Exactly. Self sufficiency is definitely a myth. Humans cannot survive alone for long. You simply cannot make tools that will keep you alive for long. You'll have to venture back to civilization to get anything worked via metal at the very least. Just the basic crafts for clothing, shelter, tools and food is more than any one person can handle. It took whole tribes and villages even at the earliest points.
Now if you mean: how can I live in a cabin off the grid with minimal contact (1-2x a year) then that's doable.
Tis a very wholesome meme, I hope this kind of cooperation is (or at least will be) possible
Edit: on a large scale, I mean
A fuckload of people are really going to have to make an effort to get their shit together for that to happen. As things stand the majority are dead weight.
the real self sufficient homestead is founding a village with like at least 50 like-minded people.
...and refrain from drinking Kool-Aid and punch, just in case
AA got it right as far as that goes. Leadership revolves.
AA would be one of the biggest organized cults on the planet if the founders hadn’t thought of that.
Now, not everyone can be a leader, and those who can’t won’t generally volunteer. So, what you end up with in a small community is a handful of leaders who don’t agree on everything and therefore represent the needs of the people in the group a lot better.
Whether we like it or not, positions of leadership tend to happen naturally. As long as we hold sacred the fact that there is no truly central leadership, it shouldn’t devolve into a cult.
It might just be a part of our nature though. When you enter recovery they give you a list of places to avoid (they gave me one anyway) because the revolving leadership has fallen apart and a single personality has taken over.
Being self-sufficient should be a goal for every human being to strive for. Independence is a potent form of freedom that makes you feel like a magical eagle.
I'm not saying you should be Ted Kazynski or however you spell the Unabomber's last name and live in complete isolation for most of your life, because it's cool to have access to society's benefits and all. But the more you can do for yourself, the more secure you will be in all ways. Basically don't be a helpless or useless person.
The more self-sufficient you can be, the fewer societal resources you will take up, which could then go to someone else in greater need. That's my perspective at least.
The organization I work for is all about helping people get back on their feet, and while I would never want to tell someone they should be more self-sufficient and rely less on us, there's no denying that our resources are already stretched thin. At times, it forces us to prioritize those with the greatest need, even when others still need help.
The more self-sufficient you can be, the fewer societal resources you will take up, which could then go to someone else in greater need. That's my perspective at least.
But the more self-sufficient you are, the more resources of yourself you need to supply yourself. So you can provide less societal resources. If you do not need to provide clothes for yourself, you have more time caring for elderly, etc.
As another view, the total resources need does not directly change by changing who does what. The advantages of helping each other are in the OP. At some point however, I would think, the overhead of organization grows so large that it may not be worth it anymore. Just think of the amount of work put into "useless" administration in many countries. But in a 30 person village, this is probably negligible.
Edit: Thanks for helping other people on the feet!
Good point, and it sounds like you're doing good work out there
How would one get in touch with such an organization should they find themselves off their feet unexpectedly?
Not having any issues right now, but I think it might be easier to get an idea now that I have resources like a phone with access to the internet than after finding myself in such a position where who knows if I'll own anything.
Honestly, I hate these kinds of replies.
None of them answered the question, they just told him that he was wrong for wanting it.
It's just.... Unhelpful.
well then you need to understand agriculture, animal husbandry, construction, woodworking, become a certified electrician, plumber and gas installer, brush up on sewing, first aid, and be prepared to starve to death or freeze to death if you fuck it up, or just die from standing on a rusty nail.
welcome to IRC, SO and many other places. you're always asking the wrong question and everything is an XY problem.
Sometimes true, sometimes not.
In some situations I feel like there's some validity to not answering the question and saying what someone should do instead. Like, for example, if someone asked me how to bypass a security mechanism I don't think it would be wrong to say they shouldn't do that and not provide instructions for how to do so. Further, you might even argue that it's unethical for me to provide guidance that I know (or believe) is wrong.
This is why a root cause analysis is so important. I feel like often in those situations, the problem trying to be solved is really a symptom of the issue as opposed to the actual issue.
Indeed.
Even if you try to convince them of their wrongness, at least also give an answer to the best of your abilities.
Based and breadpilled
The Conquest of Bread was a breath of fresh air! I cannot believe I read a book about politics / economics that was actually optimistic and left me feeling good about fundamental human nature.
"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe." ~Carl Sagan
Everything we do is build on the shoulders of giants.
Huh... self sufficiency is not a myth. There's many parts of the U.S. where citizens are off the grid, some more extreme than others. However, if and when the shtf, being self sufficient might make you an easy and weaker target. I believe men should be building relationships with other men in the community. To teach and learn from each other on how to be sufficient not just for themselves but for their community or communities even. Most importantly survival skills.
Super skeptical. They mine their own metals? Produce their own magnets? Forget their own steel? Make their own batteries? Could you provide a few examples?
There are a lot of prepper types out there who might be theoretically 'ready" for societal collapse, but yes, they get there by already having a stockpile of societal goods and materials and of course guns. These folks likely have a great plan for what they're doing when the bombs fall, but likely not a shred of the social and communal skills necessary to keep a functional society alive for the long term.
Maybe some of the more isolated amish communities could subsist for a while without injections of modern supplies, but even still we're talking about less an "off grid" lifestyle and more like "radically reduced technology."
Hey, I'm not disagreeing with you here, but keep in mind none of those things are necessary for survival, and most such products can last decades if properly maintained.
I think you're arguing against the most extreme interpretation of what this person said.
To give you an example, I'll show you what it looks like if I were to interpret your comment in the same way:
In some capacity, you have to admit, self sufficiency is possible. Forged metal, magnets, and batteries aren't necessary to sanitize water, grow, forage or hunt food, or to build shelter.
Hm.. well for example in the U.S. we have the Boy Scouts of America, this organization teaches boys and young men survival and general life skills. There's a spectrum of "off-grid" citizens. One one side of the spectrum, they still work and make under the table money, which in turn they use to buy some resources. On the other side of the spectrum there's citizens who have no communication with the general population. I guess the best way to see these examples would be on YouTube - searching for survivalist, off grid, and or self sufficiency.
It's wild how many people out there have really solid plans for what they're going to do when the apocalypse happens, but no plans for what happens in the subsequent months, years and decades after societal collapse.
It's almost like the hollywood portrayal of survival in a post-apocalyptic world is as good at portraying the struggles and hardships of day-to-day survival as they at portraying people eating breakfast or having phone calls like we do in the real world or like, how many movies and shows give us the view into what real people really do all day long.
It's that there's just no views to be had from showing an audience the main character working at their job for nine hours a day and navigating securing a promotion, just like there's no views to be had watching someone in a real survival situation shivering and crying every day for weeks at a time as they get sick and skinny and lose everyone they care about to infections and starvation.
Because fucking hunting and gardening won't save you if World War 3 or the Turbo Space Covid Cordyceps Aids virus strikes unless you are already adept at living completely off the land, which outside a few absolute nuts out there, nobody is ready for.
What will save us if the shit really goes down is community.
People don't survive, societies survive, it's why we have one now.
Dependency and self-sufficiency are not opposites but extremes in both directions. It's about finding the middle and and keeping it balanced as variables change.
How does one unlearn this unhealthy idea of self sufficiency?
Start getting involved in communal activities like sports, volunteering, town halls, and going to the local bar
Just look around the room you are in and try to imagine creating every object you find all by yourself.
