[knuppar]

Better grades: could've spent more time in the library while paying rent anyway.

Learned a lot living at people's places: you could plan a month of no accomodation and couch surf, don't think that's such a stretch. More fundamentally, the tent piece was just a "social opener" to learn more about others. Many other things can be this social opener.

Material freedom: I buy that the experiment showed you that and that's awesome, but I also think some solid therapy around one's understanding of material reality could play a similar role.

[5mv2]

For the grades, it's true you could always spend more time in the library out of sheer willpower. It was nice just to be nudged into it by this lifestyle, and definitely helped as willpower is limited.

People's places: have you heard of people doing this? I'm genuinely curious because I could never bring myself to be a nuisance if I didn't absolutely need it, meaning the blocker is definitely real yet fully in my head here.

Material freedom: I guess I haven't seen enough to agree with this one yet. The only intellectual pursuit I know that would genuinely get you closer to not caring about life so much as to reduce your fear in homelessness is the study of physics!