Keep the regular job. Just buy a cheap van, and rent a 24/7 parking space.
You can figure out the rest. Buy takeaways or use a gas stove for food, use a 24/7 gym for showering/toilet, and go to your job for the internet (alternatively, the library, free WiFi places, or mobile net).
That's probably the cheapest way to live without being entirely homeless (or just buying land/house).
The current de facto standard is a GoPro on some sort of DJI or DJI-clone quadcopter. That's a monopoly the brand would be foolish not to try to exploit - and rebadging a clone quad with some GoPro-ness (physical robustness, integrated photography and control app, some follow-me features maybe) is a fair bet.
All this self-help woo never worked for me. It probably won't work for you, and I don't think it actually works for the people regurgitating it.
You're probably just spoiled, like the rest of us. You spend all your time around things that are intensely stimulating. Delicious food that you barely have to do anything for, this magical thing we call the internet, beautiful music, captivating movies, hundreds of the most attractive women at your fingertips.
All this stimulation with no effort -- and you think it's a surprise that you don't like hard work?
Having this knowledge, now figure out the solution yourself. Something that you're too spoiled to have done already. :)
Mainstream culture doesn't exist? That's hilariously wrong. Kanye West would like you to twerk to some Hunger Games and The Hobbit, and take a selfie on Snapchat while #hashtagging about it on Twitter. Just don't take a naked one like Jennifer Lawrence. And don't forget to catch The Big Bang Theory next Sunday! Isn't the Harlem Shake so last year? And Psy, oh my God, who listens to Gangnam Style anymore?
If you think mainstream culture doesn't exist, you're probably stuck right inside it -- or so far from it that you don't even realize it's there. Oh well, back to playing some CS:GO.
I've heard of most of those things (except "CS:GO"). I have directly experienced some of them. My parents
I don't think "famous" is the same as "mainstream". For one thing, anything captured in digital form can break out to "famous" from any niche, using Internet's multiplicative effect. Is Psy mainstream because one of his hundreds of songs got a billion views on YouTube? Or is "Gangnam Style" mainstream, while Psy is niche?
As far as I'm concerned, all of these drug markets are an absolutely fucking wonderful thing for society. Even if you think drugs should be illegal, incredibly violent cartels still exist. Markets like Silk Road can take all their power away.
100,000 people have died so far in the 8-year Mexican Drug War. How would you like if that number turned into 0 without any need for political intervention?
This is what Ross Ulbricht described his goal as on LinkedIn:
"I want to use economic theory as a means to abolish the use of coercion and aggression amongst mankind."
Is that clear enough? The guy studied organic solar cells and EuO thin-film crystals for 5 years as a grad student, describing his goal then as to expand the frontier of human knowledge.
Do you think a person like that would suddenly plunge himself into a crazy get-rich scheme? Let's be honest here: that kind of person meticulously plans these kind of things, and they do it ultimately to help the world in an abstract way -- not constantly empathetic of each individual person, but ultimately concerned with the total human condition.
This is what Ross Ulbricht described his goal as on LinkedIn:
"I want to use economic theory as a means to abolish the use of coercion and aggression amongst mankind."
Is that clear enough? The guy studied organic solar cells and EuO thin-film crystals for 5 years as a grad student, describing his goal then as to expand the frontier of human knowledge.
And then twice paid money to (what he believed) have somebody killed that was causing him a problem.
Would you end 2 lives if it saved millions in the future? Someone concerned with direct empathy wouldn't. Someone concerned with the human condition might.
Anyway, I'm not saying that it was right, because that holds the assumption that he 100% would be helping people. What if you're wrong? What if there's a better way? 2 lives gone and nothing to show for it. In reality, it's pretty likely that he just went a bit fucking crazy. The point is that the creation of Silk Road was likely with the goal of changing the world for the better, and I can absolutely see that happening.
But upon further contemplation, maybe there was more wisdom behind donning the name Dread Pirate Roberts than Ulbricht realized. Power is a corrupting influence, and theres the old saying about what happens to those who fight monsters.
But ultimately, such corruption was his downfall, and delivered him into FBI custody. Now theres not only a new DPR, but a slew of new Silk Roads to replace him.
Yes, but the comment I replied to claimed he was "ultimately concerned with the total human condition." I'm saying he isn't, or is at minimum a hypocrite.
They make it impossible for cartels to exclude competition, in the same way they make it (theoretically) impossible for governments to prosecute distribution.
Unfortunately you still need the cartels to get the drugs into the US which is where they make most of their money anyways. I imagine parcels from Colombia, Peru, or Afghanistan are not likely to fly under the radar.
How so? I'm not an expert, but it seems most of the violence is concentrated in Mexico near the border as cartels battle for prime smuggling territory.
Even us not being experts. Can you honestly say you haven't heard of the destructive and violent effects of drug cartels in the US? Gang wars, turf wars, incarceration due to drug possession, etc.
I don't know about 'most drugs on silk road' but I've never heard of people cultivating coca, poppies, or sassafras trees for drugs in the United States. That's three major drugs right there (cocaine, heroin, ecstasy).
Now that's kinda funny to think about. He railed against technology, and his goal was to get his rants read. If it was a few years later, he could have published them on the internet, where anybody in the world could read it... if not for him being anti-technology in the first place.
Potential readership online is huge, that is true. However, being published in a major global paper is more like a way to ensure immediate global readership. I think the distinction is important, and he was seeking the latter.
"Dark net markets make drugs more available more easily, and that's nothing to celebrate. It will, I suspect, tend towards higher levels of use, which -- legal or illegal -- creates misery. "
So, the argument is that increased supply probably will actually increase misery, and will not be "an absolutely fucking wonderful thing".
I think it's this discussion which is the key one to be having - what will happen to society, and what do we want our societies to be?
The statistics from places with lax drug laws, decriminalization, partial legalization, etc suggests that everyone who actually wants to do drugs long term already does, and that most (if not all) of the rise in drug use you see at a law change is just people experimenting and then deciding against routine use.
Similarly, higher drug use isn't necessarily a problem, since legalization would allow for treating drug addiction as a health problem, which would likely lead to decreased health problems as people are now free to seek treatment for their issues without worrying about arrest or other legal consequence.
Also, drug violence is a HUGE source of crime. The Mexican cartels, for instance, receive about 10x the funding of NASA by selling to the US drug market.
There's no way to overstate just how bad it is that we're funding paramilitary groups around the world to the tune of hundreds of billion of dollars a year, and the small increases in misery caused by any rise in drugs (which we haven't seen in nations that have taken laxer stands on drugs) would be offset by removing hundreds of billions of dollars in funding to some of the most violent organizations on Earth.
I don't think anyone wants our society to be a constant civil war so we can lock people in boxes for liking altered states of consciousness. It's clear that people who want drugs aren't going to stop, even if the other people threaten to throw them in cages and murder them for their habit. The only path drug prohibition can lead us down is to continue this civil war.
I think people who are against drug legalization literally don't know what's happening or how things work, because when they try to explain their stance to me, it always critically depends on things that are simply untrue.
There is no debate over prohibition: it's a failed policy and gives us an objectively worse outcome, no matter what your goal was, unless your goal was to see constant violence between large organizations, such as the US government and paramilitary groups.
> The statistics from places with lax drug laws, decriminalization, partial legalization, etc suggests that everyone who actually wants to do drugs long term already does, and that most (if not all) of the rise in drug use you see at a law change is just people experimenting and then deciding against routine use.
All the people I've met who took drugs and then became violent or addicted had problems well before the drugs were there.
All the people I've met who could handle drugs were well adjusted, or were on their way to becoming well adjusted.
It's a complicated issue which, as far as I can tell, mostly comes down to whether illegal drugs tend to displace alcohol use or not. If someone who regularly uses alcohol to become intoxicated switches to weed that's a big public health win. If they use weed in addition that's a public health loss. If they switch to heroin they're clearly worse off, but they're less likely to harm others due to drunk driving or induced belligerence.
It's not "what do we want our societies to be" -- everyone wants the same ideal society. It's "what do we want our societies to be, within the constraints of what is actually possible," and the key disagreement is over what is actually possible -- indeed, people's assessment of what is possible is so different that their world views are irreconcilable.
The notion that there is an ideal form of moneymaking for each person is a piece of self-help dogma, not an evidenced fact. To the best of my knowledge and experience, there's no viable job or business that would sustainably make me happy. There is, however, a very clear life that makes me happy. I know from experience. I want to become financially independent so I can live that life for good -- or any other life if I so choice.
I also have doubts that the benefit is due to monogamy. Hell, I have doubts that the benefit is due to a relationship. It could merely be because the people have a close companion.
How many friends do you sleep in the same room with, wake up to, go to work with, and have fun with? None, right? The thing is, that situation was the norm for most of humanity. It's not a surprise that so many people are neurotic. It's not a surprise that it makes us a bit happier to have that situation partially fulfilled.
I'd like to see a study comparing the happiness of close-knit, tribal, polygamous communities with close-knit, tribal, monogamous communities.
I'd like to see a study comparing the happiness of close-knit, tribal, polygamous communities with close-knit, tribal, monogamous communities.
Just to nit-pick - I'm not sure how that study would help you in making your decisions. After all, you are not living in a close-knit tribal community, but in a vast and complex global community. What works in the context of life fifty thousand years ago may very well be disastrous in today's radically different world.
So, what you really need is a study comparing the happiness levels of polygamists and monogamists in today's society, controlling for factors like how deliberate the choice is (as pointed out in the parent comment, some polygamists are so because they can't get a long-term relationship, rather than by choice). I.e. the study referred to in this article - but done properly.
I think the point is to at least try to have a control for the experiment. Social experiments like these are going to be difficult to eliminate all other variables, but this is probably as close as we are likely to achieve.
>>I also have doubts that the benefit is due to monogamy. Hell, I have doubts that the benefit is due to a relationship. It could merely be because the people have a close companion.
It could also be that those who are happy are more likely to end up in a relationship.
Last I heard, most close-knit tribal communities are actually more-or-less monogamous. The main binding structure is the extended family, not extended sexual networks.
They're serially monogamous, not life long exclusive pair bonds. Not that those don't exist but they're mostly a minority pursuit.
The below quotation gives a flavour of what it's like for the Irish non working class, living in or applying for social housing. From what I've read of the book Promises I Can Keep and Charles Murray's Coming Apart it's pretty close to the situation in the US non working class, with the no college working class trending that way.
==
I don’t care if you break up with your significant other, spouse, or what it was, or who was at fault, but if I get one more file like the soap opera I have just been handed this week (you may wish to take notes)…
…wherein Household A comprised of B, C and child D and Household Q comprised of R, S and children T and U have both had applications in for a couple of years for social housing.
(i) Household A’s application failed because the parties B and C were not in communication with us as to whether they wanted to proceed. B did not answer our letter, C did; they’ve since split up and are at different addresses. More letters on our part to the new addresses. B doesn’t answer but C does, he still wants to apply for a house because now he’s with a new partner and they have a new baby. Fine, that’s what we’re here for.
(ii) Household Q’s application has been approved. Except that R and S have also since split up, but they never bothered to tell us, and I only discovered this because
(iii) C and S are now cohabiting. And have a new (third) application in for social housing. All of which means:
(iv) We don’t know where B is; we presume she took child D with her wherever she is now. Maybe she will or maybe she won’t apply for social housing on her own behalf. R’s application which has been approved now has to be nullified or something of the like because the circumstances have changed. R may be cohabiting with a new partner and with a new baby of their own; we don’t know and will have to find out.
Meanwhile, C and S and her children T and U and their new baby W are all in a fourth new address, have a new application in as Household Y, and will have to be processed as soon as we disentangle Household A’s application, deal with terminating Household Q’s application, and enter Household Y’s application with the two persons from A and Q that the computer system – which was not designed to deal with the game of “musical chairs” when it comes to swapping your partners – won’t let us assign C and S to a new application because they’re already on the system with their prior applications.
And that means delay, which means C and S (and possibly R and/or B) will be on the phone yelling at us about being on the housing list with years and why the delay when they’re qualified they’re going to the local paper, their local councillor, their local representative about this!
You can see why I’m all NO CANOODLING UNTIL YOU SORT YOURSELVES OUT AND GIVE US ALL AND I DO MEAN ALL THE PERTINENT DETAILS IN A TIMELY MANNER, I trust?
Eh, read between the lines here. That's written specifically to seem confusing & crazy. It's not. Two families split up because one partner from each formed a single new couple.
That's all that happened. It's only "complicated" in the writer's mind because the two families had put in applications in the same apparently-awful social housing computer system.
The complaint about needing this info "in a timely manner" is a bit ironic... the original two applications have apparently been pending for "a couple of years" before the story even begins.
> I'd like to see a study comparing the happiness of close-knit, tribal, polygamous communities with close-knit, tribal, monogamous communities.
Not a study, but National Geographic did an in-depth piece on the Hadza people in 2009 that you may find interesting. It's available on their web site in full. If I remember correctly, the journalist described them as 'serial monogamists', having many monogamous relationships throughout their lifetime.
> How many friends do you sleep in the same room with, wake up to, go to work with, and have fun with? None, right? The thing is, that situation was the norm for most of humanity.
I do not like the idea of sleeping in the same room as other people on a regular basis and in general being around them most of the time. I need some privacy or else I get cranky.
When it comes to a lot of electronic music, there is no recording necessary and the artist is the person who mixes/masters. No need for money there
Side ramble: I've never understood why people paint "real" bands as being lo-fi, guttural, punk and romantic. It's a goddamn privelege to afford all that equipment. Here's your true punk: pirate Ableton and upload a tune to YouTube for free.
Back to the point, for a lot of styles, the only point of a label is marketing. But this can be a very useful tool -- even just acting as a quality filter is useful.
You are wrong on the fact that musicians doing electro do the mix/master.
I know people doing electro, and they pay people to do this job. It is really hard to do it correctly.
Even people like DeadMau5 and Daft Punk do not do the mix/master by themselves. They just monitor the people doing it (look at some of their interviews).
Some rudimentary consideration of what life is like in a tribe would suggest that greediness and hoarding are evolutionary weaknesses. If you take too much for yourself, others in the tribe get pissed off and get rid of you. If you have a tendency to hoard things, you're going to have a hard time managing a nomadic lifestyle that necessitates light enough loads to carry. Not to mention -- things rot, things break, things get lost, and if you've just used up all the natural resources around you, you're screwing yourself quite hard.
This guy is completely innocent and has done no wrong, yet he feels so guilty and tip-toes around everything, just because he has white skin and a penis. That's can only be the result of a movement that is sexist and racist. That's the issue people have.
But I hear you. "He's privileged!" The thing is, he has no control over the privilege that others give him. And no one should feel guilty for something they do not ask for, do not do themselves, and do not have any control over.
The fault with privilege is in the people who give it to others. The only way to fix such a thing is for all of society to stop giving favors to people based on their gender, race and sexuality. What a fucking shame it is that these SJWs are doing exactly the opposite of that.
This is how the status quo of "social justice" has transformed:
Past: "No one should receive positive or negative treatment based on superficial factors, we are all of equal worth"
Present: "White men are all better off, therefore let's treat them like shit and do lots of favours for everyone else to even it out"
If that sounds like a positive transformation, and not a regression, then I am quite concerned. One seems to be an enlightened response, the other seems to be at the level of a teenage middle child.
You can figure out the rest. Buy takeaways or use a gas stove for food, use a 24/7 gym for showering/toilet, and go to your job for the internet (alternatively, the library, free WiFi places, or mobile net).
That's probably the cheapest way to live without being entirely homeless (or just buying land/house).