Comment by JR1427
2 days ago
This reminds me of a video I watch recently of a comfortably off guy who decided to try and do a long-distance cycle with just £100.
He could afford not to rely on others, but instead he let people buy him food, give him a bed, etc.
This didn't sit well with me. If you can pay your own way, but choose to instead let others pay for you, you're just sponging off people.
> If you can pay your own way, but choose to instead let others pay for you, you're just sponging off people.
I was particularly perturbed at the mention of someone emptying their bank account to help this guy, who has more money than the person emptying their account. I'm no ethics expert, but there is an idea that the unbounded acceptance of generosity becomes a form of exploitation, which I agree with.
I thought the eaay was creepy but that section just gave me the heebie-jeebies. "Sympathy vampire" is the term that came to my mind unbidden. It reads like an essay by someone aromantic describing love purely in terms of going to restaurants to eat exquisite food, and the mutual benefits of filing taxes jointly.
indeed the author sounds like an alien visiting a human zoo
I say it depends how he communicated it. If the other persons assumed he did not have money at all (and he was not clear about it) it is close to fraud - otherwise it is an awesome exercise in humbleness and expanding ones mind about the illusion of money. Not being dependent on it.
I used to hitchhike with a very low budget, but liked my independence and feel not comfortable to be dependant on other people, if there was no one in time, I took a bus. (If there was one)
But buddies I travelled with also took the no money approach serious (despite also having a bank account somewhere). Partly ideological, partly spiritual motivations. Not being dependant on money. It is freeing.
> But buddies I travelled with took the no money approach serious (despite also having a bank account somewhere). Partly ideological, partly spiritual motivations. Not being dependant on money. It is freeing.
I knew a ridiculous rich guy, who said the parents: “I do not want money from you, I will manage alone” He went to another city (where I met him) and he always bragged about how “liberating” it was, and how grown up he was, and he knew what is like to be poor, because he was poor… (1)
In my opinion he was full of shit and full of himself. It remind me about the film Inside Man, the opening scene features mastermind Dalton Russell (Clive Owen) in a prison cell, he say something like “being in a cell is not being in prison”. Is absolutely not the same being poor, in contrast to having money and not using it as part of a kind of game.
(1) let me give me more context: I saw him telling other people, who were actually poor and were struggling to eat, and giving lessons of life to them, explaining how being poor is an “opportunity“. It was a miracle he conserved all teeth that day.
"Is absolutely not the same being poor, in contrast to having money and not using it as part of a kind of game."
It is definitely not the same if there is a safety net you always can call and go back to. A true poor person does not have that. But if you have done the livestyle and know that you can get by without money, you do loose some fear of loosing money. That is indeed a liberating feeling and did helped me grow. But I also did not go around bragging how liberated I am, so I cannot judge on the person you met.
4 replies →
Poverty isn't surviving on beans and bread, or skipping a meal. It isn't sharing a tiny one bed apartment with 4 others. It's the fear of starvation. The fear of not being able to feed your family, or keep them warm in the cold.
I think if he is willing to be generous in other times and places as well, it can be a good learning experience.
I know this is also how Jesus lives in the Gospels, and has his disciples do so at times as well.
Of course he paid his way by healing the sick and raising the dead!
And telling really good stories.
in contrast, Jesus also could turn water into wine and he has the most rich parents in a human history (can manifest anhthing) so was he taking advance of people like the writer?
I did some bike touring for a few days at a time, and lived out of monthly Airbnbs for years. I was helped out several times, but my objective was to only accept when I was in a pinch. It's when you're relying on other people as a routine that it flips some circuit and I question it (the difference between a friend staying over and moving in, Airbnb and Couchsurfing). So the daily hitchhiking, even though he likely needed to save money, got to me a bit more than the other stories.
An interesting question would be - have I helped people more well-off than me? and how did I think about it?
I think there is no reason for him to write this article for free, or any of his articles, but I am glad he did us the kindness.
(I did like amish hackers https://kk.org/thetechnium/amish-hackers-a/ )
I think it's a balance. In some cases, the act of giving means much more to the giver than to the receiver, especially when they want to be a part of something larger than themselves.
Maybe the point was the connectedness? Spend £100 with no actual interactions, because literally everything is transactional, or "free ride" of of the very human need to connect socially with others?
I think our future needs more of the latter and less of the former.
Right, he's promoting living in a more helpful, less isolated world.
My wife and kids always make fun of me for the goofy dad-joke-level interactions* I will create with strangers (that far more often then not elicits laughs from the person with whom I interact).
When they tease me about it, I ask them if they'd rather live in a world of complete atomization, free of any human interaction.
I know I would not!
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEGohj0IkQo. (They call me "Bonjour" sometimes lol)
Then he needs to be willing to live both sides of the equation.
This is part of the issue I have with the original article.
When these kinds of "unique" people are rare, that's ... sorta okay. Once you get too many of them, it's no longer interesting and becomes an active hazard.
I have a further problem because it seems like the author has no plans for the reverse when it is supposed to be his turn to be on the giving side rather than the receiving.