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Two thoughts on this meme - self-reliance is necessary, and self-reliance is not sufficient, because if capitalism destroys the climate your homestead goes with it.
Self reliance isn't feasible, way to many people and not enough arable land. Plus you lose all benefits of specialization, putting you to pre industrial levels.
Whether or not you believe that self-reliance is feasible, there's nothing stopping you from learning to do more things yourself.
Failing to do so only works to solidify the status quo.
I definitely enjoy learning to fix electronics and appliances things on my own, and I enjoy designing and 3d printing helpful parts. But I have no urge to learn how to grow my own food or make a house or furniture etc. I don't see a feasible situation where that would be helpful.
I definitely enjoy learning to fix electronics and appliances things on my own, and I enjoy designing and 3d printing helpful parts.
That's great! You're already cutting out middlemen and the necessity of shipping things across the globe.
But I have no urge to learn how to grow my own food or make a house or furniture etc.
And that's ok too. But the more you learn in those regards, the better. It cuts out that reliance on middlemen and international shipping.
I don’t see a feasible situation where that would be helpful.
I mean... Were you not affected in at least some way during Covid? That first year of lockdowns and massive shipping delays was eye-opening for lots of people. It's hard to imagine that you can't see at least some benefit to these ideas.
International shipping is absolutely fantastic. I'm not going to manufature electronics or injection mold stuff. I'm fine with middle men if they actually add value, like shipping and economies of scale do. I'd rather fix shipping rather than deindustrialize and revert 100 years.
I didn't really miss anything over covid, I don't usually buy much other than food, and that was still available. I luckily got my computer before the shortages, so wasn't effected there, but it's not like I could have manufactured my own.
I think you're missing my point.
Middlemen merchants and international shipping are things that regular folk have absolutely no control over. And if those things go away, whether that be due to a pandemic or a CEO deciding it's just not profitable, those who rely entirely on that are fucked.
Having at least a bit of knowledge on how to sustain yourself, even if it's not a 100% self-reliant, will only be a net positive
If it's not a monopoly, we (in aggregate) do have control over them, since they still need our money to operate. But that is one reason why monopolies need to be crushed or heavy regulated, so that they can't have life and death control like you are mentioning.
I think it's net negative because of the amount of time and money you'd need to invest for a very low probability event. It's like the preper mindset. I can add a lot of positive specializing in my field that I wouldn't be able to if I also trained myself in society collapse self sufficiency.
I have the desire but but the ability to grow my own food right now, so I've subscribed to a CSA in the meantime. A few hundred dollars upfront that stays in my community, and I've got an entire season of fresh produce when it's at its ripest.
self-reliance is great for surviving, but for living you need a community.
100% no resources from anyone else self reliance? Sure
Otherwise? Solar panels exist.
I just don't think it's worth pursuing for it's own end. There are some things it makes sense to do yourself, but for most things it costs way to much time for the small amount of security it gives.
You may not. I personally don't either. Doesn't change the fact that some people do, for a wide variety of reasons, and that's fine.
The post said it was necessary though. I'm fine with people working on self reliance if it makes them feel more secure, or just if they enjoy it or it gives them fulfillment. But I think relying on the social web of connections and commerce is fine.
I don't think OP was meaning you have to be 100% self sufficient. I interpreted it more that you need community but you also need to know how to take care of yourself. How are you going to help your community if you can't help yourself. How is your community going to help you if they don't know how to do things. Local supply chains doesn't mean you're producing everything, it means it's coming from your community. Thats exactly how an untold amount of people survived the depression, communities banding together and taking care of each other.
Most homesteaders help our their neighbors if it's needed, and will receive help when they need it. They're not 100% isolated on their own.
E: Why're y'all downvoting that guy. Not like they were being a dick or anything.
This is exactly what I meant :)
According to Google, there's
5.34 million miles of arable land on earth
8 billion population
8 billion / 5.34 million = 1489 miles per person
Have I done something wrong? Seems like enough space, no?
Edit: lol I'm dumb
You divided backwards. It should be land divided by population. 5.34m / 8b = 0.0006675 miles^2 per person.
That math makes it 1,489 people per mile of arable land.
Edit: don't forget that not everyone lives on arable land. We also have apartments and skyscrapers that house people, thus packing in many more people per mile than individual.
Arable just means it's possible to turn it into farmland, not that it would actually be useful to grow crops.
The largest problem is that the global population has exceeded the natural limitations of the nitrogen cycle. Meaning we are utilizing more nitrogen from the soil than it can naturally fixate.
Without petroleum based fertilizers we wouldn't be able to sustain the global population we have today. Without the Haber-Bosch process our population would likely be hovering around 4 billion instead of 8 billion.
My math came out to one 41 meter square of land per person. 1.34b hectares/8b people*(100m*100m/hectare)=1675m^2/person which is a square of 41m per side.
Grandma there looks like she has land. Pretty fucking hard to get land nowadays. There used to be a time that it was being literally given away
There used to be a time that it was being literally given away
Usually that was actually someone giving away someone else's land, but modern societies like to conveniently forget about that part.
Conveniantly for the rich that is.
The biggest flaws with gardening. 1) Not everyone has land 2) Often you have to pay more than just buying groceries 3) Doesn't scale.
So you manage to get everything to work. Congratulations, you've just reinvented modern farming with all of the same fundamental problems. If you want a genuine change of the system you have to go to the foundations and not repeat the same steps that got you here.
Between 100% of people growing their own food and 1% growing for 99% of the others is a wonderful range of opportunity we should return to. One person or corporation owning and managing hundreds of hectares with the help of giant machines doesn't scale either, it's currently destroying the planet. The guys on the big tractors are the grandchildren of the people grandma was forced to sell her garden too. I'm sure the human species is ingenuous enough to come up with something that guarantees people's dignity and feeds everyone.
Pretty much this. If your solution isn't considering the community then it's just going to eventually evolve into the same system anyway.
Self-reliance is a skill that everyone should have, but it should no longer be a necessity. If we can bail out corporations to the tune of trillions, then we should be able to ensure the welfare of all citizens, not just the 1%.
We don't make those decisions, the corporations that get bailed out do. That's why we have people dying in the gutter while the wealthy circumnavigate the globe in their private jet.
Consequently, no one in my circles cares about the welfare of the 1%, and if grid down collapse comes, well, some people are gonna hunker down, and some people are gonna go hunting. You best believe the one percsnt has the largest targets on their ... Everything.
Most people won't even be able to get to where the wealthy are. They live in modern castles, complete with massive walls, guards, and isolated from everyone else
My Opa survived the dust bowl.
He had a story of being through a locust swarm that ate the (cotton) clothes he was wearing.
Then he survived WW2 landing at Sicily(first wave) through the Italian and Netherlands campaigns.
Wicked! More stories please, pops...
He had a story of being through a locust swarm that ate the (cotton) clothes he was wearing.
Would that have been the now extinct Rocky Mountain Locust? Despite the damage they caused to human agriculture, I've always felt a bit sad that we extincted them. Seems that their Extinction might have also contributed to the demise of the Eskimo Curlew. It would be cool to see a locust swarm.
That was during the great depression and the "dust bowl" in Manitoba. Based on the dates in the wiki, he wasn't alive when they went extinct.
Huh, interesting. A quick look at the list of locust species (I love Wikipedia) suggests that it might have been the High Plains Locust, which is rare but still extant, and last swarmed in the 1930s.
What if grandma didn't survive the depression? O_o.
Seriously though one of the threats we have as a species right now is the WTO etc orthodoxy's obsession with economically punishing nations who want to strive for food self-sufficiency.
Survivorship bias.
My grandma lived through hard times in the Great Depression, which is why my family is located in such a remote state. She taught me a lot, but I'm not much of a gardener. My husband has a garden every year though, and he's hoping to have backyard chickens.
I feel like the best things I learned from my grandma are not to waste food, and to keep bags of beans and rice on hand at all times for the hard times. That's saved me a few times
I recently learned that outside of the affected dust bowl areas that people don’t store their drinking glasses upside down in the cabinet.
East Coast here. I store my glasses upside down since the less used ones start collecting dust.
Also East Coast, and can confirm, do the same.
Grandma was willing to hoe a garden, which is head and shoulders above 99% of the people I've talked to that talk about smallholder farming like it'll save the world.
I'm planning on cultivating Chlamydomonas Reinhardtii as part of a nutrient cycle, so that way even if the food network collapses I'll be able to keep myself fed. Even if it doesn't, I have a really good supplement of nutritious calories which will dramatically lower food costs.
The best part is that if other people want to join in I can give them a sample and they can start their own farm. Get a pickle jar and poke a hole in the top, cover it with paper tape to allow your plants to breathe, then fill with clean water and input your culture and nutrients then pop them up against a window so they can produce food and oxygen for you. Still figuring out the rest but so far everything looks really promising.