What you need, is 2,000 calories a day and shelter from the

[OffWithTheirHeads]

elements. Everything else is what you want. The big screen T.V., the latest cell phone, internet access, etc, is all bullshit. I'm not saying that I don't want some of these things, but in the overall scheme, you don't need these things and as soon as we stop being brainwashed into thinking that we do, the sooner we will start taking care of the things that matter, like healthcare and feeding people.

[Zodiak]

1. My heart pills

I can't live without those. Is that a want or a need in your world?

[OffWithTheirHeads]

3. It's a want

If we are dealing with survival, there are no heart pills. Not for you, not for Monsanto.

[Deja Q]

7. What circumvents this "want", then?

And why not ask, if you're thinking of living on a desert island, set us an example and lead by example.

:popcorn:

[OffWithTheirHeads]

13. huh?

[lostnotforgotten]

62. Eliminating TV Is The First Step In Circumventing Wants

Without the constant barrage of emotionally charged advertising, the desire to satisfy wants diminishes considerably.

Need to reduce the wants, eliminate the TV.

[Zodiak]

18. Then I'm dead

...your world sucks.

Sounds like you want a whole bunch of dead people who can't make it on your 2,000 calorie a day diet and a cardboard box.

[uppityperson]

27. If medically necessary medicine is only a "want", so is food, water, air

[Lorien]

46. Heart pills are as much a matter of survival as shelter and 2,000 calories

a day if you will die without them. Actually, they are MORE of an immediate need than the other two are, as one can survive for some time without either shelter or enough food to eat.

[krkaufman]

73. How are heart pills a want?

If your premise is that one needs 2,000 calories per day to survive -- that is, not die -- then how are heart pills not a similar need?

(nearly all) Plastic surgery is obviously a need, but most health care is a need -- to fight against death.

[havocmom]

4. You don't NEED heart pills. You WANT to keep living.

See? ;)

[Zodiak]

19. Yup, I see.

Count me out of membership of the "He-Man Survivors Club", I guess. Too bad, too, because I know how to keep people fed.

[RaleighNCDUer]

21. By that logic, you don't NEED 2000 calories a day --

you only want them to keep from starving to death.

What we NEED is what keeps us alive. For many people, that includes critical medications. Which is part of my arguement for single-payer government financed healthcare - people have a right to health care just as they have a right to food.

[havocmom]

2. You need water too. And that is getting locked up by corporate entities in some areas

[OffWithTheirHeads]

6. It's included in your 2,000 calories

but I love your sig line!

[Deja Q]

8. Plain water has calories in it?!

http://www.thecaloriecounter.com/Foods/1400/14384/Food.aspx


:rofl:

[OffWithTheirHeads]

15. Oh get a fucking life.

[GaYellowDawg]

76. Then don't say stupid fucking things.

Oh, and lighten up, Francis.

[RaleighNCDUer]

22. Ah, but your body needs water to properly process those 2000 calories.

Therefore, to get the 2000 calories, you must have water; ergo, water must be included in the original calculation.

[catnhatnh]

30. No

many survival needs are not addressed...but I'll bet you learn that...

[Deja Q]

5. Okay, so you ditch your tv, phone, internet access, and the other bullshit first.

I usually use my computer for educational purposes; I don't play games on it anymore.

The cell phone is also a tool; portability and cheaper long distance when the bill comes. I don't babble on it while driving, et cetera.

I don't need to upgrade the tv every year; it suits its task just fine. No reason for a 60" one when 32" is already heaven for me. Since humans never liked me, tv became a surrogate in some ways. So did the camera, but there's no money in photojournalism. I wish... it's a healthier profession too, or seems to be. As is writing, but most obstreperous teens and 20-somethings laugh at it all, saying it's an outdated profession, as is reading.

Lastly, I didn't need to be brainwashed. Being ostracized by so-called peers was more than enough. If "V" were real life, I'd submit to say I'd be most like the character Daniel.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

11. I'm not sayin that I don't succumb to any of this.

I've got more junk than any human should have. I'm just sayin that I really don't NEED any of it.

[Mind_your_head]

14. Oh S U R E you don't play games on it anymore...

uh-huh....

[Speck Tater]

9. A more realistic list:

For physical survival

1. air
2. water
3. food (not just calories, but other nutrients as well)
4. shelter/clothing - protection from the elements and/or dangerous predators
5. any necessary medications

For mental well being

6. social contact - community/family
7. entertainment/diversions (at least a deck of cards or a checker board)

[catnhatnh]

32. Better add health care...

to monitor your meds and find if you need any new ones...

[bananas]

59. 8. Beer.

:beer:

[housewolf]

10. There are many people in other countries surviving on one cup of rice per day

Way below 2,000 calorie per day.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

12. And they will die

2000 calories is about what you need to live and be healthy. Less than that is a slow death. and yes, I know that we are all going to die but let's try to have a discussion, not a flame ware.

[RaleighNCDUer]

23. In most the world it is actually 1750 or so --

we grow em big in this country, and therefore our intake average is necessarily greater.

Still, a cup of rice a day is starvation rations, and not sustainable for any length of time, running at well under 900 calories.

[drmeow]

54. I would be SO f**king fat on 2000 calories a day!

No more than 1700 please.

[pitohui]

16. you must be VERY young, life expectancy w/out modern medicine is around age 40

you have no idea of what it takes to live past age 40, but it's technology, and the money to pay for that technology

having a cell phone or a teevee or not having a cell phone or a teevee is a few hundred dollars, a pimple on the butt of the hundreds of thousands of dollars you need to find some way if you are seriously ill or injured

[OffWithTheirHeads]

17. Actually, at 57, I think I understand.

Some people are just assholes and can't discuss an issue on it's merits but need to start flanewars because living in their parents basement gives them inferiority complexes.

Fuck em!

[catnhatnh]

34. You sir, are at best...

a moronic clown.

[pitohui]

40. he's deliberately cruel, he tells a poster upstream that they don't need their HEART medicine

some people honestly don't care about the health and well being of others

we need so much more than bare bread and water to have a decent life or life in a prison cell would be all anyone needed

but the cold-hearted conservative view is that we should settle for ashes and stfu

i won't settle for ashes nor will i settle for telling the heart patient to stfu

we have a lot of needs, access to good medical tech and good medicine being core among them

[EOTE]

68. Are you ok?

Is there a need to be so hostile? It seems like legitimate issues are being brought up. Having heart pills seems for more of a necessity than 2000 calories a day. I'm guessing a person with a heart disorder could live far better and longer with 1700 calories a day and heart pills versus 2000 calories a day and no heart pills. The caloric intake you need on a given day is based upon how many calories you burn with activity. If you needed to get by on less, you could simply by doing very little.

[gatorboy]

74. 57! You're missing Matlock!

Make haste!

[Spider Jerusalem]

20. Life expectancy without modern medicine is about 40...

because of infant mortality, not because those who survive infancy die at 40. If you factor out infant mortality the average life expectancy for someone who survived childhood, even before modern medicine, was not far from what it is today (around 65-70 years).

[RaleighNCDUer]

25. Threescore years and ten

according to one twenty-five hundred year old reference.

[pitohui]

39. life expectancy for women was about age 42 in 1900

you can't tell me it was all because of infant mortality, that's just silliness -- the cause was repeated childbearing which can really only be prevented by medical tech such as reliable birth control and safe abortions unless women are not to have sex at all until after menopause

and here's a clue, women were human beings too, so the idea that if a boy survived infancy he would live until 70 isn't necessarily the entire answer to the question

anyway i know a great many people even today who have died in their 50s

without modern medicine, you are dead too young of so many diseases from clinical depression (suicide) to heart disease -- i personally know victims of all too many of these

it's a nice fantasy to think we don't need medical care but that's all it is, a fantasy

[Hannah Bell]

50. no, infant mortality. you must be too young to have known any

women born before the turn of the century, or talked to them about their lives. i assure you, most of them didn't die from childbirth, or in their 40s'. My grandmother (b 1886, d. 1985), 6 living children, one stillbirth. My great-grandmother, (b. 1878, d 1965) 3 living children, 2 early stillbirths. My other grandmother: (b. 1900, d 1972), 2 live births.

and many women from their generations i knew over my life. Yes, some women in "olden days" died in childbirth. But so did my cousin (b. 1947, d. 1972).

Life expectancy is measured from birth. So if many die as children, that reduces "average" life expectancy downward. However, most women who survive childhood will surpass the average.

"Life expectancy at birth is very sensitive to reductions in the death rates of children, because each child that survives adds many years to the amount of life in the population. Thus, the dramatic declines in infant and child mortality in the twentieth century were accompanied by equally stunning increases in life expectancy.

For white women, life expectancy at birth rose from 51 years in 1900 to 80 years in 1996. For white men, life expectancy at birth rose from 48 years in 1900 to 74 years in 1996"

http://www.pbs.org/fmc/timeline/dmortality.htm

It's debatable how many years of life modern medicine added to life expectancy. The declines in child mortality began before antibiotics, thought to be because of better sanitation & cleaner water supplies.

Even in pre-history, some groups apparently died young, while others tended to die older. "threescore & 10" (70) in the Bible.

[goldcanyonaz]

24. One needs a toilet too.

[KoKo]

26. If that's all we need...why did we leave "the caves?"

We had all we needed thousands of years ago....:shrug:

[soleft]

28. Abraham Maslov begs to differ

According to him there is a pyramid of human needs. Air, food and water being primal. Then safety and shelter from physical harm. Then he says sex - which obviously is a primal need of the species, so maybe it is a primal need of the individual. I know if I don't get I get awfully cranky. Then love, and relationships with family, friends.

Once those needs have been met, we can then begin to satisfy our needs for human fufillment. A sense of competence and achievement, and beyond that reaching our full potential and having the peak experience.

The problem is when we try to fufill primal needs with things that can never satisfy those needs. We need love, we can't figure out how to get it, so we think by having the best car, internet access, the Iphone - we will feel love but of course we don't, so we keep trying to fill that hole and fall into an endless cycle of want.

We need to feel safe, I don't know, I think the only way to really achieve that is to try and live in the present moment. If I'm safe right now, the roof isn't falling in, no one's chasing me with a knife, that's about as secure as you can be, but because we're so bombarded with constant messages that we need to be afraid, we try to accumulate excess wealth, hord resources at the expense of others, hoping that it will make us feel safe. And of course, it doesn't.

As human beings, we do need more than food and air. We just need to learn how to meet those needs effectively without damaging ourselves or others.

[lostnotforgotten]

63. The Need For Sex Diminishes With Age As Hormone Production Declines

No Sex here for 13 years, now 51.

It really is seen as more of a hassle than it is worth.

Quite the contrast from the teenage years.

[Skittles]

29. mmmmmm not quite

I have to have a cell phone and internet for my job

[Rex]

31. Don't forget potable water.

You have three needs.

[dysfunctional press]

33. where does healthcare fit - 2,000 calories a day, or shelter?

:shrug:

since we don't "need" it, why should we be throwing money at it?

[uppityperson]

35. True. There is a whole lot of stuff that we don't need but have gotten used to.

Food, water, air, shelter, necessary medicines. Other people to socialize with would be on the B list. Most of this other stuff isn't necessary and many are finding this out, or will be.

Trying to deal with the bigger picture of your OP and not nitpick details. True, a societal change can happen and I think is coming. You don't need new fashionable clothing every year. You don't need to keep up with the neighbors or die with the most toys. I think many will be looking at what is important and what isn't. A bunch of people are going to suffer because of it also. If I can't afford to buy a book, the book store owner can't afford to buy groceries, the grocer can't afford to pay me for health care and there we all are.

[Boojatta]

36. What's your plan for preventing an increase in unemployment?

[lonestarnot]

37. Food riot clean-up and reconstruction?

:shrug:

[Ilsa]

38. Actually. I bet you and most people could get by on alot less than

2,000 kcal/day. I only need about 1400 to maintain my weight. So anything extra is a "want".

[Juche]

42. Not me

Anything less than 3000 and I feel light headed, I lose weight on 3000-3500.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

72. I have a dead thyroid and a very slow metabolism.

I need my thyroid medicine and my high blood pressure medication and my allergy medications.

I was on a 500 calorie a day diet (medically supervised) and I couldn't lose weight. However, I was also starving to death because skipping breakfast for a blood test provoked a serious hypoglycemic (low blood sugar) reaction. I had to go to bed all day.

[Juche]

41. The need list needs to be expanded

To include basic medicine like sanitation, antibiotics, first aid kits, vaccinations soap and clean drinking water. Yeah people survived before these existed, but childhood mortality was 50% or more too and a scrape could kill you.

Aside from that 80-90% of people can survive perfectly fine in a tent living off of rice, beans, bread, vitamins, vegetables, fruits and water. The rest couldn't due to medical issues.

Our economic priorities are FUBAR though. Not because I think the internet is a waste (it is amazingly effective at medical research for example) but because we spend so much to keep up with the Joneses.

In Hong Kong apartments are about 200-400 square feet, and people survive in those (dorm rooms are about 250 square feet and people live in those, prison cells are smaller and people live in those). Nobody needs a lexus (but we do need cars to have a productive economy). Our healthcare system is incredibly wasteful, our economic and tax policy is designed to benefit the rich. If we invested a fraction of what we saved in these areas in medical research, alternative energy, ending global poverty, universal broadband, etc. we'd all be better off.

There should be more than 2 categories. Need, nearly need, want, luxury. You don't 'need' roads, and you don't 'need' an economy, but if you do have an economy you do need roads.

So if you are just talking basic survival for most people under 60, then a tent, clothes, food and basic medicine is probably enough.

[1]

43. you people... and your want, want, want...

[varelse]

44. What I need is defined by what I want

When you get down to it, I don't "need" to even be alive - but that is what I want. I know what I need to stay that way, and I work to obtain it. I'll grant you that the big screen TV, cell phone, and even internet access don't appear on my "need it to stay alive" list either, however:

Needs aren't the same for everyone - and needs depend greatly on what is wanted. I propose that it isn't what "I" need, or what "you" need that matters... it is what WE need that counts, and that this depends entirely on what WE WANT.

If we want each generation to have a chance at life, then we NEED to recognize that a pregnant mother and her unborn child need more than "2000 calories a day and shelter from the elements". Without proper nutrition for the mother, the child's health, intelligence, and chance of surviving to adulthood are at risk. That's evident anywhere throughout the world where people suffer from malnutrition.

If we want our disabled, our sick, and our elderly citizens to live with the greatest dignity and in the best health that modern medicine, proper care, and equal treatment under our laws can provide, then we need to provide medicine and adequate health care for everyone.

If we want each new generation to honor, respect, and eventually care for the previous ones, then we need to contribute to a fair, honorable, respectful environment for children and families - including health care, justice and support for victims of abuse and battering, education, and YES even WELFARE for poor families.

If we want a robust economy and prosperous and peaceful society, then we need to provide equal opportunities for education for everyone, adequate infrastructure (courts, roads, hospitals, schools, bridges, defense) and progressive tax schedules to balance the load.

If, on the other hand, all that we want is to sit under our makeshift shelters, fight for our places in the food line, and raise our voices enough to block out the screams of those unfortunate enough to need more than we are alloted (2000 calories, presumably some H2O to wash that down, and whatever shelter keeps out -30 degree wind chill or 105+ degree heat) and hope there's still some room between shelters when we need to expel "used" calories - well then, I'd have to concede your point ;)

[El Pinko]

45. Yes and no.

I most American cities, in order to have the food and shelter, you need a job, which means you need at least a basic car, since there is not a decent transit system in many cities. You also may need to buy specific clothing in order to do that job.

In my case, I need the internet access because I work via the internet from home. I don't need a cell, but a lot of people need them for their jobs.


I get what you're saying, but in a technological society, "needs" are not as simple as what they once were.

[LeftyMom]

47. car, computer, internet.

I get paid to go to school. My last class lets out well after the last bus runs, and it's not a distance or through areas one could safely bike. So I need a car. Anyhow, it's old, but good on gas and reliable, it's paid for, and I wouldn't get shit if I sold it, so it's not like I'd be gaining much if I got rid of it. I'd pay more for a monthly bus pass for my child and I than I pay for gas in a month, I could take neither early morning nor late night classes at school, and my mobility would be enormously limited. Trust me, I didn't have a car until I was 25, I know what life is like without one, and for a single mother in this city, it's not a practical or especially safe option. In this society, most people need a car. There aren't many places where transit is a reliable option, and often housing and education, employment and groceries simply aren't all within walking or cycling distance.

Computer? Internet? Same thing. I get paid to go to school. Using their computers to get my schoolwork done isn't an option due to child care issues, and anyhow it'd cost me more in gas to drive over there a few extra trips a month than I pay for my internet access here at home. My main volunteer activity is also something that I do online, fwiw. As a mom who is often stuck at home, being able to have adult conversation online is a real sanity saver, and as a student being able to find that elusive tenth citation for my paper at 3 am is such a lifesaver it would be a bargain at twice the price.

And yeah, I've got a big screen, and cable. It's the only tv in the house, it doesn't get used much, but it's a frikkin godsend when I'm in one of my insomniac cycles and too tired to concentrate on reading but still unable to fall asleep. Since my son is homeschooled being able to record and watch all the cool documentary stuff on Discovery and various spin-off channels is pretty darn useful. We'd actually planned on a much smaller TV, but we got a too-good-to-pass-up deal on this one. Those are wants, but not terribly wasteful ones. But yeah, we could do without TV, and go back to the occasional DVD played on my computer.

And anyhow, I'm not sure how the $500 I paid for my tv or the $42/mo that goes to the cable company is any huge impediment to providing people with medical care- my cable bill costs less than my prescription for a common birth control medicine that I take to control my tendency to anemia (let alone what other people pay for more significant medical needs,) and my 3 mile last trip in an ambulance cost three times as much as my hdtv, to put that into perspective. Many of us manage to find a balance between living on breadcrusts and water and parking our Escalades in front of our 8,000 sq ft starter castles.

[Gemini Cat]

48. Rubbish.

One also needs various meds and a few pleasures in life or life becomes quite grim and painful.

[mondo joe]

49. Is life to be limited to what we need? Fuck that. NT

[The Inquisitive]

51. Needs are a function of wants/desires

What humans need is a result of our wants and desires. For example I have no need for 2000 daily calories and shelter if I do not want to live, those goods are worthless to me. However Because almost all humans universally WANT to live they have certain goods that are required in order to do so. Necesities are the bare mininum goods required in order for the desire to be fufilled.

Desire/want: To live and simply continue to exist as a concious and sentient organic lifeform
Necesities: Food/nourishment (estimated at 2000 calories/day+Water), Shelter from elements (including both housing and clothing).

This allows our abstract man to exist until old age catches with him. However let's throw some more variables at our man.

Suppose one day he cuts himself and develops a rather nasty infection, the result of which could be his demise. Now we move into the realm of needs which will gradually transform into the realm of luxuries. In order to treat his infection he needs some sort of medical care, this is where healthcare comes in. Humans CAN live without it, however, having medicine/healthcare supplement the basic necessities in order to help ensure the desire is met.

Humans have desires outside of simply living however, which is why we have things like art, music, sports, entertainment etc. After all life would sort of suck if it involved NOTHING beyond ensuring continued existence.

I desire to paint a picture, therefore I need paints, a paintbrush, and a canvas. If I do not have these goods I cannot satisfy this desire.

It all really comes down to society prioritizing collective desires and ensuring the associated needs are met. Now in the real world the complex weave of desires and needs things that might seem unimportant while others struggle in order to meet the bare minimum necessities in order to survive but as we as a society continue to develop desires become more 'extravagant'. Humans have always needed to travel in order to move from point A to point B. Luckily we have legs. However factors outside each individuals to control have caused that distance to increase dramatically in order to function in a modern society, therefore people have a NEED for things like train, planes, and automobiles.

[QueenOfCalifornia]

52. Fuck You

I NEED my iphone....

:rofl:

:hi:

[drmeow]

53. It depends on the goal

Survival long enough to pass on your genes - its true, all you need is food, potable water, shelter (includes clothing), and (as an early poster pointed out) sex (which would theoretically include positive social interaction - we are, after all, pack animals). This is all that even the "lowest" animal needs.

Everything else is about improving quality of life ... living longer, feeling better, being safer, being happy, etc.

The question is - is there anything we don't need for survival that we "deserve" on some level. Can other animals be happy? Do they deserve to be happy? If yes, don't we deserve to be happy? So, what do we really need to be happy? That's when you start getting into Maslow's needs. How much quality of life should we have?

To me, this is the fundamental premise of being a liberal (or progressive or socialist or communist of whatever you think I should be labeled based on this view). I believe that our world supporting some people at an obscene quality of life while others don't have basic survival needs let alone a little better quality of life is fundamentally wrong. There is NO service or activity that warrants granting such an excess of resources to any individual. A culture that does so reflects a vicious and problematic value system. Also, I believe this world can support a decent quality of life for everyone without overburdening the resources of the planet (she says without irony as she uses artificial light to stay awake well after dark and type philosophical judgmental statements on an artificially powered machine - but, hey, I never said I wasn't a hypocrite :))

Ironically, even those of us with really good quality of life here in the US don't have as good a quality of life as many in Europe - we work more, we are stressed more, we don't have as good health care, we don't have the types of communities they have. In striving for greater quality of life we have actually lost some of it (mostly cause we bought the bullshit that happiness/quality of life can be bought).

[gort]

55. Well then, I don't need you!

Navin R. Johnson: Well I'm gonna to go then. And I don't need any of this. I don't need this stuff, and I don't need you. I don't need anything except this.

Navin R. Johnson: And that's it and that's the only thing I need, is this. I don't need this or this. Just this ashtray. And this paddle game, the ashtray and the paddle game and that's all I need. And this remote control. The ashtray, the paddle game, and the remote control, and that's all I need. And these matches. The ashtray, and these matches, and the remote control and the paddle ball. And this lamp. The ashtray, this paddle game and the remote control and the lamp and that's all I need. And that's all I need too. I don't need one other thing, not one - I need this. The paddle game, and the chair, and the remote control, and the matches, for sure. And this. And that's all I need. The ashtray, the remote control, the paddle game, this magazine and the chair.

Navin R. Johnson: And I don't need one other thing, except my dog.
dog barks
Navin R. Johnson: I don't need my dog.

[medeak]

56. great mantras

am not a fan of Miss Oprah...but she had the professor who is dying of cancer with 3 small children... it wasn't him who affected me..but his wife.

She said if she feels anxious or depressed she says "this is not helpful"...and the last one.."I have everything I need".. so true eh?

[Firespirit]

57. What do someone's gadgets have to do with universal health care?

The reason we don't have UHC here is nothing to do with people buying things that they don't strictly require for their bodies to function. It is our government's fault, not regular people. Way to blame the victim.

[readmoreoften]

58. This post is a total crock of shit. The economy isn't failing due to working-class extravagance.

The economy is failing because of super-wealthy corporate raiders who think they are smarter and slicker than they really are.

All ya need is 2000 calories a day and shelter, huh? Let's see how this adds up:

1) Without living on an inherited farm with an agricultural tax exemption, 2000 calories a day of nutritious food (not mac and cheese and processed poison) costs AT MINIMUM $150 a week for a family of three. That's $450 a month.
2) Rent in two bedroom apartment--and if you have a kid you need a separate bedroom for him/her or child protective services will take your kid away--is anywhere from $500 to $5000 a month depending on where you live. Let's call it a realistic $750 a month.
3) Sorry, but you need running water and sewage. If you don't have those things and you're not living in the woods in macho fantasyland, but living in a real community with real people suffering under the same conditions, then you need sewage and water or you and your children will die of preventable diseases pretty damn quick. In my community, it costs about $50 a month for these services.

That means that, even taking clothes from dumpsters, you're talking about $1250 a month minimum for a family of three. But, in order to get that $1250 you need to work. And work demands certain things.

1) You need a way to get to work. Let's not even say a car. Let's not even say bikes because that's out of our budget. Let's say we need if not a car or three bikes for the family, a DAMN GOOD pair of boots everyone can walk to work and school. Make that, a damn good pair of boots every 3 months and socks so to keep the feet warm in the winter. Call it a $25 a month minimum expense to keep shoes and socks on 3 pairs of feet. And that's shopping at thrift stores. We're up to $1275 to pull this off in the US in most mid-sized cities and suburbs.
2) Your boss will expect you to have a telephone--at least a landline. No one will accept an employee without a phone number. It's just not realistic. Basic service is $30. That brings the bills up to $1305 a month.

Earning minimum wage with taxes taken out, a family with two adults working one job full time will bring in $1000 a month. One will have to work two jobs to bring in $500 more. This means that he or she will have to walk more miles every day. So that's more money on boot repairs.

You see in the real world, you don't get to live like you're on a camping trip. On a camping trip, you're alone in a park. In the real world, you live in a community of other people and you don't own the land you live on so you can't go picking wild berries and shooting deer. There are 300 million people in this country and if everyone was competing for berries and deer meat, your precious woods would fill up pretty fast.

Don't insult people here by your living off the land bullshit. Yeah in Nicaragua $25 a month is a livable wage. And a full house costs $4000 to build and food can be picked off trees and fish pulled from the ocean for the price of a net. You don't need transportation because your city is only 2 miles wide at best. If you can inherit your family home, you can survive. Child care is unnecessary because everyone pitches in. The US doesn't work like that. It's a different economy altogether.

Yeah, you don't need a TV and a computer. So what. You think that's what's keeping everyone poor? Talk to the rich people who bought million dollar homes and million dollar second homes and played the stocks and lost. Or even better. Check out that war we're funding.

[varelse]

67. Pure genius - every word of it, on target

...in the real world, you don't get to live like you're on a camping trip. On a camping trip, you're alone in a park. In the real world, you live in a community of other people and you don't own the land you live on so you can't go picking wild berries and shooting deer. There are 300 million people in this country and if everyone was competing for berries and deer meat, your precious woods would fill up pretty fast.

:applause:

Thank you!

[Boojatta]

70. I think that you made some good points.

However, you omitted some items that may be important. For example, consider the cost of insurance, such as life insurance for the members of the family who are contributing income to the family, disability insurance for them, and perhaps other kinds of insurance such as dental insurance.

[progressoid]

60. And a computer to post random shit on the internet.

[Quantess]

61. WELCOME TO THE MATRIX

has anyone else said it?

[terip64]

64. We need love. n/t

[MadHound]

65. Well, it's obvious that you haven't had to live with your short list of "needs"

Otherwise you would realize that many of the things you consider wants are actually needs.

Having been desperately poor, and reduced to essentially your short list, one quickly finds that the brain needs stimulation of some sort. It doesn't have to be a TV or computer(in fact I would suggest that you ditch your TV), but books, movies, something.

Furthermore, every human being needs an escape of some sort every now and then. Get drunk, get high, whatever takes you out of yourself.

And frankly, if all you're doing is living with food and shelter, one's self esteem soon falters, leading to depression and other problems.

I know, I've lived this sort of existence for a good period of time. Being materially pure is fine and all until you're staring at the wall at seven pm, quietly going crazy because you don't have something to stimulate the mind or relieve your emotions. Even monks have their outlets and escapes. Your prescription is a sure fire way to raise the mental illness rates rather quickly.

This doesn't mean that I don't agree with your general premise that Americans have too much shit and are too materialistic. I see that everyday. However your cure is rather draconian, unattainble, and unhealthy, mentally and physically for normal human beings.

[rucky]

66. Maslow is spinning in his grave

looking at what passes for "need" these days, it's no wonder that many folks don't get past the second tier of the pyramaid

[Indenturedebtor]

69. Yeah I'm with Maslow

While people do "need" cellphones and computers in todays world to be productive citizens (without them I wouldn't have a job), we don't need a brand new computer every two years, and a brand new car, and a brand new widget or wodgit. But then without consuming these things would that stop development of better things that lead to better healthcare, more efficient food production, more energy efficient houses etc? :shrug:

The problem is not so simple. At this point I think that a more productive philosophy would be to promote consuming less, donating more (when you have to buy that new wodgit give the old one away), and putting say 20% of our GDP into research to minimize future consumption through increasing recycling technologies and pursuing clean energy etc.

That's what I support anyways ;)

[raccoon]

71. You also NEED dental, medical, and vision care.

Unless you are lucky enough to have perfect teeth, perfect eyesight, and perfect health.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

75. Very true.

I could not function without eyeglasses. I couldn't drive and I would fall down a lot. I needed eyeglasses before I started school, and my mom didn't realize I needed to see an eye doctor until I was seven and got glasses.

I've had teeth pulled too.

We can't reproduce successfully without medical care. Prenatal care, delivery supervised by a doctor, or a C-section to prevent death of the mother and baby, are necessary, and postnatal care for problems at birth that are treatable.

[BreweryYardRat]

77. You, sir, are a naive fool who's bought Republican propaganda lock, stock, and barrel.

I don't even have to criticize your post. Half a dozen people have already posted valid criticism.

Welcome to the ignore list.