Wot That Capitalism!?

[Warm Worm]

[troppo]

Warm Worm wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Thanks. It pre-dates the HIGW'ers getting caught with their fingers in the till, but a well-reasoned piece. "Sustainable" def: "capable of sustaining the in-crowd in the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed ... "

[Warm Worm]

[e-mail]:

You're welcome. I like how it's written. Things seem to be moving fast on the one hand, slowly on the other, and backwards at different speeds on the third: Here, friction comes to mind-- economic, social, political... Keep your 15 fingers, and any appendages you have left, clear. What does HIGW mean, BTW? Is that an Aussie term?

[Martin Clark]

Warm Worm wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Haha - yes - got all of mine, not bad for 40 years in construction ...

human-induced global warming. I think there's a more common acronym...

Hmmm interesting - I'm not a christian but he has a valid point for all of us. Currently setting up a netbook for my wife to use - good grief I guess it's a marvel of technology, but setting it up just reminds me of Donald Norman's old classic "The Design of Everyday Things". Haven't read the sequel but it's not looking good ... Difficult these days to buy a mouse trap that works, tea pot / kettle that doesn't dribble, tin opener that actually opens tins ...

[Warm Worm]

[e-mail]:

Not bad at all.

Thanks.

You're not kidding. As one of many personal examples, I use Pears soap, and ever since Unilever (or whatever) got its grubby hands on it, it's turned into a weird-smelling slimy mess that lasts maybe half as long-- a pale shade of its former. While I was overseas, I found out that you can still get the original (or at least closer to it). It's rock-hard by comparison and toward the end of the bar, when it's quite thin, it still has body and you can bend it and it won't necessarily break. You can also take it and stick it onto a fresh bar and, as if it was glued, it won't normally fall off in use, it will become part of the fresh bar.

The profit-motive (in its current incarnation-- profit's changeable, and could easily mean 'community-benefit') seems to be wrecking everything.

I didn't notice any Christian on the site, but in any case, using a stunt frog's seems the Christian thing to do.

[creative1986]

If profit is the motive then how is it beneficial to piss off the consumer? Look a little below the surface and you'll find the true reason for the failures in today's marketplace. Unilever is dealing with the same market controls you do but on a larger level. If you are pissed at the way the market is forced to run just think how Unilever feels. I just started a new business and its appallling the levels of built- in failure mechanisms. Running the business is the easy part, maneuvering through the forced obstacles is almost impossible. There are many failures everywhere as a result and many more occurring each day.

[Warm Worm]

Exactly: It isn't, but that's what it's doing-- and also vis-a-vis mother nature, within whom we thrive or die.

It's like Mollison's pitchfork analogy I quoted in my 'Anarchy Anyone?' post: "There is a response within the landscape against damaging things. I don't know how it works against one of these coal machines that chew up the Earth, but it probably has a long-term response... So, you don't push something without it sort of pushes back. We are into all this mechanical physics, which says that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. But the Chinese say, 'No, that's not true.' If you kick a living system, it kicks back harder. Its reaction is often unfairly oppressive. You might simply push someone out the door. That person re-enters with a pitch fork, not just pushing back in, but ready to poke holes in you."

- Bill Mollison

To hell with Unilever. Anyway, the market will be forced to stop running if its modus o' doesn't work in the grand scheme of things, and that's precisely what seems to be happening. And we'll go back essentially to making all our own goods again.

Soap, rinse, repeat...

I recently read a prediction that the US empire will fold in 10 years or so. We might just get our anarchy after all. :)

[creative1986]

I've been telling you that for 10 years. =3D:-) It's only natural because people aren't meant to be ruled. If they were, then they wouldn't have an independent mind. It's the laziness that allows monopoly's on force to ascend. People are unfathomably lazy.

Here, I'll post it again:

"'The state is not the root of the "eeevil", it's the symptom.'

This is a crucial thing to understand, and it's at the root of why most limited-government "libertarians" have no choice but to accept the very premises every commie on the planet uses, and ultimately, when pushed to it by someone like me, will soon enough start arguing just like a commie.

It's inevitable.

The root of the problem is laziness and dishonesty, both a product of two of the basest human emotions/motivations: fear and greed. To state it another way: humanity involves, most simply, the conscious and principled discipline and control of fear and greed, which one has no choice but to experience as a higher biological organism.

A good way to think about how the non-human homosapiens respond to fear and greed is that they seek to hoard profits and spread losses. The chief motivation is laziness and chief tool to satisfy all is dishonesty. The interesting thing about dishonesty -- self, other directed, and institutionalized -- is that the better one is at it (the more dishonest) the less detectable and more powerful it is.

What's interesting about laziness is how hard people work at not producing tradeable values. Consider a bum on the exit ramp day in, day out. I've seen some of them work their asses off at begging in the hot, cold, and rainy for years on end. How much easier it would be to work at a job.

It's the labor theory of value. The lazy look to a world where raw physical activity, disconnected from any other requirements, is of paramount value.

To look at it in its plainest form, there are those advocating that some fears are just too great not to force others to pay for general anesthesia, and the argument turns on which anesthesia and in what dosage is most "efficient" and "useful." Hey, maybe we can "privatize" the production and delivery of it, which still doesn't address the root laziness, dishonesty, individual responsibility or accountability.

Then there are those, "the nouveaux ancaps," who rightfully understand that you can't hold consistently to individualist principle and advocate any degree of state coercion, but have failed to understand that the state is an effect of a deeper problem (as outlined above). They think that you have to win friends and influence people by trying to explain that life would be so much better without the state.

But you can't truly understand anarchism until you accept that it doesn't matter what society "would be like" without the state. It's not the issue. The issue is that nobody has any right to chain me to their fears or satisfy their greed at my involuntary expense and anyone who thinks otherwise, even just a little tiny bit can just go f*ck right off and there's simply no kind way to put that.

I can't tell you how many times over the years people have said, "But in the absence of gov't how would 'X' get done? This is putting the cart before the horse or a reverse premise. The primary premise is always, you never force others to do your bidding, for any reason, ever. Period. From that perspective, axiom if you will, you work outward to solve any problems or issues. If force is good for some things then it must be good for all things. If I want a big screen then why shouldn't I crack someone over the head and take their coins and get what I want? Through several more steps thats what Obama does when his daughter wants a big screen in her bedroom. If its good enough for him then its good enough for all. Or, its always wrong.

[Warm Worm]

I think we're both looking at anarchy, if from different perches. You from the governments' "side"; me from the corporations'. And both are bedfellows.

The question is how to transcend the corporatocratic nation-state structure, which benefits no one-- not even those it pretends to.

Permaculture, along perhaps with internet communication and/for organization (and a progressive decline in global fossil-fuel energy discovery and/or production for some catalyst :) looks like the most promising solution.

[creative1986]

Anarchy implies an organization and I'm just for individualism, which naturally flies right in the face of any sort of gov't or organization. I'll do my own organizing, thank you.

9 out of 10 people fear the word *compromise* because they have been trained to believe they must give something up, but in reality it is simply finding common ground between 2 or more individuals toward a common goal from differing perspectives. Similarly the word *exploited* now has a bad connotation because of the same training, however as long as the exploiter and the exploited each receive what they want how has any harm been done?

[Warm Worm]

Apparently, Unilever's ilk helped get the kind of system-- via lobbying/bribing/being in gov't, etc.-- that it's supposedly suffering under. At the same time, it may have the power to undermine it, and its own existence in the process.

Yes, I guess you've been saying that for 10 years, and in another 10, who knows. (Some say the US is more resilient than others think) But had you said it for a thousand years before, you'd still have gotten it right with a few other civilizations.

(Maybe some people prefer or are happy to be shepherded.)

AFAWeKnow, the tribe has existed for far longer than the nation-state, so the nation-state's long-term survival is very uncertain, even doubtful, given many considerations, like for example; a decline in cheap fossil-fuel energy and other resources; a negative-growth economy; an increase in locally or home-grown food and barter; an increase in individual and local self-sufficiency in general, including home-building; self/close-community-labour; and the development of local currencies. These are elements/consideration of the permaculture movement, by the way. This is already happening and seems very subversive and threatening to the nation-state/coporocratic/growth-economy/kingdom concepts.

On my blog-- my only entry :) -- I made an inquiry based on Marshal McLuhan's idea of the medium as the message/audience as the content:

the net creates a kind of tribal, yet decentralized impetus, (communication affects thinking which affects behaviour) then we may witness a real (r)evolution back away from a centralized nation-state to a kind of tribal/decentralized/'million villages' existence. Another potential nail in the coffin of centralized gov't.

I'd want to speak with the bum and see what s/he says. Maybe if his interest in labour involved the fertile land that got plowed under for the exit-ramp, or the fish in the river awash with factory-farm/highway runoff... Like shepherding and individualism, not everyone it seems wants their labour to be removed or too far removed from the basic necessities of life, and this is what our system has done. It has breached its contract. I'd be fine doing, say, CAD work if I knew that my/our corn was organic, my/our meat free-range and my/our soil was fertile and increasing in fertility, rather than decreasing. Again, these are prime preoccupations of permaculture.

Or offloading most of the "raw physical activity" to overseas factory- workers, but keeping most of the profits and all of the ownership/ control? (And keeping the damage/cleanup-labour costs to the local/overseas environments, etc., off the cooked books.)

I arrived at that when I was a kid, wrapped up in this simple rhetorical question: "Who censors what the censor sees?"

I seem to recall Derrick Jensen (do a search on You Tube, with "This Means War" in quotes) suggesting subverting 'the system' in ways that are comfortable to each person, whether it's blowing up=EF=BB=BF dams, maki= ng=EF=BB=BF thoughtful sociopolitical graffiti, bartering, gardening and/or joining the Permaculture/Transition movement and/or an ecovillage. ~

Agreed, unless "gov't" is somehow legitimate, although Noam Chomsky, for example-- among others I'm sure-- suggests it rarely ever is.

Well we had discussed before how it all seems to boil down to the individual...

I recently read an essay that talks about gov't being in anarchy-- so slippery language can be made... Here's the essay, just in case you want to read it-- not that I insist-- along with its post 30-year revisit (I admittedly glazed over

3/4 of the way through, but will re-read it later): At any rate, I do recommend you (and anyone else reading this) to look into the permaculture(/transition) movement, if nothing else, since raising chickens and growing our own food is apparently and surprisingly seditious... (You may find many with attitudes similar to yours.)

I pasted a local Indiana chapter near you in my Permaculture thread, along with some "chicken-raising tips".

"People question me coming through the American frontier these days. They ask, 'What=E2=80=99s your occupation?' I say, 'I=E2=80=99m just a simp= le gardener.' And that is deeply seditious. If you=E2=80=99re a simple person today, and want to live simply, that is awfully seditious. And to advise people to live simply is more seditious still... The permaculture movement has no central structure, but rather a strong sense of shared work. Everybody is free to act as an individual, to form a small group, or to work within any other organisation... To accumulate wealth, power, or land beyond one's needs in a limited world is to be truly immoral, be it as an individual, an institution, or a nation-state." ~ Bill Mollison, from an interview and from Permaculture: A Designer's Manual, second ed.

Let me know if you'd like me to upload that manual. (It is in scanned- page format, but I've plans to transcribe it to computer-searchable text.)

"The Matrix is the world pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth." ~ The Matrix

[creative1986]

I'll take it to another level, it never is legitimate. Why? Because of its monopoly on force. At a basic level, it will always win. I, as an individual, cannot compete with any gov't so I won't waste time trying. Instead, I recognize it for what it is, and stay out of its way the best I can. I also recognize its Mr Creosote appetite and it will self consume eventually. I expect to allow it to do so. Not once in my life have I lived as a free person, but always hoped to, but I harbor no illusions that this will happen in my lifetime. I wish things were different, I really do, but they are not so I play the cards as they are dealt. There is only one chance to live and I am going to wring it out.

If it's on the Mises site it has to be good. Been reading that stuff since the last century, mainly through links here:

It's my 2nd stop everyday, well, almost everyday. :-)

OK, I'll take a closer look.

I'm going to make a t-shirt that says: Front: Do More Back: Use Less

On the sleeve will be the logo:

F Ear1h r s t

That may not show up right.

[Warm Worm]

p://macintyremedia.wordpress.com/2010/05/27/the-decentralized-tribe/

making=EF=BB=BF

Ok makes sense. I put gov't in quotes because I was thinking about Noam's example of a parent pulling a child by force off the road and out of the way of traffic.

How about gov't for those who want it and no gov't for those who don't?

I just finished speaking with a guy who also knows a surprising bit about permaculture. I mentioned my idea for a "virtual neotribal self- government", 'Tribe Of Pangaea' (TOP). While he seemed to think we need some form of gov't after talking to him about anarchy, I added TOP and qualified it as a kind of "permaculture government". A bit of a paradox, maybe, but maybe again, that's the idea.

Let me know if you catch something of interest that you think I might be interested in.

It showed up right. :) Earth First for sure. But what about, for the front; 'Work Less, Do More', because, as I think you suggested with regard to that bum anecdote, we're spinning our wheels, but there's very little traction. IOW, many of us are 'working' long and hard at fundamentally useless jobs, (like gov't ;) and getting very little of any real substance done. If we did, we'd have less in the landfills, for example.

[creative1986]

Warm Worm> wrote:

Rethink your business model, all the way around, from the very beginning. I believe you will find a flaw in the bottom. If you are working to achieve money, it is flawed. You see, its the money part that is flawed. That is not the reason one should be working. Get the order of things right and everything else will fall in line. THIS is the difficult part and most people can't organize the few steps. Example: I work because I like to and its only called work because there is money involved. If there was no money involved it would be called a hobby. I have lots of hobby's and some of them I exchange for money. But overall I do what I do because I like to. People were never meant to work for other people as it creates a boss/ employee, or, gov't/citizen type scenario which flies in the face of freedom, adds to the stress level and pretty much defoliates everything. I'm not saying what I do is perfect for everyone but rather its worth thinking about and everyone can tweak it to fit. Its the way people lived for most of history. Organize YOUR life first, then like the pebble in the lake, it will radiate outward and you'll see all that you contact organize similarly. Or, more precisely, the things that will not organize will become insignificant and meaningless and you'll pay more attention to the things that do organize in harmony with you. Its your life and its all about you, and its that way with everyone, but most fail to recognize it. As far as I'm concerned, the world began the day I was born.

[Warm Worm]

Makes sense and I think I agree with all of it in principle.

My-- maybe our-- _fundamental_ take on work (prerogative) seems to be about/tied to providing for our basic necessities _in a basic, natural, direct sense_, though, such as with food and housing... But how do we do that if our survival/work choice _in a natural sense_ has been threatened by unsustainability, factory farms, military force, genetically-modified organisms, toxin-laced-food, global warming, sprawl, developer tracts, soil/environmental degradation, roadway infrastructure/parking lots, monoculture, pollution, resource depletion, sweatshops, social injustice, wage-slavery/debt-slavery, etcetera?

I'll leave you with a couple of pertinent quotes:

"Did you know that before the Industrial Revolution, the average person worked for about two or three hours a day? Studies from a wide range of pre-industrial civilizations show similar data-- it takes only about fifteen hours a week to provide for all of our basic human needs. And that's using hand tools." ~

"Control oil and you control the nations; control food and you control the people." ~ Henry Kissinger

[creative1986]

I don't know about the *2 or 3 hours* part, because why would anyone limit theirself to that sort of time schedule while doing things they enjoy? Forget the word work for a second, erase it from your vocabulary temporarily. Replace it with the word enjoy. Now, why would any sane person NOT do what they enjoy all day long, day in and day out? When you look at it from that perspective the word *vacation* becomes meaningless. Vacation from what? From doing something you enjoy? Why? I almost mentioned the industrial revolution in my previous post, but didn't, now I will. The word vacation is a result of the industrial revolution because people migrated to the cities to endure jobs they did not enjoy as a by product of the grass being greener on the otherside. As a result, they incurred dept and then became a slave to the literal machine. Instead of doing what they wanted they did what they became convinced was better, but was not-only different, and the entire paradigm shifted. Now, the things they did became work rather than enjoyment and all sorts of by products were created as a result of this shift. Vacations, days off, sick days (they were sick of doing things they didn't enjoy), insurance, *benefits*, etc., etc.

By the time I was 30 years old I had had 31 jobs doing things I didn't enjoy. Each job lasted between a few days and a few years. In each I was lured into doing something I thought I enjoyed but when it was realized that all were scams under the guise of work (enjoyment), plus my own naievete, I walked. I wasn't meant to be ruled. It wasn't until I became self employed that I started to realize that I could manipulate the things in my life to my advantage. Previously I manipulated me to fit my environment and that was always an odious struggle. But now I could manipulate other things to suit me, within a certain range of parameters. Not too disimilar to rearranging the furniture in my house to suit my lifestyle and wants.

Now, I can't imagine how anyone can live NOT that way, except that I realize everyone has been trained through public education and the media to conform to the suggested norm, at their own peril.

Recently I embarked on a whole nuther way of producing income doing things I enjoy, amongst a group of others. Quickly I started manipulating my environment to suit me as I set about doing my work, er, stuff I enjoy. Almost immediately the others around me started paying attention to what I was doing and started mimicing what I was doing, like what I mentioned before about the pebble in the lake and the ripples that went out from the epicenter - leading by example. Soon I was setting trends, establishing unsaid rules simply by example. Living the way I do with others around me paying attention, falling in lockstep. Its kind of funny really, like people on remote control, following of their own natural volition. Keep in mind that I am brand new at this new venture and I'm making many mistakes along the way but I am learning and bettering myself, my business and others around me and I hear no complaints and for the most part I enjoy what I am doing.

If you enjoy what you do you will do it to the best of your ability and continuously strive to better all. Attitude is everything. Next comes pride in what you do. Satisfaction from doing your best. Doing good builds confidence which causes enthusiasm which fuels the engine of enjoyment. Its a self perpetuating axiom, like gravity and centrifugal force all in one.

If you are doing something you don't enjoy it is like a cancer, growing and spreading throughout your whole being and life and negatively effecting everything around you, dragging everything down and out. You will find ways, maybe little ways at first, to naturally resist it and in the end you will ultimately resist it completely, as I did 31 times. Its a horrifying downward spiral and like any other disease it breeds other diseases for accompanyment to final and total collapse of the system.

People, on an individual basis (there cannot be any other way) are meant to be free in all things and spend their lives striving for that end. Those that don't, aren't people anymore but rather some sort of civilized caricature of themselves bent, folded and stapled into that which their pwner requires, trudging along distracted and pacified and bitter.

I'll have none of that.

[Warm Worm]

We're talking basic human 'work' here, Don, not play, fun or leisure-- say, house maintenance, picking/planting/tending to crops, and family/ home chores/duties. That's what's 2-3 hours a day.

I don't necessarily enjoy things that have to get done.

If you are doing basic, necessary work for only 2 to 3 hours a day, the rest of the day is yours to do whatever you want-- whatever you want to call it-- work, play, dicking around...

Ditto with if you're working only 2 to 3 hours a day; vacation becomes meaningless. Again, we seem to be talking about the same thing in a different way.

Bingo.

I suppose being "self-employed" is an improvement, especially if you enjoy it. But I think I'd rather be self-employed for 2-3 hours a week and have the rest of my time free.

Yup.

"Be the change you seek." ~ Gandhi(?)

Great to hear.

Fair enough, though I'd rather just enjoy my leisure time without worrying about performance. Where I'm working 2-3 hours, I think I could do well though, but my best? All the time? Hell no. Life's too short to make the bed, polish the boots or sweep the porch every day. Besides, there's only so many 2-3 hours in a day. :)

Nah, it's not so bad. I mean, doing the laundry or taking a shower can be tedious, but they're hardly carcinogenic, unless I have a sergeant major's polished boot pressed up against ass while doing it. But that's government. And taxes. White, brown and black water taxes. For the sergeant.

I've resisted all my life and still am. And I'm about to take a swing at the nation-state by the creation of a "glocal" self-governing tribe, where everyone who wants is a part of it.

We'll try anyway.

~ Tribe Of Pangaea- First Member

[creative1986]

The problem, as I see it Richard, is that in all of your comments you keep thinking of work as something detestable when it doesn't have to be that way. I believe that up until about 150 years ago work was not thought of like that and had a whole nuther meaning. Only since the industrial age, or rather when people started doing things they detested for money did the word work take on a negative connotation. Lemme give you an example of something. If say, 20 years ago I told you I had my son toiling in my workshop at labor for oh, 50 cents an hour you would most likely be mortified as he was only 10 years old at the time. And your perspective would be skewed because of the reasons mentioned above and you'd say I should be brought up on child labor charges. But, 150 years ago it was perfectly normal for 10-12 year old kids to be working with their fathers as apprentices to learn the family trade, ie., Miller, Smith, Carpenter, etc. These were people that *worked* all their lives til they died because their lives were not littered with the unnecessary bullshit we must endure and they enjoyed what they did. Really, they had no idea of all the endless stuff we have to contend with and everything to do with their *jobs* was completely different than how people see it today. The industrial age swept in epic societal changes and all but completely erased the chalkboard of memory of how people lived a mere century and a half ago.

If you found a vocation that you truly enjoyed you would find that you would spend most of your time doing it and the money be damned. You are already doing *something* most of your time, as you have eluded to over and over (after only working 2-3 hours per day or week) so the trick is to find something you enjoy and do it as much as you can stand and make money at it. Its not really that difficult if you prioritize everything from the very beginning, from the top down. Most people aren't willing to do for themselves what they claim they want. They want their cake and they want to eat it too and they want it served on a silver platter and are not willing to lift one finger to attain any of it. The reason for this is basic laziness, and a lack of intellect. I mentioned this in a post a couple weeks ago. Thats it right there, laziness. I see it all over the place.

[Warm Worm]

Doing the laundry or taking a shower? Well it might be a drag sometimes, but it's usually not detestable, and can even be pleasant sometimes. Maybe we need to throw out the word work (too). Maybe like 'vacation', it's a "language-cancer" from the industrial era.

years ago work was not

Ah, there you go... 'Chores', maybe? ...2-3 hours-- max-- and then I'm going to the beach, then a little snooze in the hammock with a good book and then play some horseshoes with Don, who's spending a questionable amount of time in the workshop lathing perfect wooden phalluses for each bedpost. ;)

Agreed-- it looks that way.

How about "worked" with quotes instead of asterisks, seeing as asterisks seem to accentuate a word's meaning, which is almost the opposite to the effect of quotes?

Makes sense, and being part of the permaculture/transition movement, I know that much of this way of life may-- even has to-- come back, along with corresponding shifts in attitude, which is already occurring. Our culture, as it is now, doesn't make much sense on some levels, yet does on others, and for the very same reasons.

But we can go even further still-- about 10 000 years-- with classical agriculture (maybe even earlier than that with various forms of rudimentary technology that may have freed up time, if only in small increments):

Doesn't matter in a way, since even 'vocation', like 'work', may be a bit of an invasive species of word from classical agriculture or times when you had more time than usual. If you can grow all you need without going anywhere (hunting and gathering) your time is freed up to, for better or worse, do other things.

The notion of making money seems like yet another smoke-and-mirror technologically-inspired lock-in. Would Zerzan agree? ;)

What if I don't want in? What if I want to just do the natural stuff like growing/catching my own food, building/maintaining my own house, caring for my own family and friends/community and that's it? What would you recommend there?

beginning, from the top down. Most people aren't willing to do for themselves what they claim they want.

silver platter and are not willing to lift one finger to attain any of it. The reason for this is basic laziness, and a lack of

Are you attempting to feed me the same kind of tripe that our culture dishes up (that you say you don't buy into)? I will be as unlazy as it takes to perform 2-3 hours of chores per day, notwithstanding the odd natural disaster, emergency, chronic health issue, or community house-raisings, etc., but that's about it. That's my commitment; 2-3 hours a day, plus any manageable unforeseens. If my community wants to foist permanent/semipermanent obligations beyond that and deemed unnecessary, is where I-- and others would do well to-- walk. Otherwise, it's slavery.

The devil will find work for idle hands to do perhaps, but as for myself, I'd rather occupy it in ways worthy of an angel. Of a light foot on planet Earth. ('Earth First')

Give me a beach, a river, a hiking path, a healthy meal, a "third place"/good-community/family after 2-3 hours of daily chores, and Earth and I should be happy.

[creative1986]

50 years ago work was not

y beginning, from the top down. Most people aren't willing to do for themse= lves what they claim they want.

d on a silver platter and are not willing to lift one finger to attain any = of it. The reason for this is basic laziness, and a lack of

A certain amount of *blending* is required to maintain your sanity, unfortunately. In this country at least it seems there is no way to escape the fact that the thugs will descend upon you and have their way, unless you at least attempt to appease them on occasion.

I am talking about the ties that bind.

You have to throw the dog a bone to keep him from eating you. The gov't. There is no escaping it, but you can lessen the impact.

As far as I know there is no way to live a free life here in the US or even in Canada. Unless you are satisfied living in the viaduct but even then you may be rousted from your lair now and then.

Watch a wild animal, a bird. It is constantly on the lookout for something to attack it. People have become slack in that regard, but they shouldn't, for danger is everywhere, in the form of thuggery. Gov't thugs. They are everywhere and their numbers are growing all the time. You can stay a step or 2 ahead of them if you keep dropping bits of chafe behind you to occupy them as you continue on your lifes journey. I don't like that, but it does work, and has the least amount of impact on my life.

Bringing up the household chores is silliness so leave it be. I am speaking on a much higher level than that. If maintaining your garments is an horrendous obstacle for you then this conversation is null and void already. FWIW, I'd like to have t-shirts on a roll, like paper towels, just yank one off-wear it-throw it away-grab another. I hate doing laundry but I don't waste much time dwelling on it, its just one of them thangz. Same with mowing the yard, changing the oil in the truck, etc.

You get 168 hours per week to do whatever you like and its unfortunate that most of us were programmed early on to believe that many of those hours are to be shared with others as others see fit. But it is each persons right and responsibility to figure it out and live the only life they'll ever own as they want and sadly most never figure it out. Everyday they chain themselves to the wheel and grumble the whole way around the track as they toil for the machine so that they may eek out whatever bits of flotsam fall off the rusty workings.

I leave them all behind and do what I want, when I want and though I can explain there is another way it is up to them to decide. It took 150 years to get here and at least that long to get back if at all. I'm not optimistic.