How to Drop Out
ranprieur.com
ranprieur.com
He asserts that profit is evil, which is essentially saying that time spent procuring resources is not a cost that can be recuperated through monetary compensation. He almost even comes out and says time isn't a cost when he says he'd think it evil to sell something he found while dumpster diving, "how can you sell something you get for free?". He didn't get it for free, he got it through the time effort of dumpster diving, a recurring cost that has a random (though apparently positive) payoff. Yet his entire motivation for "dropping out" is to use his time as he sees fit, because it is the most precious thing to him.
He asserts that trade requires someone to be "the sucker", yet he justifies his couch surfing by offering his friends services instead of money. Trade fundamentally requires that both parties agree that the trade action is advantageous to both of them; total value increases for both parties, separately and combined.
He is absolutely engaged in a purely capitalistic system of free trade, completely unfettered by the dead-weight loss of tax systems, and does nothing but deride the one economic system that dragged the human race out of abject poverty.
I would love to see his reaction to a society that had collapsed in the way he predicts. What would he do without "wage slaves" around to throw away food, give away clothes, and let bums sleep in their houses?
Raiding deserted department stores is fine for a few years, but that's not a long-term strategy. When the department store building collapses because nobody's maintaining it, and when the clothes run out and the factories aren't making any more, what then? Same with bicycles and any other technology he likes to use.
Of course, that fundamental is often obscured in today's mass market, and can in fact be lost, when people are don't purchase in their best interest, and are encouraged in this by advertising etc. And Adam Smith is often misapplied to justify it.
You can even have a kind of profit without trade, as in when you invest by practicing skills, creating equipment and so on which leverages your many subsequent efforts. Even a cave man can do it (and did).
"If you require a motivational writer or speaker to live differently, then as soon as that external energy shot wears off, you will fizzle and burn out. But if everyone is trying to discourage you from doing something, and you do it anyway, then you have the internal motivation to persist and succeed."
This probably applies to start ups too. Starting up on my own has been 1% partying at cool start up events and 99% quietly getting on with stuff that needs to be done. This is not exactly how it is sold to people - one great idea, 15 minutes of hacking to a suitably cool soundtrack, then off to the nightclub to flagrantly spend the IPO money. Possibly you might have to suffer a back alley chase or two with agents dispatched from the Yamicroogle offices to steal your technology, but that's about the extent of the sacrifice.
The 1% is fun! But if you aren't the kind of person who also enjoys the other 99% I don't know how you would cope.
The technical work is about 50% working on new features and 50% tracking down customer issues.
The non-technical stuff is a mix of blogging, twitter, going to events, public speaking, e-mailing prospects, calling people, customer support and enterprise sales ground work. The percentages vary wildly depending on what is going on at the time.
I do currently live without a car and I'm happier this way. But, having spent many years as a homemaker, I don't think there is some inherent virtue in not having money of one's own or an income. I did get to live for many years in a way that taught me inherent value over "price". Lots of people these days seem to equate placing a dollar amount on something with real value, but it's not the same thing. Perhaps that is a mental model this individual was struggling with when the original essay was written. He does indicate he has since bought land. Presumably his thinking has evolved over time and he might not say the same things now that he said when this was written. Maybe he has found his own third option now, one where his idea of "freedom" involves more real choice rather than reactionary rejection of money.
Yes his ideas are provocative, and I wish more of us were able to critique our own thinking, our own group-think, and our own society as he does. He reminds us constantly how our willingness and need to identify--our allegances--become an easy way for us to stop thinking for ourselves. It takes real work to maintain a remove from the propoganda around us, to be able to see it for what it is, and act against it by helping others to open their minds a little (or a lot).
A couple of you have noticed his "Land Blog." See how he uses his land project as a laboratory for his own thinking, and to test the concepts that so many people are only talking about yet seem to have such strong opinions on while never having actually DONE anything like that.
It might also interest some of you to know that he used to accept donations, but lately due to having come into a small amount of money, discourages them. Though he has manners and will accept a gift graciously.
It is clear that so many of the commenters here work quite dilligently to defend their own closely held beliefs and ways of living, while trying to find faults with alternative ideas that are not THAT far removed from your own. What is the threat you perceive? That maybe some of the life choices you have made and the belief systems you have invested in may have been a wrong turn, a dead-end, or at least not the ones that create joy and happiness? Rigidity of thinking is widespread, and some of the most rigid minds I've encountered are those that consider themselves far-left new-agers! (though I don't mean to suggest that describes the posters here).
Arghhh. Having children is _not easy_. There's a reason we still say "Mom and baby are healthy and happy." For a long time we lost one or both pretty regularly. I don't agree with all aspects of western society, but clean hospitals and infant intensive care units are most of the reason infant mortality has dropped.
Just reading it made me cringe for the author. Infant mortality is inversely correlated with usage of scientific medicine and hygiene. Look at history.
Even now, we can inversely correlate any country infant mortality with its level of medical equipment.
We had the last 4 of our 8 at home, with, yes, one close call, but with a competent midwife, that's par for the course.
He hasn't dropped out at all - he's just found a way to live within the system such that he can take from it without giving back. He benefits enormously from the very system he denigrates. If anything that's a statement of how amazing our society is, that it's successful enough that people can live largely off its freebies and its waste products.
I'm sure for some peope society is awful and living away from it really is the very best option. But society wasn't foisted on us without our consent. At one point we were ALL living off the land - and we didn't like it. So we built civilization.
I don't recall having any say in it. Where's the opt-out clause?
At one point it might have been America (if you were European). Supposedly, the colonists had a lot of trouble with their indentured servants going native, thus the early colonial emphasis on freedom and natural rights as a mitigating measure.
Later, it might have been the West.
But today? How do you opt out now? Where's the release valve?
You can't opt out of reality. Unless the Matrix was true.
You should read the whole thing.
Also see his page of criticism and response:
Here's a list:
- All problems in Africa are caused by "development"
Oh really? Spread of AIDS because people think having sex with a virgin will cure them, and kids dying of diarrhea too?
- Before the 20th century people lived off the land, and all was good
Actually, people lived like this in the 20th century too. And many live like that now. In fact, my grandparents did. They and all the kids had to work very, very hard to feed themselves. If this guy thinks farm labour is an easy occupation, it's only because his idea of where food comes from is the dumpster behind a grocery store.
Oh yeah, by the way, I don't think Ran has ever written about development in Africa, and he actually loathes hard labor and would be the first to agree that farm labor can really suck! But don't worry, some people may not notice that your comment has nothing to do with the stated purpose of this comment section, namely COMMENTING ON THE ARTICLE AT HAND.
People in general are usually pretty terrible at making choices that would improve their happiness. So even though almost anyone would pick modern life in the USA if given the choice, it's entirely possible that people in the bad old days actually were more satisfied with their lives on average. Well, except for possibly when they were dying in childbirth, starving in famines, succumbing to infectious diseases, or enduring other temporarily unpleasant states of affairs, anyway.
Actually, the idea "being happier working very hard in hopes to make a living, producing something tangible without being subject to arbitrary authority" sounds a lot like the startup mindset as well.
Consider the methods he suggests for retaining shelter: * Squatting. * Couch-surfing. * Living in his car. * Buying some out-of-the-way land and building a house on it (which, you note, he hasn't actually done).
Two of those are blatant parasitism, the third is borderline tragedy of the commons material, and the last one appears to support the institutions he claims makes you an "idiot" for supporting. I'm sure that his friends and family that he's stayed with enjoy being called "idiots" for buying into the whole concept of property and having couches to lend.
There's nothing wrong with dumpster diving or couch surfing, but it's pretty arrogant to claim that doing so and rejecting conventional social order is the measure of an enlightened mind, when neither dumpster contents nor couch would exist without that order.
His response to criticism appears to be mainly sophistry and further reiteration of the "property is theft" meme.
Also, calling the statement "property is theft" a meme does not make it untrue.
Now, the article explicitly bashes self-sufficiency, so I guess it's just a matter of which viewpoint you subscribe to.
I think that any viable theory of "dropping out" will take market forces into account. I find that this article does some of that, though it seems to me that it doesn't go far enough. (In particular, he notes that trying to do what you love resulting in doing what you no longer love. Market forces can explain this one quite handily!)
Also, "find a partner who will support you," is exactly what my mom did. Being a homemaker and mother is a legitimate full time job, one which our society should highly prize. Anyone who says otherwise is inattentive or hasn't really thought things through.
...and therefore not "dropping out", right?
And I'm not arguing with you, by the way. There was just something about the article's tone that ticked me off :)
Key, I think, is to separate yourself from the company you work for. think of it as being a contractor. "I'm giving you the best advice I can. If you don't take it, well, I've still done my job" and "I will work for you as long as the money is worth my time. I understand that the opposite also applies, and I don't take it personally if an employer feels they can do better."
(then, you also need to deal with personal failure, but that is true even after you become independent. Though, personally, I find it is easier to say "oh, you didn't like my services? here's a full refund" now that I'm a product company and the things I'm selling are not as limited as my hours. Not giving people refunds when I personally fucked up was one of the things I liked least about selling my hours. But it is just very difficult to do so.)
That's what I do.
My current job is great - I work as a web developer in a small web shop. The work is low stress, pays ok, and has great perks like letting me work from wherever I want. As a result, I travel internationally a lot and work from wherever I'm staying. Although lately I've been thinking that I've hit a wall - nothing I'm doing at work is new anymore, I've just realised that this job is the kind of job the author was describing. I've considered trying to change jobs, maybe to AI programming or game development, or anything more interesting and fun than what I'm doing now, but that would be a mistake. Instead I'm going to pursue those topics in my own time, because I enjoy it.
It's amazing that sometimes we can overlook how great things are until someone points them out.
That article was written by a dropout - what makes you happy might be different from what makes him happy.
Consider: suppose you could switch to another job that was equally stress free, but more interesting. How would that be bad?
I will always chase my interests and goals, but rather than doing it for someone else's company and someone else's ideas, I'd rather do it on my own, on my own terms.
Obviously, changing to a job that's equally stress free but more interesting wouldn't be bad at all, however there is a certain amount of stress involved in that process inherently, and I really need to be able to work remotely at the moment.
Though I admit I am undecided, sometimes I feel like whatever, just do what I need.
As an IT worker, I sometimes leave the office to talk with clients about a project. But that is very rare.
Edit: of course there are other ways to work on the social inhibitions. I really want to go to more conferences/bar camps and at last give my own presentations, too.
Q:What you're suggesting is parasitism.
A:Industrial civilization is parasitic, because it takes more from its environment than it gives back, and if we remove ourselves from roles that feed that behavior, we are anti-parasites.
That does not make sense. If he is parasiting a parasite, he is still a parasite. He's not causing sufficient harm to destroy society, but still he profits from it, by diving into dumpsters.
On the other, I can understand that one shouldn't feel grateful towards a system that feels unfair or is somehow harmful. I'm at work today and as I watch this cluster flux-up in progress I sometimes wonder what am I doing with myself? Are all jobs like this? Do they at least start out not like this? It's an insult to me and my co workers (we need to write less bugs, people) and even some of my managers but this is the way the project is put together by outside forces. It'll probably fail anyways but has a higher chance of doing so if we rush rush rush. And I'll get laid off anyways, no matter how much or little I work at it.
As an aside, its amusing how many people come to Concord and are stunned to learn that Walden Pond is only a little over a mile from the center of town - not exactly the middle of nowhere.
Call me old-fashioned, but I see work as the ultimate form of decency.
Why ?
This guy was in his late 30's, single, had a low-level IT job and plainly said that the only reason he gets out of bed in the morning is to come to work (a job which he bitched about endlessly).
I could never understand the psychology of it.
The minimalistic approach he takes is one I follow to a degree myself, but for radically different reasons than he does. I've found that having extraneous things don't make me any happier. Actively rejecting them as part of a radical lifestyle doesn't make me happier either. I am happy because I don't notice them missing, because I don't need them and don't have anyone around reminding me that I should or shouldn't.
The reason I define his lifestyle as radical is because of this.
"I hate civilization as much as anyone, but in these last few years before it crashes, we should appreciate and use what it offers."
Civilization is not going to fail any more than every time prior where it was purportedly on the brink. If you are using this as an excuse for anything, please stop now. You are actively contributing to problems that, if civilization could fail, might cause it to do so. As romantic of a notion as this might be, it will suck beyond belief if it actually happens.
The other notion, that somehow our economy must either be Utopian or negatively-amortizing itself into oblivion, is stated as truth with nothing more than sneering toward idiots, elites, and robber barons as the perpetrators. I normally try to be more cool-headed than this, but this claim is bullshit. There are other options, and given incentives and perspective, people will pursue them. And the incentives are there, for them and everyone else, if people would knock off all of these various scorched earth policies.
The perspective this author offers will keep them from pursuing those options, if people listen to him. I want to liken him to a reader of tea leaves, who's motives may not be less than wholesome; is the tasseographer offering a vision into your future, or are they merely attempting to influence your frame of mind for their own benefit?
It is that frame of mind which determines whether or not you think doing hard work that you love for money is possible or desirable. I think it is possible; I've seen people do it. The author would like me to believe these people are living a lie, and are probably depressed and putting on an fake image for me. I wonder if he believes any of the depressed people are faking it?
As to whether it is desirable, this depends on one's frame of mind. Do you believe that a difficult problem you solve today will matter tomorrow? Do you believe that, if someone pays you to solve that difficult problem, it will matter less than one you solved for free? Do you believe that your work will benefit both yourself and society in some tangible and sustainable way? Do you believe that some impending catastrophe will render all of your work irrelevant? How much of this is passive believe, and how much of what you believe dictates your actions and the influence you have over the eventual outcome?
This really comes down to frame of mind, which seem more and more like matters of faith. You might think civilization sucks; you might think money sucks; you might think doing anything but the bare minimum amount of work to survive another day sucks. I would disagree with all of these claims, but how would I have a reasonable discussion about this? How do you change someone's frame of mind when the validation they've been seeking for years might finally come to pass tomorrow? In a way, I think the first step is realizing that our frames of mind are not without consequence.
I assume you think progress is good and the world is right, but you haven't explained why.
You're being very dismissive.
Douche.
Shack in the woods: I've heard that Amish children are quite happy. Not sure about older adolescents.
Growing up in a sterile suburban setting has serious downsides. My sister and I both grew feeling not "real" somehow. Thank goodness we both somehow escaped the flypaper of 80's Rap!
"I'd love to have a couple kids, but I won't do it without a physical location that's owned and paid for, and without someone besides myself to help out the mother, and without the means to dodge the institutions, whether through excellent legal help or through the institutions breaking down."
If you're going to namecall, at least do it based on fact.
He'd love to have a couple kids and raise them in a junkyard. He can't, because it's illegal to do so. So, because he doesn't have the wherewithal to handle the institutional friction involved in raising children as crypto-homeless vagabonds, he won't do it. What a prince.
I mean, seriously, do you really think that's what he wants? Or do you think it makes for a really good strawman to beat up?
But boy, I know I'd rather have been raised in a junkyard. I was raised in a prison with a television. I really wish I could get my childhood back.
Perhaps he's enjoying his freedom too much to have kids right now.