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Comment by Podgajski | Hacker News Reader

I have a very low material quantity of life, but my spiritual quality of life is pretty good even as I live homeless with a disability in a minivan in the United States.

Americans are way too materialistic and there needs to be a reckoning of this if anything is going to change. Even people I meet that live in other minivans or RVs want to have every single creature comfort they had when they were living in a house. I decided that in my van I would only carry what I need for the van or things I can easily put in the backpack and walk away with.

I definitely use the free places. They list in the Reddit post. At west I always stay on the BLM lands.

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Americans are way too materialistic and there needs to be a reckoning of this if anything is going to change.

If this lifestyle works for you, then good for you.

Try raising children that way.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to live a comfortable life; the vast majority of humans forever have wanted this.

In the USA we have a problem with cost of living, but at the end of the day the reason for this is almost always misguided government intervention.

For example, in the housing market, many cities have made it prohibitively expensive to build high density housing (which is what is needed when you have high population density).

If you wanted to make medical care unaffordable then you’d design a system like the US system, with artificial limits everywhere on increasing supply, and (well I am well off topic but could go on forever on this).

I can completely sympathize with young people today who look at the ridiculous cost of living today and come to the (incorrect) conclusion that the problem is consumerism.

But it’s not. It’s a century of well-intentioned but ultimately harmful government policies.

> Try raising children that way.

Come on now, people have done it for hundreds of thousands of years. Just because it’s different from what you used to doesn’t mean it can’t be done. And it doesn’t mean the children will come out harmed in anyway.

> In the USA we have a problem with cost of living, but at the end of the day the reason for this is almost always misguided government intervention.

If there is no government intervention after the 2008 recession (QE, 0% rates) then many more people would be living like I am living. That’s how much people don’t want to reduce their lifestyle, they push it out as far into the future as they can. No matter what the cost of that is later on.

But you seem to think that the government and the corporate state or two different things when they’re one and the same. All these measures were to save stock, prices, assets, etc..But you seem to think that the government and the corporate state or two different things when they’re one in the same. All these measures were to save stock prices, assets, etc.

I’m not a young person, but I can understand what young people think when they see the boomers, who are doing all the consuming, spending all their money which they got from the government interest rates. It’s both not consumers and it is, because the government instituting 0% rates just turned every asset market into a bubble. And this gave everyone with the assets the ability to consume. But you know the government needs people to consume because that’s what creates GDP right?

So all the boomers with the larger amount amount of increase in asset prices, they didn’t have to sell their prices for more money, they don’t have to go on vacation and buy more things, they could’ve live more simply, and there would’ve been no inflation. But it’s the consumption from the people with the assets that to inflation. It’s not 0% interest rates alone that Cause inflation.

> Come on now, people have done it for hundreds of thousands of years.

Come now, people also used to die from toothaches, and during those hundreds of thousands of years infant and child mortality was incredibly high, and education practically nonexistent.

These “we have done this since the beginning of time” arguments always make me chuckle, they are so incredibly simplistic.

>Come now, people also used to die from toothaches

Last time I was in America (about 20 years ago) there was an item on the news about a child that had died because of an untreated dental problem.

If its on the news its because its interesting due to its novelty.

"Millions of Americans – as many as 25% of the population – are delaying getting medical help because of skyrocketing costs"

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jan/07/americans-he...

That doesn't mean it's false though? The parent seems correct that human beings are capable of subsisting and surviving for many many generations on very austere conditions.

From reading these comments you’d think that human beings were miserable and incapable of any happiness or meaning until someone invented air conditioning and sewage systems.

Yes, life used to be more difficult. No, that doesn’t mean such a life was without meaning.

Perhaps you confused my comment with another comment chain?

No, I was agreeing with you. Human beings survive and thrive even under difficult conditions.

psychologically, though, it’s much easier to suffer hardship. If everyone in your community is also suffering the same hardship. Making unilateral choices to deny yourself, creature comfort doesn’t seem all tha likely to succeed as a strategy.

Maybe not for the median person, but many types of people do succeed with it, such as ascetic monks, stoics, many religious sects, etc...

And the reason for living such a simplistic life is to be a model for those of people who think that it can’t be done.

I have zero unhappiness about the way I live, my problem is other people make it hard for me to live this simplistic life.

I just read that some sociopath is trying to make it illegal for people to live intense in the UK. That’s what I’m talking about.

Only by means of statistics - they had so many children that it compensated for high mortality rates.

As recently as in the early 20th century the fertility rate required to sustain population numbers in Germany was over 2.5 - and that was well into the industrial era.

Before such obvious to us things like antibiotics or doctors washing hands it was likely much higher.

So you are saying it works? You just have to have 2.5 children.

Well, that and survive yourself through said childbirths, which was (and indeed is) never guaranteed for approximately half of humanity. Childbirth is dangerous! Obviously, humans have always had more than enough children on average, but the burden of it is quite high.

It does, but the parent poster who lives in a van does not do it, and therefore he's not really surviving anything. And as the first reply to the van implied, he would not be boasting "spiritually" if he had to deal with children in his van.

Everything works as long as you discount survivorship bias.

The species can survive this way. Individuals - not really.

If the species is also alive, that means individuals are alive.

But they don’t want that, and they are not wrong for wanting to live a more comfortable and less brutal life.

> There is nothing wrong with wanting to live a comfortable life; the vast majority of humans forever have wanted this.

By itself I think that this is a positive attribute. The problem comes when people believe that they deserve to live more comfortable lives than others, which seems true of most Americans.

or a comfortable life subsidized by the work of someone else

and a tacit understanding that people who aren't integrated into that world need to be swept under the rug until they just go away and die already

> I decided that in my van I would only carry what I need for the van or things I can easily put in the backpack and walk away with.

Would you be willing to share the list of what you have?

Mainly clothes, much of which I don’t need but I don’t throw away because I have the space. But it includes three pair of jeans, four pair of underwear, shorts, four pair of socks and miscellaneous shirts. A down jacket, rain jacket, and fleece jacket. The pajamas and the down sleeping bag are really important for keeping me warm at night.

For cooking I have MSR rocket and camping cookpot and a set of utensils.

Also a gym bag with a towel and my shower stuff.

Most of the things that take up space in my van or things that I need for the van, like shades for the window and tarps to keep the van cool when I’m in the desert. Also tools, of course. I also carry about 18 gallons of water with me so I can stay out in the desert for extended periods.

Basically, I have clothes, food and shelter so I’m OK. I just wish the shelter was not a van.

What's the hardest thing about your life?

Thanks! I would say the loneliness because of the stigma of both how I live, and my mental illness. Even when I am out on the BLM land with people with other campers the fact that I live in a minivan is looked down upon.

And since I have to drive around so much to follow the weather It’s very hard to have long-term meaningful friendships.

The other thing is lack of stable healthcare but I am slowly weaning myself off of Western medicine so that has becoming less of a concern.

It’s not that I want to live this way, it’s the only solution I have right now unfortunately.

What do you consider to be the ideal solution?

If I had a simple clean studio I would be fine. I am not asking for much, just clean and stable.

But even a mess of a studio costs $800 a month which I can’t afford.

even if I had a place to park that was stable I wouldn’t mind either. Just something close to a town with food and place to shower, etc.

> even a mess of a studio costs $800 a month which I can’t afford

There are definitely cities in the Midwest where you can get studios for <$500/mo still.

Please name one that one that will not trigger my suicidal ideation.

or just name one in general.

I found this in Pittsburgh. It is sub $500, has flexible dates, and includes all utilities except for electric.

https://www.zillow.com/apartments/pittsburgh-pa/hampshire-ha...

Do you notice anything missing from that apartment?

What's missing?

Any sort of a kitchen. There’s no stove or oven. Just a microwave.

This is one thing I’ve learned to look for in photos of online apartments. We’re looking at places at this price level.

That's not unusual for small studios. Oftentimes people get an electric countertop stove and/or toaster oven.

I know that's not ideal, but how does that compromise compare to living in a van? Do you prefer to live without any facilities whatsoever to hold out for a proper stove and oven?

> will not trigger

Well I don't know what triggers you, so that's hard to say. If it's cold weather, then... nowhere in the Midwest

> or just name one in general.

Witchita, cedar rapids (Iowa), etc

If you go to a much smaller town, there aren't even many studios, but you can find 1/2br for the same.

At some great risk I’m going to explain this to you. One of my sensitivities is to the new 5G towers they’ve been putting up everywhere. Yeah I have EHS. Some places like Wichita with the huge amount of mid band. 5G is just not tolerable for me.

I’ve always had a problem with EMF. I used to work at Cisco and that’s when I had my first mental breakdown in a long time. It was a 1999 right when they started installing Wi-Fi in the buildings. I didn’t know that till many years later.

I have been looking at some places in Nebraska, but this is what I’m faced with.

EMF sensitivity is not a real thing, and there is nothing special about 5G radiation. What you actually need is psychological or psychiatric treatment.

It is real, for me. I’m not going to debate you on this topic because I’ve tested it every way I can to rule out placebo.

I am not woo woo crank and I approached this with skepticism and rigor. But if you want to investigate, more, look at voltage gated calcium ion channels like the l type calcium channels and TRPV1 channels.

In my opinion, people who have EHS will have changes in these genes that make them more susceptible to the electromagnetic waves causing calcium influx into the nerve cells. it just happens to be a coincidence that these same genetics will cause mood disorders. That is because mood disorders are environmental diseases.

And I have been in psychological and psychiatric treatment for over 30 years. I think I have not hashed this through with my therapist and doctors is just an assumption on your part.

I will say you need to see a therapist. If you think there’s any certainty that EHS does not exist, because that’s as bold as me, saying that it does exist.

Sorry to hear about your health problems, they sound very real to me.

>I’ve tested it every way I can to rule out placebo.

I'm genuinely curious, could you tell me a little more about how you did that?

Thanks. So I have two meters. One that measures radio frequencies up to 8 GHz. And I have another meter that measures the frequency EMFs like from households and that measures both electric and magnetic field separately.

The simplest thing I do is not to measure an area before I am in that area for an extended period of time. So say if I am sleeping in a hotel, I see how I feel and how I sleep, and sleep probably the biggest effect EMFs have on me so it is a good marker.

For example, if I stay at a friends house and sleep over, I’ll see how I sleep and I’ll take a measurement in the morning. I cannot tell you how many hundreds of times I’ve done this, but the correlation comes out every time, with household EMF the higher the electric field, I sleep in the worse my sleep is. The higher the the magnetic field the more pain I have and the more depression I have. So the fields seem to be having different effects on me.

With Radio frequency EMFs I do the same thing, but I have a few other tools since my meter does not measure over 8Ghz I really can’t tell how much 5G there is so there’s an app called “Coverage?“ that used to supplement the reading with my meter.

Radio frequency EMF nearly always make me manic and psychotic and my insomnia is horrible and my anger threshold is pretty much zero. my tinnitus will also become louder after a certain amount of time but that time seems to vary. I also get a lot of bladder pain.

Since for me, the symptoms do not start right away. It’s difficult to tell in an area if I’m going to be bothered by it unless it’s really strong. Since I’m homeless and drive around the whole country, I’ve been to places where EMFS were absolutely zero and I was literally cured of my mood disorder and insomnia, and where it was off the charts like in Phoenix where I have to take so much Klonopin just to drive through the city.

They’re probably the most important times I found where the times when I thought I was in a high EMF area and I slept great and it turns out I was in some weird pocket of low EMF exposure. For example, there is a park in the town that’s at a low level and it’s surrounded by trees. When I look it up on the Coverage? app, most of the 5G is gone. It sure enough when I took out my meter. The readings were exceptionally low.

I am not immediately bothered by things like using my cell phone, but the fact that my tinnitus is worse in my left ear where I use my phone, my whole life I don’t think is a coincidence.

But recently, and this is probably not as good as a placebo, but it sure told me a lot, I had a 24 hour Holter monitor put on because I have really weird blood pressure. They call it libel hypertension. I vary a lot during the day and actually at night it becomes really really low.

So this time when I had the Holter monitor on, I decided to go to places with high EMF and low EMF. And see what my readings were. Sure enough it correlated. My blood pressure was much higher like 160/98 in places with higher EMF. I also noticed something strange that I never realized before but my heart rate was lower when I was in high magnetic field and it was higher in an Area with high frequency EMF.

I just want other people reading this to understand I’m not some person running around trying to avoid EMS all the time. I mean they make my life shit but they’re not going to kill me. I’ve lived with my issues for 35 years and they haven’t killed me yet. If you met me, you wouldn’t see some better call Saul character that’s for sure.

If you ever get the chance you might like to camp out in a radio quiet zone there's at least one in the US - much of W.Australia is quiet (simply due to having a low population outside of the main city), and there's always the Murchison inner zone:

https://www.industry.gov.au/science-technology-and-innovatio...

Yes, I’ve been to Green bank, West Virginia, in the “quiet zone”. The peace my body felt when I was there was nothing less than incredible.

I’ve also found places in Nebraska, Montana, and Arizona, that are essentially radio free as well. But they are much more remote, of course.

That is all confirmation bias and psychosomatic symptoms.

If someone put you into a sealed room and then turned a 5G cell phone access point on and off on the other side of the wall you wouldn't be able to tell the difference. You are suffering from delusions. If your healthcare providers are telling you anything different then they aren't helping you.

Wow, your scientific reasoning is great.

How much power is the access point using? How many people are using the access point? Is data being actively transferred on the access point? Do you mean 5G like in 5 GHz or 5G like in 8 to 36 GHz? How long does one need to sit there to feel the effect? Does mid band 5G pass through walls?

Numerous researchers have already come out with the issues and the difficulties of testing for EHS and they need to test it in the real world.

And I agree, there are probably more people who think they have EHS than people who do.

Was this all in the guys head?

https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/reveh-2021-01...

Or this family?

https://fortuneonline.org/articles/5g-radiofrequency-radiati...

Those are just cases with no proven causation. Show me a randomized controlled trial with multiple subjects. Persisting in delusional beliefs is not a path to health.

Why don't you find a appropriate commune here https://www.ic.org/ and live on it with a small number of other people.

Yes, I’ve tried that. Many of them are overly religious or want you to be a vegan or vegetarian or need to be this or that or something special. Or they don’t want people with a mental illness and have no money. Thanks though.

The hardest thing about his live is ignoring the massive production chain required to make all the things that make his life far better than one someone would have had a couple of centuries ago.

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