Off the Grid, but Still Online

"The people I’ve met have abandoned the chase of the American Dream; they are not battling traffic to work a nine-to-five job in order to live in a big house or buy a fancy car. Instead, their values are centered around new life experiences, connecting with nature, building their own homes, growing their own food, and having a full sense of control over their lives—including managing the amount of time they spend on the internet. "

For me, the latter is the American dream, not the former. I grew up with grandparents who came from farmers, loggers, and cowboys (actually driving cattle across states back before fences were all over), and I grew up hearing stories about the great depression and living in environments where things learned during it were preserved, and it was a way of life where owning land, even a small bit, was what gave you freedom. It was a way of life that encouraged self-sufficiency and survival skills. That way of life is under threat and much less tenable as civilization grows.

Let me give some examples: my great-great-uncle, always stressed to me the importance of water, and would scold me for wasting it. He lived through the depression and the dustbowl as a child, and even though he only had 10 acres, he had two wells and 5 rain-water collection barrels, (and about 7 of those acres were always growing some sort of food). I live in the city, and now have a house with 1.5acres, which is plenty for collection, so I was looking at getting a rain barrel. Well, come to find out, rain barrels are illegal in the city. So are chickens. Oh, and solar panels have all kinds of strange rules and laws attached to leases or the local eleco refuses to payback normal rates.

The point is that as urban areas expand, the decentralization of energy, food, and other resources is what can help contribute to self-sufficiency, but the local laws are often an impediment to this structure. In my example, I can perhaps understand the justification for a ban on city-chickens, but the arguments against rain-barrels or proper solar encouragement are a travesty to me.

The only way to get this sort of thing these days is to actually get a good property outside city limits.

Also, there is one other thing: property taxes. Before 1916, once you owned land, if you could grow food and had water that could be all you need (especially if you had good rock/timber sources for building). These days though, property taxes are so high in many regions that people who could otherwise be just fine off-grid end up forced semi-on-grid just to make enough to pay property taxes. (and I especially hear about this for the larger properties that used to be homestead land but have changed hands and no longer fall under those protections, so 100-1000 acres ends up super expensive, but a small plot is not so bad.

Just giving some extra perspective, and also, I would like to point out that there is quite a difference in the type of off-grid living depending on the area. I have spent time in remote locations in the rockies, and out in Cali, and the culture of the Cali off-griders is much more eclectic and hipsterish, compared to even desert dwellers in New Mexico, and then there are the Alaskans and Canadians up in the big expanses. I also consider this kind of living and attitude to be a key component of the "Western" attitude that many other people, especially from the city, just don't understand the level of freedom it can provide and how that freedom can change a person.

I have spent way too much of my time looking for land in the remotest of places, (even in boat/plane only spots) and I hope one day I find the right one. If you are wondering, the main areas left are New Mexico, Texas, Arizona, Montana/Wyoming, Alaska and Canada. (I don't count Cali because I feel there are hardly any actually remote locations left, same for Colorado, it has wilderness but the pop is exploding so every mining claim and nook and cranny has an off-grider.) A big secret most don't know about is that the best land is land adjacent to national forests, (I got spoiled by growing up in such a place) or the golden find is the rare grandfathered land surrounded by national forest. There are islands but I'm a mountains guy, and when the meteor/asteroid hits and destroys the coastal regions I want to be high and dry.

Isn't using someone else's store card a great subversion of their surveillance? I share a card with about half a dozen other people. Ralph's computer must scratch it's head when it looks at "my" purchasing patterns.

Probably not, and that's not his reasoning anyway.

There is a landline. Cell service is still unavailable.

I could probably get fiber to the house here now, but running the gear would use more than my total current power budget. Also, I kind of like a more measured pace in the webpages I read.

Why do you think it bothers you? Genuinely curious.

I understand that hypocrisy is frustrating, but perhaps this situation is more illustrative of the fact that "The System" has so pervasively invaded free spaces (physical spaces as well as psychogeographic ones), than it is that these (or others) are just young punks who won't know any better until their older and wiser (like us -- by implication?). What criteria do their motivations not satisfy, and in what way do their actions or desires/beliefs/ideas impact you to the extent that it would provoke any reaction at all? Is it dishonest to say you're disconnecting and still wear shoes? That doesn't seem right to me.

I'm forever interested in why righteous motivations seem to automatically provoke feelings of judgement or disdain from some people, who usually make comparative observations about the relative purity of a project or intentions, against their own values and wisdom.

There are certain people for whom the simple act of someone's wanting to do something substantially different (and who knows, maybe better?) seems to be an existential threat. I'm not saying that your reaction here is that serious, but I've seen it in many others.

It just seems like there is a knee-jerk reaction from many quarters that finds any discussion about alternatives to simply accepting and living within the defined parameters of "The System", and I wonder where that often-vehement opposition comes from.

*typo edit