[Narz]

http://incharacter.org/archives/self-re ... ded-ideal/

Interesting essay which I totally agree with.

[KaiserJeep]

"As a self-sufficient and completely prepared individual, you will perish. As a member of a mutually supportive Community, you will flourish." - Michael C. Ruppert

[Pops]

I doubt if many people reading these words have had a spontaneous visit from a neighbor in the past week

There is a misconception held by city people that because one chooses to not rely solely on a paycheck and "Big Brother" to provide everything one requires to survive, that one is some type of anti social hermit on the edge of existence. It's too bad because city folks could take a lesson from how things get done by those who suffer from "pathological self-reliance".

I'm nowhere near self-sufficient but I am far less dependent that the average city mouse and even so I've interacted with several of my neighbors this week. I took one to a doctor's appointment, loaned my tractor to one, borrowed few bales of hay from another and traded complaints about the weather with 2 more.

I kind of snicker at these kinds of articles/threads in their transparent attempt to make the woefully, totally dependent feel better about their dependence.

<snicker>

.

[Timo]

Of course total self-sufficiency might be possible, but then again, quality of life is in the eyes of the beholder. For some people, life without hair products, diet pills, drive-thru windows, Netflix, skinny jeans, PBR (or Schlitz), facebook AND Twitter (and Angry Birds), and the Entertainment Network, and pizza delivery, and winter cruises in the Bahamas, and plastic surgery (and Botox injections), and a new Mercedes (or Camaro) every year, and a second home in the Hamptons (or Vail), and forking over thousands of dollars of your life savings to the poltician or religious personality de jour, life just isn't worth it. Pops, are any of your neighbors named Jones? Hurry! Hurry! Chop-Chop! You gotta keep up! The world as you know it depends on staying ahead of the Joneses!

[Subjectivist]

Of course total self-sufficiency might be possible, but then again, quality of life is in the eyes of the beholder. For some people, life without hair products, diet pills, drive-thru windows, Netflix, skinny jeans, PBR (or Schlitz), facebook AND Twitter (and Angry Birds), and the Entertainment Network, and pizza delivery, and winter cruises in the Bahamas, and plastic surgery (and Botox injections), and a new Mercedes (or Camaro) every year, and a second home in the Hamptons (or Vail), and forking over thousands of dollars of your life savings to the poltician or religious personality de jour, life just isn't worth it. Pops, are any of your neighbors named Jones? Hurry! Hurry! Chop-Chop! You gotta keep up! The world as you know it depends on staying ahead of the Joneses!

Agreed, especially if you are talking about a community like the very traditional groups of Amish who resist adopting anything modern. Amish is kind of a catch all term in modern America referring to everyone from totally petroleum free groups to groups on the edge of Mennonite modernity. The petroleum free ones are nominally self sufficient, but they also have access to modern medicine an technology if they ever need it. I would miss the internet terribly living like that, but they seem quite satisfied. As the wise man said, it takes all kinds to make the world go round.

[Timo]

For some reason, and i could be totally wrong on this, i have this perhaps misplaced conviction that self suffiency and communal living are opposites, that they can't simultaneously coexist. Other than for historically geographically isolated peoples, i don't think it is possible for anyone in the "modern" world to live without gizmos produced by somebody else. Generation of electicity may be, an certainly is possible to be produced off the grid, allowing for a greater sense of self-sifficiency. However, take away the factory, and the raw materials, and the shipping, and the fuel for that transportation to allow that solar panel to arrive at your doorstep and be installed, that's not being self-sufficient. That's simply taking advantage of someone else's labors to allow that "sense" of self-sufficiency to take hold. That same logic holds true for anything we buy on any shelf, anywhere in the world. I'm not saying that off-the-grid living is bad. It most certainly is a step in the right direction, but self-sufficient? I have my doubts.

[vtsnowedin]

While total self sufficiency is a hard and perhaps needless goal to obtain it is worthwhile to try to be self sufficient at something. To be able to grow or raise some of your own food lets you be free of total dependency on the market, whether super or farmers. If you can produce "some food" today if push came to shove you could ramp it up if needed tomorrow. If you have never weeded a garden or hilled up a row of potatoes your going to stave if the shelves at the market go bare.
Perhaps gardening isn't your thing, then you need some other skill that you can swap for food from the local gardening buff. Can you do your own carpentry? Plumbing? wiring? Or maybe your just good at cutting and delivering firewood to the houses of people that can swap you their skill or produce for it. Doctors ,nurses and dentists will always have something in demand as well as that pretty thing down by the lamp post , buy what is your plan?

[careinke]

For some reason, and i could be totally wrong on this, i have this perhaps misplaced conviction that self suffiency and communal living are opposites, that they can't simultaneously coexist. Other than for historically geographically isolated peoples, i don't think it is possible for anyone in the "modern" world to live without gizmos produced by somebody else. Generation of electicity may be, an certainly is possible to be produced off the grid, allowing for a greater sense of self-sifficiency. However, take away the factory, and the raw materials, and the shipping, and the fuel for that transportation to allow that solar panel to arrive at your doorstep and be installed, that's not being self-sufficient. That's simply taking advantage of someone else's labors to allow that "sense" of self-sufficiency to take hold. That same logic holds true for anything we buy on any shelf, anywhere in the world. I'm not saying that off-the-grid living is bad. It most certainly is a step in the right direction, but self-sufficient? I have my doubts.

It's not that simple. You need a certain number of people, to become sustainable, and one or two is not it. I've been thinking for the last 8 years or so, about the skills and labor needed to be sustainable. Under a worst case scenario (no contact with anyone else), I'd say thirty people spread across three generations. Anything less than that, you would be working way to hard in the beginning.

In our case, we know others within a days walk round trip, who are also into localizing, including a few permaculturists. Add to the fact we live "Deep in the Key Peninsula"as the locals say, or "In a remote area of Pierce County" when the news mentions us, we have some geographical protection from the Zombies. Those that manage to get here obviously have some survival skills that would be useful.

I'm fairly certain my extended family, who already garden and love family projects, could live a comfortable, if different, lifestyle after the first year or so.

Disaster prep in Washington is pretty common. We are due for a 8.5 or larger earthquake. My family knows this place is the rendezvous/home base, what to try and bring with them, and I know the routes they will take to get here. These plans are solid for most other black swans I'm aware of.

Well, we have sunshine, and I have 150 Asparagus plants and five hundred onions to plant. Ah paradise.

[Pops]

Speaking in absolutes is silly, the person who depends on no one whatsoever is vanishingly rare. some aboriginal guy in the outback somewhere may be happy eating wombat but likely he has a mate to skin it and children to bury the bones or whatever chores outback kids do on a typical day, Outback Guy's life would be tough without them.

On the other hand, the person who does little for himself other than perform a "job" and depends on the system to provide his every need in return for cash or credit is common. What use does that guy have for personal interaction beyond the transactional level? Lots of Americans - 60% I think believe "most people can't be trusted". 28% of American don't know even one of their neighbor's name! They don't need those people in ny real way if they don't contribute to their paycheck, they are just blocking his driveway.

In fact, I'd offer that the person who is most dependent on a paycheck and strip mall is the one who is the least grounded in his community. In my experience, the larger the city, the more interior directed the people.

In the country things are different. The person who wants to be less dependent on The System knows he needs help and so offers it willingly knowing he will receive it tenfold in return. I guess that's why the happy talk about the Sharing Economy is so odd to me. It's something that has been here all along, it's just that folks moved to town to get a paycheck and forgot that sharing - in both directions - is a part of life. Although it isn't really "pay it forward" or "sharing" or whatever, everyone knows just who owes who what and exactly how the account book balances, LOL

It behooves me to know my neighbors for the very reason that I want to be less dependent on the system. I think the system is fragile and I know IT doesn't give a rat's patoot about me as a person, but my neighbors do, they look out for me and I them. And that is true even though I don't attend their church or whatever fraternal organization, it's just how it is. City folks focused on the next buck are the ones who've forgotten community.

http://www.fastcompany.com/1790798/who- ... s-you-know
http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/06/are-am ... -facebook/

[Shaved Monkey]

It all comes down to resources,ability,diet, expectations and plan Bs.
If you have the land,health,skills, climate,knowledge,time and luck with nature, you can grow what you need to sustain yourself.
If you changed your diet to what you could grow and preserve and it was a healthy one, that didn't make you sick or send you mental because of the repetition.
If your expectations could be matched by your output,this could be coping with a lack of variety in diet and curbing your shopping addiction.
Plan B is bartering,preserving,food storage,skill sharing .

I know many people who were subsistence farmers, they all survived bad seasons,wars and zombies.
No money ,no power,no oil (some Kero for lamps),no refrigeration,no machines besides wooden ploughs or carts,not much variety in diet,bad climate(very short growing season).
Hard work,close family groups,low input, organic farming,fertile soils,animals (sheep, goats, chickens,donkeys, oxen) preserving,bartering/trading,lots of shared skills/labour and strong community in a fairly egalitarian society was the key.

[dolanbaker]

This plant is as near to total self-sufficiency as anything can get

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... water.html

Thriving since 1960, my garden in a bottle: Seedling sealed in its own ecosystem and watered just once in 53 years

David Latimer first planted his bottle garden in 1960 and last watered it in 1972 before tightly sealing it shut 'as an experiment'
The hardy spiderworts plant inside has grown to fill the 10-gallon container by surviving entirely on recycled air, nutrients and water
Gardeners' Question Time expert says it is 'a great example just how pioneering plants can be'


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... z2ufChtzr6
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

[careinke]

So all we have to do is seal ourselves in a bottle and live off the "cellular respiration to break down decaying material shed by the plant us." I guess I need to start saving up that decaying material. I'll just put it in my jar.

And if we build them big enough, Space Colonies!

[careinke]

So all we have to do is seal ourselves in a bottle and live off the "cellular respiration to break down decaying material shed by the plant us." I guess I need to start saving up that decaying material. I'll just put it in my jar.

And if we build them big enough, Space Colonies!

Space colonies full of yuck?

I bet we could convince some on this board to live in one if it was in space.

[Shaved Monkey]

I forgot pigs and dogs in the animals in my post and cant edit.
Salted pork kept them sustained through the winter and dogs helped herd the sheep and goats.
There was no cattle or horses.
Horses eat to much and are fussy and its hard to preserve a whole dead cow for 6 to 12 months without a fridge.
1 pig a year was raised on specially grown corn,killed ,portioned and salted and put in a wooden barrel, covered in its melted lard, this fed a family of upto 6 for a year.
Bones were used first as they went off quicker and it was winter so soups and stews were cooked first.

[Loki]

This plant is as near to total self-sufficiency as anything can get

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... water.html

That's awesome, never heard of a bottle garden before.

As for the OP's article, I think the writer is barking up the wrong tree. He conflate's "self-reliance" with hyper-individualism and the break down of community.

Self-reliance is about reducing dependency on the fossil-fuel-based JIT system of globalized commerce. In my experience community ties get stronger the more you strive for "self" reliance. The hyperindividualism he's talking about (individuals holed up in their closet ordering everything off the internet) has nothing do with self-reliance, in fact it's pretty much the exact opposite.

Just silly strawman building. Sounds like he might have skimmed through Robert Putnam's "Bowling Alone" and regurgitated his half understanding of it, with a spin against those who dare change their own oil or grow a garden.

In fact, I'd offer that the person who is most dependent on a paycheck and strip mall is the one who is the least grounded in his community. In my experience, the larger the city, the more interior directed the people.

Yep. I was never more socially isolated than when I lived in the city, surrounded by millions of people.

[Newfie]

In fact, I'd offer that the person who is most dependent on a paycheck and strip mall is the one who is the least grounded in his community. In my experience, the larger the city, the more interior directed the people.

Yep. I was never more socially isolated than when I lived in the city, surrounded by millions of people.

We have lived in this row house for over 20 years. Halloween is the only time we commingle with our neighbors. Even though I was deeply involved in a local church!

Living on the dock part time for a few years we have many more friends and acquaintances.

In the city there seems to be little to bind us, even if we are like minded.

In the small town marina we are bound together by our projects, hopes,and ambitions.