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Comment by skidoo | Hacker News Reader

Most taxes do not go to food-aid or medical research. And by not contributing to or directly enabling so many of society's ills he is indeed giving back far more than most others ever will.

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  > Most taxes do not go to food-aid or medical research.

In some places they go to public infrastructure, public healthcare, public education, etc.

Complacency and apathy are not a form of protest.

Are you suggesting that what this guy's doing is "complacency and apathy"?

Not at all. I'm suggesting that arguing that doing nothing is better than doing something is something people do to promote complacency, and has no place in the world.

I don't see how depriving the machine of a cog can be construed as complacency. I've had several windows of unemployment and homelessness, sometimes by fate and sometimes by choice, and it is never an easy route. Like the saying goes, "If you are not an active part of the solution then you are just another part of the problem". In that respect, re-tweeting insolence and signing e-petitions and the like is closer to complacency.

No.

Childish self-indulgence would be a better description.

In light of all the sacrifices he's making to live thusly? Very doubtful.

He is making sacrifices, but he is also eschewing any responsibilities.

Responsibilities as a consumer? As a tax-payer for utilities he is no longer dependent upon?

Any responsibilities he might have had as a functioning member of society. We can all go and hide in a caravan when it all becomes too much for us, but I'd hardly say it was something to emulate.

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