Time Magazine Predicts: The Drop Out Economy
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Daniel Pinchbeck 1 year ago
Daniel Pinchbeck 1 year ago "Faced with the burden of financing the decades-long retirement of aging boomers, many of the young embrace a new underground economy, a largely untaxed archipelago of communes, co-ops, and kibbutzim that passively resist the power of the granny state while building their own little utopias."
7 Comments
Interesting picture to illustrate with...
I find it quite hopeful that an article such as this is being featured by Time. Just the fact that the budding movement of alternative ways of living is getting time in the public eye is beautiful, to me. However, I am not a fan of the cat illustration that they use to go along with this. I feel as if we are being labeled as individuals that are dropping out and expecting everyone else to take care of us, but the truth of the matter is that we are dropping out to create our own destinies and to become masters of our own lives. Just a thought...
resonating response + needed details for social movement
I completely agree, my thoughts on both the article and image are the same as yours. In the interest of seeing something truly positive and revolutionary take root and flourish, I would add the following, which was my response to another related post (http://www.evolver.net/group/taking_back_our_food/discussion/organic_veg...):
Localized veganic food production, along with gift economy (non-capitalist) economics, is definitely the most sustainable, natural and ethical way to go; acting on that shared vision humanity can transition out of this backwards unnatural system of exploitation and destruction. There is the problem of land ownership and taxation however that keep people from living fully self-sufficiently and instead being exploited by corps and banks, and for that I think the People of Brazil, along with many others doing the same thing elsewhere, along with the countless examples of what we now call "Land Reform" from the past, present an answer, that many may say is too "radical", but there may be no other way, and what's really radical is our continued disconnection to , and destruction of , Earth/Nature/Animals & Each Other:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWjrTKuYsJg
centralization vs decentralization
I wonder. So, what options are offered to underemployed people? Underfunded institutions of higher learning, which 'drop outs' lack cash for? So Time Inc promotes bad images of selfsufficient-ism, or even micro-sized self-employed micro-business, for that matter. I remember similar defamatory articles in the 60's.
Will they continue denigrating 'free-energy' or people who 'self-educate' themselves? Here is my "drop out" story --
http://harmoniouspalette.com/DecentralizedLifeStyle/Decentralization.htm...
At least they are not implying that these people are "Enemy Belligerents" (See http://www.alternet.org/rights/146081/mccain_and_lieberman's_%22enemy_belligerent%22_act_could_set_u.s._on_path_to_military_dictatorship . Or will they eventually concoct something like "enemy coops"? After outlawing health through peer-reviewed scholarship concerning nutrition. Complex issues perhaps, but enough to keep Time Inc busy, busy.
Bruce Damer on Psychedelic Salon:
I was listening to Bruce Damer on the latest Psychedelic Salon talking about how at some point he thinks that the new generation could ultimately prevent an ecological catastrophe by simply writing the old guard elites out of the code they've written. Like, "Sorry folks, you're done, written out of the narrative for bad behavior" (I've butchered what he was saying, but it's the same kernel that's here in Time but extrapolated out into the future...) Damer brought up several ideas that seem to take this general idea and run with it. I do see news that appears in Time as signaling a kind of cultural event horizon, however, no matter how difficult their slant might be to swallow...
I wouldn't have seen it if I hadn't believed it.
Awesome!
I thought it was awesome to see this article in Time magazine. I think articles like this can really open up a dialogue about how we can begin to develop new ways of life. Beautiful!
The only thing I didn't like was the way that the author made it sound like a generational war, with young people being "strained by social security" and "rebelling against the granny state." Words that pit young against old, white against black, male against female, when used in this way, often obscure the issue and polarize people who need not be polarized.
First of all, social security is not the problem. We really don't spend very much on social security, but what we spend on war and corporate welfare is astronomical.
I'm completely into the idea of developing new systems of exchange, new agriculture, self-sustaining communities, etc. But at the age of 32, I don't know if I fall into the age category he's talking about.
There are people of all ages on our side. We're not talking about abandoning the elderly or those over the age of 30! Why can't people of all ages be part of our communities? This shouldn't be presented as being an issue of young vs. old. I think it's divisive and inaccurate to present the issue in such a way.
May, I would support
May, I would support training for liberty and nobility, nobility meaning that each individual is noble. :)
the only thing left now is
the only thing left now is to make these predictions become the new reality using evolver.net and other tools at our disposal to make this happen. i really like the idea of this insurrection being "anti-political". We don't need to fight the powers that be, only make them obsolete and useless.