Living Without Money

[Phaedron]

Anyone tried it? When they start insisting upon putting microchips in my body, my religion unfortunately requires that I get beheaded instead. I'd like to get out of dodge before that happens...

http://sites.google.com/site/livingwithoutmoney/

Wild Nature, outside civilization, runs on gift economy: "freely give, freely receive." Thus it is balanced. Commercial civilization runs on consciousness of credit and debt (knowledge of good & evil); thus it is imbalanced. What nation on earth can even balance its own budget or environment? Gift Economy is Faith, Grace, Love - the message at the heart of every religion, though rejected by virtually every religious institution. The proof is inside you: Wild Nature is your True Nature, crucified by commercial civilization.

Before our white brothers came to civilize us we had no jails. Therefore we had no criminals. You can’t have criminals without a jail. We had no locks or keys, and so we had no thieves. If a man was so poor that he had no horse, tipi or blanket, someone gave him these things. We were too uncivilized to set much value on personal belongings. We wanted to have things only in order to give them away. We had no money, and therefore a man’s worth couldn’t be measured by it. We had no written law, no attorney or politicians, therefore we couldn’t cheat. We were in a really bad way before the white man came, and I don’t know how we managed to get along without the basic things which, we are told, are absolutely necessary to make a civilized society.
-- Lakota Sage Lame Deer (from John Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions)

Non-possession is allied to non-stealing. A thing not originally stolen must nevertheless be classified as stolen property, if we possess it without needing it. Possession implies provision for the future. A seeker after Truth, a follower of the law of Love, cannot hold anything against tomorrow. God never stores for the morrow. He never creates more than what is strictly needed for the moment. If, therefore, we repose faith in His Providence, we should rest assured that He will give us every day our daily bread, meaning everything that we require.... Our ignorance or negligence of the Divine Law, which gives to man from day to day his daily bread and no more, has given rise to inequalities with all the miseries attendant upon them. The rich have superfluous store of things which they do not need and which are, therefore, neglected and wasted, while millions are starved to death for want of sustenance.

Those who wish to make room for the Lord must find pleasure not in private, but in common property…. Redouble your charity. For, on account of the things which each one of us possesses singly, wars exist, hatreds, discords, strifes among human beings, tumults, dissensions, scandals, sins, injustices, and murders. On what account? On account of those things which each of us possesses singly. Do we fight over the things we possess in common? We inhale this air in common with others, we all see the sun in common. Blessed therefore are those who make room for the Lord, so as not to take pleasure in private property. Let us therefore abstain from the possessions of private property—or from the love of it, if we cannot abstain from possession—and let us make room for the Lord.
--Saint Augustine (354–430 CE)

Only when the last tree has died,
the last river has been poisoned
and the last fish has been caught,
will we realize that we can't eat money.
-- Cree proverb

I am in utter poverty by reason of my devotion to the God.
I know that my plainness of speech makes them hate me, and what is their hatred but a proof that I am speaking the truth?
. . . .
I am that gadfly which God has given the state and all day long and in all places am always fastening upon you, arousing and persuading and reproaching you...
. . . .
And that I am given to you by God is proved by this: - that if I had been like other men, I should not have neglected all my own concerns, or patiently seen the neglect of them during all these years... exhorting you to regard virtue; this I say, would not be like human nature.
And had I gained anything, or if my exhortations had been paid, there would have been some sense in that:
but now, as you will perceive,
not even the impudence of my accusers dares to say that I have ever exacted or sought pay of anyone; they have no witness of that.
And I have a sufficient witness to the truth of what I say--my poverty.
--Socrates
[Plato's Apology]

"No servant can serve two masters,
for either he will hate the one and love the other,
or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.
You cannot work for God and money."

The Pharisees, who were lovers of money,
heard all these things, and they ridiculed Jesus.
(Luke 16:13-14)


Better than ritual practice [abhyasa]

is knowledge [jnana, or gnosis];

Better than knowledge [jnana]

is concentration [dhyana, or zen];

Better than concentration [dhyana]

is renunciation of the reward of all action,

from which directly issues Peace.

(Bhagavad Gita 12:12)



What is money

but the representation of

the reward of action?

 

[Doubt The Rabbit]

Your grass isn't very green anymore, is it?

Jk, jk.

Before our white brothers came to civilize us we had no jails. Therefore we had no criminals. You can’t have criminals without a jail. We had no locks or keys, and so we had no thieves.

Nice attempt at satire, but sorry - Criminals come with crime and thieves come with possessions. Jails and locks are only attempts at preventing criminals and thieves from doing what they do. Can you have jails without criminals? No. Can you have criminals without jails? Absolutely. It's like hackers - they've been around before firewall and antivirus.

Necessity is the mother of invention, not the other way around.

 

[kamya]

I'm going to add a few pages that I've found very useful. I probably re-read this every six months or so. It reminds me of how simple life can be.
Confessions of a Bottom Feeder (Part 1)
Confessions of a Bottom Feeder(Part 2)

As for shelter...there's converted school buses called skoolies(there's even pages on car living), earth dome, earth bag, hay bail construction, rammed earth, geodesic domes, and there are a ton of large tent based designs from like Thailand and stoofs.. There's also a lot of info out there about tunnel living (mole people).

I've been looking a ton into alternative living situations and so far I feel like I've accumulated a lot of knowledge on survival, wilderness living, and self sustaining (or at least cheap and minimalist) lifestyles, but I'm not really sure when or if I will ever get to put it into practice. It can't hurt to know a thing or two though.

 

[Lonesome Crow]

Buddah was a golden child. He lived in a mansion. Had all worldly riches at his finger tips.

So on his spiritual quest. He figured living in poverty and being poor
was the way to enlightenment. He became a begger.

Oneday he had an awakening...holy ****, living poverty and being
poor totally sucked *** and unnesseary suffering.

A poor person can be just as mean, evil, negative as any one
It's not about the money....

Any moron can figure out a rich person or weathy person can
help other people more than a broke *** person...talking crazy ****.

it's really simple just like love.
You can't give what you dont have.

Gravity don't give a **** if your rich, poor, mean, nice, black or white.
If you don't understand gravity it'll kill ya.

Gravity is neatrual it's niether good or bad.
You can use it to work for you or againts you.
The same gose for money.

We live in accordancer to our beliefs.
It's self fullfiling prophacy.
Self rightous as you are. You create condiftions in your life and justify
it in accordance to your beliefs. The law of nature works with percisions. You have a poor man's mentality and beliefs.
Self absoring as you are. In your poverty you believe your better
than everybody else.

All those so call quotes you highly believe in are from another human being...
Those fuckes arnt smarter than me or know more than me
about the mysteries of life. They are just humans...
Fucken all thoe ******* bleeds just like me..

I have good self worth and self esteem. I can think on my own.
I can stand on my own two feet...at the core of my being.

You let other people think for ya or buy into other peoples ********.lol
We all know some people take advantage of weak minded or sick people. Then turn them into a fucken pond or a good little soilder.

I belive I'm a better human being, being rich and wealthy.
Surely god will love me and have a place is reserve for me in heaven
if I can reach out to other people...to help them. Make thier
lives easier. Running water requires **** loads of money.
Plumbing aint fucken free. There's alot of people involve
in producing a single piece of plumbing...they have mouths
to feed and bills to pay. Whatever form of currency is use
as an exchange for trads of goods.
Medicain cost **** loads of money to produce and distribute.

Successful businesses, wealthy men and women give back to society
and humanity more than you think. They do it in annonymity.
So you dont hear about it much.

You hear about rich people being evil by holi than thou people.
If money is evil??? Then why in the **** the church be passing
the fucken basket around askin you for your fucken evil money?
I mean what **** are they going to do with it??? Spray fucken
holi water on it?

 

[Badjedidude]

When they come to give me microchips, I'm going to beg them to make me a robot.

A ******* ROBOT.

That'd be awesome.

 

[Minus]

Before our white brothers came to civilize us we had no jails. Therefore we had no criminals. You can’t have criminals without a jail.

-- Lakota Sage Lame Deer (from John Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions)

Maybe Mr Lame Deer is playing a semantics game and defining a criminal as someone who has been in jail. That is the only way that you would need to have jails in order to have criminals.


"Murder or ti wicakte (encompasses two concepts, “to kill them” and “the family/home”) was viewed very negatively, yet traditional society provided a range of sanctions to address this horrible wrong. For the traditional Lakota murder was not an individual act, but was viewed as a crime against the entire family/home of the victim (Quigley, 2003). The murderer could face social ostracism, shunning, banishment, required to make restitution or provide goods and labor to the remaining family, expulsion from spiritual activities and the ceremonial life of the people, and even death (Hassrick, 1982: 50-51, Little Elk, 1986, Leader Charge, 1986, and Walking Bull, 1987, in Klein, 1987)."

 

[A new life]

Living without money, that's a good one!

You end up living on other people's money.
Need pharmaceuticals? Good luck obtaining them without somebody's money.
Need surgery? Good luck again. Somebody's money will be required.
Want technology to post on A LONELY LIFE? You can't make a PC out of twigs and mud.

I'll be the first to agree that the vast majority of us in the West have more stuff than we "need"
But money comes from providing goods and services that are of value to others.
And that's a GOOD thing.

edit:
OMG!
I just checked out the link provided in the original post.
What a crock!
Money (in it's true sense like gold and silver) represents work that's already been done.
Paper money was supposed to be bank receipts that were backed up by real gold and silver, receipts for work already done.
If you have something to trade, and need something from someone else, no trade will take place if all you have to trade is a goat
and the other person really needs woodworking tools (you can't saw a board in half with a goat)
So that's where money comes in. It allows us to trade with people who produce things we don't need without a zillion middlemen in between.

I like the phrase that the author Robert Ringer used "value for value"
If you want to play the game, you've got to get off your butt and produce something that others want or need.
Then you give something, and you get something in return.
What's so evil about that?

 

[Doubt The Rabbit]

When they come to give me microchips, I'm going to beg them to make me a robot.

A ******* ROBOT.

That'd be awesome.

You can join forces with Limlim, he wants to be a cyborg!

 

[sadeghol]

just a bit lol,fundamental human needs is very widespreading never can't reaching all of them with this law doesn't forget human rights

 

[Brian]

Anyone tried it? When they start insisting upon putting microchips in my body, my religion unfortunately requires that I get beheaded instead. I'd like to get out of dodge before that happens...

Wild Nature, outside civilization, runs on gift economy: "freely give, freely receive." Thus it is balanced. Commercial civilization runs on consciousness of credit and debt (knowledge of good & evil); thus it is imbalanced.

I think everyone here knows me to be a gun-toting hate-mongering Rural America nutjob, but over the last year I'm working towards becoming something else: A survivalist.

I have growing stockpiles of food, ammo, and other supplies, and am steadily acquiring the needed skill sets and equipment to live 'off grid', whether that's at my family home here in Idaho, or deep in the wilderness somewhere here in the inland northwest.

And I will tell you now that nature does not run on any kind of gift economy. It runs on an 'I am going to eat you' economy. It is balanced, but not at all in any kind of happy-fun-pet-the-bears way. Survival off the grid is going to come down to:

A. Having the equipment to initially establish yourself with Shelter, Fire, Water, Food
B. Having the skills to build a long term shelter, and create your own clothing
C. Having the skills to grow and acquire food, yes this means trapping and killing animals
D. Probably being able to remain undetected

And very likely,

E. Not being afraid of defending yourself against other humans.



Whether it's a mass collapse of society or the enactment of the ultimate police state, if people like me have to bug out permanently, it's not going to be pretty. It won't be as simple as simply living without money. It will mean living without any form of society as we know it, because that societies architects are going to try and force you in to it. The world outside will not be for vegetarians, animal rights activists, or hippies. The last hippie who tried to live off the wilderness without being prepared died a very bad death in a school bus in wild Alaska. Watch 'Into the Wild' to see what I mean.


Some people may be willing to trade in this 'new world', or form communities. Many, many more will simply want to take what you have and raid for what they need, and the rest of us are going to have to be prepared to fight them off. Terminally.


If you are really interested in this, I suggest starting with some survivalist sites and communities, like www.thesurvivalpodcast.com , or www.zombiehunters.org , a really good survivalist/sustainability forum with a zombie apocalypse overtone (the site is not -actually- about fighting zombies). Start building a Bug-Out Bag, start stocking Food and Ammo as a contingency, and make yourself able to provide the needed basics above. From there you should have read enough to decide the rest for yourself if you've done your homework.

And really, when you look at it, you're not wasting your time with food stocks or Bug Out gear. Food stocks you can eat and rotate through anyways, and Bug Out Gear just lets you go camping if you want to without having to pack.

Better to be a disappointed pessimist than a horrified optimist, at any rate. If the **** never truly hits the fan and life just carries on as normal, you're still prepared. Look at Hurricane Katrina, the storms and tornadoes in the Mid-West right now, or any other disaster. People everywhere who have called people like me "loonies" or said I'm wasting my time, are now wishing that they were more like me, while they live in some FEMA trailer and eat whatever MREs they are given.

**** that. Preparedness is the only way to go.