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Comment by sbenitoj | Hacker News Reader

I’m not saying it’s physically impossible, but it’s awfully hard to believe that THAT many people are willing to live in such abysmal conditions.

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I've lived in accomodation with less than 4 m^2 per person.

I lived almost a year in a ~3.5x3.5m hostel room with 3 bunk beds (so 6 people total). Basically enough space to fit beds and nothing else, that's about 2 m^2 per person.

It's actually not as bad as you'd think. You basically use the room as a place to sleep, the rest of the time you were in the hostel you'd just hang around the common areas.

It's definitely not for everyone. If you're more introverted and need your alone time it would be horrible.

Same here. The Flying Pig, in Amsterdam by the park. But not for a year. And eight per room, as I recall.

You probably had a window at least. It becomes really bad room is windowless in a musty basement. But people still live in those conditions.

If you're just using it as a place to sleep the window really doesn't matter.

If you're on a normal rhythm, it's night when you go to sleep and the window doesn't add much. If you do night shifts, having no windows in the day is down right merciful.

As long as I can have a fan to blow up some air (like those you can clip/mount somewhere to save space), I'll be fine without a window.

I spent a night in a climbers shelter in the Andes, in very bad weather. It was maybe 50sqm with about 50 in it. No windows, one door, which hapless arrivals tended to close during the night. Bunks up to inches from the ceiling (in my case), which was slimy and dripped. Concrete walls wet from breath. Hard to move without whispered negotiations. It was one of the most unpleasant nights I have spent. Difficult to avoid panic whenever the door closed. There is a lot to be said for windows in close quarters.

Wow this sounds like an incredible experience, have you blogged about it or can you share some links on what the climb entails? Thanks!

Have you tried it before? I had a hotel room for one night like that in xian and couldn’t stay a second night there.

More to the point, musty and moldy is bad for your health.

This. I've lived in a 3.3 meters square "goshiwon" in Seoul, Korea, for about a year. After escaping the coprorate air-conditioned cubicle world back home, these were really the best days of my life!

I'm sure they would choose something better in a heartbeat if it were a viable option for them.

Quite a lot of people are stuck with "Accept this crap situation, go to some other worse option or kill myself."

Plenty of cultures believe in an afterlife and/or that your actions impact on the reputation of your family or both. Suicide is often deemed shameful, it is a black mark on the family and you won't get into heaven or similar.

Thus, many people feel suicide is not really an option, leaving them with this crap or some worse option.

It's not much of a choice.

They are “migrant workers and students from rural areas”. They are willing to live in such abysmal conditions for a few years because it holds the promise of a strong quality of life improvement after that.

They are fucked, as they will graduate to the world of "996" and still live a dismal life. Such are the ways in cultures with a steep "power gradient." If all persons are not created equal, then someone deserves steak eggs while another deserves beans and shit. All one have left is connections, and no measure of hard work will make the graduate from a farm family the peer of the graduate from a family of Party princelings.

Living comfortably is a luxury, even in many developed countries.

Americans are used to plywood or even paper board wrapped big houses.

You should see the cages people are willing to occupy in Hong Kong. Once you cross the border into the PRC, some people are willing to live in even harsher conditions.

I don't think there is a hard limit as to what humans will endure to survive or to make money to send home. Oddly, the question falls to "how low can I go to keep my life" instead of "how high can rise above my current situation."

Where the fuck are people who stand up and say, "we are humans, not rats, and we refuse to live like rats."

> Where the fuck are people who stand up and say, "we are humans, not rats, and we refuse to live like rats."

Some are in re-education camps, some in prison, some live on in a fashion as their organs were donated to more conformist subjects.

>it’s awfully hard to believe that THAT many people are willing to live in such abysmal conditions.

for example : https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4585230/Shocking-pi...

i don't think the keyword is "willing", more like "forced"/"have no choice"

The picture in the original article is an exaggeration of the real condition. There are bunkers with much better condition than what the picture shows and still very cheap to live in. I have lived in those bunkers for short time about 15 years ago. It wasn't worse than than a typical university dormitory except no windows.

It isn’t that much of an exaggeration. I’ve seen where the ant tribe lived in my own apartment building near Sanyuanxiqiao, it was very similar to the article.

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