One thing that I think many people don’t realise is that it can actually be the opposite of a simple lifestyle, at least if you want to have modern levels of comfort. Setting up and maintaining your own infrastructure is actually really complicated and daunting. And unless you have the serious money needed to invest in things like boreholes and 10x redundancy for solar in midwinter you will always be juggling and tweaking and faffing around with water filters, vehicles & trailers and generator spark plugs, just as a few examples.

You should definitely try and get in touch with him - especially if he’s really out in the sticks it will probably do his mental health a lot of good!

There are great things about living like this too, but you know how it is; the grass is always greener on the other side and it’s easy to take things for granted…

Yeah or change VPN location. It’s a fairly standard forum site.

I would suggest also posting this on discuss.pixls.us - there are some very knowledgeable people there.

I want to read your short story - can you post it here or post a link to it where it hasn’t been censored? DM is fine if you don’t want to post it publicly.

The premise sounds really intriguing and I also want to read it as an act of solidarity.

It’s like being in a night club when they turn off the music and turn on the lights and you realise you’ve been dancing next to an eight year-old all night.

Thanks for posting this by the way - I needed to see it 👍

It used to be possible to live and work in much of the UK without a car. Where I live it is now basically impossible, unless you have a remote job, get food delivered and completely withdraw from society.

My adult life has been an experiment in disengaging from the economy and reducing liabilities. To a large extent I’ve succeeded; I live off-grid, taking care of my own energy, water, sewage and most of my digital stuff. Part of the reason for this is that I’ve never been able to simultaneously hold down both a full-time job and the will to live for very long.

I can confirm that the above (structure, community and identity) are indeed missing from this ‘freedom’. It is gnarly lifestyle.

Great news

I’m glad to see this as I’ve been curious about using electric blankets offgrid.

Do you know roughly how much power yours uses? And what do you power it with? Thanks :)

There is nothing like a wood stove in a small space to feel totally luxurious in winter offgrid.

When you’re not bad enough in the present and future and need to complete the set.

Thanks :)

This is fascinating and if the analysis is correct (which I think it is) it’s also really exciting because it means the cultural pendulum is swinging from increasing homogenisation to increasing diversification. I think this is going to be really liberating because people’s imagination within a subculture won’t be getting dragged down by the weight of trying to bring everyone along with them. This feels tribal in a good way. People outside of these subcultures (or sub-countercultures) will benefit from what emerges from their ‘streamlining’ too.

I’m noticing that this is happening alongside a reinvigoration of leftwing politics in my part of the world. I don’t know what, if anything, might connect them causally but I can’t help but think that we’re seeing a collective response to the cultural/political/economic dead end we’ve reached and its precarity, fear, loneliness and meaninglessness.

Libreoffice is dope af.

“Make America Irrelevant Again”

Good idea for an app. Linux especially would benefit from more high quality apps aimed at less-technical users.

Would be good to include audio-only conversion too.

Solar panels are so cheap and so good now that it is becoming embarrassing if you don’t have any.

Ah yes. I used to collect Chaos :)

You don’t understand man, it’s a healing herb.