Ran Prieur

I'm going to argue a bit.

"you've been integrated into society your whole life"

Not really, no - this way you would have to say that wild foxes that eat garbage from backyards or birds that nest on buildings are integrated into society.

"But mere creation is not enough to make money."

That's true in a sense that you need other people to give you money to have money. Obviously self-created money is useless.

But mere creation is not useless if it does not produce money. One can create without even a shred of hope that his creation will give him money. And one can be very happy about it. I once knew a person who lived in the middle of the forest and was making mosaics; he tolerated guests (to some extent) but never went out to town or did anything social by his own will. And was really happy there, until he died.

"since money is vital for your very survival [...] To rail against this fact is to rail against the need to eat, or to breath."

That's absolutely not true. You can live a decent life without using money at all, or using money very sparingly. There is that one man who was "dumpster diving" and living years and years on a budged around 50$ iirc yearly. I forgot his name but he has a website and many articles detailing how exactly he pulled it off. He he is now retired and I once saw his comment here, on Hacker News...

...and I just spent half an hour to find him, because I forgot his name and really, really wanted to show you his writings. I'm feeling a bit…

I suggest you read a bit of Ivan Illich on cars and transportation in general (http://ranprieur.com/readings/illichcars.html). The money quote, as it were:

Bicycles are not only thermodynamically efficient, they are also cheap. With his much lower salary, the Chinese acquires his durable bicycle in a fraction of the working hours an American devotes to the purchase of his obsolescent car. The cost of public utilities needed to facilitate bicycle traffic versus the price of an infrastructure tailored to high speeds is proportionately even less than the price differential of the vehicles used in the two systems. In the bicycle system, engineered roads are necessary only at certain points of dense traffic, and people who live far from the surfaced path are not thereby automatically isolated as they would be if they depended on cars or trains. The bicycle has extended man's radius without shunting him onto roads he cannot walk. Where he cannot ride his bike, he can usually push it.

I've always thought about dropping out of the system; I think it parallels with the "I could rob this bank"thought that every man has. My favorite articles are below
http://www.innerexplorations.com/catsimple/2.htm (simple living)

http://www.ranprieur.com/essays/dropout.html (dropping out)

http://www.zenzibar.com/articles/worksucks.asp (work sucks)

as far as where I'm at, I'm currently living in a studio barn apartment that was built out for me for around $5k my rent is $50/mo plus electricity for the whole barn ($100) I plan to live there for at least 5 years it is about 600 sqFt. I drive an old truck to my job that is paid for, and I try to save as much as I can; when I see things going south I will build a dome on the farm (150k) w/ 1 acre of land included and then move out there with expenses of <$500 month and live for 10-20 years

The bar isn't massive benefits for the world, the MacBook Neo is great! If there was a new company that builds MacBook Neos, that's a great company. They build something real and sell it for more than it costs to make, no strings attached.

The problem with Apple comes down to the App Store, the forced 30%, and all the apps that just don't get built cause of Apple. This is rent seeking, and this is evil.

Here's a good system for evaluating technologies: https://www.ranprieur.com/tech.html

If you don't want a MacBook Neo, don't buy one and it doesn't affect your life. But the App Store affects your life whether you own an iPhone or not. It affects the direction of the world. And that's where the rent seeking problem is.

Mine:

Three-Toed Sloth: data, complexity, and so forth: http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/weblog/

Paul Kedrosky: economics, insight, analysis and links: http://paul.kedrosky.com/

Mind Hacks: fantastic source for everything mind/psychology related: http://www.mindhacks.com/

Ran Prieur: a unique perspective, always thought provoking:
http://www.ranprieur.com/

Kevin Kelly: various cool blogs on tech, future, society, etc.: http://www.kk.org/

Daily Meh: interesting thoughts, ideas, links and photographs: http://dailymeh.tumblr.com/

There are others I could add, but thats a good start.

> whether he really did dumpster diving or not

Ran responded to this in his blog today (https://ranprieur.com/):

> February 27. My 2004 Dumpster Diving FAQ has just been linked on Hacker News. There's a comment about how I later declared some of my essays to be fiction. That would be more like 21 Stories About Civilization. The dumpster diving stuff is completely true. I haven't done it for years, because I have more money now, and I assume the good dumpsters are harder to get into. But the other day, I ate an apple I found on the sidewalk.