I really appreciate the level of detail in this post. Not too little. Not too much.
It does seem that being in school made this experiment distinctly different from just living in a tent. In a sense, tuition was rent. It paid for showers, electricity, and a living room with air conditioning (the library). It also provided a supportive community. School and even society at large is more inclined to help a poor student than an adult trying to cut rent.
I make this observation not to diminish the experiment's value. I am just putting it in context to arrange its utility in my mind.
(edit: I can't imagine why this is flagged. It is def life- hacking if not tech hacking.)
neilv · 4h ago
> edit: I can't imagine why this is flagged.
Flagging seems to be one of the big vulnerabilities of HN.
Maybe flaggers should be required to state the reason for flagging, and this reason should be exposed.
Flagging means "no one should even see this on HN", and random people shouldn't get arrogant or cavalier about swinging around that power.
jimmaswell · 3h ago
I have my account set to show flagged comments. A lot of flagged comments are simply some form of "wrongthink" but not violating any guidelines. So I've used the function often to "save" a flagged thing but it seemed to have stopped working for me at some point. I can only speculate why, but I think I saw some other commenters saying that happens if you unflag too much.. wrongthink. I want to give the site admin the benefit of the doubt though. Maybe it's simply an automated process that notices you unflagged too many things that were flagged by others too much?
neilv · 2h ago
I also have that setting, and occasionally vouch for an inexplicably flagged comment I notice.
There's definitely wrongthink/ideological flagging and downvoting going on.
(On some comments I make, I know when I make it that it's going to get downvoted, because it pushes against an opinion of the kinds of people who will downvote to suppress criticism. It used to be that criticizing cryptocurrency would get downvotes, but now it's popular to criticize. I can get reliably downvoted any time that I suggest that adding a fee for some basic public infrastructure (e.g., to drive on street in a city), in a "market-based" way, is a handout of the basic public infrastructure to the wealthy. Also, suggestions that there's still any bias against women, in anything, somewhere, seems to reliably get downvotes, no matter how relevant; I don't know why, but I'd guess it's because the topic has a lot of general angry sentiment, and people who are angry the other direction aren't represented as much on HN.)
I'd distinguish wrongthink from something being off-topic and done-to-death or a flamewar magnet. Maybe one mental exercise test for this is whether the same person would also still downvote as "topic" if the opinion of the post/comment were flipped.
southernplaces7 · 1h ago
Both downvoting and flagging are absurdities on this site.
The common trend here is to have more than a few grossly humorless, pedantic, self-absorbed, bubble-dwelling, neckbeards shit all over anything they don't find precisely honed to their self-absorbed preferences and likes, by being able to flag it for no reason or whatever the fuck reason they want, often just because they were made unhappy by whatever little personal ideological fetish they nourish.
Downvoting is also a blatantly idiotic system of letting any random asshole work to make comments invisible, many of which are completely okay and relevant to some discussion, and it slowly erases often legitimately interesting differences of opinion.
Just to at least slightly counter the latter, I specifically make a point of never downvoting anything, no matter how much I detest the opinion, and wherever I notice a grey comment that doesn't deserve hate, upvote it just to counter such childish stupidity.
5mv2 · 4h ago
Appreciate the feedback!
100%. It's a lot easier when you live next to a Google campus. And it sorts all the menial matters that make a huge difference, like access to washing machines.
About the flagging, you seem to have been here for a while, any hint? I get the word usage can comes across as disrespectful now that people mention it, but didn't think a link would get flagged for that.
Hnrobert42 · 3h ago
I have been here for years. Most things that get flagged are extremely objectionable or touch a political nerve.
I could see conservatives disliking that it questions capitalism's viability post AI. I could see liberals thinking you are making light of folks experiencing homelessness.
I think those are absurd, but with a low vote count, your post may only need a few absurd people to flag you.
Naturally, there could be other reasons things get flagged, but I never see them because they disappear too fast.
You could always ask @dang to weigh in. He might see something which violates the guidelines.
5mv2 · 3h ago
Makes sense. Thanks for sharing!
Looks like it might have to do with the title, or at least the title was changed before it got unflagged. Good learning!
paxys · 2h ago
The ROI calculation is way too short sighted to be meaningful. To start you are already paying college tuition, and the expectation is to get an education that will help you pay off the loans (and then some). Going a few hundred deeper in the hole every month to have a roof over your head (you know, the most basic requirment for humans after water and food) is a no brainer and will massively increase your education ROI. A couple months of "homeless man" cosplay is probably fun and games but start to face the heat, cold, humidity, animals, police, theft, physical danger and more and those As aren't going to remain As for long.
5mv2 · 1h ago
You're right that I was arguably irrationally attached to not ending uni with too much debt.
For the rest, I'm with you it might be hard to replicate beyond this n = 1 sample, but I'm convinced this experiment's ROI is actually much more positive than suggested in the post.
Not only did I get better grades that semester from being forced to spend more time in the library, but I learned a lot living at people's places afterwards, and, most importantly, the feeling of freedom from materials matters allowed me to make bolder bets that paid back multiple times over.
You can even go further: even if my grades had gone down, I still would have been more employable for many types of companies, starting with early stage startups.
bboygravity · 33m ago
Doesn't living in a tent also make you less vulnerable to smartphone and laptop addictions?
I noticed in myself that when I stay in minimal places (camping/jungle hut/tent), I tend to be more connected to the real world and less addicted. More productivity, clearer thought.
iainctduncan · 4h ago
This is not homelessness. This is "bandit camping". Not a value judgment on the act - when I was young climbing bum I did me a fair bit of it. But calling it homelessness is pretty insulting to the actual homeless, who aren't doing it by choice to optimize their time for a relative luxury.
istjohn · 1h ago
There's a place for policing language, but you're not doing anyone any favors by gatekeeping homelessness. This is not involuntary homelessness, but then a large number of unhoused people could live under a roof if they were willing to accept certain tradeoffs, whether that be living with an abusive spouse, with an estranged parent, in a sober house, or far away from a community of friends. There are unhoused people who could scrape by in menial, arduous--and possibly dangerous--jobs who instead choose to live life on their own terms.
Trebaol was not forced into homelessness, but he was not play-acting or apeing a lifestyle for kicks. He was in a situation where he judged squatting four and a half months illegally in the jungle was worth saving a mere $2,000.
If you prefer to describe your past lifestyle as bandit camping instead of homelessness, by all means do so. But don't insist the rest of the world conform to your arbitrary redefinition of a term from its everyday meaning because it doesn't always fit your preconceptions.
Are you really helping the unhoused by insisting that someone is only truly homeless if they are schizophrenic, strung out on fentanyl, or otherwise totally incapable of being a productive member of society?
codersfocus · 1h ago
> But calling it homelessness is pretty insulting to the actual homeless
I'm sure homeless people have more pressing thoughts than what words nerds on the internet use to describe outdoor living
dang · 3h ago
If there's a more accurate and neutral title, we can change it above.
Edit: I've taken a crack at it. If there's a better way, we can change it again.
5mv2 · 3h ago
So sorry you had to spend time changing the title! Learning the lesson for next time.
southernplaces7 · 12m ago
Oh get over yourself with this contrived bit of supposed offense. Aside from it being nonsense, are you yourself homeless, a representative of a group of homeless people, someone who interviewed a number of them and asked if they're "offended" by anyone who doesn't absolutely have to live outside also using the phrase "i'm living homelessly"?
Also, by your invented criteria for language monitoring, many homeless people in many cities would themselves no longer be considered homeless.
Quite a few of them could somewhere, under some circumstances, find a place to stay even though it cost them just a bit too much to like, just like the guy who created this clever and interesting post.
IncreasePosts · 19m ago
What should you call this person without a fixed home? Perhaps "temporarily unhoused"?
neilv · 4h ago
> and saved me close to $2k over the 4.5 months.
The author wisely talks about safety considerations, but there's an it's-expensive-to-be-poor risk I'd like to emphasize:
One injury or illness caused by the frugality could wipe out that $2K savings, many times over, in immediate costs, and might never fully heal.
I think back to all the penny-pinching I did (less impressive than the author's), and much of it was necessary under the circumstances, but a very poor value tradeoff otherwise.
5mv2 · 4h ago
Agree. I tried to describe the step by step approach to show how you can try this gradually and mitigate the risks, but if you don't have access to a community and cheap student healthcare it's definitely quite dangerous. I'll add word about this at the bottom.
Edit: added! thanks for the feedback again
No comments yet
constantcrying · 5m ago
Interesting article about alternative living, I understand why you would do this for fun, but obviously the risk vs. reward calculation makes no sense.
The convenience of a place with electricity, running water, a table and chair, you are legally allowed to sleep there, etc. Seems easily worth 450 Dollars a month. In the end he says he saved 2k, but that is not a relevant amount of money to save over months if you become a software developer in America.
throe83949449 · 4h ago
Wild camping is tolerated in Hong Kong, but this guy is going to ruin it for everyone. Leaving 2.5 meter high tent pitched over daytime near buildings, is lazy and really really bad.
Stealth camping should be done in low profile tents (1.2 meters high). You should pitch tent at dark, and leave before sunrise.
5mv2 · 4h ago
"I first try putting a friend 3 meters away from the tent and asking him to find it. Vegetation is so thick he can't. No need to spray camouflage!"
You're safe! No one found me, and I took it away a decade ago.
IncreasePosts · 18m ago
Why does it matter if literally no one discovered it?
verall · 3h ago
Is that UST? If it is - it's really incredibly stunningly beautiful, that view. I envy the bravery giving you that sight to see every morning.
5mv2 · 3h ago
Yes exactly! It’s UST. Beautiful view :)
msgodel · 4h ago
Tents aren't a good long term plan IMO. They don't protect you from animals. Vehicles are much better.
5mv2 · 4h ago
Makes sense. I guess it depends on the location, since in my case there were no animals as long as I didn't bring food in the tent. And another pro is you can pitch tents in places no one would ever go, while it's harder for vehicles. So less chances of getting busted.
IncreasePosts · 17m ago
Vehicles are tied to roads more or less and make contact with the most dangerous animal much more likely. Keeping food out of the tent is probably enough to discourage most animals from snooping.
ambicapter · 2h ago
The "Community Support" section is really touching.
5mv2 · 1h ago
Glad you liked this! It was so great I've been meaning to do this again for years but never made the leap by fear of being a nuisance.
I honestly think everyone would be much happier and less lonely if sleep-overs didn't stop being a thing as we reach adult age.
more_corn · 2h ago
I concur. The experiences couch surfing were the most interesting part (aside from the psychological calm of sleeping and waking outside)
m3kw9 · 3h ago
Very nice write up, cool experiment and very intriguing
hooverd · 4h ago
Hmm, really makes you optimistic...
5mv2 · 4h ago
I get that it's super hard to replicate this and have a good time outside of the HK jungle, but to be honest it made me a lot more optimistic . You see people's real colors when you ask them to host you in their home, and in my case the support was overwhelming.
ejoso · 4h ago
Inspiring. Bold choices.
5mv2 · 4h ago
let me know if you try the sailboat thing in san francisco!
more_corn · 2h ago
In San Francisco you’d need to worry about the pirates.
Profan · 4h ago
I uhh, is this homeless larping? What in tarnation
5mv2 · 4h ago
yeah. wouldnt have been fun if it was out of necessity
more_corn · 2h ago
How about homelessness as a strategic cost-savings experiment?
nativeit · 1h ago
I'd imagine most unhoused individuals are doing it as a strategic cost saving. Only, they're strategy involves eating and surviving rather than paying for unreachable/unsustainable rents. Maybe they didn't choose it, but it's still the strategy they're engaging in.
bobthepanda · 34m ago
There are plenty of folks who can’t find housing for other reasons like background checks, credit score checks, etc. that might not be directly related to their ability to pay rent at that point in time.
It does seem that being in school made this experiment distinctly different from just living in a tent. In a sense, tuition was rent. It paid for showers, electricity, and a living room with air conditioning (the library). It also provided a supportive community. School and even society at large is more inclined to help a poor student than an adult trying to cut rent.
I make this observation not to diminish the experiment's value. I am just putting it in context to arrange its utility in my mind.
(edit: I can't imagine why this is flagged. It is def life- hacking if not tech hacking.)
Flagging seems to be one of the big vulnerabilities of HN.
Maybe flaggers should be required to state the reason for flagging, and this reason should be exposed.
Flagging means "no one should even see this on HN", and random people shouldn't get arrogant or cavalier about swinging around that power.
There's definitely wrongthink/ideological flagging and downvoting going on.
(On some comments I make, I know when I make it that it's going to get downvoted, because it pushes against an opinion of the kinds of people who will downvote to suppress criticism. It used to be that criticizing cryptocurrency would get downvotes, but now it's popular to criticize. I can get reliably downvoted any time that I suggest that adding a fee for some basic public infrastructure (e.g., to drive on street in a city), in a "market-based" way, is a handout of the basic public infrastructure to the wealthy. Also, suggestions that there's still any bias against women, in anything, somewhere, seems to reliably get downvotes, no matter how relevant; I don't know why, but I'd guess it's because the topic has a lot of general angry sentiment, and people who are angry the other direction aren't represented as much on HN.)
I'd distinguish wrongthink from something being off-topic and done-to-death or a flamewar magnet. Maybe one mental exercise test for this is whether the same person would also still downvote as "topic" if the opinion of the post/comment were flipped.
The common trend here is to have more than a few grossly humorless, pedantic, self-absorbed, bubble-dwelling, neckbeards shit all over anything they don't find precisely honed to their self-absorbed preferences and likes, by being able to flag it for no reason or whatever the fuck reason they want, often just because they were made unhappy by whatever little personal ideological fetish they nourish.
Downvoting is also a blatantly idiotic system of letting any random asshole work to make comments invisible, many of which are completely okay and relevant to some discussion, and it slowly erases often legitimately interesting differences of opinion.
Just to at least slightly counter the latter, I specifically make a point of never downvoting anything, no matter how much I detest the opinion, and wherever I notice a grey comment that doesn't deserve hate, upvote it just to counter such childish stupidity.
100%. It's a lot easier when you live next to a Google campus. And it sorts all the menial matters that make a huge difference, like access to washing machines.
About the flagging, you seem to have been here for a while, any hint? I get the word usage can comes across as disrespectful now that people mention it, but didn't think a link would get flagged for that.
I could see conservatives disliking that it questions capitalism's viability post AI. I could see liberals thinking you are making light of folks experiencing homelessness.
I think those are absurd, but with a low vote count, your post may only need a few absurd people to flag you.
Naturally, there could be other reasons things get flagged, but I never see them because they disappear too fast.
You could always ask @dang to weigh in. He might see something which violates the guidelines.
Looks like it might have to do with the title, or at least the title was changed before it got unflagged. Good learning!
For the rest, I'm with you it might be hard to replicate beyond this n = 1 sample, but I'm convinced this experiment's ROI is actually much more positive than suggested in the post.
Not only did I get better grades that semester from being forced to spend more time in the library, but I learned a lot living at people's places afterwards, and, most importantly, the feeling of freedom from materials matters allowed me to make bolder bets that paid back multiple times over.
You can even go further: even if my grades had gone down, I still would have been more employable for many types of companies, starting with early stage startups.
I noticed in myself that when I stay in minimal places (camping/jungle hut/tent), I tend to be more connected to the real world and less addicted. More productivity, clearer thought.
Trebaol was not forced into homelessness, but he was not play-acting or apeing a lifestyle for kicks. He was in a situation where he judged squatting four and a half months illegally in the jungle was worth saving a mere $2,000.
If you prefer to describe your past lifestyle as bandit camping instead of homelessness, by all means do so. But don't insist the rest of the world conform to your arbitrary redefinition of a term from its everyday meaning because it doesn't always fit your preconceptions.
Are you really helping the unhoused by insisting that someone is only truly homeless if they are schizophrenic, strung out on fentanyl, or otherwise totally incapable of being a productive member of society?
I'm sure homeless people have more pressing thoughts than what words nerds on the internet use to describe outdoor living
Edit: I've taken a crack at it. If there's a better way, we can change it again.
Also, by your invented criteria for language monitoring, many homeless people in many cities would themselves no longer be considered homeless.
Quite a few of them could somewhere, under some circumstances, find a place to stay even though it cost them just a bit too much to like, just like the guy who created this clever and interesting post.
The author wisely talks about safety considerations, but there's an it's-expensive-to-be-poor risk I'd like to emphasize:
One injury or illness caused by the frugality could wipe out that $2K savings, many times over, in immediate costs, and might never fully heal.
I think back to all the penny-pinching I did (less impressive than the author's), and much of it was necessary under the circumstances, but a very poor value tradeoff otherwise.
Edit: added! thanks for the feedback again
No comments yet
The convenience of a place with electricity, running water, a table and chair, you are legally allowed to sleep there, etc. Seems easily worth 450 Dollars a month. In the end he says he saved 2k, but that is not a relevant amount of money to save over months if you become a software developer in America.
Stealth camping should be done in low profile tents (1.2 meters high). You should pitch tent at dark, and leave before sunrise.
You're safe! No one found me, and I took it away a decade ago.
I honestly think everyone would be much happier and less lonely if sleep-overs didn't stop being a thing as we reach adult age.