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Living Simple Beyond Car Light/Free

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Living Car Free Do you live car free or car light? Do you prefer to use alternative transportation (bicycles, walking, other human-powered or public transportation) for everyday activities whenever possible? Discuss your lifestyle here.

Living Simple Beyond Car Light/Free

Old 01-26-15, 09:28 AM
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Originally Posted by wolfchild
There are no laws against wandering around...But living like a "mooch" is a shame and a terrible waste of a persons life. I just hate being around "spongers" who refuse to take any responsibility for themselves.
There's a difference between 'mooching' and free camping. Some people may combine the two but that's not my ideal. I prefer the idea of working for what I need from others, but I think people should be free to minimize their economic interdependency by reducing their expenditures and income WITHOUT sacrificing the ability to travel by camping for free. It's wrong to say that camping for free when someone does no harm and leaves no trace is 'mooching.'

Originally Posted by Machka
If you want to do these things, I suggest you get a good job, take on extra part time work if necessary, take night classes if that will help you advance in your career, and save, save, save. Make a 5-year plan. At the end of 5 years you might be able buy that bit of land and put a tiny house on it or go travelling. That's how it works.
That may be how it works in your mind, but can you not see the problem with prohibiting people from bike-camping freely if they don't follow all the steps you mention. You're basically saying that you have to save up a king's ransom to buy your own freedom for a little while. It's a slave mentality.
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Old 01-26-15, 10:52 AM
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Originally Posted by Ekdog
Why so much focus on living out in the sticks? I've found that living in a small flat in a city with good cycling infrastructure and rapid transit allows me to lead a simple life. Moving out to the middle of the country would complicate things for me in many ways.
I agree.
It was mentioned by Machka earlier that being off the grid is not simple. Living simply is finding what you can live without not what you necessary need to run out and buy. Owning a car is necessary for some lifestyles but finding a life without the car is living simple and the whole point of this forum. Simple living in a small flat with low rent and a place to park your bike sounds like a secure lifestyle to me.
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Old 01-26-15, 03:27 PM
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Originally Posted by duckbill
It was mentioned ... that being off the grid is not simple.
The only thing that keeps me from moving away from fossils fuels for water heating, and perhaps generating some electricity, are my conservative neighbors. Believe it or not, they won't let me put a solar panel on the roof because it would be an eyesore. Meanwhile, most of them have dish antennas up there, which they think are lovely.

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Old 01-26-15, 04:11 PM
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Originally Posted by tandempower
That may be how it works in your mind, but can you not see the problem with prohibiting people from bike-camping freely if they don't follow all the steps you mention. You're basically saying that you have to save up a king's ransom to buy your own freedom for a little while. It's a slave mentality.
That's not just how it works in my mind ... that's how it works in reality too. I deal in the actual and real, rather than the theoretical, hypothetical, and rhetorical. If you take steps to get a good job, and perhaps additional jobs as well (all of which I've done), then you are in a position to do a wide variety of things ... your choice.

And you don't have to save up a "king's ransom". Nor is it a slave mentality. It's all about priorities. We all have to work for a living, that's a fact of life ... the chance of winning the lottery or receiving an inheritance from a rich great uncle is pretty low ... but we can make choices about what we do for a living, and then what we do with what we earn.


Regarding "bike-camping freely" ... I'm not sure where that came from in this thread, but you've mentioned it in other threads, and people can and do bike camp freely. Free camping is widely available in many countries, and there is a segment of the cycletouring group who are quite adept at "stealth camping" or wild camping or bush camping or free camping or whatever you would like to call it.
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Old 01-26-15, 04:23 PM
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Originally Posted by duckbill
I agree.
It was mentioned by Machka earlier that being off the grid is not simple. Living simply is finding what you can live without not what you necessary need to run out and buy. Owning a car is necessary for some lifestyles but finding a life without the car is living simple and the whole point of this forum. Simple living in a small flat with low rent and a place to park your bike sounds like a secure lifestyle to me.

I have lived in quite a variety of different situations from living in a tent for 3 months while travelling around Australia to a cabin in the hills completely off-the-grid to apartments, houses, etc. etc.

For me, the most simple living was probably the years I lived car-free in a 2-bedroom apartment in Winnipeg. I was within easy cycling distance from work (I also had bus transportation there, and in a pinch I could walk the distance). I was within easy walking distance from shopping, medical facilities, the library, church, and just about everything I needed, and there were good bus services to things further afield, or I could cycle there. The apartment was a comfortable size, the rent was reasonable and included everything but my phone, and everything was taken care of ... lawns were mowed, sidewalks were shovelled, etc. etc.

I had a decent job with excellent benefits and pretty good holiday time so I could travel each year, was attending night classes throughout about 2/3 of each year, and was able to cycle thousands of kilometres each year.

That was an easy and uncomplicated time.


Our time in the small town north of Melbourne was similar, although it did have the additional complication that if we needed something the town didn't have, we would have to make a trip into Melbourne or Shepparton to get it. We were making those trips about once every 6 weeks to 2 months.

Last edited by Machka; 01-26-15 at 04:27 PM.
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Old 01-26-15, 04:41 PM
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Originally Posted by duckbill
I agree.
It was mentioned by Machka earlier that being off the grid is not simple. Living simply is finding what you can live without not what you necessary need to run out and buy. Owning a car is necessary for some lifestyles but finding a life without the car is living simple and the whole point of this forum. Simple living in a small flat with low rent and a place to park your bike sounds like a secure lifestyle to me.
And of course you are right and Ekdog as well. But the whole lot hinges on the fact that whatever lifestyle your choose, there are costs -- financial and intangible -- associated with it.

Even a low-rent flat has to be paid for on way or the other. But if you live in a low-rent flat, but your job is 50 miles away in an area where rents are much higher, then there are some significant complications that start to emerge in logistics and your personal choices.

And even in an urban environment, living off the grid is not cheap. The installation of a proper solar panel set-up with the required storage batteries costs a lot. The tanks to store rainwater aren't cheap, and then you have to find space to put them.

Most people associate "simple living" as being country based. And indeed, living in a small town, with a secure job, in a decent, relatively low-rent home, and with easy bikeable or walkable access to work and facilities is something that I do miss. But the reality was that employment that would sustain us simply wasn't available in the region, and we had to move.

The closest I have seen in real life to sustainable urban living was my ex-father-in-law, an immigrant from Slovenia who bought a quarter acre block of land, built his house with his own hands, and cultivated the backyard with magnificent vegetable plots and a small fruit orchard. His Australian wife preserved a lot of that produce. But they still had to buy a lot of other stuff and he had to work to pay for it, along with the property taxes.

Then we get on to the "commune" living approach, and we have seen that at first-hand, and discussed it with people who have lived in it. And just like every other human interaction, the greatest barriers to success were internal and often petty politics. Needless to say, our friends moved on after several years because they grew tired of it all.
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Old 01-26-15, 05:25 PM
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Do not spend more than what you make.
There is a huge difference between 'want' and 'need.'
Avoid impulse buying.
Use a credit card for majority of you purchases and then pay it off every month. Yes, most cards will give you a 1%, or more, kickback.
Have never had a car loan; paid off 3 mortgages before their time.
Have lived well and been retired for 20 years.
Do own a car that's very dependable and is only 18 years old and has 169,000 miles on the odometer.
Live in a nice home and we are debt-free.
Yes, managed to raise 3 kids.
'Easy credit' has been the bane of most folks; spending more than what they make has been drummed into their heads by our 'wonderful' banks.
Have never been unemployed; had various jobs from printer to mailman to interior designer and writer; always managed our funds ourselves.
Local banker wanted to know if we had a 'financial advisor' . . . told her: 'You're talking to him!'
Having been raised in WWII Europe and surviving 4 years of the Nazis has perhaps given me a different perspective on how to live my life.
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Old 01-26-15, 06:10 PM
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Originally Posted by Machka
That's not just how it works in my mind ... that's how it works in reality too. I deal in the actual and real, rather than the theoretical, hypothetical, and rhetorical. If you take steps to get a good job, and perhaps additional jobs as well (all of which I've done), then you are in a position to do a wide variety of things ... your choice.
I just googled 'realpolitik' and it is a term that seems to describe your position fairly well. Would you agree? I dislike it because it doesn't matter to me how many people gang up to force their view of reality on a minority or individual, wrong is wrong - and I don't believe in social-cultural relativism where right and wrong are considered arbitrary cultural constructions. Making people work for you (or pay money) to use land that you have put no labor into for their benefit is wrong. It's one thing to protect yourself, your property, and the fruits of your labor against abuses. It's something else to territorialize land purely for the sake of forcing people into paying fees, taxes, tolls, etc. for your benefit. How would you like it if some clever bullies or businesspeople bought up all the land around your house and charged you a toll to leave home? They could tell tell you "this is just how it works in reality" but it would still be wrong.

And you don't have to save up a "king's ransom". Nor is it a slave mentality. It's all about priorities. We all have to work for a living, that's a fact of life ... the chance of winning the lottery or receiving an inheritance from a rich great uncle is pretty low ... but we can make choices about what we do for a living, and then what we do with what we earn.
It is a slave mentality. It is the mentality that we're essentially not free until we earn the right to exercise freedom. Reality is that we are inherently free and people territorialize areas to obstruct others' inherent freedom. You can normalize it all you like but it doesn't make it right, nor is it 'reality' at the most fundamental level. Maybe at the normative level but norms aren't reality, they're social-cultural constructs.

Regarding "bike-camping freely" ... I'm not sure where that came from in this thread, but you've mentioned it in other threads, and people can and do bike camp freely. Free camping is widely available in many countries, and there is a segment of the cycletouring group who are quite adept at "stealth camping" or wild camping or bush camping or free camping or whatever you would like to call it.
Great. My point is that it's not stealing. It is a method of simple living. And if you want to know why this topic came up in this thread, ask the people who decided to question me for explaining my view of simple living as being rooted in the ideal of freely traveling while making minimum impact and engaging in minimum economic interdependency.
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Old 01-26-15, 06:46 PM
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Originally Posted by tandempower
I just googled 'realpolitik' and it is a term that seems to describe your position fairly well. Would you agree? I dislike it because it doesn't matter to me how many people gang up to force their view of reality on a minority or individual, wrong is wrong - and I don't believe in social-cultural relativism where right and wrong are considered arbitrary cultural constructions. Making people work for you (or pay money) to use land that you have put no labor into for their benefit is wrong. It's one thing to protect yourself, your property, and the fruits of your labor against abuses. It's something else to territorialize land purely for the sake of forcing people into paying fees, taxes, tolls, etc. for your benefit. How would you like it if some clever bullies or businesspeople bought up all the land around your house and charged you a toll to leave home? They could tell tell you "this is just how it works in reality" but it would still be wrong.


It is a slave mentality. It is the mentality that we're essentially not free until we earn the right to exercise freedom. Reality is that we are inherently free and people territorialize areas to obstruct others' inherent freedom. You can normalize it all you like but it doesn't make it right, nor is it 'reality' at the most fundamental level. Maybe at the normative level but norms aren't reality, they're social-cultural constructs.


Great. My point is that it's not stealing. It is a method of simple living. And if you want to know why this topic came up in this thread, ask the people who decided to question me for explaining my view of simple living as being rooted in the ideal of freely traveling while making minimum impact and engaging in minimum economic interdependency.


I've no idea where your head lives ... I don't think I care to know ... sounds like a scary place.


But over here in the real world ... we train to get jobs/careers in an area or areas that interests us, we work for a wage or salary, we may acquire further training as necessary, we live frugally within our means (as zonatandem's post so eloquently points out), we save, we make plans for the things we want to do, and after or throughout a period of time (i.e. the "5-year plan"), we carry out those plans.

And as for living simply, we try to do all this in the best place we can find that is within our budget and will suit our purposes. And relating this to living car free ... we try to do all this in a place where we can limit our motor vehicle usage.


Meanwhile, of course, we enjoy life. Life should not be drugery. And we can enjoy life relatively frugally ... walking down to the beach and sitting in a sunny spot reading a book (like I did on Saturday) ... cycling the length of another nearby beach (like Rowan and I did on Monday) ... going to the lower-priced symphonies, plays and other events ... doing weekend cycling tours ... baking ...
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Old 01-26-15, 06:59 PM
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Originally Posted by Machka


I've no idea where your head lives ... I don't think I care to know ... sounds like a scary place.

It probably would be scary to you. It sounds like you can't understand many things I say.

But over here in the real world ... we train to get jobs/careers in an area or areas that interests us, we work for a wage or salary, we may acquire further training as necessary, we live frugally within our means (as zonatandem's post so eloquently points out), we save, we make plans for the things we want to do, and after or throughout a period of time (i.e. the "5-year plan"), we carry out those plans.
All you have to do is stop asserting that norms and perspective constitutes a 'real world' and you can say what ever you believe without stepping on toes. If you prefer not to offend, you could restrict your assertions of reality to things that physically exist, i.e. things made of atoms, molecules, and energy.

And as for living simply, we try to do all this in the best place we can find that is within our budget and will suit our purposes. And relating this to living car free ... we try to do all this in a place where we can limit our motor vehicle usage.
Yes, and some of us are attempting to expand the ability to live car free by identifying obstacles and questioning them . . . until people like you question our questioning by insisting that reality cannot be questioned.

Meanwhile, of course, we enjoy life. Life should not be drugery. And we can enjoy life relatively frugally ... walking down to the beach and sitting in a sunny spot reading a book (like I did on Saturday) ... cycling the length of another nearby beach (like Rowan and I did on Monday) ... going to the lower-priced symphonies, plays and other events ... doing weekend cycling tours ... baking ...
LOL, I totally forgot Rowan is your partner when discussing his posts with you! I just assumed you knew him from online threads. I'm glad you guys are doing well and happy with your relatively simple and fruitful car-free living. I am too, although I guess you couldn't ever imagine that from the way you read my posts. Needless to say, I'm not willing to throw in the towel on progress just because I'm happy in the present. Part of what makes me happy is moving forward and helping move the world forward with democracy. If you hate the politics of questioning realities in the hope of stimulating the realities of change to occur, then I'm afraid you haven't embraced all of reality yet.
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Old 01-26-15, 07:02 PM
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I think the answer to all this is that TP believes the world owes him a living, and that he shouldn't have to do a thing to get what other people have earned.
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Old 01-26-15, 07:10 PM
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Originally Posted by tandempower
LOL, I totally forgot Rowan is your partner when discussing his posts with you! I just assumed you knew him from online threads.
Yes ... we "met" on Bikeforums 12 years ago, then in person about 6 months later. We've been a couple for almost 10 years, and we've been married for 6.5 years. And we've had a wide variety of experiences in that time ... it's been an adventure!
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Old 01-26-15, 08:57 PM
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Originally Posted by bragi
You can live the lifestyle you so romantically describe right now: in the developed world, it's called homelessness.
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Old 01-26-15, 09:32 PM
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PS, my "simple" life is actually kind of complicated. Got out of a typical mortgaged lifestyle, seriously cut back on everything, got rid of most stuff. Upon our split, my ex-no.2 ended up as she had been living, in a 1br apt, downtown area, no car, most services in walking distance. I'd take her to the grocery store shopping every week until summer, when she began riding her bike there.

I planned on moving into a van, which even now serves as my bedroom as I live with my mentally disabled son AMs and PMs to help caretake him... at his apt in ex-no.1's basement.

Part of my plan was to bank mad cash, working a professional publishing job while living cheap, with various PT jobs on weekends. So far, that's worked out.

Also, renewing relations with ex-no.1-in-laws has led to construction of a tiny house, aka a sugar shack, on ex-no.1's land with recycled bits from the farm and wood cut from deadfall off their own land. I told them my motives for building it and they are totally on board. I'll never own it, but I can live in it as long as I want or they let me. Part of the deal was resuming work on the farm as a PT meat cutter and taking on additional responsibilities on the beef slaughtering end of things.



But there's no way I'd have an opportunity like this if I hadn't previously put in nearly two decades with the ex and her family. They know and trust me. I'm useful on the farm. For the most part, I'm building the shack, something they just never got around to in something like 6 years. And in spite of a majority of free material, I'll still have a few hundred dollars into it, plus all the labor I'm trading.

Another PT job as bike mechanic resulted from working 5 years as a FT mechanic, a job I landed after a decades long customer relationship with the LBS. We also went to school in the same town, at nearly the same time, had mutual friends and acquaintances, and worked at different times at the local grocery store, with the same boss and co-workers.

Guy I know lived in a tent in the woods... in Maine... for a whole year, which included severe winter conditions and even the tail end of a hurricane. But again, he was gainfully employed and the land where he resided was a loaned plot... from a guy he knew and with whom he had a working relationship as the land-owner's weed dealer.

Living simply in a small structure, a tent, or even a van can be done, and even for not much money. But if you don't have money to make yourself useful to the people on whom you'll be leaning, you better have something they need or a personal relationship to make up the difference. Most of the time, those with access to give didn't get it for free and aren't hanging onto it for nothing, either. Pretty much everything cool I'm able to do right now is a result of decades of relationships and work along the way.
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Old 01-26-15, 11:06 PM
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Living deliberately

Personally, I can't live a truly simple lifestyle in large part because of my family. They rely on my money but don't share all of my dreams and aspirations. That's OK, of course. Family is about trade-offs, occasionally even sacrifices.

I live very frugally. We rent a nice large house, about five minutes walk from my work. We economize on a lot of things, but have everything we need, and more besides. We are very fortunate.

Like I said earlier, I prefer the term "living deliberately." Figure out what makes you happier in the long run. Rarely is it "things" that will make you happier. Read Jesus, Buddha, and Thoreau. Use their wisdom to help you make the best decisions you can about your own life. Don't criticize others for choices that they have made, or situations they have been forced into. I always remind myself that other people are not as fortunate as I am.
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Old 01-27-15, 12:42 AM
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Originally Posted by Rowan
The 9 x 6 metre shed that we lived in after the bushfires came after several years of very simple living for me.

I lived in this portable unit on my first orchard/farm for several years:



Yep, that's a single room.

For my second stint on the orchard (after six months in Canada), I lived at a nearby property (a 6km commute one way -- and I was car-free). This was the first place I slept and lived in:



Then I moved to what was the old manager's office on the property -- essentially two rooms. It was palatial compared with what came previously.



Then it ended up like this:



Then I lived in this for around four months:



Which had a view like that from the front door.

And after Machka moved from Canada, we lived in this:



Which had these wonderful facilities:



I did move the bath and toilet indoors in the 12 months we were there.

--------------------------------------------------

All this was over 5-1/2 years. Of the posters here, I think I am well qualified to say that living the simple life off the grid is a grand dream, but the reality can be really, really tough, and it's not a way of life I would return to willingly unless I had a bucket full of capital and could set it up so it was comfortable and without a huge workload.
Thanks for posting these, Rowan. They remind of my own forays into extreme simplicity (though I've never managed to last more than several months at a time), and I agree with you that simplicity isn't always quite as simple as advertised.
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Old 01-27-15, 09:15 AM
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Originally Posted by Rowan
I think the answer to all this is that TP believes the world owes him a living, and that he shouldn't have to do a thing to get what other people have earned.
I don't think 'the world owes me' anything. I think the planet is provided to humans and other beings free of charge 'from the get go.' Then we put our labor into it and make it a bit more user-friendly. Mostly humans have gone overboard with this and overdeveloped nature, often from the narrow view that the more they change the land, the more value it adds to it. Humans are egoistic and tend to fetishize the products of their labor. This is true from the graffiti artist scribbling profanities on a school desk or bathroom wall to the engineers of Mt. Rushmore and most of European(ized) cities. Architecture can be beautiful, but its beauty can distract people from the fact that there was natural land before humans developed it and life lived freely on that land before humans started territorializing it, controlling living things, hunting down (or away) those that didn't conform to the expectations of the bullying land-masters.

No one owes anyone a living, but they do owe them respect for their fundamental freedom.

Originally Posted by Machka
Yes ... we "met" on Bikeforums 12 years ago, then in person about 6 months later. We've been a couple for almost 10 years, and we've been married for 6.5 years. And we've had a wide variety of experiences in that time ... it's been an adventure!
It's sounds like you have a great relationship and a great life. There's a lot of heart-joy in living car-free, living simply (or deliberately or whatever you call it) that goes undernoted on this forum. It's funny when I think back to the thread on car-free dating and so many people are worried about impressing their date without a car when the reality is that biking together brings so much more heart-joy than driving together in a car. I'm not saying people can't experience joy in a car but somehow biking seems to elate people more. It's nice that happy biking formed the basis for your relationship/marriage and you've been able to keep it together through alternative life choices that would stress some people's relationships to the point of breakage. I don't know how many people I can speak for saying this, but I look forward to seeing you guys grow old together on bike forums, lol! You really seem to make the most of your lives together.
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Old 01-27-15, 01:00 PM
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Originally Posted by tandempower
I don't think 'the world owes me' anything. I think the planet is provided to humans and other beings free of charge 'from the get go.' Then we put our labor into it and make it a bit more user-friendly. Mostly humans have gone overboard with this and overdeveloped nature, often from the narrow view that the more they change the land, the more value it adds to it. Humans are egoistic and tend to fetishize the products of their labor. This is true from the graffiti artist scribbling profanities on a school desk or bathroom wall to the engineers of Mt. Rushmore and most of European(ized) cities. Architecture can be beautiful, but its beauty can distract people from the fact that there was natural land before humans developed it and life lived freely on that land before humans started territorializing it, controlling living things, hunting down (or away) those that didn't conform to the expectations of the bullying land-masters.
I think your outlook is admirable. Contrary to some of the accusations you've received here, I find that you want your freedom and you're willing to work for it to the extent that your work is dictated by nature, not people. For example, to get food you know that you need to expend the energy and earn money and/or forage, etc. You're not asking for everything to be served up to you just like you want it.

But I also think that you're missing an important aspect of human society or more broadly, life itself. Life involves competition for resources. The fact is that you and I were born into a world that has billions of other people on it. All of these people have staked out their territory before we ever arrived. In my view, the planet was not "provided" at all. It is just here like the rest of the universe. It is not "free of charge". There's nobody to collect that charge. It just is.

For a long time before you and I were born, people staked out "their" property. Some areas are still public property and that's because societies have deliberately recognized that as appropriate and made it so. Be thankful for that! It's not true to the extent that I would like. But the world could be more unforgiving than it is.

Morality was invented by humans, and (I think) is really based in the nurturing instincts of all mammals. But there is no absolute morality. Your morals seem to include the assertion that you should be able to roam and camp where you please. That would be nice but how are you going to convince the entrenched masses that it should be so? You were born into a world that doesn't work like you'd like it to. You have every right to struggle with these folks and try to get them over to your way of thinking. But after you manage to convince the people on BF about it you'll have a few billion more to convert too. I wouldn't give that good odds.

I completely identify with your desire to camp freely. I very much want the same thing! I love the idea that I can have a free weekend of camping by raking some stuff out of the fridge and going to Dawson Forest which is some distance north of Atlanta where I live. Dawson Forest has free disbursed camping so I do this with no worry about getting caught. It gets a little old going there almost every time I camp locally. But that's the only place I know of around here where I can freely camp. I wish it were different. But OTOH I'm also quite thankful that Dawson Forest is there! It would not have to be so.

I also stealth camp sometimes and have to be more discreet then. Even though I'm never guilty of trespassing, I don't want to be woken in the night by an irate dude with a -g-u-n- ordering me off of his property. So I'm careful to go undetected.

It would be nice if there were no private property. Or a lot less of it. But now I'm dreaming about a world that doesn't exist. If I were a twelve year old idealist then I might set out to change these things about how the world works. But I've been around the block a few times and I've learned to accept the things I can't change as just the way it is. Get used to it and move on. Learn to enjoy what's wonderful about the world, change the things you have some hope of changing, and accept the rest without a lot of grief.
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Old 01-27-15, 02:51 PM
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Old 01-27-15, 05:51 PM
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Originally Posted by Walter S
I think your outlook is admirable. Contrary to some of the accusations you've received here, I find that you want your freedom and you're willing to work for it to the extent that your work is dictated by nature, not people. For example, to get food you know that you need to expend the energy and earn money and/or forage, etc. You're not asking for everything to be served up to you just like you want it.
You got it. You work for what you get. You pedal for miles traveled. You carry your own tent and supplies to camp for free. You clean up after yourself and leave no trace. You do your own laundry. You build your own plumbing by digging a latrine (where applicable) or holding it until you get to a public bathroom. Animals do this work too, though they may not bury their droppings (though many do) and they can leave more of a trace. They also have a right to roam freely where they don't harm humans and their property, and people should respect that. Humans deserve the same respect.

But I also think that you're missing an important aspect of human society or more broadly, life itself. Life involves competition for resources. The fact is that you and I were born into a world that has billions of other people on it. All of these people have staked out their territory before we ever arrived. In my view, the planet was not "provided" at all. It is just here like the rest of the universe. It is not "free of charge". There's nobody to collect that charge. It just is.
Various European crowns staked out territorial claims on the new world prior to the US constitution. Then some people decided they didn't need to pay taxes to the British crown to live off the land in America. Indeed land and nature 'just are' but part of 'just being' is that there is no fundamental entitlement to charge others for using nature, unless there is some good reason to commodify something - as in the case of non-renewable natural resources.

For a long time before you and I were born, people staked out "their" property. Some areas are still public property and that's because societies have deliberately recognized that as appropriate and made it so. Be thankful for that! It's not true to the extent that I would like. But the world could be more unforgiving than it is.
Lovers of freedom can be just as unforgiving toward those who bully others who exercise theirs.

Morality was invented by humans, and (I think) is really based in the nurturing instincts of all mammals. But there is no absolute morality. Your morals seem to include the assertion that you should be able to roam and camp where you please. That would be nice but how are you going to convince the entrenched masses that it should be so? You were born into a world that doesn't work like you'd like it to. You have every right to struggle with these folks and try to get them over to your way of thinking. But after you manage to convince the people on BF about it you'll have a few billion more to convert too. I wouldn't give that good odds.
I don't want to get into a philosophical discussion about morality here but suffice it to say I disagree with you that it is relative.

I completely identify with your desire to camp freely. I very much want the same thing! I love the idea that I can have a free weekend of camping by raking some stuff out of the fridge and going to Dawson Forest which is some distance north of Atlanta where I live. Dawson Forest has free disbursed camping so I do this with no worry about getting caught. It gets a little old going there almost every time I camp locally. But that's the only place I know of around here where I can freely camp. I wish it were different. But OTOH I'm also quite thankful that Dawson Forest is there! It would not have to be so.
State governments should create no-trace biker/hiker camping permits that stipulate conditions for free overnight stays on public and/or private lands that protect land-owner participants against liability so that they can be free to offer the use of their property for hiker/biker camping.

The rules/stipulations would be things like maximum number of consecutive nights, curfews, noise prohibitions, fire prohibitions, conditions of legitimate eviction, etc. People who fail to respect their campsite could have their licenses revoked in the same way drivers' licenses are given points and eventually revoked. Private property rights should be honored but there should also be laws that facilitate availing of no-trace camping rights by private property owners as well as public land managers.

I also stealth camp sometimes and have to be more discreet then. Even though I'm never guilty of trespassing, I don't want to be woken in the night by an irate dude with a -g-u-n- ordering me off of his property. So I'm careful to go undetected.
Clear rights and responsibilities and a hiker/biker camping permit would be better than sneaking around in fear of armed assault, wouldn't it?
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Old 01-27-15, 07:34 PM
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Originally Posted by tandempower
State governments should create no-trace biker/hiker camping permits that stipulate conditions for free overnight stays on public and/or private lands that protect land-owner participants against liability so that they can be free to offer the use of their property for hiker/biker camping.
1. Go to Scotland, Scandinavia, Australia, the west coast of the US, and other places. Research their policies etc. regarding free camping and hiker/biker campsites. Experience camping in those places. Get to know the pros and cons and all about them.

2. Travel around your state and determine where similar camping situations could feasibly work.

3. Create a proposal for your own state based on your research and experience.

4. Present the proposal to your state government.


You might also want to get others on board. Travel with some friends to get varied perspectives. Present your ideas to hiking and cycletouring clubs to get some feedback. Present your ideas to privately owned campgrounds. Your ideas will have more impact if you can get a group of people behind them.


Your complaint/issue is just with one area of the US (Florida and some of the east coast, I'm guessing). The rest of the US, and much of the rest of the world, are somewhat freer when it comes to camping. Throughout much of Canada, for example, you can free camp and chances are the only thing that will disturb you might be a coyote. I've already told you about the free camping in state forests and rest areas in Australia. Scotland has an overall free camping policy. Parts of Scandinavia also allow free camping. I'm sure if you did some digging you'd find all sorts of places you could camp for free around the world.

So go have a look at what's available in other parts of the world and then propose changes for your own particular area based on what you find.

Here's a site to get you started ...
Freedom to roam - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Old 01-27-15, 08:31 PM
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Originally Posted by Ekdog
The only thing that keeps me from moving away from fossils fuels for water heating, and perhaps generating some electricity, are my conservative neighbors. Believe it or not, they won't let me put a solar panel on the roof because it would be an eyesore. Meanwhile, most of them have dish antennas up there, which they think are lovely.
Get some solar friends and local companies to back you up and take your neighbors to city council and get an okay from the city.
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Old 01-27-15, 09:35 PM
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Originally Posted by Artkansas
Get some solar friends and local companies to back you up and take your neighbors to city council and get an okay from the city.
I think the first step I need to take is to talk to a lawyer to find out if the neighbors even have a legal right to prohibit solar panels up there.
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Old 01-28-15, 04:31 PM
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Originally Posted by Machka
1. Go to Scotland, Scandinavia, Australia, the west coast of the US, and other places. Research their policies etc. regarding free camping and hiker/biker campsites. Experience camping in those places. Get to know the pros and cons and all about them.
It's far more effective to appear to universal/generalized logic than to cite specific regimes. Citing specific regimes gives opponents the easy option of saying, "well this is not Scotland," or, "if you like Scandinavia so much, why don't you go live there?" The simple fact is that reason supercedes norms. Unreasonable norms can survive for a while once their unreasonability is exposed, but not forever. The only reason unreasonable culture persists is because people consent to accepting it by arbitrary reference to tradition, etc. They say, "maybe it's wrong, but that's just the way it is." If it's wrong, people won't be able to tolerate it forever.

2. Travel around your state and determine where similar camping situations could feasibly work.
I have no idea what could possibly be unfeasible about people availing areas of land to permitted hiker/bikers. An even greater incentive would be to give them a tax exemption in exchange for a conservation/camping easement. If the law says campers camp at their liability and property owners can file complaints that could ultimately revoke campers' licenses, many more people would feel comfortable availing an area of land in this way. . . especially if a public information campaign explained the multi-day nature of long distance biking/hiking travel.

3. Create a proposal for your own state based on your research and experience.
This can work against you. People like to shoot others' ideas down. Sometimes it's better to share ideas freely and let someone with political aspirations put their name on the idea to gain some work experience in the career field they're pursuing.

You might also want to get others on board. Travel with some friends to get varied perspectives. Present your ideas to hiking and cycletouring clubs to get some feedback. Present your ideas to privately owned campgrounds. Your ideas will have more impact if you can get a group of people behind them.
This is basically what I"m doing talking about it online. I also informally talk about it with people I meet who have rural land or when I camp in a campground, I talk about it with the managers and/or employees.

Your complaint/issue is just with one area of the US (Florida and some of the east coast, I'm guessing). The rest of the US, and much of the rest of the world, are somewhat freer when it comes to camping. Throughout much of Canada, for example, you can free camp and chances are the only thing that will disturb you might be a coyote. I've already told you about the free camping in state forests and rest areas in Australia. Scotland has an overall free camping policy. Parts of Scandinavia also allow free camping. I'm sure if you did some digging you'd find all sorts of places you could camp for free around the world.
I intentionally leave out specific place information to keep discussion on the general level. If this discourse applies to some forum user's experience and interests, great. If not, they won't bother with the thread. It's that simple really. No need to go off defining places that will lead to stereotyping due to partial knowledge of a place. Enough of that goes on in this world, don't you think?

So go have a look at what's available in other parts of the world and then propose changes for your own particular area based on what you find.
You really think like a statistician and I don't think I'm ever going to convince you that it's not a good way of thinking, let alone make you see that there are other, better ways of thinking. All I can say is that when I was small, they taught kids that just because everyone else is doing something doesn't make it right and doesn't mean you should do it. It was called 'peer pressure' and it was associated with drug-pushing. Thus I can't legitimately support or criticize something on the basis of 'what others do,' whether those others are individual people or collective identities like cities and nations.
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Old 01-28-15, 04:38 PM
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Originally Posted by tandempower
You really think like a statistician.
Thank you!

It pays the bills.


And to summarise what I said in my post ... your issue regarding the camping situation is limited to your immediate area. It is not an issue in most/many other parts of the world. Most/many of us here live in other parts of the world therefore it is not an issue for us. If you were to travel to other parts of the world, you'd see how different things are ... and you might get some good ideas for your part of the world. Save up a bit of money and go travel ...
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