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There is no evil corporation stopping you from dropping out of the rat race and moving to a farm to live life off the grid. What's stopping you from doing this and living the life you appear to desire?

There is also no evil corporation ordering people to give up subsistence farming and move to cities. Why do people, all around the world, still do it?

Probably financial reasons due to an increased of cost living.

The cost of living a subsistence lifestyle is very low. Land in the middle of nowhere is cheap, and property taxes are almost non-existant, you don't need to pay 25% of the turnips you grow to the state as an income tax, and gasoline is very cheap in the US.

There's that whole big-corporation medical care business, but if you're willing to forego it, the dream can be yours - for much less then the cost of a small suburban home.

> The cost of living a subsistence lifestyle is very low.

As with Linux, this is only true if your time has no value.

Yes, you have to set that to zero or infinity, depending on whether you're a half full or empty kind of guy.

>Land in the middle of nowhere is cheap, and property taxes are almost non-existant

Housing is not cheap, no matter where you go in the US. Sure, the land it sits on may be cheaper in some places, but the cost of building materials is the same everywhere, and houses have to be built to code, and old houses that aren't maintained well enough get condemned so you're not allowed to live in them. Of course, you can always just get an old trailer home or something.

>and gasoline is very cheap in the US.

Yes, and distances are far when you're talking about living in "the middle of nowhere", and if you have an old vehicle, it's probably going to have terribly fuel economy, so you're still looking at a significant fuel bill just to get to the grocery store. No, you're not going to succeed in getting yourself a proper diet with your home garden. And you still need some kind of income to buy that land and whatever structure you live in, and that gas for your car/truck.

>There's that whole big-corporation medical care business, but if you're willing to forego it,

That's not allowed unless the ACA is repealed. Of course, with a low enough income, you might qualify for Medicaid, but that really depends. I believe a lot of states won't allow you to enroll if you're an adult, saying you should just get a job.

Most of the cost of housing is in labor, not building materials. And, as you said, there's always the trailer. It'll be cold in the winter, though.

My parents do part-time homesteading (My father works - he will retire in a few years) - and they only need to go into town once a month for staples - supplemental chicken feed, milk, fertilizer, etc. Fuel economy isn't that big a deal.

The ACA tax is based on your income. If you have no income, the tax is tiny.

No, of course you can't start all that having nothing. However, most of the posters on HN are more then able to save up to afford this life.

The other problem you're missing is what happens when you have health problems? No health insurance means you're screwed as soon as you have any kind of problem at all.

erikpukinskis - the great-grand-parent of my post was talking about dropping out of the rat race that is modern life, which presumably means that you are OK with not having access to a $400,000 treatment plan should you get lung cancer. You can't really have it both ways, though.

I think there's truth on both sides. I feel this is a good time to link to this article again that I believe was discussed on here some months ago: http://www.meltingasphalt.com/ads-dont-work-that-way/

I find its theory compelling that a lot of advertising works by cultural imprinting: corporations use their power to create a presence in the public sphere which changes the underlying culture of society, and we as individuals have no choice about that.

Obviously individuals can in principle just ignore and go against the prevailing culture (in sufficiently free countries, at least), but even in free countries, that's a lot harder than just going with the flow. That's just how humans are wired, and the likely fact that corporations - i.e, non-human intelligences - have such influence over us by changing the very fabric of society is a cause for concern. Like all influence it can turn out to be good or bad, but ignoring it is not an option.

> There is also no evil corporation ordering people to give up subsistence farming and move to cities

Good luck growing modern plants, they're mostly hybrid and massively drop in yield if you decide to plant part of your harvest next year. Not to mention that Monsanto will be all over your field if they get wind of you violating their copyright by doing so.

So, don't get hybrid seeds?

I love it. The top comment is about how this is caused by government, the third comment is about how this is caused by corporations. Obviously some force greater than ordinary humans must be at fault for this!

Governments and corporations are both made up of people. The leeches win when good people can't be bothered to show up and do the work.

I'd like to mildly challenge your accounting. I believe when you say "the third comment" you're referring to the top comment responding to the top comment responding to the top comment. Recognizing the threaded nature of the comments here makes this fact not at all surprising.

> corporations seek to remove all of our abilities to take care of ourselves and our communities

Please.

It's in a corporation's best interest to give the customer exactly what he wants.

We still have "our abilities to take care of ourselves and our communities," but we also have the option of a corporation providing for our every whim.

It's in the corporation's best interest to ensure a steady income flow. That's about it. Corporations only care about 'what the customer wants' insofar as how much it affects a steady income flow.

I think you have misinterpreted what the parent comment was saying. He wasn't saying there are limited options, just that we choose to have corporations take care of things for us, and now that we have chosen this we are more dependent on them. He wasn't stating that you could not take care of yourself if you want to. Just that it's easier to let the corporation do it for you.

No, he sounds like evil coroporations force us to meet friends in coffeshops, etc. When in reality we just don't want to tidy up our houses before inviting friends over, do the dishes, etc. And it also gives us an opportunity to leave the house :)

Then why do corporations spend billions of dollars each year on advertising? Surely it's to convince you to buy something that may not be exactly what you want.

A corporation's main goal is to drive up profits and if it's more convenient for them to manipulate a populace into acting a certain way than it is to give the populace exactly what they want then that's what they'll do.

There is probably not a conspiracy from corporations or government to undermine people's freedom and what not but it doesn't mean that it isn't the end result.

Advertising is 99% about making you aware that theproduct exists and fulfills the needs you already have, and at most 1% about making you want theproduct.

How is that true? What about all the various gadgets that exist that nobody wanted until they were advertised to them? If you don't know about something then how can it possibly be exactly what you want? You wouldn't want it if you didn't know it existed. Or how about brands like Coca-Cola, everyone knows they exist but they keep advertising, surely it's to make you want it!

If you don't know about something then how can it possibly be exactly what you want? You wouldn't want it if you didn't know it existed.

You may want something with accomplishes some goal without knowing exactly what. If a person thinks "I have to go out but I'm waiting for a call", they may not imagine the cellphone as an object, but they still want something that solves their problem.

That said, 73.6% of all statistics are made up. Many ads in fact are designed with both goals in mind.

[Citation needed]

It is to convince that you want this particular product by this particular company over the competition.

There are some adverts that sell a product against its competitors. But there are plenty that sell the idea that with a particular company's logo on a product you'll be fashionable. And, there are plenty that sell products that people don't need, at all, using the idea that the product will make your life more fulfilling.

We don't watch broadcast TV at home. 30 mins in front of a friend's TV and our kid suddenly 'need' a ton of new stuff. At the cinema "you should get that car Dad", etc..

It's psychological manipulation, it's rarely ever a helpful synopsis of a products comparative specifications.

No, it's actually in the corporation's best interests to have customers who want whatever is most profitable for the corporation to produce.

In many many cases, it's more cost effective to modify the customer's wishes than it is to change the corporation and what it produces.

Many corporations create "needs" that didn't exist before, and spend marketing effort convincing consumers that that need exists. This is telling the customer what they want, or at the very least deflecting existing wants into the corporation's exploitable direction.

> It's in a corporation's best interest to give the customer exactly what he wants.

Comcast comes to mind here. Or Better Business Bureau and the sole reason for its existence.

Exactly. It's in a corporation's best interest to fleece its customers for as much as it can get away with. Monopolies have a much easier time of it.

> It's in a corporation's best interest to give the customer exactly what he wants.

It's in a corporation's best interest to instil in the customer an idea of what he or she wants.

...and then yes, your version.

Just a few days ago I was walking into Costco to buy a loaf of bread. Outside at the food court was an old Chinese man with what looked like a 4 year old grandson. The old man was playing a bamboo flute, very beautifully, while his grandson ate some food. The whole area was filled with some beautiful music which transported me back to time I have spent in China. I wish listening to live music was more common again.

I really don't think it's some sort of conspiracy: it's just that it's more efficient for someone to grow all your food, someone to make all your clothes, someone to purify all your water, someone to generate all your electricity &c. while you do what you do best than it is for you to learn how to do all of those things, acquire the raw materials and spend decades trying to make a computer from some copper, oil and sand.

I recall that Mao Zedong tried to get every farmer to smelt his own iron, which rather predictably led to a lot of poor-quality iron, and a food shortage.

I get the appeal of self-sufficiency, I really do (one of my dreams is to grow all of my own food), but I think it's a luxury for the rich and inescapable misery for the poor. Modern capitalism has made everyone richer.

Corporations don't force it on you. People voluntarily use that.

Corporations provide those things because people want them.

Advertisements target your lizard brain. That bypasses your rational thinking. It is not a fair fight and not merely "just say 'no'".

That just sounds like a way to dodge responsibility.

I wish it were merely a way to avoid taking personal responsibility. There's much more to it than that.

Read "The Psychology of Influence" along with some of the stuff by, e.g, Kahneman and/or Tversky on behavioral economics and the various cognitive biases humans have that lead them to make poor decisions. I assure you that corporations have read all of this and are taking advantage of it to part you from your money, selling you products that they make you think will increase your happiness. Another resource on this would be Robert Shiller's book "Phishing for Phools, The Economics of Manipulation and Deception".

This isn't about taking personal responsibility. Even when you become fully aware of the insidious way in which our culture works, it's impossible to entirely avoid being taken advantage of by marketing and advertising. We humans are made to think in certain ways, our brains have evolved in a way that gave us cognitive biases we can't escape, even when we're aware of them. Being aware can motivate us to change the culture itself (and its laws), though, so in the future people are less affected by corporate deceit and greed. Yes, this would likely mean lower corporate profits. (Question how we're conditioned to think of lower corporate profits as a bad thing.)

What is wrong with corporate greed?

I want the best returns out of the corporations I invest in.

> Question how we're conditioned to think of lower corporate profits as a bad thing.

Perhaps it is my neoliberal worldview, but I think most people are like "corporate profits can go down" for <my cause>. People think that corporations are owned only by billionares.

Lower corporate profits are a bad thing for shareholders.

Why don't we just take poor people's money since they're so greedy for wanting money? Most of the arguments against excess wealth can be used against many first-world people including HNers.

Take it further. Why are you a shareholder? Why are so many people shareholders? Investing for retirement is pushed heavily and incentivized by the government but is it for our own good or is it to provide liquidity in the financial game? If you are pushed to invest then you have skin in the game and are a shareholder who wants to increase corporate profits. This puts you almost directly at odds with all non-shareholders who are negatively affected by increasing profits.

People are shareholders to make money.

> This puts you almost directly at odds with all non-shareholders who are negatively affected by increasing profits.

Economics is not zero-sum. Few people such as competitors will be negatively affected, but for the average person there will be little impact. For example, if Google makes more profits I am hardly impacted.

So what exactly are you saying these influences can do? If you tell me that they're going to make me slightly more likely to buy one brand of soap than another, I can accept that. If you tell me that they're going to make me buy diamonds when I have no conceivable use for diamonds, I'm gonna have to call BS.

Well, people buy diamonds and they're basically useless, other than signalling that the purchaser has a certain amount of money. The price for them is much inflated over what it would be if priced purely for their practical value. Artificial diamonds are identical to the naked eye, yet the diamond industry somehow influences our culture to make people think they need to spend many thousands of dollars on useless "real" diamonds.

On a (somewhat) related note, this conversation reminded me of a George Carlin routine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvgN5gCuLac

It is funny you mention diamonds, since they are the epitome of marketing a valueless product into something everybody (except you) wants to buy.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/02/have-yo...

'In its 1947 strategy plan, the advertising agency strongly emphasized a psychological approach. "We are dealing with a problem in mass psychology." '

I'm not saying a person is perfectly rational. But if you don't like something just don't do it. Corporations aren't forcing you.

Could you give an example of how you can't say no to advertisement?

The problem with manipulation is that there is no 'forcing'. That is the entire problem.

And sometimes they remove competing things that people want so that the only thing available is what corporations have to offer.

Case in point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_consp...

> corporations seek to remove all of our abilities to take care of ourselves and our communities, so that they may resell those things to us as products

That's an interesting thought. I was thinking that probably UBI won't come to pass (politicians corruptible, corporations greedy and short sighted) thus people will have to rediscover self-reliance in order to improve their situation.

>many of us would be happy to never have to walk significant distance, cook, or listen to a local musician ever again.

You say that like local musicians are somehow a good thing... I'm quite sure there's none in my little area that I'd have any interest in listening to. Whether local musicians are good depends on your taste in music and the local culture where you happen to live.

While car corporations were obviously behind car-oriented policies as well, the American electorate was also completely on board. It didn't have to be this way.