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Comment by VexXtreme | Hacker News Reader

I don't think this is about money at all. More likely than not it's some kind of sexual fantasy or something similar. No sane person would sell themselves for a couple thousand bucks like this just for the possibility of turning profit in the future.

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It essentially seems like a drawn out piece of performance art and for an art piece I must say it seems to doing quite well.

“No sane person”

You might be on to something...

He's not insane, he's just ahead of the curve. I imagine this will be quite common in the near future, probably as a "logical" replacement for student loans within the system of neoliberal capitalism.

You think in the future more people will sell their lives to the extent that they let others decide what to eat, what work to do, when to sleep, who to date and who not to date? That would mean we're going back in time.

I found the article a fascinating read, but the more I think about it, the more I realize how very, very wrong this is. It reminds me of ‘We Live in Public’, the documentary about Josh Harris' experiments. http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/media/2010/11/709256/s...

You think in the future more people will sell their lives to the extent that they let others decide what to eat, what work to do, when to sleep, who to date and who not to date?

Of course. How else can they raise funding for the remaining few items they have any real initiative in?

We're bringing back indentured servitude! Goodie! :D

I want to buy me some of them new college-educated kids, I tell you hwut.

It was suggested long ago (I think it goes back to Milton Friedman, even). I don't think it's a terrible idea when you compare it with the current alternatives: equally large student loans with sky-high fixed interest rates that you have to pay regardless of how unsuccessful you are and which cannot be discharged in bankruptcy and will destroy your life. A tithe of your income sounds like a much better alternative.

I don't know. Many people do odd things for no reason other than their own curiosity. For example, there's the guy making soylent in an effort to create something that lets him avoid eating. Many would ask "why?" while they say "why not."

Also, selling only 10,000 shares lets him back out if he where to encounter a problem (such as one person buying all his shares and then demanding he act in ways he's uncomfortable with).

Soylent isn't a new concept. They joked about "bachelor chow" on Futurama, and I think most people who have ever owned a dog have wondered:

"Why can I buy 2 weeks worth of food for my dog, which she seems to love, that sits in a bag, requires no refrigeration, no preparation, and providers her all the nutrients that she needs for such a low price? Why can't I also eat dog food?"

According to the article,

> He kept the remaining 99.1 percent of himself but promised that his shares would be nonvoting: He’d let his new stockholders decide what he should do with his life.

So how does that really let him back out?

Well, he could just go ahead and back out. Which is separate from the discussion about the details of the ownership and corporate structure letting him back out, but still sort of successfully renders it moot.

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