
The man who lives without money - yeleti
http://worldobserveronline.com/2013/10/04/man-lives-without-money/
======
pedalpete
Interesting that he's able to do it, but as he states in the last paragraph,
this isn't something everybody could do, and I think that is a good thing.

For the most part, it seems in the current state, Mr. Boyle is actually living
off the goodwill of others while actually giving very little back to society.
He has a caravan, a bike, was given a place park and is off the grid for
electricty. He barters (which is as good as using money, but let's ignore that
for now).

He talks about being happier and healthier than he had ever been before, which
is important. But think about what would happen if everybody did as he does.
We'd use up all our waste, which would be great, but I'm sure it wouldn't be
too long before we would run out. We wouldn't have the things he relies on
others giving away, like his bicycle and caravan. He's been healthier over the
past year, but what about when he does get sick? He may be able to rely on the
kindness of others to care for him, but what if he needs drugs or surgery?

What initially struck me was that he is able to live off the land, but being a
non-practicing member of society, he isn't helping to take care of those who
are less fortunate in other parts of the world. His taxes aren't paying for
food-aid, or medical research.

I'm surprised how strongly I feel about this, why should I care what this guy
does, but as this is being promoted as a positive thing, I'm concerned that
more and more people might take up the practice, and the long-term
implications for those who live in less fortunate environments.

~~~
skidoo
Most taxes do not go to food-aid or medical research. And by not contributing
to or directly enabling so many of society's ills he is indeed giving back far
more than most others ever will.

~~~
PLejeck
Complacency and apathy are not a form of protest.

~~~
rosser
Are you suggesting that what this guy's doing is "complacency and apathy"?

~~~
PLejeck
Not at all. I'm suggesting that arguing that doing nothing is better than
doing something is something people do to promote complacency, and has no
place in the world.

~~~
skidoo
I don't see how depriving the machine of a cog can be construed as
complacency. I've had several windows of unemployment and homelessness,
sometimes by fate and sometimes by choice, and it is never an easy route. Like
the saying goes, "If you are not an active part of the solution then you are
just another part of the problem". In that respect, re-tweeting insolence and
signing e-petitions and the like is closer to complacency.

------
ars
His cure is worse than the disease.

If everyone did as he did we would cause MUCH more environmental damage to the
world.

Wood fire? There is nothing worse for the environment except maybe coal, and
even that (in the US) is not necessarily worse. Wood smoke is a very serious
pollutant, which in quantity would blacken the sky.

A rocket stove is pretty good - but it doesn't come close to the efficiency of
a natural gas one. So he's using a worse fuel, and being less efficient at it.

Beeswax candles? Is he trying to find the most wasteful and most inefficient
way to light something? And candles make smoke too.

~~~
mcantelon
What would create more pollutant... a wood fire for a single person or a 45
minute, each way, driving commute? Do areas in which wood fires are the norm
have blackened skies?

~~~
svantana
They are different types of pollutants. Wood fire creates a lot of carcinogens
while (carburated) exhaust fumes are basically safe to inhale, although they
do contribute to global warming it seems.

~~~
manicdee
And yet people commit suicide by deliberately inhaling those "safe" exhaust
fumes.

Carbon monoxide, man. It's damaging stuff.

------
cLeEOGPw
To survive without money means do many things yourself. Do many things
yourself means a broad knowledge of many things. A broad knowledge of many
things means that the knowledge in any particular thing is shallow and
primitive, only sufficient for the basic tasks. Therefore the life becomes a
continuous sequence of primitive activities.

Human civilization does not gain anything from it. We must specialize more and
more if we want to push everything further. By numbing out our skills we won't
achieve anything but unnecessary independence from others, which would only be
beneficial if you were physically isolated from other people.

~~~
mvanvoorden
The only reason you see that human civilization doesn't gain anything from
this is because you use knowledge/science to define progress.

What if you tie progress to overall happiness? Living a simpler life, without
the stress of i.e. too much choice or needing to have at least the same
material wealth as your neighbour will be way more fulfilling than working
your assoff all day, doing a job you don't like to be able to pay the loans
with which you have acquired things you don't need :)

We have nothing to gain from more knowledge, it only gives us more questions,
more possibilities, and with that more areas to specialize in, so more jobs,
to just keep us all working on finding more questions and creating more of
those jobs. Endless cycle that will make life more complex every day, adding
up to more stress every day and slowly making us drift away from ourselves and
each other.

Nice example: nowadays, in my country smart phones are used by all ages, even
young children. Everywhere they are, and mostly in the train, people are not
talking to each other anymore, instead they are all looking at their phones.
Need to wait on something for 5 minutes? There comes the phone again. Result:
nobody takes time to reflect anymore, patience is getting scarce, people are
bored quickly, while the occasional case of boredom is very important.

Not that I'm against scientific progress, we invented some really cool stuff,
but I don't agree that numbing out our skills would achieve unnecessary
independence. In a society/community where everyone is able to take care of
themselves, everybody knows how tough it can be and everybody will be willing
to help one another out when something goes wrong. That's not independence,
that is cooperation.

~~~
lcedp
> Nice example...

That is very popular but false example.

1) In my country when there were no much phones around children played
tamagochies and tetrisis. Teens used to listen to their CD and before that
cassette players. Is was relatively popular among youth to read fiction books
in the trains. It's a popular mantra today: "phones are evil, but book is
good!". But what about cassette players - were they evil too? What if I read a
book from my phone - is it evil or good?

2) It's quite popular today to stare in phones but guess what.. I used to do
weekly 2.5 hours commutes between cities in public transport - and most people
just stared.. in the window.. and still nobody was talking with strangers. The
same situation applies to the trains. Of course people get acquainted if you
are in the same compartments, but they don't otherwise (generally). So it's
more a culture thing (maybe like in city - rural etc) then the curse of the
phone.

------
mvanvoorden
For people who like to know more about (almost) moneyless living:

\- [http://moneyless.info](http://moneyless.info)

\- This interview: [http://vimeo.com/65171169](http://vimeo.com/65171169)

Inspired by these things but not ready to go totally without, I'm moving to
the first "live-in hackerspace", based on Lanzarote, where life is cheap and
the weather is good. CyberHippieTotalism (
[http://totalism.org](http://totalism.org) ). Feel free to come by and check
it out some time!

------
gilgoomesh
Oh dear.

> my final year of a business and economics degree [ ... ] capitalism is
> fundamentally flawed, requiring infinite growth on a finite planet

I'd ask for a refund on that degree if you never learned that growth requires
no resources.

Economic growth is simply a measure of human work and promises of future work
– the former can grow indefinitely while the sun shines and the latter is
entirely abstract.

~~~
baq
> the former can grow indefinitely

Explain, because for all I know that isn't true and it looks like you need to
get an economics degree to believe otherwise. Physicists disagree and guess
whose word I trust more.

~~~
gilgoomesh
Note that I didn't say "grow infinitely", I said "grow indefinitely" – as in
continuous, steady growth (historically, about 2-5% per annum). Basically, if
you can keep working productively while the sun shines, this _is_ growth.

Physicists deal with real objects (virtual particles and string theorists
notwithstanding). Wealth isn't real – it's abstract.

As for abstract wealth... here, I'll give you an "I owe you" for $5. You now
have an asset. You can trade that asset with other people since I'm a
respected individual that others trust. I'll fulfil the value in future
(maybe) but for now – the value came from absolutely nothing. It's entirely
abstract.

You want an infinite amount of them? Here you go.

------
Fuxy
His solution though admirable needs improvements. He's not living ecologically
but without money which is admirable but completely ignores the effects living
like our ancestors had on nature.

If he were more open to using modern technology he would be able to live in
more balance with nature.

Solar panels for instance although causing harm to the environment when
produced help you generate some energy which is a great return on investment
by my book.

The key is not living like our ancestors the key is using modern technology in
an attempt to live in harmony with nature. Grow your own foods make you're
house as self sufficient as possible.

------
sanoli
Everytime I read one of these stories, it's always someone without kids. This
guy has an economics degree. He has the luxury of going back. If he had
children, and they had to live like this, could he still do it, and would it
be good for the children?(honest question) It's also always someone not in
their 60s, when they start needing more medical attention, more access to
medicine, etc.

~~~
rwallace
No junk food, no television, no Facebook, opportunity to learn practical
skills, exposure to mild pathogens in the first five years of life to help the
immune system develop properly; most aspects of the lifestyle would be good
for children.

Of course, you would still want to make an exception to the lifestyle to get
the children the usual set of vaccines; nothing puts a damper on a healthy
childhood like dying of whooping cough. All things in moderation, including
moderation.

~~~
sanoli
Maybe. But like I said, I never read about someone with kids doing this. What
you describe can be found in very rural areas, but it's still different from
what this guy is doing.

~~~
rwallace
Strikes me as fairly similar to the Amish? I get the impression they avail
themselves of a few benefits of modern civilization like that subset of
medicine that actually saves significant numbers of lives, while eschewing
most of the glitter; are there significant differences that I'm missing?

~~~
sanoli
I think there are. This guy, and the people on the similar stories that are
sometimes poste here on HN, are going it alone, or as a very small group of
people, in the single digits at most. He's not joining a large, homogeneous,
stable, long standing community. It's very different. Being born in an Amish
community would be very different from being born as this guy's baby.

~~~
rwallace
True. It wasn't clear to me from the article just how much community support
this guy has, but if the answer is almost none, that would certainly be a
problem, and not only for raising children. If you're going it alone in that
sort of environment, imagine the consequences of something as simple as coming
down with the flu.

------
kriro
That close/like button on the site seems fairly unethical. It's very easy to
accidentally click like if you want to click the x.

~~~
chris_wot
You ought to see what it looks like on an iPhone!

------
ericthegoodking
money is important! I hope that when he gets sick he will not think of using
traditional medicine (like the way the Chinese are killing rare animals, in
the name of "medicine" amongst other funny and weird things). What he is doing
is quite inspirational and admirable tho!

~~~
mvanvoorden
A lot of modern medicine are based on traditional medicine. In a lot of cases
working substances in the plant are isolated and then synthesized to minimize
side effects caused by other substances in the plant.

Don't forget that a lot of traditional medicine have been around for thousands
of years and kept us alive and growing in population ever since.

------
gadders
So basically, he's living like people did in the middle ages. Good luck with
that.

------
denysonique
Balance.

------
contextual
_The degrees of separation between the consumer and the consumed have
increased so much that it now means we’re completely unaware of the levels of
destruction and suffering embodied in the ‘stuff’ we buy._

I'm convinced this is why animal-testing and factory farming even exist,
because we don't see it. Out of sight, out of mind. We see the marketing
campaigns with ads of radiant beautiful people using consumer products, but
the much uglier side of product research is kept from the public's view.

If the public could see what is happening to our animal friends, it wouldn't
tolerated. We would find another way.

~~~
icebraining
I disagree; I'm pretty sure most people would tolerate it just fine after a
period of habituation.

You say that it's because we don't see it that we can tolerate what happens to
animals; I say it's because we don't see it that we feel horrified whenever we
happen to catch a glimpse of it. Light is only painful when you're used to
living in the dark.

~~~
contextual
I'm talking about empathy. You're talking about desensitization. Of course we
disagree.

~~~
icebraining
Neither can be ignored if you're predicting an outcome on this issue.

