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> …it's the only thing which has prevented me from having to continually make international calls from a friends phone By relying on other people it is possibl

> …it's the only thing which has prevented me from having to continually make international calls from a friends phone By relying on other people it is possible to do without many things. However, unless you have other ways of signaling sufficient status or wealth (such as being a digital nomad living abroad in a lower income country), people you continuously rely on for essentials might start treating you with a little less respect.

njitbew 7y ago
My sister’s former boyfriend used to carry a phone without a SIM. His mom ended up calling my sister or our landline to check up on her son. It was annoying AF. Feel free to live off the grid, but please make sure you don’t leech off of those around you.
- thaumasiotes 7y ago
  The example doesn't quite seem to connect to the moral. Maybe he didn't want his mom to call him. If a third party calls you to inquire about me, why is that my problem?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - plufz 7y ago
    Because you care about people around you and don’t want them to suffer because of indirect consequences of your actions...?
    - throwaway2_75 7y ago
      You guys have a warped sense of reality if this is suffering to you. Oh noo you had to answer a phone. Fu k me.
- jakobegger 7y ago
  > make sure you don’t leech off of those around you I think that's a toxic attitude. Picking up the phone for someone else every now and then is really not a big of a hassle. Obviously I don't know the whole situation, but in general I do think that one should be ready to do such minor favors for another human being without calling them a leech.
  - bryanrasmussen 7y ago
    I know someone who lives off the grid like this, they are also too cheap to ever pay their share of airbnb lodging (I will stay with someone else, oh you got it I come stay with you), too cheap to give a bit of scotch tape for taping up a box when clearing out their dead mothers house because they bought that tape for 2 euro, or finally too cheap to buy their own chewing gum when they have had all their other expenses paid (flight, lodging) to go to a wedding in Kiruna Sweden. on edit: changed some incorrect uses of to to correct usage of too.
    - dannyw 7y ago
      Sounds like they're just cheap; and the off the grid part doesn't necessarily have anything to do with it.
      - bryanrasmussen 7y ago
        exactly the original comment was make sure not to leach, and someone else thought it was a toxic attitude, and I don't think it is too toxic an attitude - because there are people who are leaches after all.
        ferzul 7y ago
        But there's being a leach, and there's trying to cope given a moral-philosophical decision not to use a phone. And you're not distinguishing them.
        7y ago
- Vinnl 7y ago
  This is really hard to do. I don't live off the grid by any means - there's a million ways to contact me, e.g. text message, calling, Signal messages, emails, etc. However, I don't use Whatsapp in a country where the vast majority of people does. I'm fine with missing things if people don't feel like using any of the methods I have to get in touch with me. However, instead of either not bothering or using one of the communication channels we have in common, people tend to ask my partner to relay messages to me. So short of starting to use Whatsapp (which I'd really rather not do, and which requires installing a different OS on my phone - and possibly get a data subscription as well), the burden is on my partner to either tell them to contact me directly, or to relay the messages. Any good tips for others ways of dealing with this are very welcome.
  - hdkwowjdj 7y ago
    It's a social cost question, I guess. Your signal: I don't care enough about our communication to use WhatsApp, because of reasons that are obscure to 99% outside a tech community. Similarly, they don't bother to reach out to you on other communication channels, because they don't bother enough. The important thing to understand is, from your communication partners point of view, you create a burden without reason, so they work around it in (their) most effective way. I've been there and didn't support this or that messenger. By now I think, the only way to solve those kind of issues are i) sane laws that regulate privacy and communication security, and ii) trends that create a need for a new communication style - private, secure, and human (like, calling from time to time, find a better solution to ghosting, things like that). I'm convinced that we need positive incentives for that, instead of creating artificial burden.
    - Vinnl 7y ago
      Oh yes, I wasn't trying to imply that any party was at fault here - just that the outcome is unfortunate. This isn't just limited to communications tools. For example, people might have dietary restrictions for non-health reasons (religion, environmental impact, etc) that others do not share or even understand. I don't mind accommodating those (to a limit) e.g. when picking a place to eat, but it is a burden placed on people around them. That's just the way it is, I guess, and I suppose all people can do is try to minimise the burden, and to be accepting of those placed upon you.
- neiman 7y ago
  > His mom ended up calling my sister or our landline to check up on her son. It was annoying AF. What you call "annoying AF" was reality for many many years, and yet people were not constantly annoyed..
  - Rexxar 7y ago
    Things are not annoying when you know there is no other more practical solution.
  - Spooky23 7y ago
    It was a different time. The cost of communication is near zero, so if you can’t be bothered, people get annoyed.
    - neiman 7y ago
      I just don't think most "people get annoyed" by such things, definitely not "annoyed AF", besides some very impatient people who'll always find this or other reasons to be annoyed.
    - guidance 7y ago
      > 'The cost of communication is near zero' You mean the 'cost of interrupting other people while they are in the middle of living their lives' is near zero. On the other side of the coin, the cost of being constantly interrupted by beeping, buzzing, ringing, and jingling of every asshole in the county who calls/text on a moment's whim, and gets annoyed/offended when I don't instantly respond, is not zero. Likewise, the cost of being constantly surveilled by intelligence agencies and evil corporations is definitely nowhere near zero. I live completely off the grid. Far from giving a fuck about how offended/inconvenienced others are by my lifestyle, I purposely disconnected from all of those people. Life for me is much better now.
    - ken 7y ago
      I would say this demonstrates that the cost of communication is not near zero.
  - noirbot 7y ago
- ulfw 7y ago
  Yea that's by definition not "off the grid" anyway. It's like German getting out of nuclear power generation but then buying nuclear power from Czech and France, where power plans are literally at the German border.
- janci 7y ago
  Some time ago when mobile phones were very expensive one of my relatives carried SIM without phone.
- Fnoord 7y ago
  He could've just used a SIP client (plus e.g. WLAN, which does not even have to be on 24/7), and being the one who initializes the call. If he does it on a sane time, then he'll reach contact.
  - beerandt 7y ago
    You presume that he wanted his parents to be able to contact him.
    - Fnoord 7y ago
      I don't. My use-case, where you have a SIP client and WLAN, allows for you to be disconnected, and only connect when you feel like it. It is akin to Invisible mode on ICQ; and that was perfect for people who wanted to lay low.
      - beerandt 7y ago
        But why go to the trouble of that at all if you only want to make outgoing calls, and without giving people you call a return number to reach you.
        Fnoord 7y ago
        People need your return number for voicemail (if you decide to opt into that; personally, I don't), and to recognize who's calling them. I know enough people who don't accept a call from a "private number" or "unknown number". I have my smartphone 24/7 on DND. I only feel/hear my vibration motor if I get a call. Sometimes, this causes me to miss phone calls, but in general it works well enough. It also makes me one of these people who isn't annoying in public transport or on yoga class.
- tzjmetron 7y ago
  > make sure you don’t leech Spot on. Nothing worse than feeling taken advantage of.
- gvjddbnvdrbv 7y ago
  That's on his mother not him. Maybe he did this specifically to try to have some breathing room from his mother?
- IGotThroughIt 7y ago
  You don't seem too impressed by those that make the choice to live off the grid...
  - NotSammyHagar 7y ago
    It's great if you choose to do that. But if everyone else has to compensate to deal with your choices, like parents can't reach the person so they call their friends, you aren't really living off the grid.
  - dngray 7y ago
    > You don't seem too impressed by those that make the choice to live off the grid... I don't think the author of that post is living "off the grid" at all. I am surprised nobody noticed that he mentioned he uses OKCupid. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/01/grindr-and-okcupid-sell-your-data-twitters-mopub-real-problem https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/01/grindr-and-okcupid-sel...
- dzhiurgis 7y ago
  We’ve recently got rid of roommates like that. They owned nothing and borrowed everything. Plus their ideology was that every corporation conspires to poison people. And they were heavy on drugs. And smelled pretty bad. Sharing is great when you put in something material in, not just try to be bubbly person.
upofadown 7y ago
Strikes me as a feature. Who really wants to be judged as a person by what they own rather than who and what they are?
- madeofpalk 7y ago
  But it's not what they own, it's what they impose on others. The implication here isn't that they're being judged for not having a phone (with a SIM card), and that they're constantly relying and leaching from others. That can be annoying, and people tend to not like annoying people?
  - guidance 7y ago
    > 'But it's not what they own, it's what they impose on others.' But I haven't imposed anything on anyone. It's society--or rather, a certain loud, vocal, and extremely selfish segment of society--which is attempting to impose something on me. It speaks volumes about the mentality of such people that they somehow think I'm imposing on them, because they're 'forced' to think and plan ahead a little bit if/when they desire to contact me, rather than me being instantly available at their beck and call 24/7/365. > 'they're constantly relying and leaching from others. That can be annoying, and people tend to not like annoying people?' Exactly my reasoning for purposely disconnecting from those who always have to be joined at the hip with their digital devices 24/7/365, and who insist that I need to be also, for their convenience.
    - selectodude 7y ago
      If you have friends that like you enough to chase you around to try and make plans, that's awesome. I'm thrilled for you and I'd have to imagine you're an awesome person. The fact that you refer to people trying to make plans with you as an imposition on you tells me that might not be the case, but I'm not in any position to judge either way.
      - guidance 7y ago
        > "If you have friends that like you enough to chase you around to try and make plans, that's awesome. I'm thrilled for you and I'd have to imagine you're an awesome person." Tons of assumptions packed into your post here, all of which are incorrect due to your own lack of perspective. Let me put this into perspective for you. So that you can better understand the totally warped and ridiculous mindset of antisocial, contemptible extremists like me, try this little experiment: Give up your phone for 90 days. All phones. Totally and completely. Use email and snail mail only for communication. Or even IM, if you like; you don't have to go "whole hog" like me and not even have internet at the house. Just dip your toes in the water. Use a desktop or laptop for your computing needs, and leave the toy in the drawer. There are many ways you could go about justifying this to your shocked and horrified colleagues and family members, limited by your own imagination; the best way from a scientific standpoint (to conduct a study and learn from it) would be to example pretend to be a person like me, who has decided to do this because of very legitimate reasons concerning security, privacy, etc, perhaps leaving off the part about the unwanted intrusion of society's selfish demands on one's own personal health and well being, of course, so as not to offend anyone. (You don't want to offend anyone, right? Neither did I.) You could say that you're doing it as an experiment for a limited time. Whatever suits your personality and temperament, while preserving whatever modicum of social standing that you hold so dear. The point is, just do it. Step into my shoes for a time, if only briefly, just to see what it's like. Here is what you will learn: * Yes, there are annoyance and inconveniences involved with not having a phone. They're pretty small, actually, for the most part. By far the biggest difficulty lies in dealing with other people's bullshit. * In some people's minds, you will immediately and instantly because the biggest asshole on the planet, a totally selfish person in their viewpoint, just because they can no longer text or call you up on a moment's notice, but instead have to email and wait (sometimes an entire day!) for a reply. * This is even despite the fact that you actually went out of your way to make it easier for them to contact you via alternate means, knowing that it would be something of an inconvenience to them, and wanting to mitigate that as much as possible. No appreciation will be shown for your efforts. * Further reflection on the above points will demonstrate just what a low place you must have really occupied in such people's esteem, if this rather small inconvenience to them is really enough to turn people against you. This is one of many fascinating unanticipated insights into the mind and heart of humanity which you'll glean by following the road less traveled. * Some people will instantly understand why you are doing this. To them, no explanation is needed. In many cases you will find there are others who quietly would like to do the same, but feel afraid to do so, because of social pressure. Or sometimes they will secretly think you're a nutcase, but yet will express solidarity to appear polite, while quietly judging you. And also assuming that you don't understand that they are pretending to express solidarity while quietly judging you. * Some never will understand. They will refuse to understand, badgering you with ten thousand questions like "What? You don't have a phone? Why don't you have a phone? How can you not have a phone? What if there's an emergency? What if [...]? How is this possible? How can you even breathe?" etc. * In many cases people will hardly be able to hide their contempt of you, and may even go out of their way to purposely make your life difficult--as if the real reason you don't have a phone was to purposely make their life difficult. * Such people will have this greatly exaggerated bias against you, as if you have placed this enormous unwanted burden on their shoulders by simple virtue of the fact they have to exercise a little forethought and patience when attempting to contact you for whatever reason, selfish or unselfish; which (in the case of such people) you'll find generally leans much more toward the 'selfish' end of the spectrum. * Some of the people in question may even be your own close family members--like your mother or father. These are always the saddest revelations. * Needless to say, any burdens that legitimately but accidentally fall on others as a consequence of your attempt to live a different, better life will be blamed entirely on you, even if they have nothing to do with you and are in fact a perfect example of just what you were trying to escape from--such as the example of the mother who can no longer call her son since he doesn't have a phone, and she Just Doesn't Understand so she just calls his girlfriend instead, and he gets the blame. * The very fact that you "think you're better than everyone else" by living a different life than the herd will be held against you. * One previously bad thing that's been changing, is when you are asked for your phone number at any one of these thousands of places that want it so they can datamine you, in the checkout line or wherever, and you tell them simply, "I don't have a phone", people are now more likely to assume you really do have one but just don't want to give them the number--which has less of a negative connotations than their previous (idiotic) assumption that you're just too poor to pay the bill or whatever. Those are many of the "bad" examples of things you experience by going "off the grid." I won't even bother getting into all of the good stuff, like the peace, quiet, and contentment, improved mental and physical health, etc. All of that goes without saying, really. None of that is a surprise. It's the above that will surprise you, bother you, and change your outlook, when you see from an outside perspective just how totally selfish this society really is.
suifbwish 7y ago
I was going to say.. you definitely don’t need much if others are paying the bill. Some people see friendship as an excuse to expect to use the resources of others.
justnotworthit 7y ago
And waay too many glib answers and dismissals. GPS? Just pull over and ask... while you're taking the wrong exit to the wrong freeway in the wrong direction at night. This isn't about avoiding human contact. Need signal/whatsapp? Just get a disposable number... that everyone adds to their contact books but has to change every time you re-install because you cant get the old number back. The world is outright hostile to not having a number. It's like not having an address. I lament this, but there aren't easy solutions to this hostility.

njitbew 7y ago

My sister’s former boyfriend used to carry a phone without a SIM. His mom ended up calling my sister or our landline to check up on her son. It was annoying AF. Feel free to live off the grid, but please make sure you don’t leech off of those around you.

thaumasiotes 7y ago
The example doesn't quite seem to connect to the moral. Maybe he didn't want his mom to call him. If a third party calls you to inquire about me, why is that my problem?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- plufz 7y ago
  Because you care about people around you and don’t want them to suffer because of indirect consequences of your actions...?
  - throwaway2_75 7y ago
    You guys have a warped sense of reality if this is suffering to you. Oh noo you had to answer a phone. Fu k me.
jakobegger 7y ago
> make sure you don’t leech off of those around you I think that's a toxic attitude. Picking up the phone for someone else every now and then is really not a big of a hassle. Obviously I don't know the whole situation, but in general I do think that one should be ready to do such minor favors for another human being without calling them a leech.
- bryanrasmussen 7y ago
  I know someone who lives off the grid like this, they are also too cheap to ever pay their share of airbnb lodging (I will stay with someone else, oh you got it I come stay with you), too cheap to give a bit of scotch tape for taping up a box when clearing out their dead mothers house because they bought that tape for 2 euro, or finally too cheap to buy their own chewing gum when they have had all their other expenses paid (flight, lodging) to go to a wedding in Kiruna Sweden. on edit: changed some incorrect uses of to to correct usage of too.
  - dannyw 7y ago
    Sounds like they're just cheap; and the off the grid part doesn't necessarily have anything to do with it.
    - bryanrasmussen 7y ago
      exactly the original comment was make sure not to leach, and someone else thought it was a toxic attitude, and I don't think it is too toxic an attitude - because there are people who are leaches after all.
      - ferzul 7y ago
        But there's being a leach, and there's trying to cope given a moral-philosophical decision not to use a phone. And you're not distinguishing them.
        7y ago
Vinnl 7y ago
This is really hard to do. I don't live off the grid by any means - there's a million ways to contact me, e.g. text message, calling, Signal messages, emails, etc. However, I don't use Whatsapp in a country where the vast majority of people does. I'm fine with missing things if people don't feel like using any of the methods I have to get in touch with me. However, instead of either not bothering or using one of the communication channels we have in common, people tend to ask my partner to relay messages to me. So short of starting to use Whatsapp (which I'd really rather not do, and which requires installing a different OS on my phone - and possibly get a data subscription as well), the burden is on my partner to either tell them to contact me directly, or to relay the messages. Any good tips for others ways of dealing with this are very welcome.
- hdkwowjdj 7y ago
  It's a social cost question, I guess. Your signal: I don't care enough about our communication to use WhatsApp, because of reasons that are obscure to 99% outside a tech community. Similarly, they don't bother to reach out to you on other communication channels, because they don't bother enough. The important thing to understand is, from your communication partners point of view, you create a burden without reason, so they work around it in (their) most effective way. I've been there and didn't support this or that messenger. By now I think, the only way to solve those kind of issues are i) sane laws that regulate privacy and communication security, and ii) trends that create a need for a new communication style - private, secure, and human (like, calling from time to time, find a better solution to ghosting, things like that). I'm convinced that we need positive incentives for that, instead of creating artificial burden.
  - Vinnl 7y ago
    Oh yes, I wasn't trying to imply that any party was at fault here - just that the outcome is unfortunate. This isn't just limited to communications tools. For example, people might have dietary restrictions for non-health reasons (religion, environmental impact, etc) that others do not share or even understand. I don't mind accommodating those (to a limit) e.g. when picking a place to eat, but it is a burden placed on people around them. That's just the way it is, I guess, and I suppose all people can do is try to minimise the burden, and to be accepting of those placed upon you.
neiman 7y ago
> His mom ended up calling my sister or our landline to check up on her son. It was annoying AF. What you call "annoying AF" was reality for many many years, and yet people were not constantly annoyed..
- Rexxar 7y ago
  Things are not annoying when you know there is no other more practical solution.
- Spooky23 7y ago
  It was a different time. The cost of communication is near zero, so if you can’t be bothered, people get annoyed.
  - neiman 7y ago
    I just don't think most "people get annoyed" by such things, definitely not "annoyed AF", besides some very impatient people who'll always find this or other reasons to be annoyed.
  - guidance 7y ago
    > 'The cost of communication is near zero' You mean the 'cost of interrupting other people while they are in the middle of living their lives' is near zero. On the other side of the coin, the cost of being constantly interrupted by beeping, buzzing, ringing, and jingling of every asshole in the county who calls/text on a moment's whim, and gets annoyed/offended when I don't instantly respond, is not zero. Likewise, the cost of being constantly surveilled by intelligence agencies and evil corporations is definitely nowhere near zero. I live completely off the grid. Far from giving a fuck about how offended/inconvenienced others are by my lifestyle, I purposely disconnected from all of those people. Life for me is much better now.
  - ken 7y ago
    I would say this demonstrates that the cost of communication is not near zero.
- noirbot 7y ago
ulfw 7y ago
Yea that's by definition not "off the grid" anyway. It's like German getting out of nuclear power generation but then buying nuclear power from Czech and France, where power plans are literally at the German border.
janci 7y ago
Some time ago when mobile phones were very expensive one of my relatives carried SIM without phone.
Fnoord 7y ago
He could've just used a SIP client (plus e.g. WLAN, which does not even have to be on 24/7), and being the one who initializes the call. If he does it on a sane time, then he'll reach contact.
- beerandt 7y ago
  You presume that he wanted his parents to be able to contact him.
  - Fnoord 7y ago
    I don't. My use-case, where you have a SIP client and WLAN, allows for you to be disconnected, and only connect when you feel like it. It is akin to Invisible mode on ICQ; and that was perfect for people who wanted to lay low.
    - beerandt 7y ago
      But why go to the trouble of that at all if you only want to make outgoing calls, and without giving people you call a return number to reach you.
      - Fnoord 7y ago
        People need your return number for voicemail (if you decide to opt into that; personally, I don't), and to recognize who's calling them. I know enough people who don't accept a call from a "private number" or "unknown number". I have my smartphone 24/7 on DND. I only feel/hear my vibration motor if I get a call. Sometimes, this causes me to miss phone calls, but in general it works well enough. It also makes me one of these people who isn't annoying in public transport or on yoga class.
tzjmetron 7y ago
> make sure you don’t leech Spot on. Nothing worse than feeling taken advantage of.
gvjddbnvdrbv 7y ago
That's on his mother not him. Maybe he did this specifically to try to have some breathing room from his mother?
IGotThroughIt 7y ago
You don't seem too impressed by those that make the choice to live off the grid...
- NotSammyHagar 7y ago
  It's great if you choose to do that. But if everyone else has to compensate to deal with your choices, like parents can't reach the person so they call their friends, you aren't really living off the grid.
- dngray 7y ago
  > You don't seem too impressed by those that make the choice to live off the grid... I don't think the author of that post is living "off the grid" at all. I am surprised nobody noticed that he mentioned he uses OKCupid. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/01/grindr-and-okcupid-sell-your-data-twitters-mopub-real-problem https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/01/grindr-and-okcupid-sel...
dzhiurgis 7y ago
We’ve recently got rid of roommates like that. They owned nothing and borrowed everything. Plus their ideology was that every corporation conspires to poison people. And they were heavy on drugs. And smelled pretty bad. Sharing is great when you put in something material in, not just try to be bubbly person.

upofadown 7y ago

Strikes me as a feature. Who really wants to be judged as a person by what they own rather than who and what they are?

madeofpalk 7y ago
But it's not what they own, it's what they impose on others. The implication here isn't that they're being judged for not having a phone (with a SIM card), and that they're constantly relying and leaching from others. That can be annoying, and people tend to not like annoying people?
- guidance 7y ago
  > 'But it's not what they own, it's what they impose on others.' But I haven't imposed anything on anyone. It's society--or rather, a certain loud, vocal, and extremely selfish segment of society--which is attempting to impose something on me. It speaks volumes about the mentality of such people that they somehow think I'm imposing on them, because they're 'forced' to think and plan ahead a little bit if/when they desire to contact me, rather than me being instantly available at their beck and call 24/7/365. > 'they're constantly relying and leaching from others. That can be annoying, and people tend to not like annoying people?' Exactly my reasoning for purposely disconnecting from those who always have to be joined at the hip with their digital devices 24/7/365, and who insist that I need to be also, for their convenience.
  - selectodude 7y ago
    If you have friends that like you enough to chase you around to try and make plans, that's awesome. I'm thrilled for you and I'd have to imagine you're an awesome person. The fact that you refer to people trying to make plans with you as an imposition on you tells me that might not be the case, but I'm not in any position to judge either way.
    - guidance 7y ago
      > "If you have friends that like you enough to chase you around to try and make plans, that's awesome. I'm thrilled for you and I'd have to imagine you're an awesome person." Tons of assumptions packed into your post here, all of which are incorrect due to your own lack of perspective. Let me put this into perspective for you. So that you can better understand the totally warped and ridiculous mindset of antisocial, contemptible extremists like me, try this little experiment: Give up your phone for 90 days. All phones. Totally and completely. Use email and snail mail only for communication. Or even IM, if you like; you don't have to go "whole hog" like me and not even have internet at the house. Just dip your toes in the water. Use a desktop or laptop for your computing needs, and leave the toy in the drawer. There are many ways you could go about justifying this to your shocked and horrified colleagues and family members, limited by your own imagination; the best way from a scientific standpoint (to conduct a study and learn from it) would be to example pretend to be a person like me, who has decided to do this because of very legitimate reasons concerning security, privacy, etc, perhaps leaving off the part about the unwanted intrusion of society's selfish demands on one's own personal health and well being, of course, so as not to offend anyone. (You don't want to offend anyone, right? Neither did I.) You could say that you're doing it as an experiment for a limited time. Whatever suits your personality and temperament, while preserving whatever modicum of social standing that you hold so dear. The point is, just do it. Step into my shoes for a time, if only briefly, just to see what it's like. Here is what you will learn: * Yes, there are annoyance and inconveniences involved with not having a phone. They're pretty small, actually, for the most part. By far the biggest difficulty lies in dealing with other people's bullshit. * In some people's minds, you will immediately and instantly because the biggest asshole on the planet, a totally selfish person in their viewpoint, just because they can no longer text or call you up on a moment's notice, but instead have to email and wait (sometimes an entire day!) for a reply. * This is even despite the fact that you actually went out of your way to make it easier for them to contact you via alternate means, knowing that it would be something of an inconvenience to them, and wanting to mitigate that as much as possible. No appreciation will be shown for your efforts. * Further reflection on the above points will demonstrate just what a low place you must have really occupied in such people's esteem, if this rather small inconvenience to them is really enough to turn people against you. This is one of many fascinating unanticipated insights into the mind and heart of humanity which you'll glean by following the road less traveled. * Some people will instantly understand why you are doing this. To them, no explanation is needed. In many cases you will find there are others who quietly would like to do the same, but feel afraid to do so, because of social pressure. Or sometimes they will secretly think you're a nutcase, but yet will express solidarity to appear polite, while quietly judging you. And also assuming that you don't understand that they are pretending to express solidarity while quietly judging you. * Some never will understand. They will refuse to understand, badgering you with ten thousand questions like "What? You don't have a phone? Why don't you have a phone? How can you not have a phone? What if there's an emergency? What if [...]? How is this possible? How can you even breathe?" etc. * In many cases people will hardly be able to hide their contempt of you, and may even go out of their way to purposely make your life difficult--as if the real reason you don't have a phone was to purposely make their life difficult. * Such people will have this greatly exaggerated bias against you, as if you have placed this enormous unwanted burden on their shoulders by simple virtue of the fact they have to exercise a little forethought and patience when attempting to contact you for whatever reason, selfish or unselfish; which (in the case of such people) you'll find generally leans much more toward the 'selfish' end of the spectrum. * Some of the people in question may even be your own close family members--like your mother or father. These are always the saddest revelations. * Needless to say, any burdens that legitimately but accidentally fall on others as a consequence of your attempt to live a different, better life will be blamed entirely on you, even if they have nothing to do with you and are in fact a perfect example of just what you were trying to escape from--such as the example of the mother who can no longer call her son since he doesn't have a phone, and she Just Doesn't Understand so she just calls his girlfriend instead, and he gets the blame. * The very fact that you "think you're better than everyone else" by living a different life than the herd will be held against you. * One previously bad thing that's been changing, is when you are asked for your phone number at any one of these thousands of places that want it so they can datamine you, in the checkout line or wherever, and you tell them simply, "I don't have a phone", people are now more likely to assume you really do have one but just don't want to give them the number--which has less of a negative connotations than their previous (idiotic) assumption that you're just too poor to pay the bill or whatever. Those are many of the "bad" examples of things you experience by going "off the grid." I won't even bother getting into all of the good stuff, like the peace, quiet, and contentment, improved mental and physical health, etc. All of that goes without saying, really. None of that is a surprise. It's the above that will surprise you, bother you, and change your outlook, when you see from an outside perspective just how totally selfish this society really is.

suifbwish 7y ago

I was going to say.. you definitely don’t need much if others are paying the bill. Some people see friendship as an excuse to expect to use the resources of others.

justnotworthit 7y ago

And waay too many glib answers and dismissals. GPS? Just pull over and ask... while you're taking the wrong exit to the wrong freeway in the wrong direction at night. This isn't about avoiding human contact. Need signal/whatsapp? Just get a disposable number... that everyone adds to their contact books but has to change every time you re-install because you cant get the old number back. The world is outright hostile to not having a number. It's like not having an address. I lament this, but there aren't easy solutions to this hostility.