Man Selling His Life On eBay 343
A number of readers have sent in the story of the guy in Perth, Australia who is selling his life on eBay. 100 days before the auction opened, he put up a site detailing all that was on offer: house, car, jet ski, friends, job, and so forth. (No wife.) The auction has five days to run and the bidding is up over $300K, supposedly from qualified bidders. The seller says: "Upon completion and settlement I will walk out of my home for the last time in just the clothes I am wearing, and carrying only my wallet and passport."
Re:Well, two things come to mind (Score:3, Insightful)
The modern man is what he owns. He who dies with the most toys wins.
idiot (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Well, two things come to mind (Score:5, Insightful)
Is his identity for sale? Otherwise all he is selling is a bunch of stuff. Not "His Life". It would be more interesting if you could actually buy his identity and completely assume his life. Of course, you couldn't do that completely. His friends probably aren't going to buy into it. And also, what of the government?
If you RTFA you'll see that the sale includes introductions to his friends, and a trial in his job, which is supported by his employer. In addition to all the physical stuff. If a purchaser played it right, he could indeed have the guy's house, friends, job, and possesions. This is about as much as he could reasonably and legally do, and IMHO just barely about enough to justify his description that he's selling his "life".
Sad (Score:0, Insightful)
It's a sick sad world, and I don't need slashdot to remind me. This is why I don't follow "real" news in the first place. The so called ignorance, as I see it is quite healthy for my state of mind.
Re:I need more info. (Score:3, Insightful)
Misleading title. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:idiot (Score:2, Insightful)
Insightful? Really? Do the Slashdot fan boys really believe that without a contract that is properly written having a mans possessions make you responsible for what he does or he responsible for what you do? I know the laws are sometimes messed up but come on don't be a herd of idiots.
Re:Well, two things come to mind (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe he's just planning on moving somewhere else.
Option #1
. Advertise and Sell House
. Advertise and Sell Car
. Advertise and Sell Jetski
. Advertise and Sell misc other crap, pack it in boxes, give it to charity, take it down to the dump, etc
. Make all of the above events line up with each other so he isn't left with no house or no car etc
Option #2
. Sell it all on eBay as a job lot
. Offer to introduce you to friends and cow-orkers to sweeten the deal (no obligation to actually like the person or employ them if they're a dick)
. Invent a bit of a sob story to go with it
. Profit!
Which one sounds easier? Selling stuff is a pain. Trying to make sure you get rid of your house, car, and other crap which costs money to move all at the same time is even more of a pain. The last thing you'd want is to sell the house and then not be able to find a buyer for your car and jet-ski. Or sell your car but then have to wait 6 months for your house to sell (and have to hire or buy another in the meantime)
Nothing to see here - move along.
Re:Well, two things come to mind (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well, two things come to mind (Score:5, Insightful)
I was blindsided at about 11pm on a Wednesday evening by a shocking and awful discovery.
Not too hard to guess what that might have been.
"...just the clothes I am wearing..." (Score:4, Insightful)
Er...and $300K in cash. There is that.
P.S. Don't get mugged.
Re:Well, two things come to mind (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm concerned that this was rated insightful, rather than funny.
Re:My first post in a long time. (Score:3, Insightful)
I've always dreamed of doing something like this. Starting over, giving everything up. And I'm right positive that I'm not the only one on Slashdot to have those dreams.
Is there a place on Earth where anyone can go and live to get out of the "rat race"? Modern society sucks in many ways and I'd be happy to try something else. I'd guess, though, that human nature is the real limiting factor. Greed, corruption, crime, profiteering - it'll follow you everywhere.
Re:idiot (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:There is no wife (Score:3, Insightful)
I hope he has success in selling his problems away, but I do wonder if he is actually solving anything and growing in terms of life experience. But it's hard (and possibly wrong) to judge these things.
Re:My first post in a long time. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes suicide is more selfish than brave, but that's not what this guy is doing. Reinvention of yourself does take courage, but not a lot when you have $300K plus in the bank (or even half that) to survive off of while you're figuring it all out.
I posted elsewhere than it's good for him, but he's hardly letting anyone down that depends on him. He's quitting a job and leaving where he lives to "start fresh". He has no kids, apparently no longer has a wife, and quitting a job isn't really the end of the world, so the only thing he's really done is sell all his crap and buy new crap as he sees fit. We all do that, we just don't necessarily do it all at once.
Fight Club (Score:2, Insightful)
You are not your job.
You are not how much you have in the bank.
You are not the contents of your wallet.
You are not your fucking Khakis.
You're not your family, and you're not who you tell yourself.... You're not your name.... You're not your problems.... You're not your age.... You are not your hopes.
You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake.
You are the all-singing, all-dancing crap of
the world.
Re:My first post in a long time. (Score:5, Insightful)
This guy is a coward who isn't capable of dealing with his problems in a mature manner and so he's concocted this weird scheme to try and finance him running away from his problems.
This is obviously from someone who's not suffered any tragedy in his entire life but feels compelled to offer glib judgment on the sorrows of others. The least you could do is invoke something less cliched than a Readers Digest version of some Dr. Phil episode your mom forced you to watch.
Here's a tip: In the worst of times, even the best of us behave badly. It's to be expected. It's normal. It's what makes us human. If you get that much, ask yourself how very ordinary is your own life and your relationships with others that you're unable to relate to someone who might be enduring really bad times?
Me, I'm laughing (like everyone else), but only because I "get it". Losing your job, developing a incurable disease, getting cheated out of money, having your car stolen, losing big time in Vegas, nothing comes close to the torment of what a woman can put you through.
Somewhere in hell Sam Kinnison is screaming "This ain't hell! I'll tell you what hell is!!!"
Re:Well, two things come to mind (Score:5, Insightful)
Modern life has reached an annoying level of materialism. Lately I've been thinking about how each possession requires time and effort to own (to maintain and repair it, supply fuel/electricity for it, shop for a replacement when it wears out, etc). In fact I've reached the point where I literally don't have time to own anything else, unless I start paying others to maintain it. It's too much.
And yet... I have stuff that I really like. I've devoted a lot of time to crafting a PVR from scratch, and having it loaded with thousands of mp3's and hooked up to a nice stereo is something I really enjoy. I have a couple motorcycles that I enjoy riding, planning and taking trips on, and repairing (usually). I have a house. I have a fully stocked tool chest (that I use to fix everything else) that's taken years of gradual additions to accrue.
So the idea of discarding all the "stuff" is and starting fresh is enticing... yet I couldn't do it. Guess I'm "owned."
Re:Net Worth... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, but there's no point in being old and rich.
"We spend our youth trying to accumulate wealth and our wealth trying to accumulate youth" --Someone
Don't fear the now.
Re:Well, two things come to mind (Score:3, Insightful)
"The modern man is what he owns. He who dies with the most toys wins."
Or at least that is how modern man has been brainwashed by all the corporations that want him to buy their crap, car companies in particular. They've also conditioned modern man to get 10-20 credit cards and a subprime ARM mortgage, so he can get massively in debt to pay for their crap and pay userous interest rates to them until he is wiped out.
Re:Well, two things come to mind (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Well, two things come to mind (Score:4, Insightful)
> Modern life has reached an annoying level of materialism. ...
> And yet... I have stuff that I really like. I've devoted a lot of time to crafting a PVR from scratch, and having it loaded with thousands of mp3's and hooked up to a nice stereo is something I really enjoy.
No need to blame it on materialism. Meaning is often carrier, transported or represented by material objects. The bible is one example (the physical book), your PVR is another or a marriage picture. This is not necessarily a sign of extreme materialism, it is just the way things work.
As long as meaning cannot stand on its own ("purely spiritual beings"), it must have some manifestation in the real world. Nothing wrong with that, unless you have to move :-)
Re:Well, two things come to mind (Score:1, Insightful)
And to think, before eBay, people who did this were just called "quitters". Now you can profit from apathy.
customizing lifestyle (Score:4, Insightful)
not owning a car would release the person from many obligations.
same goes for furniture, other house belongings. we should minimize our belongings to the things we really need to have and like to have, but, we should try that what we have in that style are the best that we can have according to our needs or enjoyment.
this should maximize our benefit from possessions whereas minimizing our overhead.
Re:Well, two things come to mind (Score:2, Insightful)
He who dies with the most toys wins.
'He who dies with the most toys is still dead'
-and-
'I've never seen a hearse with a luggage rack' - George Strait
Re:Well, two things come to mind (Score:5, Insightful)
Er, I'll take option C please.
Blind hope is warm and fuzzy for some, sure, but if you live your life 'hoping' for eternal life after death, you're likely to miss out on a good chunk of your actual life.
Living life in fear of death, makes it kind of hard to get the most out of life.
I personally advocate living life to the fullest, every day. You know for a fact that you will die, so the sooner you accept it, the sooner you can get on with living the life you have. Should there happen to be a life after death, then that will just be a bonus in the end. But don't count on it. I have no intention of lying on my death bed wishing I'd lived more while I could and tortured about whether there was more or not. If you can't be satisfied with how you have lived your life up to that point, there is nothing that is going to help you once you pass, eternal life or no eternal life. A need to put all your eggs in the 'I'm not really going to die' basket indicates regret at how one has lived the life they actually had.
Don't stress the unknown, there's nothing you can do about it. Enjoy what you have now and you won't be disappointed in the end no matter what happens.
What if he is also selling his debt? (Score:4, Insightful)
What if the guy has a bunch of sub prime loans, and is under water on them. People can legally buy debt, so will they incur this as well? I've had my student loans sold to several different banks without my knowing, so why not sell your debt?
It's hard to walk away. (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, gawd knows I'm not happy that the fire happened. But it did kickstart me into finally moving back across the country from N.Y. to Portland (which, of course, reduced my total possessions even further) and I'll tell you, by now, except for stuff like my high school yearbook, I look at pretty much every possession I own as an equation of utility, cost to replace, and cost to own. And having now bought most of my possessions twice over, I've been amazed at what can be bought at thrift stores, done without, or borrowed.
It's been gloriously liberating.
And let me note that the kind of stuff we talk about here, like Portland's own Freegeek [freegeek.org] and the number of things that can now be done D.I.Y., play a huge role in reducing my emotional tie to my possessions. Among other things, books are now just more stuff to me. And Project Gutenberg, Googlebooks, Netflix, and Hulu make most content beyond that a trivial commodity as well.
Personally, I would keep a minimum box about the size of four milk crates of irreplacable stuff. And I must admit that I'm quite fond of my three aluminum chairs that survived the fire. But beyond that, hell yeah, fifteen, twenty thousand, I'd walk away from everything else with a smile on my face and have it all again, or better, in a few months.
Let me suggest an exercise: go to the three biggest Goodwills and St. Vinnie's near you. Go to the nearest couple of dollar stores. Spend an hour (no, really) at each pricing out replacing everything that you could there. Western civilization has gotten astoundingly good at making stuff and we make it damned cheap. You can dress in elegant clothes, eat off china by the light of brass candlesticks on a hardwood table, eating food cooked in stainless steel pots on a gas stove, and you can do it all cheap. There are only three things that you will have to give up utterly: a new car, a new computer, logo-bedecked stuff the media has convinced you that you need because of the image they silkscreen on the front for a buck fifty.
Re: I don't find it "annoying" in the least .... (Score:5, Insightful)
What I observe in many people I know is a trend towards accumulation of possessions that don't necessarily make them happy, but that they feel that they deserve because they work at unsatisfying and time-consuming jobs. They feel that they should have something to show for all of their effort, and so they buy themselves things. I myself have fallen into this trap, but have since returned to graduate school. I'm now much poorer and can afford much less, but on the whole, I feel that I need less because I enjoy the work itself and thus don't need to justify it through material means.
What I found most interesting was this comment you made:
The people who worry me the MOST are the ones who don't seem to have any clear "hobbies" or interests that involve ownership of property! I've had friends like this, who seem like they're wandering aimlessly through life - spending their money on "intangible entertainment" like movie tickets, amusement park passes or sporting events. Ultimately, they have little to show for the work they do.
Frankly, I can relate much better to your friends. I would far prefer to have interesting experiences and the resultant memories they bring tucked under my belt, such as travel or outings to concerts, amusement parks, etc. than to have a stockpile of possessions that may have resale value but rapidly depreciate and incur maintenance costs in many cases. Experiences are far more formative to me as a person than, say, car or personal entertainment system ownership.
Re: I don't find it "annoying" in the least .... (Score:2, Insightful)
Agreed wholeheartedly.
I may not have made much cash, but working in the local music scene brought some moments that most people read about in magazines and/or dream of doing. As a military brat, too, I'd not trade my experiences in Europe for a cool million dollars.
While accumulating possessions might satisfy some, I've been happier accumulating "moments."
Two quotes keep coming to mind here:
...and...
Re:Well, two things come to mind (Score:3, Insightful)
You do not sound materialistic to me, at all. What I read from your short comment is that you have some stuff, but you like mostly what you do with it.
Putting together a PVR: it doesn't sound like you went out to buy the latest and greatest hardware for that, more like cobbled together a system from the old collection. And the load it with mp3 files: the joy of listening to music!
You own a few motorcycles (that is getting quite materialistic) but the main thing you seem to want to do is the trips, and the repairs. There is no word about brands, and that is where the actual materialism comes in for me.
Everybody wants to own stuff: that is our nature. Where it becomes materialism, imho, is where it is buying just for buying's sake, and possessing just for possessing's sake. Not because you need it (to live, to do your job, or even for a hobby). But just to have it. This includes the people that buy a new mobile phone every 3-4 months, or a new laptop every half year. Who must have the latest LV hand bag, or the just released flatscreen TV. That is materialism.
And you seem to be pretty well clear from that. I do my best to stay clear as well, minimise the stuff that I own to the necessary.
Re:Well, two things come to mind (Score:1, Insightful)