"an independent life is impossible unless you have enough healthy young people around to do the labour."

Or about $1 million stashed in index funds, give or take based on cost of living in your location.

Or around $600K in down payments in cash flowing rental properties in the US...

My wife and I spent around $75K to get approximately $1K a month in cash flow (5 doors, $200 each)...

I think the topic is independence, not being a parasite on others who are less well off than you.

It is kind of hilarious how often rent-seeking behavior is called out as evil when it comes to software companies, but actual rent-seeking with real estate is seen as virtuous investment.

$75k for five doors? Might I ask whereabouts? That seems ridiculously cheap per unit.

Not impossible in impoverished areas. A rural trailer park, some section 8 housing in a bad part of town, or maybe they scooped up some single-family units at the bottom of the housing market crash.

$65K for a 4 plex in Del Norte County, California, $10K for a single family in Lee County, Florida. Deals exist, it requires effort and action.

I believe they're saying the down payment was $75k

I agree it's hard work. Every project seems like it will take an hour at the outset, but ends up taking eight hours due to a wide variety of unexpected real world complications.

I traded in a beautiful city home for 106 acres at the beginning of the pandemic and am still glad I did. People have a fantasy picture of the tradeoff though... In reality, in rural places you have less social interaction and the people are of a lower caliber than urban areas. You can't make money farming unless you do it at massive scale, so I still work just as much online as before. Only now my free time goes into farming instead of golf or restaurants.

Supposedly, small market garden farms can be quite profitable. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbHwAfHQA9M

You can't make money commodity farming unless at scale, but growing boutique items can be profitable. You just need to find things that nobody else is providing, and build a market for them. Vertical integration is also a good way to make money without scaling up - things like pickles and other cottage foods have a much higher profit margin.