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> But sometimes it seems that they are probably happier than the rest of us.

I remember one episode of Anthony Bourdain from years ago. He was in some South American country in a village and he went along to gather some yucca with a local farmer. Saying how great these people live in communion with nature and so on. And the farmer looks at him and says something to the effect of "you can have this, how about a trade". Meaning "you get to farm yucca and I go to live in your apartment in New York".

Not sure what my point even is, but I think it is about choice. It is ok if they end up living and doing that by choice, but if they are forced by circumstance they might feel trapped. We can go and start farming and living like this (I would certainly fail there quickly). But if they want to, they can't come and sit in cubicles and get paid for it.

I think you are right, and that we should not romanticize poverty. Many people view a 'simple life' as being one of purity and virtue, but there are very good reasons for why so many poor farmers want to move to the city.

it is not about living in NYC vs Mexican jungle. it is about living in Mexican jungle with or without gangsters/politicians/police. who knows, maybe we should try that too.

Sorry, I did diverge from the topic at hand. I didn't respond directly to the article but rather, the GP's comment made me remember something from a show I saw a while ago. So I wasn't talking specifically about Cheran but rather about the idea of how it might be nice to live a simple life like they do, and that often the simple part might be not as simple.

- you are right, GP digressed first

- our lives may not look that "sophisticated" to someone who travels to Monaco in private plane on a whim; all our "sophistication" is only in our heads

- generally speaking, i was amazed how defensive most people in this thread became, when they faced the fact that somewhere really far away in Mexican jungle some people dared to chose to live without gangsters/police/politicians; people here are almost offended by that possibility and started coming up with poorly designed straw man arguments (like GP) just to take attention away from the subject

> i was amazed how defensive most people in this thread became,

I should have prefaced it with that I really admire what they did. When we protest in the West we go out and draw large sign and march in front of the White House. Then we go home to our warm beds. Or we write angry messages on the internet from the comfort of our own homes.

I think what these people did is the real form of protest.

"what these people did is the real form of protest"

yes! and personally i would say, that they returned to normal.

You hit the nail on the head. Anthony can feel all romantic about because the second he has cold feet about it, he can jilt the his experiment in subsistence farming. That farmer has no hope, no way of parachuting out of there -as you say, the are trapped.

The best way, like always, is to find a middle ground. Work part of your time doing physical labour in soil, farming or rearing animals, and part of your time doing creative/intellectual work. Because both mind and body needs to work on things they are supposed to.

But finding that middle ground for themselves requires every man thinking for himself, which is kind of frowned upon in modern societies....

Steve Horwich has coined the phrase "rich enough to play at being poor". I think it very nicely captures both the dynamic of romanticising poverty (sorry, "simple, happy living") and the dubious ethics of doing so.

http://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/the-calling-in-de...

I worked for a few months in Maharashtra with an Indian FMCG/white goods manufacturer. We were trying to develop products for the "bottom of the pyramid" market - think families living in one room on $30-100 a month.

Every youth in the villages was trying to get to the cities. Their parents often couldn't read or even speak Hindi (let alone English), only their local dialect. So the kids were the ones getting the information for parents (like the price of goods in shops), sometimes translating, etc. as they were the first generation to be able to do so.

With a bit of schooling, they could get a factory or even a white collar job and happily left behind their subsistence living.

I think the "happiness" part was summed up with an interview my team had with a local woman. More than half her family, husband and all siblings included, were dead, usually before the age of 30, from causes ranging from disease to snakes to crossing the road without hearing the car.

Now I speak neither Hindi nor Marathi or whatever the local dialect was, and even connecting with and understanding my middle class Indian colleagues was difficult so maybe I saw what I wanted to see. Nevertheless I got the impression that the way people cope with such a harsh life is through a form of shell shock. They withdraw and just get on with surviving. I looked at the folks living next to their swimming pool sized field from which their entire life depended. I had a tough time seeing happiness. Nature, like the universe, is a cold and harsh place that doesn't care about you. The worst part is perhaps the lack of hope, of direction: tomorrow will always be like today, until the snake, disease or car gets you. At least the children have a bit of hope now, and through them the parents.

I left with renewed appreciation for what we have. Even today, I remember the intense happiness from seeing the smooth, clean tarmac at LHR. It surprised me somewhat how Brits could be so grumpy when they have it so good...

I'll leave the story about Tibetan yak farmers playing Android games whilst herding the beasts on horseback for another day.

The happiness of the countryside folks is a recurring myth in History. You can even see if in Antiquity with the scribes class writing about how peasants have a simple and happy life. The truth is much more nuanced and living on the land is harsh and hard work. Only the ones who never experienced it have an idyllic vision of it.

> But sometimes it seems that they are probably happier than the rest of us.

That's all that matters to me. True happiness. Do whatever gives you true happiness. If you are happy overworking yourself to get that promotion, that's totally fine. Or if you are happy working at a low paying cash counter job at a supermall, that is okay too.

I think a major factor in this is not to get lost in the endless cycle of continuously trying to gratify yourself by siphoning off from what society offers you. This just leads you into a bottomless rabbit hole which forces you to be "unhappy" until you have that "new cool thing".

I have quit my old job. Joined a couple of friends at a startup, doing consultancy work. Nothing fancy. But we get along just fine. Cut myself off from facebook. Work from home, work out, contribute to open source. Couldn't be happier than what I am now.

You have no idea what it's actually like. Go live in one of those places for a few months and then tell us how happy the people are.

Well, let them bring back police, gangsters and politicians. I am sure that will make things so much more fun.

I am glad that lot of people disagree. Let's NOT bring back police, gangsters and politicians.

Money is simply a means to an end. If you don't know what that end is, it's easy to feel restless, directionless and miserable. ''He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.''

> working 80 hours per week

Why would you do that, in America? (Assuming you're a software engineer or other white-collar job). Are you in game programming or something?

Just look at the Amish and Mennonites, and you will see people who are happy, subsist, and even prosper, by leading a life that requires little to no modern ameneties.

Not remotely comparable - an Amish need never worry about a warlord coming to steal his crops or his livestock or his daughters because the full might of the US govt protects his community.

Actually there are Mennonite communities in Mexico and some are affected by the drug cartels, particularly around Nuevo Ideal, Durango.

You might like "Story of the Mexican Fisherman" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=139090

I wouldn't romantisize poverty, but the people in this story would be poor whether or not they had kicked out the gangs and politicians. They're certainly happier now that they have.

Same goes to many parts of the USA. Many of these populations are probably Drumpf voters. Many never had a passport issue and believe the US is the "greatest nation on earth". Many don't speak a second language, not sure exactly where the countries their own country invaded are located, or even which people they've destroyed and exterminated when Europeans first invaded North America.