Hardware and your intentions on this lad aside, the question still stands: why not simply ask him if it would be appropriate to buy him a meal?
If he says yes, then go for it.
If he says no, then…I dunno, bring him a home-cooked meal, invite him over for one, arrange to meet up at a tasty Dumpster to share found food.
Or do something free that doesn’t involve a paid-for event or food. A fair, museum, hike, bike ride, state park, like that.
Because it seems awkward. If he were an Orthodox Jew, I wouln’t ask him if he wanted to go to eat pork barbecue with me. If this is something that Freegans dt do, I don’t want to ask him.
This also leads to another question: what do Freegans drink?
But if you didn’t know and you asked the Orthodox Jew, it wouldn’t be a big deal.
I also can’t imagine that these folks have some standardized, universal code. Even vegetarians have variability and that’s a way more familiar life style.
You raise a valid point there.
That is why I suggested something spending-neutral to begin with. That way, win - no awkwardness.
If he was an Orthodox Jew, I’m pretty sure he’d have no problem letting you know a pork BBQ wasn’t his thing; I don’t get why it would be an implied insult to ask.
Do something neutral, ask questions, figure out what’s appropriate to do together going forward. Really, this is no different than any other developing relationship. You talk to each other and you learn about each other’s preferences and so on. Is that a difficult thing for you?
That’s the confusing bit- you find the guy genuinely interesting and are open to his lifestyle, but are reluctant to talk about his interests and lifestyle?
What’s that? A cheapan?
Why would you deliberately want to feed a parasite?
How is he a parasite if he’s living off stuff that’s been purposefully discarded?
Makes him more of a commensal, than a parasite.
He’s living off the discards of a socioeconomic body. I suppose you could make the case that it’s a costless free ride, but the situation is too much like many “alternative” practices, where it’s not so much costless as it is that no one’s keeping score. That is, the cost is there, it’s just not from his pocket to those providing the discards.
It’s sustainable only as long as there is adequate waste, which has its cost in the aggregate. If an individual chooses to support themself this way, fine; I could care less. It’s when it’s elevated to a movement and a lifestyle that I start to smell BS and mutual delusion.
Ehh maybe… I get the impression via the wiki that Freegans are kinda-sorta self supporting homeless or squatters. I don’t get the impression they are trying to scam anybody or steal anything re it being “BS”. There is a criminal amount of food and resource waste in modern society.
Does he like pre-owned sushi?
If it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s brown, chug it down!
I wouldn’t disagree in the least with your last sentence.
I am perhaps being a little too harsh, but a lot of my recent work has crossed paths with various “save the world” and “I’m more ethical that youse” movements that are based on such parasitical or unscalable concepts. Many completely fail to see that their Brave New World can’t exist without that host body to feed on, and that if more than a microscopic number of person followed their ideas, it would fail for all of them
So, a homeless or economic bottom scraper who has learned to find perfectly edible food and other goods via discerning dumpster-diving? Good, and upsetting that anyone has to live that way. A movement with a name and rules and mass communication to the same end? Please. See above.
Essay by Warren Oakes (founder of Freeganism) advocates shoplifting and employee theft as part of the philosophy.
In one case just an outright liar, but that’s kind of beside the point.
I have a lot of hippy friends, quite a few of whom do some ‘Freegan’ activity- dumpster diving, foraging, growing vegetables, gleaning… Hey, I’ve done some myself. Some of my friends have spent long periods living exclusively from stuff like that, or pretty much, though I don’t know anyone who ‘lives it’ full time.
Like someone else mentioned, once it gets to a full on ideology, it’s clearly unsustainable, and can get a bit silly (and the ‘Freegans’ who think it’s OK to steal from farms, shops or people’s gardens seriously piss me off), but I’m quite amused at the outright hostility from some in this thread to the idea.
And there you go. Hey, I read* Steal This Book *back in the day, too.
So society will not function if perfectly edible food is not landfilled?
I mean, I think I see what you’re getting at: most of the food wouldn’t exist at all if someone else weren’t paying for it. But by throwing it away, haven’t they indicated that they no longer want it?