Clarity comments on Rational Home Buying - Less Wrong

99 Post author: Yvain 27 August 2011 12:15AM

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Comment author: Clarity 16 July 2015 11:41:44AM *  0 points [-]

Replies to the comment you are now reading accurately describe my ideas so the original post has been replaced by this disclaimer to spare your time :)

that's the kind of organisation we're looking for, one that kind of finds the problems and talks about them publically, rather than the ones who hide them or don't even know they're there. - transcribed from GiveWellJune2015SFResearchEventTop_Chariti

Comment author: gjm 17 July 2015 04:52:06PM 2 points [-]

the original post has been replaced by this disclaimer

I hereby declare that, until such time as Clarity pledges to stop doing this, I am going to stop replying substantively to his/her comments. Anyone else with me on this?

Comment author: Clarity 17 July 2015 05:01:41PM *  0 points [-]

Wow. I can stop doing it without you doing that pledge. Your recommendation is enough lol.

edit 1: wait unless you're pledge is trying to change something else?

edit 2: for my understanding, why don't you like the disclaimer idea? I would have adjusted or given up the practice based on upvotes/downvotes in response to gauge the communities reaction. But I feel like this is a strong individual preference against it?

Comment author: gjm 17 July 2015 06:12:50PM 2 points [-]

All my pledge is trying to change is your annoying habit of deleting things that provide relevant context for other people's comments.

(I did already recommend that you stop doing it, as it happens, so clearly that wasn't enough :-). I explained why at the time.)

Comment author: ChristianKl 17 July 2015 05:56:19PM *  0 points [-]

In general content shouldn't be delete unless there's a very good reason to do so. Deleting it prevents other people from reading the discussion in full.

If you disown your article you can click on the button right next to edit to strike it out.

Comment author: gjm 16 July 2015 04:48:49PM 1 point [-]

I know nothing about the details of your situation, but this doesn't sound likely to be a wise move.

Living in a car rather than the cheapest accommodation you can find means (leaving aside the issue of romantic/sexual relationships, though you should reconsider whether burning your bridges there is really likely to be best for you):

  • More money, but not hugely more money unless you're somewhere stupidly expensive like San Francisco. (In which case you should consider moving rather than living in your car.)
  • Sleeping in the car rather than in a bed: you will almost certainly sleep worse (hence, be less effective in the daytime) and will likely be setting yourself up for back problems later on, as you say.
  • Nowhere to work: I guess your plan is to work in cafes or something, where there is noise and you're likely to have to spend more on drinks than if you worked at home. And this works only for some categories of work.
  • Nowhere to store clothes so you will probably look scruffy all the time. Fine if your experiments on novel consumable services/products never requires you to go in person to see potential customers or business partners, not so good otherwise.
  • Nowhere to bathe or shower or even wash but presumably there's some workaround for that (but I expect it will also cost money).
  • You need to have the car eliminating a different way of saving money (which may or may not be viable depending on where you live).
  • Possible difficulty with law enforcement because AIUI sleeping in a car in a public parking space is actually illegal in many places.
  • No postal address which may again be awkward for some business purposes, for buying things online, etc.
  • Nowhere to store substantial numbers of books which you may or may not care about (maybe the cool kids are using ebooks for everything these days).
  • More risk from crime -- someone can steal your actual home if you do this, and other less drastic kinds of crime are also more of a risk.

Those seem like substantial drawbacks. If you have the sort of skills that give a real prospect of success making "novel consumable services/products", can't you rent somewhere cheap and pay for it by doing some sort of freelance work a day or two a week, and have a better quality of life overall?

Comment author: Lumifer 16 July 2015 05:08:11PM 3 points [-]

Note that many of these problems can be substantially mitigated by living in a caravan (RV). In fact, there is a considerable population of American retirees who live in RVs. There are certainly trade-offs involved, but they make sense for some people.

Comment author: gjm 16 July 2015 05:30:56PM -1 points [-]

Where do they put their RVs? Do they end up paying rent for that? (And: are RVs cheap enough that this makes sense for Clarity, who I take it is young and has little in the way of savings?)

Comment author: Lumifer 16 July 2015 05:45:58PM 2 points [-]

Where do they put their RVs? Do they end up paying rent for that?

You can put your RV into an RV park and pay rent. You can also park somewhere (e.g. in the US Walmart is well-known for not chasing RVs off their parking lots) and once every few days drive to an RV station to refill, recharge, discard your black/grey water, etc. If you're really hurting for money you can (usually illegally) dump your black/grey water yourself somewhere, get electricity from solar panels, and generally be pretty self-contained.

are RVs cheap enough

As usual, it depends. Old ones in bad condition are cheap :-/

Comment author: gjm 16 July 2015 10:54:48PM -1 points [-]

Old ones in bad condition are cheap

Cheap to buy but presumably not so cheap to maintain.

Still, given Vaniver's figures elsewhere in this thread and a plausible guess at the cost of minimal RV maintenance, it looks as if living in your car still does come out cheaper than living in a house or apartment. Those drawbacks seem to me to outweigh that, though, for anyone whose earning power isn't too wretched.

Comment author: Lumifer 17 July 2015 02:26:09PM *  1 point [-]

Those drawbacks seem to me to outweigh that

That depends on your situation and preferences. If you are single, have a telecommuting job, and there is some wanderlust in you, living in a (travelling) RV can be an excellent idea. On the other hand, if you have a family with kids, a job that requires your physical presence, a tight social circle of your neighbours... maybe not so much.

Comment author: ChristianKl 17 July 2015 06:05:45PM 0 points [-]

I would add:
A social circle who thinks RV are cool and not a sign of low status.

Comment author: Vaniver 16 July 2015 05:00:48PM 1 point [-]

Nowhere to bathe or shower or even wash but presumably there's some workaround for that (but I expect it will also cost money).

The traditional approach here is a gym membership.

No postal address which may again be awkward for some business purposes, for buying things online, etc.

Likewise, a PO Box. (This doesn't work for everything, but gets close; I know there are a handful of online mail services for nomads that I am not familiar with.)

Comment author: gjm 16 July 2015 05:29:05PM -1 points [-]

gym membership [...] PO Box

Yup. But these aren't free, and the whole point here is to save money. (Right?) I don't have a very good idea of just how not-free they are, though; Clarity should do the calculations and work out just what the saving ends up being.

Comment author: Vaniver 16 July 2015 06:05:32PM 1 point [-]

I don't have a very good idea of just how not-free they are, though

Each of those are roughly $10-20 a month.

Comment author: gjm 17 July 2015 04:50:25PM -1 points [-]

That's a lot cheaper than in the UK where I am, I think. (Typical gyms seem to be at least ~£30/month; PO box ~£20/month. £1 is about $1.60. Perhaps one can do much better by seeking out the cheapest. I haven't looked very hard...)

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