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Comment by oroeo92k | Hacker News Reader

It’s possible to encounter a concept and not emotionally “get it.”

It’s one thing to hear about something on TV and another entirely to change your entire life.

If it were “gotten” by the masses via Disney shows, we’d all stop chasing it at all.

Social ties and bonds existed before money, achieved via other means.

So yeah we don’t all “get it” in the same way. As someone with enough to retire on at 40, money feels pretty pointless to me. Same old cheeseburger or whatever Gates said.

It’s what other people gave me for satisfying their goals. ️

Economic anxiety, a policy pushed by financial planners, is what motivates. Not money.

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No, even if you realized all that to it's full extent, the fact is we don't get to choose how we live if we plan to live in our current world for very long.

Imagine we lived in a violent brutal world where it was kill or be killed. Even if you realize that killing only brings you stress and unhappiness, you won't last very long if you stop doing it. As soon as you lay down your arms someone will come and bash your head in with a hammer and take what's left of your belongings and family.

You could decide money and the rat race are pointless and decide to just stop pursuing it. And you'll survive... for a time. Then you won't be able to function in society. Won't be able to eat, or have a place to live, effectively the equivalent of having your skull bashed in like in that previous world.

That’s why I said “economic anxiety” is the motivator.

I didn’t say there wasn’t a motivator. I said it isn’t money. Until about a hundred years ago, most folks were self employed and chased down whatever they needed for the day. It’s in that last few hundred it became mostly about money for the masses.

There are people that live isolated and off the grid lives, unmotivated by money & rat race. Your idea of survival & what makes a good life may not match up with others.

But in the context of daily life of the masses, you’re correct in that we all just chase the popular social meme. It HAPPENS TO BE money, but it could be bottle caps get you stuff that supply side is selling. It’s what supply side accepts or gtfo. The threat of being evicted from the only life one knows is not literal death, but it feels like it, so we chase money, not bottle caps as a pragmatic acquiescence to social forces.

I have friends who are doing this. They live on land rent-free which is owned by someone who wishes property ownership wasn't a thing. They grow their own food. They dumpster dive for perfectly good food. They process and eat roadkill deer.

These people live fulfilling lives and work to contribute to each others' well-being and the well-being of others. I'm working on finding a similar living situation for my partner and our child.

Your ideas about what happens when someone quits the rat race are false and fear-based.

We don't live in a kill-or-be-killed world and we have many choices about how we live.

What happens to the deer population when everyone in the US starts road-killing them for food?

There are literally a whole ecosystems to learn to be interdependent with. Farming is still a thing, too. The deer are simply a single example of a way to eat. Hunting is also a thing. Don't buy into the myths of scarcity and learned helplessness society uses to get people to play along. Everyone's capable of learning how to reconnect with and be an active contributor to nature. We simply have a society that operates competitively with nature, rather than mutualistically, and it shows.

Sorry, hunter-gatherer never supported a civilization. It took big Ag to feed a city full of people.

The back-to-nature theme is fine for privileged landowning educated people. But the vast majority of everybody everywhere is dependent on the local grocery.

That's a choice everyone's making. There are other ways, and big Ag isn't the only one. Sitting in the current solutions instead of looking to evolve them and learning from the past isn't how hypersanity works.

And yes, hypersanity is probably the most extreme form of privilege. Also, the back-to-nature theme is great, not merely fine, and something indigenous cultures are trying to reclaim as a human birthright. They're arguably way less privileged by your standards. Privilege isn't a reason to dismiss a good idea.

Treating nature as something to live with collaboratively rather than avoid or treat as subservient/separate from us isn't privilege. It's science. Mutualism > competition.

If it comes to 'hunt your own food' then no, 'living with nature' that will would starve billions. While Big Ag feeds them, in a fragile pipeline of varying yields and weather.

Its 'privileged' to preach that nonsense to apartment-dwelling two-shift-working people with barely the time to visit the bodega on the way home.

Its 'privileged' to imagine this approach to live could be for more than indigenous peoples (rapidly dying out, why is that do you think?) and upper-class first-world wealthy dilettantes.

You're projecting a lot of things onto what I'm saying. I never claimed hunter-gatherer was for everyone. Getting back to nature is. That's science.

Privilege is there to be shared. This includes privileged wisdom.

Indigenous cultures are dying out due to settlers and colonizers decimating their lands, cultures, and people. This is not news. It has nothing to do with their way of life, aside from not having developed appropriate weapons and immune systems from those who would seek to kill/displace them.

As for the global food problem, I personally hypothesize capitalism needs to fall or radically transform before that can be addressed.

Learning to peacefully and freely share food seems like the simplest way to address current food issues, but people's desire for money seems to get in the way.

And I repeat, 'getting back to nature' is a pipe dream for most people, living on a cement street in an apartment 25 stories up. Which is over half of everybody already, and growing.

No, it's simply a collectively difficult thing to accomplish on our current path.

Your take is simply a disempowering reason to stay stuck. We can always reconnect with nature in various ways. Your perspective is self-limiting and keeps you from realizing ways to accomplish it.

Other people are probably figuring out how to do it and you haven't even bothered to find out how.

Here's the first link I found from googling "how to reconnect with nature while living in a city." These are decent approaches and I would say are barely scratching the surface.

https://permaculturenews.org/2017/02/20/can-connect-nature-c...

Ok, I read that (sort of). Ignoring the nonsense about 'healing frequencies', the rest seems to be middle-class advice about taking time, becoming an urban beekeeper, visits to the zoo and other time- and money-consuming hobbies that work for first-world educated people. Not a two-job parent in a too-small apartment.

Go outside. Find a tree. Sit under and observe it. How does it change over time? Consider where everything nourishing it is coming from. Don't have a tree available? Imagine one and start there.

If you want to reconnect with nature, you can. You sound like you don't want to believe it's possible, but even the smallest amount of effort can make a load of difference. Have you done any googling to challenge your belief? Have you sought out free ways to reconnect with nature?

I live on 80 acres of treed land with wildlife. I have a kitchen garden that feeds me. I'm doing fine thank you.

But I'm hyper-aware of how my situation is utterly different from billions of humans on this planet, with little or no access to even a tree. Or opportunity to sit under it. Living in high-rise apartment blocks far, far from these imagined opportunities.

The world out there is more like blade runner, than a utopia, for the vast majority of people.

And, yet, it's still possible. Your stance denies the existence of people figuring out how to do it and people's ability to reconnect. I know they're out there because I've met some. It's that simple. Your perspective is hyperbolic and disempowering, so it can't possibly be true (unless someone chooses to believe it, in which case, they're disempowering themselves). I'll continue to tell people everywhere that it's possible to reconnect with nature, even if they live in the void of space.

The mind is a powerful tool and if people believe they can use it to reconnect, they're much more likely to find a way to. When it comes to subjective experiences, it's important to engage cognitive biases in the direction we want them to go. Beliefs are useful for that, so we need to choose them wisely. Telling people they're not capable of accomplishing things is only helpful if they're rebelling against you because then they'll take it as a challenge. For others who are already in a disempowered state, they could use your message as reinforcing their stuck perspective. I choose to view life in such a way as to promote change and well-being, not get me or anyone else who hears my perspective stuck in it.

Not speaking in absolutes; I didn't inject that into this. Just point out the vast majority of apartment-dweller who ...

With their natural predators mostly eradicated, the deer population could do with a good culling in many states. Disclaimer: I've eaten deer in the past. However, now I'm not so sure I'd choose deer as a protein source. I'd rather not expose myself to Chronic Wasting Disease[1]. It is not a pleasant way to die.

1. https://www.cdc.gov/prions/cwd/occurrence.html

Go visit back-to-landers hippies from the early 70s, they lived quasi of-grid for almost 50 years now, all play music everyday, some of them (the youngest) can still ride their horses everyday, and they eat whatever they grow. Poorest people in the US, poorest than some homeless, but they still live really well, and better than most i shall say.

They chose how to live their dreams, did it for ~50 years and still ended up pretty comfortably. If they had the same viewpoint you have, they would probably have lived miserably until an Oxycontin OD.

Did those hippies take advantage of the medical insurance they didn’t have when they got cancer in those 50 years?

That also means they don't get many of the benefits of modern society, I would think. What do they do when their child becomes a type 1 diabetic? Or goes into shock from an allergic reaction?

Same thing that happens to people in New York City who can't afford fast-acting insulin or EpiPen? Your two examples are telling given the current state of pharma business.

That should probably read:

Your two examples are telling given the current state American healthcare system. I don't think its a problem in Europe.

I hate this meme; and that's what is is nowadays, a meme. There are generics for both EpiPen and fast acting insulin. You can walk into a Walmart and buy R for $25/bottle [1]; it didn't even require a prescription, the last I bought it. Sure, it's not as good as Apidra and the like, but it does work; it just requires a more controlled diet. The generic EpiPen is just over $100 for a 2-pack.

I get it, there's stories every now and then of some person that died because they couldn't afford their insulin (for $275/bottle). And every time I stare at the story wondering why that person decided to kill themself for reason.

I get it that newer insulins should be cheaper, that they're way over priced. But it's disingenuous to pretend there aren't options for people that can't afford them.

[1] https://www.walmart.com/ip/novolin-r-relion/129783484

I have visited back-to-lander hippies, and stayed with them at times. There are certainly aspects of their lifestyle I admire, but I think you're romanticizing it more than is accurate. It's particularly off-base to think that hippie-ism prevents opiate addiction: drug use is rampant in that community, and while you might see a decrease in opiates due to their social stigma in that community, there's still an opiate problem, and there are full-on epidemics of issues with other drugs. The same is true for a few related alternate-lifestyle communities I've interacted with.

The responders pointing out that the back-to-the-landers often don't have adequate medical care aren't entirely off-base. Pharma is fundamentally broken in the US, and this places strict restrictions on the freedom of many people here: if you need medical help on a regular basis, you have no option except to work--the "rat race" as it were. Work itself won't make you happy, but I think for most people, dying of illness that went untreated because they can't afford care isn't happiness either.

But some of us are healthy, and I do have choices. In the past ten years, I've worked a rat race job, then actively chosen poverty and didn't have health insurance, and finally started a company that's successful enough that I have health insurance again. I don't think it's accurate to say that individuals don't have choices. And that goes for everyone. Certainly some have more choices than others, but we all have at least a small degree of agency in our lives. So I don't think it's entirely fair to think that everyone is unhappy because they chose a life outside norms (i.e. without health insurance).

The question remains though, whether choosing to step outside of the norms actually makes us happy. I think the answer to that is somewhat individual: we all have different things that make us happy. But for anyone, there's a certain amount of hubris in assuming that you know better than the norms. Often, norms became norms because they work for a lot of people. I think, for example, we have lots of evidence at this point that percentage-wise money does buy happiness--up to a certain amount, and depending on how you spend it[1]. But those are percentages, not absolutes--there are miserable and happy people at both extremes of wealth and everywhere in between.

I don't know where this leads us. I suspect the reality is more complicated than any of us understand.

[1] https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/danielgilbert/files/if-mon...

> If it were “gotten” by the masses via Disney shows, we’d all stop chasing it at all.

This is such a common thing to think, but why, where is it based on? Why would you think that most people are still "chasing it" disproportionately?

If you become enligthened (for the sake of simplicity, let's equate enlightenment with realization that material wealth is not the source of happiness and not the meaning of life) - if you realize it about wealth, it does not mean that you stop working, that you stop getting money, stop producing value, stop function in society. If you would do that you would just sit somethere in the forest and do nothing all day, which is not the meaning of life either.

Instead you see material wealth for what it is - only a piece of the puzzle, not something that your happiness is directly conected to, but somethint that still makes sense to get in a small amount so that you provide your life with basic necessities for you and your family, and so that you can dedicate the rest of the time to self-development, spiritual growth, freedom etc. It doesn't mean that you disconnect from the society completely - that's not what happiness is about. Happiness is about balance, and seing things for what they are. Seing wealth as a tool, not as a source of happiness.

And there are a lot of people who already live like that! Sure there is a small amount that strives for wealth for the sake of wealth and kill their health in the pursuit of career success, but the rest are just living their lives.

So yes absolutely there are a lot of people who get (in terms of integrating into their life, and not just hearing them as a distant logical idea) these concepts that come up in disney movies.

Edit: I’m too tired to debate, it’s not coming out how I intend, and tbh I don’t really feel any obligation to satisfy you.

Getting into a back and forth online in a no stakes social forum is asinine.

Thank you for your honesty.

> Getting into a back and forth online in a no stakes social forum is asinine.

Truly words to live by.

It is unfortunate that you see your own development and thinking process (of which debating is a big cornerstone) as something asinine, but it is your right of course. If you do think that, why respond at all?

There is a very legitimate and valueable reason to debate anyone: is to develop your own worldview, beliefs, ability to articulate and learn something new. The worldview, at least a stable functioning one doesn't just come up in our minds by simply watching the world/other speakers, it requires active participation, whether it be simply thinking about the world, writing about it, or yes discussing/debating it with other people which forces you to make your own claims, formulate your thoughts, risk being wrong and ridiculed by other people, developing your language skills, figuring out what you actually think about certain topics, etc.

It is seemingly childish and short-sighted to ignore the value of discussion just because it happens to be through the internet.

>> As someone with enough to retire on at 40, money feels pretty pointless to me.

Of course it feels pointless to you - you don’t _need_ any more of it.

It feels pointless to me too, but my background wouldn’t allow me to live anywhere but on the street at my current age of 28 (without money, that is).

I hope by 40 I will eventually earn enough to retire and be the same champagne socialist as you currently sound.

You get to craft your path. Period. Don't want to live on the streets? How about in the woods? Is that too hard? How about with an old person who's dying and needs help around the house in exchange for room and board? What about living at a temple or monastery?

Living a life of service to others opens doors not available to those who sell themselves purely for personal gain.

Have you identified the fundamental needs for humans to thrive? You can google "universal needs" if not and then see if you can find ways to meet all your needs without money.

The perceived need for money goes down for those who learn alternative strategies for meeting their needs, are open to the possibilities, and trust themselves more than the world says to.

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