i see your reasoning  DB.  maybe there is a point in which giving back becomes a priority? When you can, or how?

Now that I have that in mind, what can we dudes do for each other?

I hate to say this on my favorite forum, but each and every one of you is a parasite.
You might be associating it with money that is earned by your individual efforts, but you wouldn't be here without the back bone of someone elses labor, or the beauty of life on earth, or the root of energy itself.

Contribute action or thought, or a combination,  it's when you destroy with intent that is rather...undude

Oh yeah, I'm fully aware of my place in universal harmony.  Only, I'd not quite say parasite, I'd say symbiont.  If we're all leaching, who/what are we all leaching from?

Ok, some people are parasites, like a few of the people in my list of examples in my second post, but it's not a world built on some giving and some taking, it's more of a case of most exchanging.  Society is a symbiotic relationship where we all exchange ideas, knowledge, resources and aid.

I'm not leaching off of electricity company, I give them money in exchange for their service, just as my employers give me money in exchange for mine.  We all play our part, but in different ways.  Like my article on Dudeciples that spoke out to a lot of people on living life your own way, I said that even if you're not working you can contribute.  I used Meekon's example about the Buddhist monks that take donations in their begging bowls but give back spiritually.  So a Dude accepts a free drink, he can give back with a smile, a warm wish or a funny story.  That's symbiosis, exchange, barter... tit-for-tat even

So this guy lives without money, he still lives as part of the system.  He still interacts with the world, and he started his life with clothes he bought and other resources he paid for (or someone else did).  He's not living in a shack in the woods he built with fallen logs, eating berries he found in the woods and wearing leaves.  He's using a system of shared and exchanged resources.  He may have been gifted things, like tools and whathave you, but someone paid for those, either with money or with resources.



@Ceaser:

Yeah, I agree that money can't buy you happiness, but it can buy you life.  That 95pound you got was buying you and your son life, and yeah it was a struggle at such a small amount, I know, but you've gone through some tough motions over the years.  You spent a long time struggling, a while enjoying life and then back to struggling again.

I don't think you can blame any of that on money, it's all circumstance and decision.  So, whilst I sympathise with the hard times you've been through it was your choice how to spend the money you had when you had it in abundance.  You can't say the money made you, nor did the people.  People might try and influence you, but money is just a thing, an abstract concept, a token.  We all make decisions, for better or for worse, when circumstance allows us.



Sure, life would be better if we just had the money we needed to go about life each and every day, but sometimes we have more, and sometimes we have less and we have to ride that wave.

I for one am not concerned about an excess of money, because there's not much I want out of life (yeah, I really AM that boring, as Meekon will no doubt vouch for).  But I am concerned about not having enough to live.  But, as I said before, if I had no money but I had resources to live, I'd be just fine.

So let's ignore money, because it's an illusion, and convert it into the actual resources it is.  1p = 1 pea, 1pound = one pound of potatoes   Resources is life, and if resources if money, so be it...

As long as people realise and make peace with it, and don't base their life on acquiring more than they need without giving back, we'll achieve a more harmonious symbiosis.  Well, I can dream, can't I?

I think Ben Franklin nailed it for part of this understanding when he wrote:

"All property, indeed, except the savage's temporary cabin, his bow, his match-coat, and other little acquisitions absolutely necessary for his subsistence, seems to me to be the creature of public convention . . . All the property that is necessay to a man for the conservation of the individual and the propagation of the species is his natural right, which none can justly deprive him of; but all property superfluous to such purposes is the property of the public, who by their laws have created it, and who may therefore by other laws dispose of it whenever the welfare of the public shall demand such a disposition".

(Letter to Robert Morris, Dec. 25th 1783; cf. Bigelow, John, ed.,The Works of Benjamin Franklin, New York, 1904)

I see humanity as a single organism and money is its blood, every organ has a role, sure the being can live with out some organs but it is not complete, and life is best served by having all its organs functioning. Imagine if the heart decided it was too important to share blood with the liver, or the lungs decide they didn't need to send oxygen to the brain because it was being an asshole, and the asshole decided to quit because the testicles were being dicks. The being would be all fucked up. And that's where we are today, circulation is all messed up and we have massive blood clots.

I could give someone a great day on my sailboat

Government is not the only entity to take by force, in the absence of government you have feudalism, where warlords come and take it any way.

Not that you can be complacent in letting government get out of hand, but you stand a better chance against an elected gov then you do against gangs.

The other side is, with out society there is no wealth, that's the point, if you want to get your product safely to market who do you trust to gaurantee that, the US government or the Hell's Angels? Make no mistake, it a purely libertarian state that's who would run the show. End of the day you can not trust anyone or any thing.

It's about balance, no one wants to be ruled by John Galt anymore than they want to be ruled by Stalin, it's some where in the middle that we are looking for.

Using money for what it is is not a bad thing IMHO. The gross accumulation is where we fall down IMO

I saw a documentary about a guy in Germany that lives without money, by the name of Raphael Fellmer. He lives with his wife and kid in a guys house, doenst pay rent, but helps him in and around to house to justify his living there. He collects food from trashcans behind supermarkets. They throw away so much stuff that is perfectly fine every evening, so he doenst seem to have any problems with that. If he needs something he offers something in exchange or just works for the person that owns what he needs.
Of course this lifestyle doesnt work if everybody does ist, but he says he wants to be an example against the waistfulness of our society.
I wouldnt see him as a parasite, since he just takes things that society has no use for. I would see it the other way around, because everybody that consumes a lot, drives a car, etc. takes more ressources then him, exploits the planet, which could be interpreted as characteristics of a parasite.

Everyone did live like that at one time...it's known as the Batter System.
Welcome to oir nice quiet beach community dude!