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Comment by ghshephard | Hacker News Reader

The one question that I always ask (and instantly makes me unpopular) of the hippie/transient/counter-culture types, is, "Do you realize you would all likely be dead of hunger withing two to three weeks without a massively efficient capitalist system supporting you?"

They are able to exist because of people who are willing to work to support them. Even the communes rely on fertilizer, fuels, metals, foodstuffs from 2000+ years of increasingly efficient capitalists economies.

Don't get me wrong - I love spending a week to ten days out on the playa, and have never had such a wonder experience of "community" anywhere else - but I never, ever kid myself into believing that such a lifestyle is sustainable.

I don't like to use the word, "parasite", but I can't really think of a better word to describe the Haight street pan-handlers/garbage divers. They can't survive without people providing for them.

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> "without a massively efficient capitalist system"

Efficient is a tricky word. Burning through non-renevable fossil, freshwater, (arable) land and mineral resources at an accelerating pace, with no regard for the environment or future generations has allowed the world to reach levels the overpopulation that China spent thousands of years reaching -- in less than 200 years. But without any structure, government or system that has any hope (or indeed even any goal) of breaking the pace of expansion in a way suitable to avoid massive disasters and system failure.

As for the US, given the wast resources left, and the (comparatively) sparse population -- it appears to me to be one of the few countries that actually could become more efficient (resources spent per capita) -- without forcing particularly bad consequences on in its citizens.

But yes, a group producing no, or little value, paying none, or little in tax could indeed be seen as parasites. I can think of a few group that I'd consider harmful parasites, though.

I think it's an interesting and reasonable question but I'm not sure the basis of the question is correct.

First, the 2000+ years of capitalism assertion is fairly flawed, consider feudalism, but for the sake of argument lets say capitalism goes hand in hand with industrial revolution era.

Then when you say 'massively efficient capitalist system' it seems like you're referring to a "net efficiency" in terms of production of wealth, and that allows a community of grifters to benefit from that as a kind of downstream recipient.

You are touching upon a valid point, this lifestyle is a function of current society and it appears to be parasitic rather than self-sustaining. However, I would argue that this demonstrates that current capitalism is actually pretty inefficient to allow this.

Where I live, the answer might run as follows. For fifty thousand years, the local hippies avoided starvation with a one-hour workday. Now that the place is full to bursting point with slaves of some massively efficient system, they have to work a bit harder.

And, unless you can photosynthesize, you're a parasite too.

Plants are just parasites of the sun man. And even the sun is just a rapist of mass energy.

Don't be an apologist for solar-parasites.

The point that I probably failed to make, is that trying to drop out of the work-for-wages/acquire capital/hire-people/produce goods ecosystem only works as long as you have a lot of people prepared to work-for-wages/acquire capital/hire-people/produce goods who will create the environment that keeps you alive.

I would never besmirch the good name of the sun, nor suggest that we don't all depend on it. I think we can all agree that we've greatly benefited from living within the sun's ecosystem.

Well, everyone has to live within the environment they find themselves in; the "artificial" ecosystem is just another kind of ecosystem, and people look for niches within it. And it's true that there are plenty of lifestyles that would have to be different in a different ecosystem. But that's true of a wide range of niches you could inhabit. Someone who's spending their full-time efforts building a social music player is in a way piggy-backing off a whole bunch of other stuff that already exists and is providing their food/shelter/medicine/etc. You can't exactly eat social-music systems, so it's only possible to have the luxury of working on them if someone else is providing your material needs. Is that being a "parasite"? Well, the way the economy is currently set up, they can carve out a niche where they can survive doing it. But then, so can the street kids, just on different terms...

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