Yes, as soon as I hit the "...children who are largely insured by Medicaid programs..." part of the article, I figured that this is happening because some PE firms ran the numbers and discovered they could use autistic kids to squeeze as much money from medicaid as possible.

There's always a fine line between being a wandering spirit and a mooch. I used to hang out with the rainbow gathering crowd, and this reminds me of the time my friend, who on coming down from his acid trip, declared that he was going to give all of his possessions away and wander the earth. When I suggested that might not be a good idea, his reply was something like "no, you don't understand, the universe will give me everything I need". I understood why a lot of old hippies end up as forest hermits or sticking to a small group: the burn-outs, mooches, and grifters wear out their welcome very quickly.

That said, I think there's something about going out into a world on a wandering 'quest' that appeals to human nature on a deep level. I'd hesitate to call the author a con man, since you wouldn't call a mendicant or pilgrim a con man. If his motivation was just to squat in people's backyards and mooch free meals until he gets kicked out and then wander around until he finds a new host, I'd agree. But if people want to help him on his personal project of experiencing the kindness of he world, I wouldn't call that taking advantage of people who offer their help freely.

The difference between a spiritual pilgrim and a vagabond freeloader depends on how much of a romantic one is, and if you admire Don Quixote or not.

This is really interesting, from what the first part describes, the design and operation of "factory 404" has a lot in common with similar facilities built in the US and Russia. The US built the Hanford/Richland site in the desert of eastern Washington, and Russia built Mayak/Ozyorsk in an isolated part of the Urals. They're all versions of this project to build a self-contained 'utopia' city in the wilderness, dedicated to secret work on nuclear technology. There's also the same social tension between highly skilled workers, transient unskilled workers, and the military/political leadership. (For anyone interested, Plutopia by Kate Brown is a good read on the subject)

I wonder if this site in the Gobi ended up having the same problems with radioactive contamination from accidents and unethical experiments that Hanford and Mayak had?

To be honest, growing up inside, we lived in a state of 'enforced innocence.' While Hanford and Mayak's histories are now well-documented in the West, 404’s specific records regarding accidents or contamination remain largely classified.I only heard some stories from my parents.

The context of these book titles appearing in comments might skew the results. Ulysses is high up on the list, but the source comments have a lot of people using it as an example of a lengthy, difficult book.

I read a lot, but if I'm going to use a book to make a point or example in a comment, which will be read by someone I don't know, I'll reference a well-known book that most people have heard of, even if it was just from 9th grade English class, instead of something more obscure.

This is true, but there's still the problem of how things are distributed within the collective groups.

When the labor market gets competitive, you start to see long probationary periods, two-tier pay and benefit scales, hiring people on as casuals instead of permanent members, and other bargaining concessions that end up favoring some union members over others. I know some unions over the last few years have managed to fight against two-tier systems, but if there's any sort of serious economic downturn I'd expect them to become commonplace again.

I'm curious to see if they can come up with a way to organize that works for everyone, or if it'll end up as something like the Longshoreman's union: a fantastic deal, provided you won the lottery to get in and then stuck around long enough to be a permanent member.

Not just unpopular, undesirable and unworkable. There's a reason unions have long opposed two-tier as a cynical divide-and-conquer management strategy.

Indeed what are you actually "okay with" here? Being on the upper tier, due to a strategy that explicitly wants to chip away at said tier until it's gone? When it goes away will that also be "okay"?

By acquiring a duplicate of the original, you're no longer depriving someone of property in the way you would be with theft. If you steal an apple, that's one less apple that the store has to sell to someone who is willing to pay for an apple, and the store will still owe the orchard the cost of the apple you took. In contrast, pirating a movie doesn't remove any physical copies from shelves. The problem comes down to what you believe the cost of piracy actually is, and who bears that cost, which gets complicated in the case of digital goods and subscription models. If the argument is that piracy lowers demand in general, then you'd have to account for the effect of libraries, the secondhand market, and competition from other media. The practical evidence that pirates are outnumbered by paying customers suggests that on the balance, the system is capable of supporting some freeloaders without collapsing. To extend the apple analogy, it would be similar to people coming to the orchard after the harvest and gleaning the leftover apples instead of buying them from the store. Can you argue this diminishes apple sales? of course. Is it theft? yes, and the orchard owners have their right to insist it's a crime and all apples must be paid for, but if the apples were going to rot anyways the harm is minimal. Would it completely destroy the apple market and leave all apple growers destitute? I don't think so.