8 ms·

I’m going to sell up my city house and get a little land in the country so we can be more self sufficient while shit increasingly hits the fan. We in the first

I’m going to sell up my city house and get a little land in the country so we can be more self sufficient while shit increasingly hits the fan. We in the first world need to radically reduce our consumption and reassess our relationship with this planet, and we need to do it now.

akudha 5y ago
If you are okay with it, could you share more details? Where are you moving to? How are you handling power, water? And internet?
CalRobert 5y ago
Of course, if you're serious about prepping isn't it generally a good idea not to tell people? Good luck - hope you find a good community.
tjr225 5y ago
I'm trying to find humor at the irony of rich tech bros moving to where poor people live and driving the poor people further away. Also; many have argued cities are more efficient than the alternative: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/environmental-advantages-cities https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/environmental-advantages-citi... Not that I disagree with your sentiment, but 8 billion people going back to a primitive way of life doesn't seem like a sustainable option either. Nice that you have the privilege to do it, though. Ironically, we are in need affordable housing where the city jobs are. That way we aren't forcing low paid workers to commute 1+ hours each way each day to put food on their families table. Here's the ironic part: depending on where you live, selling your city house in the current market only makes that problem worse!
- varelse 5y ago
  Cities are wonderful places except that hell is other people. There's actually no need to go back to a primitive way of life but there absolutely is a need to learn more basic survival skills with respect to self-sufficiency. Or if you can't even change a tire on a car you should be afraid, very afraid.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - davidw 5y ago
    > hell is other people. This is such a common attitude in the US, but it's also a very US attitude. I mean, when I lived in Italy, there were just always other people around. High mountains, small towns, walk in the countryside... you're quite likely to see someone anywhere you go. So you just deal with it. These things are personal preferences, so difficult to reason about, but I feel that a lot of people in the US would be happier if they didn't have this hangup about "other people", while participating in a society that is entirely and completely dependent on other people.
    - varelse 5y ago
      I'm happier walking around in downtown Hong Kong, a place with much greater density of humanity than anywhere in the United States, than I am here in the US. I think you are denying the existence of fundamentally irrational US citizens who make things suck for everything else in a way citizens of some other countries simply don't.
      - davidw 5y ago
        I have my share of complaints about the US, and with COVID, there are more, but by and large, other people here aren't so bad. I feel like it's not tenable to maintain this attitude of "it's only good if there's no one else", which you see here a lot.
        varelse 5y ago
        Well, if there aren't real concrete consequences for doing demonstrably obviously illegal things, then it seems to me it will only get worse here going forward. So I honestly do not blame anyone whatsoever for wanting to run away to either the middle of nowhere or to live among likeminded sorts. I did so myself after getting physically attacked by pandemic deniers who lived down the street from me. But this was a pre-existing condition - the last half decade really unleashed and enabled the full scope of our national insanity with the pandemic and 2020 election the coup de grace IMO.
- retrac98 5y ago
  What does a rich tech bro make these days?
- CalRobert 5y ago
  Many of these areas have discovered a remarkable technology, long lost in cities, called "building new houses" - sometimes with their own hands! This does wonders for allowing new people in to a place without displacing existing residents.
  - tjr225 5y ago
    > Many of these areas have discovered a remarkable technology, long lost in cities, called "building new houses" - sometimes with their own hands! I’d love to learn more about these places.
mahogany 5y ago
I like and support all of these ideas -- trying to go off grid, becoming more self-sufficient, reducing consumption -- but I will just add that few people/families historically have been entirely self-sufficient. It turns out that such a thing is a lot of work and really hard or impossible to maintain, depending on what your goals are. Even the Europeans that were settling in America in the 1700s were likely not self-sufficient -- there was plenty of gifting and trade throughout. The key is your community. If shit really does hit the fan, I'd imagine that your chance of survival is much higher if you have a community around you where there is mutual support, rather than being entirely alone in a 200 acre woodlot. (Not saying that your goal is to be 100% self-sufficient -- just pointing this out because I've idealized this before. It's an understandable reaction to the craziness of the modern world.)
- y4mi 5y ago
  > but I will just add that few people/families historically have been entirely self-sufficient I'm not sure why you think that should be the goal. If they're mostly self sufficient they'll be off to a much better start then others. Even if it's not perfect, its definitely better And if it actually does get really bad... They'll probably have people join them so self sufficiency won't be necessary anymore.
  - mahogany 5y ago
    There are a lot of people in various "prepper-adjacent" communities that romanticize and idealize being fully self-sufficient. There's often a hyper-individualistic mentality that comes with that too. My comment is just to add context that going fully self-sufficient is extremely challenging and community is important, especially in an end-of-world scenario. To be clear, I think becoming more self-sufficient is definitely a good thing, and I strive toward that myself.
    - rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
      >I think becoming more self-sufficient is definitely a good thing Why? I live in Paris, and get my food (vegetable, fruits, bread, eggs, peas...) from an AMAP. It's like a coop for about 100 families where we pay the farmer one year in advamce for their whole annual production. It's cheaper than most supermarkets, it's local and organic, it's self sufficient (no competition, we pay the farmer well, according to their actual costs). We only have to organize the distribution weekly (take a few hours per year for every member). I bet the farmer will do better for our organization than any "self sufficient" family.
yyy888sss 5y ago
In my town most of the upper income people live outside the city in houses with rainwater collection, septic tanks and increasingly no electric grid connection either (thanks to solar panels and battery). There is nothing self sufficient about this. Every one of these households still has 2 cars, fridge, tv, internet, computers, supermarket food, medicine, clothes and furniture from China etc. Most people who go off grid in developed countries probably consume more resources than the average city dweller living in a small apartment.
skrtskrt 5y ago
Living in a remote area is much worse for the environment because of all the energy need to deliver goods out there for a tiny amount of people
- varelse 5y ago
  Tell that to the Amish anytime.
  - rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
    L'exception confirme la règle.
- tuatoru 5y ago
  A high consumption, high travel lifestyle is bad for the environment wherever you are. Living in a remote environment limits your income. (Or used to, anyway. I guess we'll see in five or ten years.) Nearly everyone's spending closely follows their income.
  - yesimahuman 5y ago
    Living remote and working in tech definitely does _not_ limit your income these days. You can live like a king outside of major cities on a engineer or higher-up tech salary these days.
    - tuatoru 5y ago
      Yes, but 'tech' workers are a minority. For an ordinary person, not so much. The pendulum might swing back in five or ten years -- companies might start requiring their staff to be on site. I'm suspending judgement for a while.
  - fakedang 5y ago
    Living remote does not limit your income. And in fact, from reduced spending (due to lower CoL), you get way more bang for your buck. Living rural can work if you reduce your consumption and travel. If you're getting your water from a well in your land with electricity from natural renewables, and you also grow your own vegetables and raise your own chicken, you're self-sufficient.
svilen_dobrev 5y ago
in the other end of the world... in somewhat dense place where there's no hundreds of human-free kilometers, i know some family that not only are living off-grid, off-water say 3-4kms away from some village, but also off-phone, off- whatever infrastructure, .. and they also managing to live off-banks, off-bills, and all that. Producing and trading naturaly grown stuff.. Now that seems like impossible to me.. or impossibly persistent..
- tjr225 5y ago
  I know a shitload of people living off grid underneath interstate 5 and yet everyone hates them!
hagbard_c 5y ago
What "we in the first world" mostly need to concentrate on is mitigation of the effects of whatever the climate bestows upon us, there is no sense in trying to change the course of the climate. Mitigation means developing crops which will grow and prosper in areas where the conditions become more amenable to agriculture, e.g. large parts of the northern hemisphere which are now tundra might become more bountiful if the temperature goes where it was during the last interglacial and during the Holocene climatic optimum. If there is a marked rise of sea level - which is not a given, it wholly depends on where on the planet you happen to take measurements since several areas are still rising due to post-glacial rebound [1] - this can be mitigated in several ways as has been shown in the Netherlands for centuries. It does not make sense to waste time doing penance by "reassessing out relationship with this planet" - the planet couldn't care less whether we live or die - when the capabilities of "the first world" are much better suited for developing and implementing technologies to improve the quality of life for anyone who cares to implement them. This does not mean churn out more useless commercial crap to be produced by the lowest bidder. What it means is developing and producing effective desalination systems to ensure the availability of fresh water, effective energy storage systems which actually work, can be affordably produced now in enough quantity, design and series-build nuclear (fission) power generation systems which can be delivered and installed on locations without needing to type-approve each and every installation as if it is a from-the-ground-up design, etc. Whatever impact a changing climate - whether that change means a warmer or cooler climate - has it will be worldwide but the mitigations will need to be implemented on a local/regional/national level. So, no penance is wanted nor needed nor would that be of any help. It is good old human ingenuity which we should turn to. A species which looks towards colonising other planets should be - and is - capable of facing this much smaller challenge and emerge victoriously. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-glacial_rebound https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-glacial_rebound
- retrac98 5y ago
  It’s not this simple.
  - hagbard_c 5y ago
    Nothing is simple. Surviving during the last glaciation wasn't simple yet people still lived. Crossing the ocean without accurate maps wasn't simple yet the oceans were crossed. Developing and growing enough crops to feed 7.5 billion people when Malthus said the planet could not sustain 1 billion people wasn't simple but they were developed and the population is still growing. Landing on the moon, diving to the Marianas trench, reclaiming the 'polders' in the Netherlands, developing nuclear power, writing Beethoven's 5th symphony, writing and memorising "The Gulag Archipelago" to later commit it to paper were not simple but all those things were done. What do you mean by saying "it's not that simple"?
jostmey 5y ago
Don’t destroy habitats in country just to move out of the city. It’s probably worse for the environment
- retrac98 5y ago
  Not planning to.
- CalRobert 5y ago
  The countryside is already destroyed, though. In many places it's just meat factory or heavily-sprayed monocrop as far as the eye can see.
rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
Are you certain you'll have a smaller footprint? By all my calculation, I can't have less an impact on climate/biodiversity than by living in a flat in a city. No remote, least heating, public park (instead of a private garden, which is comparatively not good at all for biodiversity), still buying food from local farm, etc. Frugal urban lifestyle always beats the rural unless you're a farmer for the many.
xvilka 5y ago
The problem is, when shit hits the fan, tons of marauders will become a problem. Unless such communities heavily arm themselves, with a bunch of community militia or security forces, they will become a perfect target for such marauders.

akudha 5y ago

If you are okay with it, could you share more details? Where are you moving to? How are you handling power, water? And internet?

CalRobert 5y ago

Of course, if you're serious about prepping isn't it generally a good idea not to tell people? Good luck - hope you find a good community.

tjr225 5y ago

I'm trying to find humor at the irony of rich tech bros moving to where poor people live and driving the poor people further away. Also; many have argued cities are more efficient than the alternative: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/environmental-advantages-cities https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/environmental-advantages-citi... Not that I disagree with your sentiment, but 8 billion people going back to a primitive way of life doesn't seem like a sustainable option either. Nice that you have the privilege to do it, though. Ironically, we are in need affordable housing where the city jobs are. That way we aren't forcing low paid workers to commute 1+ hours each way each day to put food on their families table. Here's the ironic part: depending on where you live, selling your city house in the current market only makes that problem worse!

varelse 5y ago
Cities are wonderful places except that hell is other people. There's actually no need to go back to a primitive way of life but there absolutely is a need to learn more basic survival skills with respect to self-sufficiency. Or if you can't even change a tire on a car you should be afraid, very afraid.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- davidw 5y ago
  > hell is other people. This is such a common attitude in the US, but it's also a very US attitude. I mean, when I lived in Italy, there were just always other people around. High mountains, small towns, walk in the countryside... you're quite likely to see someone anywhere you go. So you just deal with it. These things are personal preferences, so difficult to reason about, but I feel that a lot of people in the US would be happier if they didn't have this hangup about "other people", while participating in a society that is entirely and completely dependent on other people.
  - varelse 5y ago
    I'm happier walking around in downtown Hong Kong, a place with much greater density of humanity than anywhere in the United States, than I am here in the US. I think you are denying the existence of fundamentally irrational US citizens who make things suck for everything else in a way citizens of some other countries simply don't.
    - davidw 5y ago
      I have my share of complaints about the US, and with COVID, there are more, but by and large, other people here aren't so bad. I feel like it's not tenable to maintain this attitude of "it's only good if there's no one else", which you see here a lot.
      - varelse 5y ago
        Well, if there aren't real concrete consequences for doing demonstrably obviously illegal things, then it seems to me it will only get worse here going forward. So I honestly do not blame anyone whatsoever for wanting to run away to either the middle of nowhere or to live among likeminded sorts. I did so myself after getting physically attacked by pandemic deniers who lived down the street from me. But this was a pre-existing condition - the last half decade really unleashed and enabled the full scope of our national insanity with the pandemic and 2020 election the coup de grace IMO.
retrac98 5y ago
What does a rich tech bro make these days?
CalRobert 5y ago
Many of these areas have discovered a remarkable technology, long lost in cities, called "building new houses" - sometimes with their own hands! This does wonders for allowing new people in to a place without displacing existing residents.
- tjr225 5y ago
  > Many of these areas have discovered a remarkable technology, long lost in cities, called "building new houses" - sometimes with their own hands! I’d love to learn more about these places.

mahogany 5y ago

I like and support all of these ideas -- trying to go off grid, becoming more self-sufficient, reducing consumption -- but I will just add that few people/families historically have been entirely self-sufficient. It turns out that such a thing is a lot of work and really hard or impossible to maintain, depending on what your goals are. Even the Europeans that were settling in America in the 1700s were likely not self-sufficient -- there was plenty of gifting and trade throughout. The key is your community. If shit really does hit the fan, I'd imagine that your chance of survival is much higher if you have a community around you where there is mutual support, rather than being entirely alone in a 200 acre woodlot. (Not saying that your goal is to be 100% self-sufficient -- just pointing this out because I've idealized this before. It's an understandable reaction to the craziness of the modern world.)

y4mi 5y ago
> but I will just add that few people/families historically have been entirely self-sufficient I'm not sure why you think that should be the goal. If they're mostly self sufficient they'll be off to a much better start then others. Even if it's not perfect, its definitely better And if it actually does get really bad... They'll probably have people join them so self sufficiency won't be necessary anymore.
- mahogany 5y ago
  There are a lot of people in various "prepper-adjacent" communities that romanticize and idealize being fully self-sufficient. There's often a hyper-individualistic mentality that comes with that too. My comment is just to add context that going fully self-sufficient is extremely challenging and community is important, especially in an end-of-world scenario. To be clear, I think becoming more self-sufficient is definitely a good thing, and I strive toward that myself.
  - rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
    >I think becoming more self-sufficient is definitely a good thing Why? I live in Paris, and get my food (vegetable, fruits, bread, eggs, peas...) from an AMAP. It's like a coop for about 100 families where we pay the farmer one year in advamce for their whole annual production. It's cheaper than most supermarkets, it's local and organic, it's self sufficient (no competition, we pay the farmer well, according to their actual costs). We only have to organize the distribution weekly (take a few hours per year for every member). I bet the farmer will do better for our organization than any "self sufficient" family.

yyy888sss 5y ago

In my town most of the upper income people live outside the city in houses with rainwater collection, septic tanks and increasingly no electric grid connection either (thanks to solar panels and battery). There is nothing self sufficient about this. Every one of these households still has 2 cars, fridge, tv, internet, computers, supermarket food, medicine, clothes and furniture from China etc. Most people who go off grid in developed countries probably consume more resources than the average city dweller living in a small apartment.

skrtskrt 5y ago

Living in a remote area is much worse for the environment because of all the energy need to deliver goods out there for a tiny amount of people

varelse 5y ago
Tell that to the Amish anytime.
- rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
  L'exception confirme la règle.
tuatoru 5y ago
A high consumption, high travel lifestyle is bad for the environment wherever you are. Living in a remote environment limits your income. (Or used to, anyway. I guess we'll see in five or ten years.) Nearly everyone's spending closely follows their income.
- yesimahuman 5y ago
  Living remote and working in tech definitely does _not_ limit your income these days. You can live like a king outside of major cities on a engineer or higher-up tech salary these days.
  - tuatoru 5y ago
    Yes, but 'tech' workers are a minority. For an ordinary person, not so much. The pendulum might swing back in five or ten years -- companies might start requiring their staff to be on site. I'm suspending judgement for a while.
- fakedang 5y ago
  Living remote does not limit your income. And in fact, from reduced spending (due to lower CoL), you get way more bang for your buck. Living rural can work if you reduce your consumption and travel. If you're getting your water from a well in your land with electricity from natural renewables, and you also grow your own vegetables and raise your own chicken, you're self-sufficient.

svilen_dobrev 5y ago

in the other end of the world... in somewhat dense place where there's no hundreds of human-free kilometers, i know some family that not only are living off-grid, off-water say 3-4kms away from some village, but also off-phone, off- whatever infrastructure, .. and they also managing to live off-banks, off-bills, and all that. Producing and trading naturaly grown stuff.. Now that seems like impossible to me.. or impossibly persistent..

tjr225 5y ago
I know a shitload of people living off grid underneath interstate 5 and yet everyone hates them!

hagbard_c 5y ago

What "we in the first world" mostly need to concentrate on is mitigation of the effects of whatever the climate bestows upon us, there is no sense in trying to change the course of the climate. Mitigation means developing crops which will grow and prosper in areas where the conditions become more amenable to agriculture, e.g. large parts of the northern hemisphere which are now tundra might become more bountiful if the temperature goes where it was during the last interglacial and during the Holocene climatic optimum. If there is a marked rise of sea level - which is not a given, it wholly depends on where on the planet you happen to take measurements since several areas are still rising due to post-glacial rebound [1] - this can be mitigated in several ways as has been shown in the Netherlands for centuries. It does not make sense to waste time doing penance by "reassessing out relationship with this planet" - the planet couldn't care less whether we live or die - when the capabilities of "the first world" are much better suited for developing and implementing technologies to improve the quality of life for anyone who cares to implement them. This does not mean churn out more useless commercial crap to be produced by the lowest bidder. What it means is developing and producing effective desalination systems to ensure the availability of fresh water, effective energy storage systems which actually work, can be affordably produced now in enough quantity, design and series-build nuclear (fission) power generation systems which can be delivered and installed on locations without needing to type-approve each and every installation as if it is a from-the-ground-up design, etc. Whatever impact a changing climate - whether that change means a warmer or cooler climate - has it will be worldwide but the mitigations will need to be implemented on a local/regional/national level. So, no penance is wanted nor needed nor would that be of any help. It is good old human ingenuity which we should turn to. A species which looks towards colonising other planets should be - and is - capable of facing this much smaller challenge and emerge victoriously. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-glacial_rebound https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-glacial_rebound

retrac98 5y ago
It’s not this simple.
- hagbard_c 5y ago
  Nothing is simple. Surviving during the last glaciation wasn't simple yet people still lived. Crossing the ocean without accurate maps wasn't simple yet the oceans were crossed. Developing and growing enough crops to feed 7.5 billion people when Malthus said the planet could not sustain 1 billion people wasn't simple but they were developed and the population is still growing. Landing on the moon, diving to the Marianas trench, reclaiming the 'polders' in the Netherlands, developing nuclear power, writing Beethoven's 5th symphony, writing and memorising "The Gulag Archipelago" to later commit it to paper were not simple but all those things were done. What do you mean by saying "it's not that simple"?

jostmey 5y ago

Don’t destroy habitats in country just to move out of the city. It’s probably worse for the environment

retrac98 5y ago
Not planning to.
CalRobert 5y ago
The countryside is already destroyed, though. In many places it's just meat factory or heavily-sprayed monocrop as far as the eye can see.

rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago

Are you certain you'll have a smaller footprint? By all my calculation, I can't have less an impact on climate/biodiversity than by living in a flat in a city. No remote, least heating, public park (instead of a private garden, which is comparatively not good at all for biodiversity), still buying food from local farm, etc. Frugal urban lifestyle always beats the rural unless you're a farmer for the many.

xvilka 5y ago

The problem is, when shit hits the fan, tons of marauders will become a problem. Unless such communities heavily arm themselves, with a bunch of community militia or security forces, they will become a perfect target for such marauders.