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You can live some time without anyone else, but eventually you will need to get some help from someone, unless you want to use stone axes and split stone knifes for the rest of your life (which is possible, don't get me wrong).

But if we are talking about post iron age tech, you eventually gonna need to join a production chain of some sort, you can't just find bog iron, smelt it and hammer into an axe by yourself, while also dealing with other topics. You eventually need a community, hence a grid

I disagree. If you have the intelligence and desire, you can easily gain the required skills, likely in the matter of a year if you work hard, to go it alone indefinitely.

I think a lot of people shit on self-sufficiency due to their own inadequacies.

It will not be fun. It will not be easy. But it’s doable. No, you will not be using metal tools or having solar power.

Funny thing about your “you can’t just find…” comment though: when I went to live in the woods, I went deep, miles from any highway and much farther to any town. And I always found signs of civilization in the middle of nowhere especially tons of metal scrap and ancient iron and usable plastic bottles.

There is enough debris from civilization all over the planet for scavenging. It makes things a lot easier but you can get by without them.

I even found an intact toilet once, in an area far away from even logging roads. My best guess is somebody with an aircraft may have wanted to play a daft joke?

The other strange thing were these random staircases in the woods in the middle of nowhere…

PS: If anyone reading this is thinking of leaving civilization, I suggest you start with short trips beginning with a couple days and then gradually working them up to longer periods. This will:

1. Allow you to see if it’s really for you or if just doing more camping will suffice.

2. Will show you your skill and equipment discrepancies and allow you to correct them before the next trip in a less life-threatening manner.

My first trip was an entire month and it was rough.

Getting iron from the ground and transforming into something useful is definitely not something you can do alone.

But you are onto something, scrapping things from the outskirts of society might be something you would be able to do, albeit unless we are talking about total societal collapse this would still put you on the production chain, on the far end of it, as a scrapper

Right. But again, you don’t need iron tools to survive. It just makes thing much easier.

You can certainly live primitively in nature without the scraps of civilization. Again, it isn’t fun and it will be much harder.

Remember, total societal collapse is going to result in most, and perhaps the mass majority of humans, dying off. If not from the collapse, then from the realities of shifting into primitive living unprepared (including but not limited to: finding enough calories, disease, famine, etc).

If you have kids, like me, you and your family will probably be dead. I figure I will be. But my threat models are more concerned with pandemics, natural disasters, and loss of power/water/gas/law, so I focus on those. And yeah, all of those threats have occurred at this point (I am in a rural area) :-/

> definitely not something you can do alone

Counter-citation: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dhW4XFGQB4o we could argue about how useful the output is but this is a clear demonstration that one can, in fact, do it alone.

I also follow Primitive Technology, but in my opinion it only proves that it needs more people or time than that. The channel is experimenting with smelting iron ore for some years now and still doesn't have a good recipe for doing it at scale.

Also note that he is only producing cast iron at the moment, which is not particularly useful for impact tools (like axes, pickaxes or weapons). Getting the iron sufficiently hot for smithing is very hard to do, and require a lot of infrastructure non existent on nature.

Thanks for this. I would like to hear more about the mysterious staircases.

The last bit about the stairs was a subtle reference to some old Reddit creepypasta[1]

But indeed I did find a toilet and several balls (tennis, baseball, etc) miles from any road. Presumably tossed from aircraft for $reasons.

1. https://old.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/3kd90k/im_a_search...

Some scenarios are outside of a person's control. A large well armed group lay siege and take your stuff. No rain for 7 years. A simple scrape or bad water, one season with crop failures. These all will kill, regardless of skill.

Personally I would equate this to one of the most comforting aspects to believing in God, that it's not just some meaningless random luck of the draw but instead there was agency somewhere. War stories are often similar, the new recruits think that they are special and their skill and strength will keep them alive. They then learn it is dumb luck who lives and dies, just luck whether that bullet, shrapnel, or artillery shell misses you or not

Intelligence is not enough, you need crazy luck too.

One day you have a medical emergency and poof, you're gone, possibly going through a lot of pain, because of a condition that would have been recoverable.

Never went through any emergency myself and largely going through life without any drug but looking around me, I consider myself crazy lucky.

That's what I would be afraid the most about living off grid and the first reason I think it can't last long for many (most?). What are your thoughts on this?

I'm kind of surprised about how many people seem to believe that societal collapse = go back to 'stone age' overnight.

Yeah sure, if an area turns into a disaster zone, many conveniences of modern life (water supply, power grid, supermarkets, gas stations, internet) may become unavailable for X amount of time.

But all the materials & gear that modern society produced, doesn't just disappear. Houses would still be standing, the hand tools in your toolbox would still be there & do the same they did 20y ago, the groceries in your pantry are still there & your clothes would still be hanging in the closet. Your smartphone keeps working as long as you have any way to charge it.

That 'installed base' of modern stuff can go a long way in dealing with challenges as they come. Especially if (for example through hiking / camping trips) you have learned to get by with limited gear. Eg. a swiss pocket knive serves many purposes & lasts for decades.

It's just that many people are NOT prepared for modern conveniences falling away for extended time. One example - ask 'random' people: "If tap water goes out, how long until you run out of drinking water? And what you do if tap water wouldn't come back at all?". And be amazed at the answers.

I mean, that's #1 survival material after breathable air. And neither difficult or expensive to get a grip on.

What's that saying again? "When supplies break down, a modern city is just 3 days away from large scale riots & looting".

If anything, it's people being unprepared or panicing that'll get them killed. Not so much whatever disaster that struck them.

I don’t want to sound disparaging but I think a lot of the criticisms and naysaying comes from people who are naive.

They are used to living within environments with all the modern conveniences. They can’t imagine anything different, when in fact your average farmer and his family have stuff like outhouses, manual wells, self-made tools and MacGyver fixes and hacks. While they’re not “truly” off grid, they’re effectively partially off grid and would totally do fine.

As a white collar knowledge worker I try to soak in their blue collar skills and wisdom whenever I can. And in turn try to evolve my white collar skills into something that would be useful to them (eg being competent with a variety of radios and other stuff) if the SHTF.

Conversely, I live 20 minutes outside of town. I work in town, but just on the edge of town, so I'll go months without having to go into town.

It’s weird and neat when I go into “downtown” and I’m overwhelmed with the noise and activity and new modernities (the latest being these new electric scooters people rent and ride around and then just leave wherever. Before that was Uber. I knew these existed but it was weird to see them in person. Though I’ve still never used Uber myself.)

Blue collar workers certainly have specialized skills. Why do you think they have specialized wisdom, and what's an example?

In my experience, they are just as all over the place as any other group.

I'm not sure how many people have truly lived off the grid for the past 150 years. It probably numbers in the low thousands across the entire planet.

As mentioned in the article, American homesteaders were settling into so-called wilderness for $0 but which had been cleared of the people already living there. Few homesteaders lived more than a day's ride away from a military fort.

Even "mountain men" who rejected colonizer society went into the wilds fully equipped with its technology, and would frequently cycle out for supplies.

Furthermore, a lot of the land they had occupied was already partially cultivated and developed by indigenous tribes. And those indigenous tribes were trading with the colonists - and they had to, because their traditional ways of life were no longer possible, or they had been pushed off the lands where they used to live.

Uncontacted indigenous tribes are probably the last ones to truly live "off the grid". But, maybe not. They also live in a network of shared resources. They rely heavily on a small society of a hundred or so people.

The number of single families and individuals who have truly "lived off the grid"? Without significant support from larger groups, including common defense, trading, scavenging, and theft? For their whole lives? And prospered? I would guess there has never been anybody who accomplished that, from the beginning of time.

Sure, you can redefine "off the grid" to mean dozens of things, but doesn't it have a somewhat accepted definition of "not currently connected to the major utility and supply networks"?

Even this is still a bad take...

There are countless example of individuals doing it, because the rest of society is in the business of not caring what they are up to.

This paradigm completely fails when if those countless millions are forced without the grid. Once this happens those that will survive are not the ones that survive off the grid, but those that marshal human resources and create a new grid.

I agree.

Obviously people can live in this way if pressed, but what kind of life is it? Humans are social creatures, and we strive for more than mere survival.

If our current society somehow "collapses," we will immediately form new societies that will work to pick up the pieces, and there will be strength in numbers.

It is fundamental to our nature.

'Prepping' is a great way to deal with temporary disruptions. I think the author has a really good point that the idea of living off grid during a climate disaster is copium. 'Living off the land' requires that the land is productive. That's not a given in an age where droughts, wildfires, and heat waves are striking more often.

More often, yes, but not continuously in any one area. The planet is a big place and while I don't doubt a lot more of our resources will need to go into dealing with the costs of increased natural disasters including reduced capacity to produce food, it's hard to see this affecting everywhere all at the same time. More likely is that entire areas become gradually unable to support a modern economy and comfortable lifestyle forcing mass relocations (some of which may well be to areas that are currently "underpopulated" due to currently inhospitable climates or even reserved wilderness parks etc.).

I think you're missing the point. Did you head out somewhere completely naked without a single item on your person? Because if not, you were aided by the grid. Hell, even the shelter, clothing, calories, etc... that got you to the place and time that you decided to head out came from the grid.

No one is truly living off the grid.

I disagree. Just because you were aided by the grid doesn't mean you are aided by the grid. You can shed all those things in a short amount of time, if you have the skill, and then you are truly living off the grid.

>No one is truly living off the grid.

This has been my thought as well, but I gotta say... I do know of a place where the owner put in absolutely millions into an eco lodge and while a "prepper cabin" wasn't his goal, it really is a great example of how one could live in a degree of comfort off grid. Probably their biggest weakness is they rely a lot on their diesel generator. But, they do have some solar, they have a good greenhouse, access to hunting, a private airfield, access to a river for both fishing and water, in an area with mild(ish) winters... so guess I'm saying that if you've got absolutely wheelbarrows full of cash, it can be done... but that's not the case with the vast majority of prepper types I've seen.

But, they do have some solar, they have a good greenhouse, access to hunting, a private airfield, access to a river for both fishing and water, in an area with mild(ish) winters...

Sounds great, I'll go round up the boys and it'll be ours by sundown. I think a lot of the "it can be done" commenters didn't read to the end: it can be done when you're the only one doing it. Not so much when 8 billion people are doing it. See also: roving gangs from any Fallout game.

> improve your skills and equipment

This is the thing. If you are using "equipment" then you are only off the grid temporarily. Sooner or later all that stuff you bought at REI is going to fail. Then what?

> If you are considering going to live in the woods, try starting with short, two-day camping trips

And not the "camping" that involves pulling an air-conditioned trailer to a paved campsite with power and water, a fire ring, and a shower and toilet 50 yards away, and a convenience store with ice and beer at the camp entrance.

Real camping is not that fun, unless you're a kid in the boy scouts. At least for me. It's hot and sweaty and dirty and uncomfortable.