Volunteering at the native plant garden in the park. Just enough of a hit to keep me going.

not having to shit in a hole in the ground

I like enough of the civilized world that I'm still willing to participate in it, despite being relatively removed from a lot of it.

Also, living in the woods in a lot more work than people think it is and I'm lazy.

Ticks. Also, probably, my wife and progeny.

Mostly that I like the civilized world.

Like don't get me wrong: Nature hikes? Camping? All great. National parks are a treasure. But I will freely admit I rather enjoy little comforts of modernity like "clean water just comes out of the tap when I turn it on", "fresh food is a 15-minute walk to the grocery store away", and "the spinny machine makes my clothes clean while I do other stuff."

There are fewer than 10,000 people who, if they just like weren’t around anymore, would inprove everyone’s quality of life like ten fold. I cling to the hope that one day enough of us will realize that and save the world.

Civilized world has it's perks. Water closets, supermarkets, social media.

Cuck porn, unfortunately

I’ve given it some thought.

There isn’t enough empty land in temperate climates for someone to survive unmolested outside of civilization, and I don’t have the multitude of skills required to make it in less hospitable climates. If I could find a good source of food I might make it past the first couple weeks, but I’m not hopeful. I’ve never harvested an animal, so that’s a big barrier.

If I had a good solar system and a house on several hundred or thousand acres to get me started it might work out. Better yet if I have some seed and starter food.

Shitting in a hole is not the part that concerns me, it's dealing with the hole once it's full.

The fact that living like that is miserable, expensive, and exhausting and I don't want to die from a basic injury.

You realize that's entirely cope right.

Some dead rich people just means their money will go to their kids/family, it's not going to you in any way ever other than through changes in tax law and enforcement. And well, if you're already middle class, you won't really see any benefit because you already generate more taxes than you consume.

Further dead rich people and more tax money won't fix the massive inequalities and inefficiencies and corruption that makes government and social policy so limited and ineffective in many places.

the civilized word keeps encroaching and chopping down the forest

I have a chronic illness, while it's not that serious, I need my meds.

Its illegal to do here without permission from the local government and they wouldn't realistically give me permission.

Getting rid of those 10,000 people is relatively easy. The hard part is preventing 10,000 replacements from popping up.

Fiber internet

Cover the hole with dirt and dig a new hole.

The wilds; they call...
Pretty sure I could be a happy well-adjusted hermit, but my wife and family keep me from running off to amass my racoon army.
I focus my energy on creating a backyard jungle that lets me pretend that I'm not trapped in suburbia.

It's hard. Really, really, hard.

Yeah, modern life could be improved. There's a lot of ways society could be better. But you think it's tough now? Wait until literally every comfort you have is gone and you get nothing that you didn't grow, hunt, build, or craft yourself. And that's assuming you even have the skills to do it.

One wrong step and a twisted ankle is a death sentence. In the wild when you stop running, you die.

Sounds like it'd be hard to get laid.

Moving to a rural area and realizing how fucking hard it is.

The hill I will die on: rugged individualism as strength in a post-disaster world is a lie that is sold to appeal to ego in an individualistic society, and also to prevent the formation of community.

That doesn't apply to many existing rural communities, who of course know better.

Relative comfort and occasionally ditching the civilized world to live in the woods for a bit to remind me how nice that relative comfort really is. Disconnecting from screens ia also a nice benefit (though I do still play video games and read ebooks when I fuck off into the wilderness).

Have to wait until my kid graduates and then I’m out.

My wife is also a big reason. She likes “going out” and “meeting people” and “eating at restaurants.”

Once we can get out of the suburbs we have agreed we won’t be more than an hour from a train station where she can get to a city.

Livng in the woods is a bit much. But tiny (off grid) house videos are looking very appealing, especially when that lets people get to FIRE.

The idea is that watching what happens to those 10,000 discourages replacements. But of course it’s cope. Fortunately, I don’t live in the US so am at least insulated somewhat. I’ll be dead before things get too gnarly. And no kids. Good Lord, no kids.

i don't think you understand how people work.

Much of the information I would require to do so comfortably requires either an internet connection or some very heavy books to access. Both are currently impractical for me to implement in the places available to me.

Which is a giant pain in the ass, especially if you've built a nice heated structure over the hole so that you don't get hypothermia while pooping in the winter.

As long as your soil will percolate, a septic system isn't difficult to build. You just dig a trench leading to a hole, fill the hole with plastic buckets or 55-gallon plastic drums cut up and arranged correctly, then run a correctly sloped PVC pipe to the septic tank you just built. From there, you connect to your fixtures to the drain pipe as needed.

The difficult part is getting the tools and equipment to do all that out to your location. The bigger the tools you use, the faster and easier the work will be, the it will also be more challenging to get it in and out. Basically, a shovel is a lot easier to carry than a backhoe, but a lot less pleasant to dig with. Same deal with a reciprocating saw, battery, charger, and solar setup, versus a hacksaw.

Fortunately, I don’t live in the US so am at least insulated somewhat.

The rise in authoritarianism and surveillance is worldwide, the US is just where the people funding it live. You're barely insulated now, and will be much less so if they succeed.

What? You mean prepping isn't just another form of participatory consumerism?

Either the soil percolates, so it's fine, or you didn't perform your due diligence when choosing a place to live.

Without antibiotics any cut is potentially life threatening.

Those videos aren't made by real people telling you what it's really like to live that way; they're made by trustafarians and roleplayers trying to sell you an idea so you'll keep watching their videos so you'll keep seeing ads.

There are many, significant drawbacks to living in a homestead, tiny house, or off-grid cabin, to the point that it's something that isn't even possible, and most of the time not worth the trouble, for many people simply due to zoning laws. Any channel that doesn't address those realities is glamorizing a difficult lifestyle and not being honest about what it's really like to live that lifestyle.

Money

That too! Why not also make money from it?

I like being around people too much.

Now if I could convince my 100 favorite people to come with me... now we're talking.

Infrastructure = stability

I highly recommend watching the Fall of Civilizations series: https://fallofcivilizationspodcast.com/

...and then think about each civilization as a group of people trying to stay alive in the wilderness.

Most of them collapsed because something went wrong with the water and/or food supply, and they weren't able to recover because they were dependent on a single source. Some event overextends the resources and there aren't enough backups.

This happened to many other smaller groups over the millennia, which never made it long enough to be labelled as civilizations. Most of them we don't have records on.

As human technology has improved and civilization has grown more complex, we've built more redundancies into our system. Drought in an area no longer means the people living there have to leave or die. Famine can be overcome with modern farming technology and logistics. We can even mitigate the impact of diseases that are so contagious they spread around the entire planet in less than a year.

Benefiting from the redundancies of the system requires being attached to the system. Disconnecting might seem freeing on the face of it, but the reality is that it makes you a slave to your basic needs. Infrastructure provides the escape from that slavery, but you can't build or maintain infrastructure by yourself.

In that case, large container that can be tipped into the big hole periodically. You can always dig the new hole in stages rather than all at once too.

Also if manual labour is off putting to you, the whole idea is probably not something you are suited to.

Not sure how I could legally do it here but the idea I like is going half way into the wilderness. Buy some woodland but have towns nearby you could pop into for some supplies occasionally and still keep a part time job. Difficult part is legally living in your own woodland.

except all of that requires a civilized world to produce.

excluding basic hand tools

Deforestation

Have you actually tried doing that? It can be challenging to say the least.

I do it for fun sometimes, but I do it fully provisioned and knowing I can always decide to bail, hike out, and go home to my nice warm bed, clean hot and cold running water (people don't realize how huge this is), a fridge full of food that I don't have to carry with me, devices to make the food within minutes on a whim, no bugs or potentially dangerous wild animals, etc.

Needing regular doses of my asthma medication.

social media

I'd argue that's a reason to leave civilization 🤣

I'm sorta there.

I live about 15 miles from the nearest town and I can only see my one neighbor in the fall and winter.

My wife probably wouldn't come with me, my cat wouldn't make it, I think I would struggle with finding suitable water sources that don't count as part of the civilized world.

I go solo camping about once a year to remind myself I'd probably die out there but get it out of my system.

Chronic illness, that will get worse without medication (which is really a delay tactic, as sometimes it will get worse regardless of treatment). I long for the idea of it, but understand that living in the woods without a small community of trusted people would be difficult. There are a lot of tasks that need doing and my tired ass wouldn't be able to do half of them.

Plus, there is an impact on the woodlands that I would choose to live in, if I were fit and healthy enough...I'd need to live in a way that didn't cause harm to the woods. Instead, was of benefit to the land and woods around me. Also, learn to manufacture the basics for warding off pests and constructing a shelter that isn't a pest haven. Securing clean water/heating/food storage can be huge challenges to surmount, especially if one is facing it all alone.

To be honest, I am trying to make this current society better despite the constant roller coaster the USA is going through right now of insanity manifest. So the foolish yearning of retreating into the woods and never coming back to society quiets...

I complain about the modern world petty often, but damn some of it is nice. The other day, the dishwasher was running, the washing machine and dryer were going, the robot vacuum was doing its thing, the litter box was cleaning itself, and I was just sitting there with a beer and a good book.