
The Hobo Ethical Code of 1889 - pmoriarty
http://www.openculture.com/2016/11/the-hobo-ethical-code-of-1889.html
======
jlg23
A friend once gave a talk at the chaos congress whose title, IMHO, captures
the essence of those laws: If you want to live outside of the law, you have to
be honest.

To this day, words I live by and they never failed me.

~~~
sov
That's a Dylan quote.

[https://www.bobdylan.com/songs/absolutely-sweet-
marie/](https://www.bobdylan.com/songs/absolutely-sweet-marie/)

~~~
jlg23
How fitting, this friend of mine could have been the tambourine man...

Thanks for the pointer!

------
loosetypes
For anyone intrigued by this sort of thing - that is to say the ethics of hobo
culture - I would highly recommend reading `You Can't Win'[1], the
autobiographical account of Jack Black's train hoppin', bank robbin' life as a
yegg.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Can%27t_Win_(book)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Can%27t_Win_\(book\))

~~~
mirimir
I was going to mention that. But I gather that yeggs were a distinct group
from (or maybe subgroup of) hoboes. They didn't abide by at least one of the
rules:

> 2\. When in town, always respect the local law and officials, and try to be
> a gentleman at all times.

I gather that it was a steal-from-the-rich thing. Banks were OK targets. And
jewelry shops. But not hard-working folk.

It's never made sense to me, honestly.

~~~
FranzFerdiNaN
The rich are only rich because they steal from the poor, either directly by
scams or indirectly by theft of wages and labor productivity. Capitalism
unfortunately enshrines this behavior in the law so it's seen as a good thing,
while a poor person "stealing" from the rich is seen as bad.

~~~
dan-0
> The rich are only rich because they steal from the poor, either directly by
> scams or indirectly by theft of wages and labor productivity. Capitalism
> unfortunately enshrines this behavior in the law so it's seen as a good
> thing, while a poor person "stealing" from the rich is seen as bad.

I think you might need to look up the word "steal" in a dictionary. That or
you're deliberately skewing the definition for your own agenda. I'm hedging my
bet on the latter.

The first definition provided when Googling "steal": take (another person's
property) without permission or legal right and without intending to return
it.

If a good or service is provided that is needed or desired by either a group
or an individual there is a cost regardless of whether that cost is absorbed
by the individual or group procuring the good/service (as in Capitalism) or by
society. The provider of that good or service should somehow be rewarded or
incentivized to continue providing the service so as to keep that service
provided.

You made a blanket statement that "rich are only rich because they steal from
the poor...". That's wrong, true in some cases, but far from a universal
truth, if I'm wrong please prove it. If you're good a something society deems
valuable, shouldn't you be compensated adequately for that? Should a good
jeweler be compensated well for producing a necklace of spectacular quality if
someone is willing to pay for it? Should a good neurosurgeon who went through
probably a decade of intense schooling be adequately compensated for
extracting a tumor? Are either of these people stealing from someone? The
answer is no. They are providing a service that the recipient or society (in
the case of universal healthcare) willingly compensate them for.

This is in direct contradiction to your point of a "poor person \"stealing\"
from the rich", which brings me back to my first statement. You used quotes
around "stealing" which deliberately attempts to invert or misdirect the
actual definition of the word. Taking something from someone without their
permission is "stealing", not providing a service for compensation. In the
case of the jeweler, that jeweler bears the cost of materials and time the
spent to both learn how to make the commodity when their product is stolen. In
the case of the neurosurgeon, when their product is stolen, it's very
equatable to slavery.

It doesn't matter what economic model you prescribe to, if people providing a
needed good/service aren't adequately compensated, the quality of that
good/service degrades or becomes non existent. Unless, of course, you enslave
or force those people to provided the good/service, which is not what anyone
should be advocating.

~~~
mlevental
does a person that has brain cancer really voluntarily pay a neurosurgeon for
treatment?

does a person that gets paid a wage for menial labor that funnels into a value
chain that some executive sells for much more than the wage really work
voluntarily?

does someone that's manipulated by social media that buys worthless overpriced
brand name items really pay voluntarily?

does someone that gets arrested on trumped up charges and values their freedom
really pay a lawyer voluntarily?

do people that live in blighted, neglected neighborhoods really move to higher
cost of living neighborhoods voluntarily?

I could go on.

Your post implicitly assumes that contracts between equals exist. They don't.

also "if people aren't compensated, the quality..." is an assumption of your
model, not an implication

~~~
mieseratte
> does a person that has brain cancer really voluntarily pay a neurosurgeon
> for treatment?

Yes

> does a person that gets paid a wage for menial labor that funnels into a
> value chain that some executive sells for much more than the wage really
> work voluntarily?

Yes-ish... one can't really not participate in society in this day and age.
One can't just go homestead anymore and subsistence farm. So I understand the
argument.

> does someone that's manipulated by social media that buys worthless
> overpriced brand name items really pay voluntarily?

Yes... get TF off social media.

> does someone that gets arrested on trumped up charges and values their
> freedom really pay a lawyer voluntarily?

Yes

> do people that live in blighted, neglected neighborhoods really move to
> higher cost of living neighborhoods voluntarily?

Yes. It's entirely possible to live in a shit area and life a "good life,"
though there are mental costs associated.

...

It's not black and white as you paint it.

~~~
mlevental
i think you and i have a very different understandings of the word "voluntary"

~~~
xbkingx
One that ignores the entirety of human psychology, probability, and what we
understand about motivation, reward, and healthy socialization.

Technically you could successfully perform your own neurosurgery at home with
a spoon and a dull butter knife...

~~~
mieseratte
> Technically you could successfully perform your own neurosurgery at home
> with a spoon and a dull butter knife...

I was not implying that in the least, that's what you chose to read into it.

> One that ignores the entirety of human psychology, probability, and what we
> understand about motivation, reward, and healthy socialization.

Like anyone involved in software, you're surely an expert in all of these
topics and thus qualified to make this claim without backing it up.

One can voluntary, that is choose, to opt-out of any number of those
situations. Some may be more important or costly than others.

~~~
xbkingx
> Like anyone involved in software, you're surely an expert in all of these
> topics and thus qualified to make this claim without backing it up.

PhD in neuroscience, undergrad research on reward and behavior. So, yes, yes I
am qualified. You are 100% wrong on all fronts.

------
Clubber
The US would be better off if we put the hobos in charge. Seems like they have
a lot better ethics than many politicians and business leaders.

~~~
throwaway_boi
It's easy to be incorruptible when you have no power.

~~~
jessaustin
That cuts both ways. There's no law of nature requiring the hideous
monstrosity of coercive power that we've created.

~~~
giardini
Please be clear: are you talking about

\- the NSA, CIA, and FBI,

\- Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google, or

\- AT&T & Comcast,

or something else?

~~~
staticautomatic
The forces shaping the society we live in are much deeper and more pervasive
than 3 letter agencies and big corporations, bad as they may sometimes be.

~~~
ILikeConemowk
This is also my line of thinking but would love to read more about your
perspective.

Would you be willing to elaborate on "the forces" you think shape our society?

~~~
mlevental
just Google "Hegel ideology"

------
kevinconaway
The linked article[0] contains more narrative around the hobo lifestyle and
the rules listed in the submitted article

Wikipedia[1] also offers some definitions of the hobo slang used in the code:

Boil Up - specifically, to boil one's clothes to kill lice and their eggs;
generally, to get oneself as clean as possible

Jungle - an area off a railroad where hobos camp and congregate

[0] [http://brktrail.com/hobo_ethics/](http://brktrail.com/hobo_ethics/)

[1]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobo](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobo)

~~~
staticautomatic
Any relation to "The Jungle"?

------
IanDrake
Why does this article start out with unsupported claims of billionaires
behaving badly?

When a writer puts down people who add enormous value to the world while
putting those who extract value on a pedestal, I have to wonder about her
motives.

------
peter_retief
Interesting take on freedom and the responsibility to be a good person and
work for wages as compared to the freedom movement of the 1960's. Good take
away is that bad things happen to good people and we should be kind to a fault
at every opportunity we get

------
amelius
> When traveling, ride your train respectfully, take no personal chances,
> cause no problems with the operating crew or host railroad, act like an
> extra crew member.

Just what they need, a passenger who thinks they are crew.

~~~
fb03
I think what he actually meant with 'acting like an extra crew member' is
minding your own business without interacting or bothering other people,
including staff.

They won't accept it anymore (for other homeless) if they have multiple bad
events, altercations etc.

------
qrbLPHiKpiux
I was hoping the article would be in BBS like format.

------
aaron695
Let's not forget the life of a Hobo was one of sexual assault, poverty, mental
illness and a host of other problems (The article links to some of the major
issues)

I'm all for Medieval societies where we dress up and pretend to kill, so have
no problem with romanticising the Hobo life and trying to move it forward, but
let's not take any actual lessons from the old way of life, keep it in the
realm of fantasy.

