"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.
this post was submitted on 13 May 2024
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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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
Indeed.
Even if you try to convince them of their wrongness, at least also give an answer to the best of your abilities.
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.
You're not wrong, I absolutely agree. At least in the places I've been I do feel like things are more often wrongly considered an XY when they're not though. And a lot of times people will just dismiss questions because "you shouldn't WANT to do that" for dubious reasons they might have against it.
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.
Ok, then explain those topics instead of just telling them they are wrong.
agriculture is the act of cultivating soil and producing crops...
should I go on or is that a good illustrative example of how the original request is so far reaching and unspecific as to be functionally useless.
It's like asking "how do I make a game?"
a video game? a board game? a playground game? a card game? all of which require skills, disciplines, planning, research and understanding of mechanics that no one can summarize even in a single full length book, let alone a forum post reply.
Your terms are acceptable.
The most vital thing isn't doing everything the hard way - just being smart about doing it all yourself. It's the sense that freedom is a function of actual independence, and actual independence is a consequence of ability.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/adventure/outdoors/a24399/the-art-of-staying-alive/
Well like, I am a woodworker. I haul several barrels of sawdust to the dump every year, and I'm only going to make more as time goes on and I start selling my work. I'm thinking of installing a pellet stove in my house and making my own wood pellets, which would save me a couple hundred bucks a year on gas AND the $30 or so I spend at the dump every year hauling out sawdust. I could further detach myself from the fossil fuel industry and the evils therein. This would require purchasing a machine that cost about what my table saw did, or about my take from the sale of one Morris chair.
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