This is very sad, and preventable.
Reading the article it sounds like this woman unfortunately just spent too much time on social media reading all the doom and gloom of the media and people amplifying it in places like reddit, Twitter and Facebook.
wanted to live in a land disconnected from the world, which she viewed as chaotic and dangerous
she and her teenage son could be happy and safe away from the news, the viruses, the politics of modern-day America
had been “discouraged with the state of the world”
Rebecca Vance’s fears intensified during the pandemic
Consuming too much of this crap has really affected peoples mental health, from Trump, to BLM riots, racism, covid, it’s broken some people who spend too much time on social media.
So much so that they think the only way out is to hide away from society.
Reminder, friends, to take frequent and extensive breaks from social media for your own mental health.
Please, I knew people who were exactly the same back in the 90s, there are always people who go down the paranoia rabbit hole and don’t come back out.
Lot of them were praying for the collapse because that’s when God would raise them above the wicked heathens and sodomites because they’re secretly special but everyone else is too evil to admit it.
The article said the poor kid was homeschooled, which is often a hallmark of religious fundamentalism. Not trusting the world and thinking it’s out to get you is also a hallmark of fundamentalism - but also of mental illness.
The BLM “riots” were 99% protests where the only violence was on the part of the cops harassing protesters.
You can’t lump in blm riots in there, those were protests stoked to violence by police officers, so what you should be saying it’s, corrupt police forces resulting in blm protests
Maybe I’m being too generous, but I was reading it as this person consumed too much media, including lies and exaggerations, and it warped their world view. I guess I read it as a topic like and not calling them riots themselves. Kinda like the “race riot” in Tusla, but idk.
Man gotta love when those protesters storm the local grocery store to fight social injustice. BLM!
You can’t deny that there is something fascinating about this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUO8secmc0g
And remember that despite some unique large scale issues we have today, there were much, MUCH worse times to be alive. “Majority of Americans live a peaceful life and die at 70-80” is not reportable news but still largely true.
Things are far from perfect, there are major issues, but I’d choose to live today than almost the entirety of human existence previously.
There were definitely way more violent times in the US: there were pandemics, there were revolts, there were wars. We live in an amazing time but it takes a bit of grand perspective to realize that all the bad news is easy to see in a matter of minutes. You can have death and destruction delivered right into your home in a matter of milliseconds. It’s much much harder to see all the wonderful things happening in the world
she and her teenage son could be happy and safe away from the news, the viruses, the politics of modern-day America
Just close the apps. That’s literally all it takes to avoid like 90% of the crap that she’s talking about. But the viruses… did she think those don’t make it to the forest or something?
I hate how people talk about off grid living as something you can pull off alone, that’s difficult even if you allow for buying food and installing all kinds of fancy infrastructure in your home.
The truth is that properly sustainable and reliable off-grid living requires a small community, because you need a lot of labour.
Right? Living off grid used to be called being banished by your tribe and it was basically a death sentence.
You nailed it. And these folks were simply living off canned food and ramen… For how long?
Communal living is great if you get the right mix of people with a shared vision… In the right location… With the right resources… To be successful it seems you need to have a pretty organic evolution of the process and attract people with shared vision. The dark side of this devolves into cultism; the brighter side is a sustainable living and sense of belonging.
Now there are people who live off the grid in places like Alaska (just watch Life Below Zero) and do it successfully… But these people grew up doing that or studied and prepared A LOT. And man, doing that solo is not easy. None of them seemed to be super healthy or cheerful.
I don’t know this guy, but even Superman needs a backup plan in case he gets sick, and infected wound or ruins his ankle by tripping over something. Living off grid alone is just one misstep away from catastrophe.
Somebody read Little House on the Prairie once and said, “I can do that!” I’m joking, but only slightly.
I read a book a while back about the real life of the author of little house on the prairie (it’s called “prairie fires”) - her books really sugarcoat how hard life was - even people who knew how to live off the land had a really hard time
Now there are people who live off the grid in places like Alaska (just watch Life Below Zero) and do it successfully… But these people grew up doing that or studied and prepared A LOT. And man, doing that solo is not easy. None of them seemed to be super healthy or cheerful.
But even in the story they went into town for food and blankets, and they didn’t try to winter in a tent.
I wish people would realize that humans only got to where we are because we are a COMMUNAL species. We developed complex language and tool usage BECAUSE we work together. Being “off the grid” is usually isolationist and therefore extremely dangerous. We need community in order to develop and manage the resources we need to survive.
Well no, there’s a difference between offgrid and alone and an offgrid commune.
Well, why aren’t we practicing that communal specialty into you know, bettering society from it’s current dumpster fire state? Or is that just too tall of a task?
Humans usually live in peace in groups smaller than 18. Above that, troubles hints. @nieceandtows said 40 &up here … i like (her//his) comment.
Also, we’re living in kind of an unprecedented part of history that enables is to be independent of other people in ways never before possible. So that gives people a very distorted sense of that, a lack of any notion of the importance of community. And of course this “independence” is achieved by a complete dependence on this huge ubiquitous economic machine.
It’s dangerous to go full off the grid, but in reality it’s never complete isolation. In Leave No Trace/My Abandonment (based on a true story) the father relied on disability checks to buy goods and educated his daughter using encyclopedias… In Walden Thorough is living alone in a remote area, but it’s not like he’s completely cut off from the benefits of society and has visitors somewhat regularly. I think there’s a difference between trying to minimize the brunt of society 24/7 vs going full isolation.
I’m a world of growing instability where the inputs for modern lifehave their supply consistency threatened, learning some basic survival skills is not a bad thing. Many countries will likely have huge energy, food, and water shortfalls in the coming years. Germany is burning what amounts to wet coal to make up for losing Russian oil. Ukraine was one of the world’s biggest wheat producers. Russia produced a lot of the world’s fertilizer. There are reasons to learn how to live without the entire support network most of us take for granted.
Though you should be pretty decent at living off grid before commiting to it.
Don’t assume that you’re cougar-proof or that 40°F and below weather with no real insulation is something you can save yourself from with enough bootstraps.
I feel for the kid, who got dragged down by the hubris of his mom. It’s troubling that we’ve grown so disconnected from the world we’ve built; we dont feel like we benefit from it at all. We can all sit here and shame this mother for being neglectful and stupid, and yet the feelings she had of a chaotic life with no upside…that’s so fucking common right now.
Its a commonly floated idea among my circles, and by me personally, that we kinda just want to fuck off and build a comfy commune somewhere not too hot, not too cold, just away from cities, and try to be as self-sufficient as possible. Just a small group of friends and family. It’s kinda what I’m saving up for, if I’m honest, because buying a city house is just… Prohibitively expensive for what it is.
The problem is that ‘we’ didn’t build this world. Our society was (is) shaped by people who’s situation and life experience have very little in common with the average person, and yet we continue to let them shape policy to their own benefit and our detriment because… money? Or something? Idk.
Into the Wild was a cautionary tail that for some reason people romanticize…
The difference between what I took away when I first read that book and the 2nd or 3rd time I watched the movie was night and day.
Except he dies alone at the end, so it was definitely a cautionary tale.
This is sort of like saying Don Quixote was about a famous knight saving the world and not a crazy rich guy fighting windmills
> Except he dies alone at the end, so it was definitely a cautionary tale.
If the last recent years has taught us anything, it’s that how you present a thing matters a lot more than what the thing is that’s actually being presented. Unfortunately.
