this post was submitted on 13 May 2024
926 points (100.0% liked)

196

16503 readers
2393 users here now

Be sure to follow the rule before you head out.

Rule: You must post before you leave.

^other^ ^rules^

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Neato@ttrpg.network 87 points 6 months ago

Exactly. Self sufficiency is definitely a myth. Humans cannot survive alone for long. You simply cannot make tools that will keep you alive for long. You'll have to venture back to civilization to get anything worked via metal at the very least. Just the basic crafts for clothing, shelter, tools and food is more than any one person can handle. It took whole tribes and villages even at the earliest points.

Now if you mean: how can I live in a cabin off the grid with minimal contact (1-2x a year) then that's doable.

[–] sukhmel@programming.dev 57 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Tis a very wholesome meme, I hope this kind of cooperation is (or at least will be) possible

Edit: on a large scale, I mean

[–] lightnsfw@reddthat.com 18 points 6 months ago (1 children)

A fuckload of people are really going to have to make an effort to get their shit together for that to happen. As things stand the majority are dead weight.

[–] bobs_monkey@lemm.ee 8 points 6 months ago (2 children)

I think at this point, we are just flat out overpopulated. There are simply too many people competing for resources and a significant number of them just merely exist without contributing a whole lot back to society.

[–] TotallynotJessica@lemmy.world 39 points 6 months ago

We're overconsuming more than we're overpopulated. It's probably possible to reach sustainability with our current population if we curtailed consumption, but our consumption driven economy would have to change at a fundamental level. We'd need to impose strict taxes on waste and heavily subsidize efficiency while redistributing wealth from the ultra polluting ultra rich.

Overpopulation myths distract us from the real culprits of our unsustainable system. We need to cull the fat cats before we cull the masses. Population control should always be the last resort, while redistribution should always be the first.

[–] lightnsfw@reddthat.com 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Yea, it's really hard to get my head around any kind of communist type of ideals when I know I'd be doing 3x the work of pretty much everyone around me for the same outcome as them. Not that capitalism is much better but at least with that I get SOMETHING more to show for my efforts

[–] m13@lemmy.world 28 points 6 months ago (14 children)

That’s not really true.

Right now under the capitalist systems there are countless jobs that are detrimental to the world we live in, or don’t actually produce anything of tangible value.

We would be a lot better off if a lot of people just didn’t do their “jobs”.

We don’t need a hundred types of sugar water, Or McDonald’s plastic toys. Landlords, bankers, stock brokers, financial planners, most lawyers are all useless.

Overpopulation is also a Malthusian myth. It isn’t that we have too many people. Under capitalism resources are not distributed well. It doesn’t make sense that most of us are working in a system that expects infinite growth with the finite resources our world is limited to. All in order to make a handful of people increasingly wealthy while the rest of us increasingly can’t afford to live a basic, simple life.

We can and must work toward building a new system (spoiler: it’s called Anarchism) while dismantling the old, inefficient, destructive system we are currently forced to try to survive in.

[–] Stovetop@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago

I wouldn't dismiss the concerns of overpopulation entirely. Simple math tells us that, unless we are able to create a society with infinite resources (i.e. post-scarcity), it will always be necessary to make sure our rate of consumption is less than the rate of replacement.

So far, we are losing that battle, given the significant amount of non-renewable resources we consume at a global scale. On top of that, unchecked development which is needed to ensure that the needs of massively overpopulated regions are met endangers what few natural/renewable resources remain, which carries the threat of food scarcity, loss of drinking water, and permanent environmental damage on ecosystems that we depend on.

load more comments (13 replies)
[–] Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 40 points 6 months ago (2 children)

the real self sufficient homestead is founding a village with like at least 50 like-minded people.

[–] booly@sh.itjust.works 26 points 6 months ago (1 children)

At least 50, but I'd make it larger. Maybe increase from 50 to about 8 billion and make sure all the villagers' needs are met.

[–] Agent641@lemmy.world 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

How much rent should we charge?

[–] sukhmel@programming.dev 10 points 6 months ago (1 children)
[–] frezik@midwest.social 6 points 6 months ago

No rent? Can I at least extract their surplus value for myself? I can't get hard unless I'm extracting surplus value.

[–] broken_chatbot@lemmy.world 16 points 6 months ago (1 children)

...and refrain from drinking Kool-Aid and punch, just in case

[–] theangryseal@lemmy.world 6 points 6 months ago (2 children)

AA got it right as far as that goes. Leadership revolves.

AA would be one of the biggest organized cults on the planet if the founders hadn’t thought of that.

Now, not everyone can be a leader, and those who can’t won’t generally volunteer. So, what you end up with in a small community is a handful of leaders who don’t agree on everything and therefore represent the needs of the people in the group a lot better.

Whether we like it or not, positions of leadership tend to happen naturally. As long as we hold sacred the fact that there is no truly central leadership, it shouldn’t devolve into a cult.

It might just be a part of our nature though. When you enter recovery they give you a list of places to avoid (they gave me one anyway) because the revolving leadership has fallen apart and a single personality has taken over.

[–] areyouevenreal@lemm.ee 6 points 6 months ago (1 children)

AA relies on religion and finding god to treat a medical problem like addiction. I don't think it's the best example my dude.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] frezik@midwest.social 2 points 6 months ago

That's only one factor in a high control organization.

There's a theory that the longevity of a commune comes down to making costly sacrifices. This signals to the group that you're not going to be a freeloader. Things like praying at a set time every day, or going to services tends to make religious communes last longer. The tasks don't have to do anything in themselves; they just have to exist and take up some of your time and effort. Religion has an easier time mandating these things, because you can put the whole reason for it on an ephemeral deity rather than something more concrete. In fact, this signaling to the group may have been the reason religion developed in the first place.

The data on this is mixed, however.

http://cognitionandculture.net/wp-content/uploads/Sosis_2003_CommuneLongevity.pdf

[–] MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 26 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Honestly, I hate these kinds of replies.

None of them answered the question, they just told him that he was wrong for wanting it.

It's just.... Unhelpful.

[–] funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works 37 points 6 months ago (2 children)

well then you need to understand agriculture, animal husbandry, construction, woodworking, become a certified electrician, plumber and gas installer, brush up on sewing, first aid, and be prepared to starve to death or freeze to death if you fuck it up, or just die from standing on a rusty nail.

[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 14 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Your terms are acceptable.

[–] rockstarmode@lemmy.world 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

The most vital thing isn't doing everything the hard way - just being smart about doing it all yourself. It's the sense that freedom is a function of actual independence, and actual independence is a consequence of ability.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/adventure/outdoors/a24399/the-art-of-staying-alive/

Well like, I am a woodworker. I haul several barrels of sawdust to the dump every year, and I'm only going to make more as time goes on and I start selling my work. I'm thinking of installing a pellet stove in my house and making my own wood pellets, which would save me a couple hundred bucks a year on gas AND the $30 or so I spend at the dump every year hauling out sawdust. I could further detach myself from the fossil fuel industry and the evils therein. This would require purchasing a machine that cost about what my table saw did, or about my take from the sale of one Morris chair.

[–] Honytawk@lemmy.zip 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Ok, then explain those topics instead of just telling them they are wrong.

[–] funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works 2 points 6 months ago

agriculture is the act of cultivating soil and producing crops...

should I go on or is that a good illustrative example of how the original request is so far reaching and unspecific as to be functionally useless.

It's like asking "how do I make a game?"

a video game? a board game? a playground game? a card game? all of which require skills, disciplines, planning, research and understanding of mechanics that no one can summarize even in a single full length book, let alone a forum post reply.

[–] refalo@programming.dev 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

welcome to IRC, SO and many other places. you're always asking the wrong question and everything is an XY problem.

[–] snowsuit2654@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Sometimes true, sometimes not.

In some situations I feel like there's some validity to not answering the question and saying what someone should do instead. Like, for example, if someone asked me how to bypass a security mechanism I don't think it would be wrong to say they shouldn't do that and not provide instructions for how to do so. Further, you might even argue that it's unethical for me to provide guidance that I know (or believe) is wrong.

This is why a root cause analysis is so important. I feel like often in those situations, the problem trying to be solved is really a symptom of the issue as opposed to the actual issue.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Honytawk@lemmy.zip 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Indeed.

Even if you try to convince them of their wrongness, at least also give an answer to the best of your abilities.

[–] RaoulDook@lemmy.world 26 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Being self-sufficient should be a goal for every human being to strive for. Independence is a potent form of freedom that makes you feel like a magical eagle.

I'm not saying you should be Ted Kazynski or however you spell the Unabomber's last name and live in complete isolation for most of your life, because it's cool to have access to society's benefits and all. But the more you can do for yourself, the more secure you will be in all ways. Basically don't be a helpless or useless person.

[–] Stovetop@lemmy.world 23 points 6 months ago (4 children)

The more self-sufficient you can be, the fewer societal resources you will take up, which could then go to someone else in greater need. That's my perspective at least.

The organization I work for is all about helping people get back on their feet, and while I would never want to tell someone they should be more self-sufficient and rely less on us, there's no denying that our resources are already stretched thin. At times, it forces us to prioritize those with the greatest need, even when others still need help.

[–] lurker2718@lemmings.world 11 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

The more self-sufficient you can be, the fewer societal resources you will take up, which could then go to someone else in greater need. That's my perspective at least.

But the more self-sufficient you are, the more resources of yourself you need to supply yourself. So you can provide less societal resources. If you do not need to provide clothes for yourself, you have more time caring for elderly, etc.

As another view, the total resources need does not directly change by changing who does what. The advantages of helping each other are in the OP. At some point however, I would think, the overhead of organization grows so large that it may not be worth it anymore. Just think of the amount of work put into "useless" administration in many countries. But in a 30 person village, this is probably negligible.

Edit: Thanks for helping other people on the feet!

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] RaoulDook@lemmy.world 5 points 6 months ago

Good point, and it sounds like you're doing good work out there

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Prunebutt 24 points 6 months ago (1 children)
[–] BrotherL0v3@lemmy.world 8 points 6 months ago (1 children)

The Conquest of Bread was a breath of fresh air! I cannot believe I read a book about politics / economics that was actually optimistic and left me feeling good about fundamental human nature.

[–] areyouevenreal@lemm.ee 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

That's what you got from it? To me it was hard to understand what they were getting at. Not even sure I finished it.

[–] BrotherL0v3@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Yeah! Kropotkin argues a couple points:

  • People are generally pretty good at self-organizing to solve problems, and have done so effectively in small communities for thousands of years.

  • We have the technology* and productive power to ensure everyone enjoys a decent standard of living.

  • Much of the scarcity we face today* is artificially created and entirely avoidable if we produce to meet needs instead of maximize profits.

  • Things like laziness, corruption, and greed can largely be addressed by ensuring that all of a person's needs are guaranteed to be met. Many people we currently* call "lazy" are either stuck in a hyper-specialized job that they can't leave because they need to sell their labor to survive, or unmotivated because much of the wealth they produce is absorbed by someone else. And people tend to take more than they need more often than not because they are stuck competing with their fellow man for resources instead of cooperating for the common good.

He also does some back-of-the-napkin math to show that it takes less than a year's worth of labor to produce everything a household needs for a year, and that the remaining labor time of that year should be open for people to cultivate different skills and pursue their passions. He argues that the distinction between what we today call blue-collar and white-collar work is unhealthy, and that everyone should do a bit of both.

His central thesis IMO seems to be that in the event of a socialist revolution, people shouldn't be afraid to immediately start doing socialism. Take inventory of the food & start giving it to the hungry, figure out how many empty houses the community has & start housing the homeless, stop growing cash crops / producing niche luxury goods and start growing food / manufacturing necessities until everyone's needs are met. He sternly warns against half-measures: maintaining the state's use of violence or keeping track of some kind of currency or propping up political leaders are all things he claims will spell the end of a revolution before it gets off the ground.

I really loved the book. I feel like it provided a great example of what communism could (and IMO should) look like without all the baggage of so-called communist states like China and the USSR.

*= The book was written in the late 1800s. I think a lot of it holds up really well and some points seemed like they really called events that would happen in the next hundred years. That being said, it's probably not as airtight today as it may have been in 1894.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Honytawk@lemmy.zip 15 points 6 months ago

"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe." ~Carl Sagan

Everything we do is build on the shoulders of giants.

[–] StaySquared@lemmy.world 6 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Huh... self sufficiency is not a myth. There's many parts of the U.S. where citizens are off the grid, some more extreme than others. However, if and when the shtf, being self sufficient might make you an easy and weaker target. I believe men should be building relationships with other men in the community. To teach and learn from each other on how to be sufficient not just for themselves but for their community or communities even. Most importantly survival skills.

[–] chemicalprophet@lemm.ee 8 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Super skeptical. They mine their own metals? Produce their own magnets? Forget their own steel? Make their own batteries? Could you provide a few examples?

[–] ameancow@lemmy.world 4 points 6 months ago

There are a lot of prepper types out there who might be theoretically 'ready" for societal collapse, but yes, they get there by already having a stockpile of societal goods and materials and of course guns. These folks likely have a great plan for what they're doing when the bombs fall, but likely not a shred of the social and communal skills necessary to keep a functional society alive for the long term.

Maybe some of the more isolated amish communities could subsist for a while without injections of modern supplies, but even still we're talking about less an "off grid" lifestyle and more like "radically reduced technology."

[–] BetterDev@programming.dev 3 points 6 months ago

Hey, I'm not disagreeing with you here, but keep in mind none of those things are necessary for survival, and most such products can last decades if properly maintained.

I think you're arguing against the most extreme interpretation of what this person said.

To give you an example, I'll show you what it looks like if I were to interpret your comment in the same way:

In some capacity, you have to admit, self sufficiency is possible. Forged metal, magnets, and batteries aren't necessary to sanitize water, grow, forage or hunt food, or to build shelter.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] ameancow@lemmy.world 4 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

It's wild how many people out there have really solid plans for what they're going to do when the apocalypse happens, but no plans for what happens in the subsequent months, years and decades after societal collapse.

It's almost like the hollywood portrayal of survival in a post-apocalyptic world is as good at portraying the struggles and hardships of day-to-day survival as they at portraying people eating breakfast or having phone calls like we do in the real world or like, how many movies and shows give us the view into what real people really do all day long.

It's that there's just no views to be had from showing an audience the main character working at their job for nine hours a day and navigating securing a promotion, just like there's no views to be had watching someone in a real survival situation shivering and crying every day for weeks at a time as they get sick and skinny and lose everyone they care about to infections and starvation.

Because fucking hunting and gardening won't save you if World War 3 or the Turbo Space Covid Cordyceps Aids virus strikes unless you are already adept at living completely off the land, which outside a few absolute nuts out there, nobody is ready for.

What will save us if the shit really goes down is community.

People don't survive, societies survive, it's why we have one now.

Dependency and self-sufficiency are not opposites but extremes in both directions. It's about finding the middle and and keeping it balanced as variables change.

[–] slacktoid@lemmy.ml 2 points 6 months ago (3 children)

How does one unlearn this unhealthy idea of self sufficiency?

[–] diskmaster23@lemmy.one 3 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Learning to love yourself?

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] yessikg@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 6 months ago

Start getting involved in communal activities like sports, volunteering, town halls, and going to the local bar

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›