The article doesn’t hold true for me, I have used myriad chances to fail, and have so far lived 3 distinct epochs in my life, each one a life unto itself. I owe this to the simple decision of my father to buy 5 acres of raw land a couple of miles out of town and teach me to use tools.
On the basis of that I have never had to rent, I have had my own shelter (starting with a simple cabin and an outhouse) from the age of 16, and I have never been overly dependent on a job to where I wasn’t willing to walk away.
Having simple shelter made it so I could fuck around and find out until I found something that worked a little, then iterate.
I spent many years of my life intermittently in poverty, getting my food from food banks and buying expired surplus from food thrifts, gardening, etc and relying on social programs for medicine, but I was never at risk of being homeless. Always a place to fall back to.
I have parlayed that into a pretty good life, comfortable, productive, and a small economic engine that provides for several families in the community.
My advice for anyone having children: buy land if you can. Not structures, but land. A few miles out of town is fine, because vehicles and bicycles exist. Teach your kids basic carpentry, electrical, mechanical, and masonry skills. Those are the basis of civilisation.
Move to where you can do this if your local environment is too expensive or restrictive. Move to a new country if needed.
I have done this with my children and because of that, they enjoy the same benefits that I had, and are finding their way having known nothing but self determination as the fundamental principle of their lives.
Debt -Free Land you control without many restrictions, not “real estate” is what makes it possible to live better than most people do while technically being in “poverty” by income. That is what makes it possible to take risks. Risks are what makes it possible to find a working solution.
Of course, if you are born into financial privilege, that’s also a great start, but that wasn’t my case. I often struggled to even pay the (very low) property tax.
Without the freedom and willingness to take risks, and the resilience and willingness to endure hardships, you may have to endure being a servant to someone unless you are very lucky, and luck works better if you can make your own.
This might read like a “pull yourself up by your bootstraps “ rant, but it is not. For most people, they are trapped in a situation designed to keep them in service of some goal not their own. It is very difficult to escape, and impossible without the proper training for self sufficient action and the complete lack of debt (or the willingness to lose anything you owe money on) You also might have to sacrifice your comfort, security, and literally risk your life or health to obtain the foothold from which you can launch a self determined life.
That is a position of extreme privilege, but it is one that can be obtained if you want it bad enough and are willing to roll the dice, and accept the finality of failure if you do not succeed (looping back to the article).
My point is that that kind of privilege is more within reach that most people understand. But you might’ve have to be willing to give up everything at first to use it. Most people are simply not prepared for the hardship and sacrifice that entails.
Land is still cheap all over the world. Unless you live on an island, You can probably get an acre of land for a months wages at a fast food place (in the USA) within a weeks bicycle ride of where you are. But that won’t do you any good unless you know how to turn that into a place to live and work from.
"Move to where you can do this if your local environment is too expensive or restrictive. Move to a new country if needed."
Sounds like typical American arrogance.
Everything you mentioned about building up a piece of land from zero, is predicated on a stable legal and economic framework, that protects and values private property. And every country that has that framework, tends to have high land prices already. Try this in some non-developed country, and you'll soon see why the world is considered unjust.
The issue is that folks who "try that in a non developed country" often know what they need to do to protect their own private property, which is to hire thugs who will shoot at folks who try to squat.
It’s really not that bad. Instead of paying property taxes like you would in a developed nation, you just make small contributions to political campaigns and help to build a new cuartel for the police in your local town. It’s way less expensive than property taxes and you get very personalised services when your name is engraved on the local police station.
lol. Sounds like typical developing nation defeatism .
I am doing it right now in a developing nation.
I settled here on Hispaniola in 2007.
I am working and living right now in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. We’re building up new infrastructure in agriculture, education, and startup incubation. We have already launched a couple of successful ventures.
Here are not the least stable places, but they’re hardly the most stable either. But the rewards are huge for those that can stomach the risks.
Anyone who wants to try this needs to watch and internalise the film “empire of dust” (2013). It’s
A documentary about how to not succeed in a developing nation.
There’s basically zero competition at the early stages because, like you, no one thinks you can do anything.
My kids have established a beachhead in Mauritius and northern India, and we are looking at Madagascar and some demographically collapsing areas in the eastern United States as a possible next step.
Yeah that’s what I said, basically. I had land. I built a cabin and an outhouse from salvaged lumber. Hauled water in 5 gallon jugs. Built up from there.
You don’t need a lot to have a huge advantage. Just a roof. And that can start with a couple thousand dollars for a chunk of land somewhere with some kind of dirt road to it that is passable at least most of the year. That opportunity still exists for many, many people.
i think the reality is that people want the luxury of modern society even if it means they are chained to it. Its either that, or people are born in the chains and dont even realize they can break them.
Thats certainly how i feel as a white collar office professional in the US.
Yeah, it’s not a glamorous trade-off. But it’s a >0 starting point that makes it so you can risk losing your comforts.
Your willingness to try great things is more predicted on What happens if you fail rather than what happens if you succeed.
If the worst that can happen to me is that I go back to my cozy but inconvenient cabin and do contracting until I can save up enough money to give it another go, that’s way different than the lose everything I own and live on the streets scenario.
The finality of decisions is highly situational.
The article doesn’t hold true for me, I have used myriad chances to fail, and have so far lived 3 distinct epochs in my life, each one a life unto itself. I owe this to the simple decision of my father to buy 5 acres of raw land a couple of miles out of town and teach me to use tools.
On the basis of that I have never had to rent, I have had my own shelter (starting with a simple cabin and an outhouse) from the age of 16, and I have never been overly dependent on a job to where I wasn’t willing to walk away.
Having simple shelter made it so I could fuck around and find out until I found something that worked a little, then iterate.
I spent many years of my life intermittently in poverty, getting my food from food banks and buying expired surplus from food thrifts, gardening, etc and relying on social programs for medicine, but I was never at risk of being homeless. Always a place to fall back to.
I have parlayed that into a pretty good life, comfortable, productive, and a small economic engine that provides for several families in the community.
My advice for anyone having children: buy land if you can. Not structures, but land. A few miles out of town is fine, because vehicles and bicycles exist. Teach your kids basic carpentry, electrical, mechanical, and masonry skills. Those are the basis of civilisation.
Move to where you can do this if your local environment is too expensive or restrictive. Move to a new country if needed.
I have done this with my children and because of that, they enjoy the same benefits that I had, and are finding their way having known nothing but self determination as the fundamental principle of their lives.
Debt -Free Land you control without many restrictions, not “real estate” is what makes it possible to live better than most people do while technically being in “poverty” by income. That is what makes it possible to take risks. Risks are what makes it possible to find a working solution.
Of course, if you are born into financial privilege, that’s also a great start, but that wasn’t my case. I often struggled to even pay the (very low) property tax.
Without the freedom and willingness to take risks, and the resilience and willingness to endure hardships, you may have to endure being a servant to someone unless you are very lucky, and luck works better if you can make your own.
This might read like a “pull yourself up by your bootstraps “ rant, but it is not. For most people, they are trapped in a situation designed to keep them in service of some goal not their own. It is very difficult to escape, and impossible without the proper training for self sufficient action and the complete lack of debt (or the willingness to lose anything you owe money on) You also might have to sacrifice your comfort, security, and literally risk your life or health to obtain the foothold from which you can launch a self determined life.
That is a position of extreme privilege, but it is one that can be obtained if you want it bad enough and are willing to roll the dice, and accept the finality of failure if you do not succeed (looping back to the article).
My point is that that kind of privilege is more within reach that most people understand. But you might’ve have to be willing to give up everything at first to use it. Most people are simply not prepared for the hardship and sacrifice that entails.
Land is still cheap all over the world. Unless you live on an island, You can probably get an acre of land for a months wages at a fast food place (in the USA) within a weeks bicycle ride of where you are. But that won’t do you any good unless you know how to turn that into a place to live and work from.