Comment on The unAbomber. Otherwise, I agree.
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 18 hours agoSimple ain’t easy either. Fix yer plumbing, fix your roof, fix yer fence, feed yer chickens (yes, every day!), clean their poop, etc. etc. etc.
Homesteading is a lot of work, and you can’t just go away for a weekend to visit a friend or explore a new city. It needs constant attention, and the more “independent/self-reliant/off-the-grid” you want to be, the more you need to do everything yourself.
And even then you need to buy supplies and materials. You’re not going to grow a year’s-worth of food in your backyard vegetable patch, and you’re not gonna make your own lumber, pvc, copper wire, etc.
There’s a lot you can do to achieve a greater degree of independence, but ultimately it’s still dependencies all the way down.
Even the Buddha recognized the interconnectedness of everything in the world; he wasn’t just some detached stoic with a community of self-sustaining monks. They depended on the generosity of their surrounding communities, and to this day Buddhist monks still do.
stickly@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
A lot depends on how many luxuries you can go without. Tiny house means less work; no modern plumbing means no maintenence; ditch big hvac systems and only worry about heating/cooling a room or two; no indoor wiring needed if you only have a couple solar lamps. Yeah you’ll still have some reliance on getting stuff you can’t fabricate but it will be much less stuff
Livestock complicates things a bunch but it can be easier if you’re OK living off a simpler vegetarian diet and putting in the upfront legwork for more durable/low maintenance food sources (native food forest).
Your life might be dark and shitty but it will definitely be simpler and easier. But if you want to optimize for a higher QoL you’ll probably have to join a cultist farm commune.
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 6 hours ago
Not every commune is a cult, and we should really break that stigma…
stickly@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
Not necessarily, but one focused on an extreme primitivist lifestyle probably are. People generally don’t coordinate maximum isolation from society without some ulterior motives.
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 5 hours ago
And why not? Society has lots of problems. If people want to live their lives in some alternative way, why shouldn’t they be able to? Why shouldn’t those people be able to gather in one place and form communities, as long as those communities don’t become abusive?
Abusive power dynamics exist in society writ large. Why do we single out communes and say they’re bad, while we ignore how coercive and manipulative the average corporation is?
This whole idea that “communes are bad because they remove people from society” is based on the capitalist lie that people need to work and produce value for the owner-caste, and that any other lifestyle is a wasted life.
Why can’t people who want to be isolated from society be isolated from society?