First, you can do this (if you have the appropriate skills). I know people who grew up off the grid, cabins built by the family, well water, outhouses, no elect

First, you can do this (if you have the appropriate skills). I know people who grew up off the grid, cabins built by the family, well water, outhouses, no electricity. There are whole Amish communities and communes if you want to still be around people. However, a lot of this nostalgia for a pre-technological time ignores the realities of a world without antibiotics, painkillers, modern dentistry, indoor plumbing, hot showers. It ignores infant mortality and women regularly dying in childbirth. In the modern world you can still choose to live off the grid while taking advantage of most of these things, but not if everyone does.