This is in large part to factors such as outsourcing and corporate consolidation, but another huge factor is technology growth which allows fewer individual to produce the same amount of output, which in turn allows companies to lay-off workers, which increases unemployment, making employers less competitive, which suppresses wages.

What all this comes down to in modern America is that increased productivity does not actually benefit the American worker at all, it benefits shareholders.
And so the terrible (or hysterical, depending on your perspective) irony is, the employed person who feels it is immoral to drop out of the rat race is using all of his labor to enable you to live off of investments.

Perhaps you would be better off working at something that helps the environment and that pays you just enough money to support your current lifestyle. Any additional cash from your work is saved in cash form under your mattress.

In this way, you’d be eliminating all unnecessary pressure on the environment (by not allowing banks to loan your saved money to those who would buy granite counter tops for no real reason). You’d be working to help the environment during your day job.

Maybe you could be a park ranger, or get a job at a recycling center.

In this way, you’d be contributing less to the materialistic world (because the bank wouldn’t be able to use the multiplier effect of leverage).

You would earn the amount you need (and little more).

It occurs to me that you serve the materialistic world more than someone who makes very little, is thoughtful about their purchases, but because of meager income, spends every dime they have. They contribute less to the materialistic world than an ERE follower.

The “lucky” baby boomer accumulates, say $4 million before they retire. They are able to support a life of constantly updated countertops via interest on their $4 million. The bank leverages that $4 million in order to provide helocs to billions of people taking out equity lines to put in updated countertops like the lucky boomer.

If you’re able to live the life you want (some would say, a more fulfilling life) off 500k instead of $4 million. Then at least the bank is only able to leverage 500k instead of $4 million. Maybe others see what you’re doing, appreciate it, and decide to live off less themselves.

What you wish to avoid is enabled via your strategy.

Now, if you were living off the land with no savings in dollar denominated assets, you’d have a case. You are the provider of the materialistic system you do not like. And still, you complain. In a sense, the granite counter top buyers are supporting the lifestyle you have chosen.

* I do not own a granite counter top (it’s mid-80s tile).
** I don’t mean to be caustic… just pointing out some facts as I see them.

Aren’t you a bigger reason for the materialistic world than the end consumer. After all, the end consumer merely consumes and then their money is gone.

You put your money in a cd or savings account, the bank leverages that money at several times and loans, say 10 times that amount to businesses that both consume and produce cheap products for consumption.

You have made an interesting choice by not consuming. But don’t kid yourself, you are as much or more responsible for the materialistic world than the consumer. No?

I suppose the thing about technological innovation is that once it had made a simpler life much less work to achieve, it was developed into entertainment, creating ways to make one’s life more complex, making it easier (or even “required”) to spend more money on things we don’t need, (like flat screens, gaming consoles, etc…).

But I think you already said that in your post.

This helps, as I am getting closer to understanding the way you think, more than what you put down on this blog.

I chuckle at the “combat ready”.

If one is a city dweller, walking isn’t the issue and you could be car free. Like yourself, a RV dweller, you just need to place your self near your source of food. I guess We are clever enough not to make those mistakes of depending on a car for work and food. But like you said there are no hardships and you do live life another way.

Back to the title, or topic, instead of an all out debate on this philosphy. You remain not attached you your HiFi system and the rat race of constantly upgrading. Good for you. You are begining to sound very exsistential focusing more on emotions, actions, responsibilities, and thoughts..

PS: The lentil soup looks very similar to dahl. Much like this one in fact
http://www.heartandstroke.sk.ca/site/c.inKMILNlEmG/b.5031885/k.3083/Recipes__Ginger_and_spice_dahl_soup.htm
I usually put a little cheese in there and some tabasco.

I don’t think it captures the degree of difficulty. I also recommend you add pictures to this blog. I.e. Take a picture of the food you ate during those years, and say eat this for as long as you can stand it. Elevate the hardships you endured. Yes, your story has a happy ending, don’t mislead the reader.
Do some name dropping. Show exactly what you did- Within the level of protecting your safety.

I know this goes against your campaign to convince and share with others. I advise that you must be truthful.

I have enjoyed the time you have taken to write back and have a happy thanksgiving.

-Bill

BTW, I’m putting this blog on my list of “Stuff I want my son to read someday”. It’s basically stuff that you won’t learn in school or through conventional means but I think is important to learn to think for yourself.

Specifically, I worked hard and instead of blowing my money on superfluous stuff (choices?), I spent it on capital assets and now those assets are producing for me. In a handful of years, I essentially saved (created productive assets as opposed to consumer items) as much as many people spend a lifetime doing. You see the difference? I have done as much as the average person will do in a lifetime of work. I have just done it much faster and with much less waste because I was efficient. Now these assets provide for all my needs. Now, in the question of fairness, should I do more? Need I do more? Yes, indeed if everybody did like I did, there would not be productive assets to build a great variety of door knobs and there would not be pills for hair growth and liposuction, and most people would be riding bicycles instead of driving cars, and so on. Instead of spending all day at work, they would now have a choice every day of what to spend their time on. Now, I have no idea what that would be but at least CO2 emissions would go down, the water would be cleaner (perhaps even drinkable again), and so on. It may be that not everybody could have fun doing science or having other high minded thoughts or that not everybody would like to spend all day playing baseball. Maybe many people do need the direction of a 9-5 office/factory job, which is after all, what they have been trained to perform in [Several have reported a complete loss of purpose in retirement when they're no longer being told what to do]. So be it, I’m sure something can be found.

Perhaps I am missing the point and your just being smug again about not committing to the “Rat Race”??

Throw out those facts, in this debate, that your stuff does own you.. that argument is old and easy to justify, Do not to accumulate stuff.
Viva the internet is right. If you don’t band together in your in quest for post-productivity, then how will you defend your freedom to do what you want and think that there is no consequences?
Jacob, lets pretend you’re the leader, of these people, and this is not a good blog site about advice to live life in a different way.

You start losing me when the one person plants a tree and the other person complains about it. You don’t explain why the second person is complaining. The second person could obviously do the same if they wanted.

Scott Adams (the Dilbert guy) once said that he can actually draw better than what he demonstrates in the Dilbert comic. But drawing better takes more time and he realized that a better drawn comic will not produce any more revenue. So, he draws the comic just good enough to get the job done.

Is that what you’re trying to say?

So Scott Adams takes no pride in creating a well drawn comic. Some comic producers do and, even though it gains them no extra revenue, they spend more time on their drawing. Is that who the “old-fashioned” person is supposed to represent?

For what it’s worth, you’ve made quite an impression on us. First example: this past Sunday’s paper (The Oregonian) had a story about volunteers at St. Vincent De Paul reconfiguring an old school bus to cook & serve meals to people in need who live in rural areas. One of those areas is a rest stop where a group of (apparently) regulars parks their old RVs or cars/vans – which are their homes. Most of them seem to have some type of employment but through whatever hardships have befallen them, they now call some variant of an automobile “home”. After I recovered from reading this story (it’s very distressing to me that too many people are having a hard time), I thought about you. “Hey! Jacob lives in an RV!” In fact, from some of the links I’ve perused on your site there seems to be some sort of “underground” movement for smaller and mobile and independent – people who have chosen to live in their car or RV and share tips on how to make that happen. So then I tried to get my brain around “what is the difference?”

The second example is that my husband (INTJ!) has acquired some of the books on your reading list, has printed out some of your previous posts and has recently been spending late nights in front of a computer monitor with books open, pen and pencil in hand. I awake to find papers spread around with heiroglyphics scratched all over them (actually, lots of mathematical equations with funny squiggles and tiny triangles, etc.).

So how often is it that one person, a stranger sharing his experiences, can make enough of an impression on other strangers so much so that this person in some way can influence the thinking of other strangers. In other words, in some way we think of you pretty frequently. How cool is that?