these arguments that gold is some kind of one-true-currency. The only thing having a gold standard does is set a fixed monetary policy. The monetary base cannot be expanded as the amount of gold is fixed. But the Fed could set the same policy without having to handle gold. Having the physical metal is just an implementation detail that used to be important but isn't anymore. If it's the monetary policy you don't like fight against that. Putting value in gold also motivates people to go digging around looking for this largely useless metal. That in itself is a drag on the economy as those people could be doing something more productive with their time.
- Tichy 17y ago
  "Now $10 just means someone owes the bank $10 ... and it's really a useless piece of paper with an unrealistic value." It's more complicated than that: of course if somebody asks you to give you something in return for a debt (a ka money), trust enters the picture. The less you trust that person, the less the money is worth. If a a person/bank says "tee he, I am not giving you anything in return for your debt/money anymore", you will not do any transactions with that entity anymore in the future. In that sense the system regulates itself - there is a risk attached to money, just like to anything else. People just took too much risk in the current crisis, powered by greed. Also of course because the risks were cleverly hidden, but it is not true that nobody had doubts. As for honey, of course you can exchange it for guns. Disconnecting from goods: it is not possible to manufacture everything yourself anymore. Of course that might be the real point of simple living: trying to only rely on stuff that you can manufacture yourself. But what if you get sick and need expensive medical equipment? I am very connected to the cost of "manufacturing" software atm...

donaq 17y ago

Indeed. It is also highly ironic how he uses a laptop and has a blog, both of which require the existence of a technologically advanced society.

metellus 17y ago
and got a free caravan for shelter, and a solar panel, and...
robryan 17y ago
I don't think he wanted to completely free himself of a modern world, just free himself from money which he has done. Unlike a lot of similar stories you read I don't think he was really trying to prove anything.

ghshephard 17y ago

Agreed. I was reading through this and thinking that he was living as independent a live as a typical Burner is "self reliant" at Burning Man. If anybody is _really_ interested in independent living, I cannot recommend highly enough "Primitive Wilderness Living & Survival Skills: Naked into the Wilderness " - by John Mcpherson. Any book that starts off with "In the spring of 1986 I, John, first published a 48 page book on brain tanning. I had spent years searching for - mostly thru trial and error - a recipe for this project. I had found nothing in print that was to be of much help." you just _know_ is going to draw you in.

patio11 17y ago

Indeed. I'm reminded of the story of Bush the Elder at the supermarket, amazed by a barcode reader, which he had not interacted with previously. It is quite likely that Bush the Elder does not routinely interact with money -- because he has people for that. This is "having people for that", albeit having less expensive people. He received compensation in kind from an agribusiness for services rendered -- they handled the cash, not him, crisis of conscience at being employed averted (he describes it as "volunteering", which apparently means "employment in an industry I like"). He used the telephone, but through the magic of creative spiritual accounting, only other people got charged eco-karma for the calls.

chipsy 17y ago

I'm sorry, but you must have read a different story. There is no mention of being "independent." He only set out to "live without money" and with one exception, did so. His goal was never the off-grid cabin-in-the-woods situation. That much should have been apparent because he was interacting with his local community in many ways.

ghshephard 17y ago
But almost _every single thing_ he had was a result of a vast, vast, vast chain of money. If all he was trying to do was exist without cash soiling his hands, then he could simply have engaged in a barter existence and done very well for himself. I hate being such a negative on this one, because, in general, I'm enthusiastic about people trying new things, and living differently - but I read that article _twice_ just to see if I could understand what the heck he was trying to accomplish - I just didn't get it.
- chipsy 17y ago
  > If all he was trying to do was exist without cash soiling his hands, then he could simply have engaged in a barter existence and done very well for himself. Well, yeah, that's what he did. That is the point. He forced himself to deeply - even intimately - engage with the markets for every good he used, on a level that is unattainable through the largely anonymous transactions made with money. Money only communicates price. Barter tells you about the other dependencies. Since his purpose was to learn about forms of waste in society, I think his strategy is quite good.
  - ghshephard 17y ago
    Well, true if everyone was engaging in Barter - but that wasn't the case here. Ideally you find something that you are good at - Firewood, Jams, Honey, Art - make lots of it, and exchange that for the stuff you need, using other people as your proxies for cash.