Is "going off the grid" feasable?

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Charlie Mike

Charlie Mike

Sober since 1-7-14 (still a Paranoid Nutjob)
Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
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I did just that in an urban setting when I was all whacked out on meth, post Army. I gave up all ties to society... cell phone, CA ID, address... you name it. I had warrants, so I was living for at least a year in E&E mode.

I'm wondering if in today's age, it is possible to go completely off the grid? During that time, I never logged onto BF, let alone access the net. Life was pretty simple. Short of Ted Kazynski (sp?), does anybody know of anyone who has lived off the land for years?
 
yes it can be done, its labour intensive,mistakes are easily made, and old habits are fallen back on 99% of the time, which is how people get found. But it can be done if your willing to give up a lot

i would love to contribute further on this thread CharlieMike, but after the hammering and multiple derogatory/hate emails I got after posting solutions on the debt thread its not worth my time.
 
Bushman5 said:
yes it can be done, its labour intensive,mistakes are easily made, and old habits are fallen back on 99% of the time, which is how people get found. But it can be done if your willing to give up a lot

i would love to contribute further on this thread CharlieMike, but after the hammering and multiple derogatory/hate emails I got after posting solutions on the debt thread its not worth my time.
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Ah,don't let them win.I enjoy your posts Bushman5:thumbup:
 
What is survival?
Survival is living a decent law abiding life. Survival is doing what the locals do. Living by the rules of nature (in this case society). Survival is learning valuable lessons from the experience of others NOT fall in every hole on the road.

If you have to go of the grid (because of crime, or debit to society), you are not a survive, You are a looser.
 
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or one could be honest, law abiding and just be sick of society and wants to be left alone.
 
From 1968 until 1977 I lived an existence that was close to being off-grid. This was more of a homesteading experience rather than anything else. However, I did have electricity. This involved all aspects of being as self-sufficient as possible. It requires a massive amount of labor and time, but there is a great amount of self satisfaction that comes from it. You see the immediate and direct result of your labors, as opposed to receiving a check and exchanging $ for goods. To pull several quarts of canned goods out of a pressure cooker, or eat the butter than you made is a feeling that can not be described. It is surprising the actual level of knowledge required to live in this manner. It is nearly impossible to "disappear" anymore. I need ID to access my direct deposited retirement funds. I have to file taxes each year, regardless of income. So, I try to maintain a balance between my desire for obscurity and the realities of existence in modern society.
 
Is is just me, or are things a little tense around here right now?

For me, the idea of going off the grid as it was portrayed in the original post (ie as total disconnection) is neither feasible nor desirable in the medium-to-long-term sense. What is both feasible and desirable to me is learning to increase my self sufficiency and decrease my reliance on resources and services that could easily disappear overnight. So, going 'off the grid' literally by developing personal energy independence (through solar, wind power, geothermal) makes good sense to me. Likewise, gardening - even in an urban centre - makes great sense. Here in Toronto, there are a growing number of community gardens that are collectively operated by people who want to cut back on their grocery bills.

So I guess it comes down to one's definition of 'off the grid' - does it mean increased sufficiency within society, or escaping from society?

All the best,

- Mike

PS - it seems as though some of you guys are talking about living without leaving an ID trail, which is a whole different bag of worms. This would involve policing - with a goal to eliminating - what we criminologists refer to as your 'data double': the dispersed, networked, and multifaceted digital composite of your identity. This is no easy thing to accomplish, especially these days. Everyday life leaves a digital identity trail that crosses state, private, and voluntary / social networks. Pro-active management works best (ie reducing your digital footprint and being aware of privacy at all times). I could go on about this for hours, as it is one of my areas of research interest.
 
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Have you guys seen the special Les Stroud did on moving his family off the grid. It was one only one part, but it was pretty interesting. He had wind and solar power, wood stoves for heat and well water.
 
Mentor said:
So I guess it comes down to one's definition of 'off the grid' - does it mean increased sufficiency within society, or escaping from society?
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For me, it means escaping. The rub lies in the fact that by bugging out as a group (handful) of people, I'm creating another society.
 
I think a distinction has to be made. The OP seems to be asking more "Can you live off the radar, rather than off the grid (which typically just means you aren't attached to the electrical/phone system)."

The answer is yes, you can. But you give up just about every vestige of your connection with other humans by doing so. You are extremely limited in what jobs you can take, how you can handle money, etc.

Going off the grid is easier. I know people who live in tents or cabins with no electricity, phone or plumbing, but they still hold down regular jobs, have bank accounts, etc.

Hell, even most hobos these days carry netbooks and debit cards (I mean it's much easier to have whatever money they have in an account, accessible with the swipe of a card wherever they happen to find themselves. No more getting rolled for their money roll.
 
Les Stroud and his wife lived of the land for I think a year or two. They didn't use any technology newer than the last 500 years from what I heard. No plastics, etc.
I'm not sure if there's a book about their experience or not.
 
remmmm said:
Have you guys seen the special Les Stroud did on moving his family off the grid. It was one only one part, but it was pretty interesting. He had wind and solar power, wood stoves for heat and well water.
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I also recommend for anyone who hasnt seen. It definitley shows how challanging it can be.
 
I see absolutely no reason why not with the right combination of motivation, location, skill, charisma, brains, and plain good fortune. I don't believe it would necessarily involve living off the land though.

Consider the amount of illegal immigrants that go missing here. They demonstrate that even in a foreign land, and often with little or only a rudimentary grasp of the native language, some can get by through hiding in plain sight. Similarly, we have the so called “traveling communities”, bands of pikies with little or no contact outside their own, many of which would completely duck under the radar if they didn't draw state benefits. Charisma can often find safe harbor. And so on. People give themselves away with sloppy drills, atavism, and emotional states that triumph over the intellect's knowing that giving up everything means everything right down to the smallest. For example; no more trees, or dogs, or Gortex, or nice knives, and learning to love Elvis and perhaps getting god and going muslim or something. No friends or relatives and especially the old favorite the egoist Google vanity search for the former self. All honey traps. Tabula Rasa.

That said, I don't believe all people start from the same point even if hypothetically they had the same amount of the ingredients I mentioned above. And it is getting worse. For many privacy is already dead and they just don't know it. Example; there's probably a few here that know an image search can be run by uploading a photo and a search will be made for photos similar to it, not by the name of the file but by what is contained in the image, but how many of you know about Goggles. So, Google has dumped the idea, so what. The point is the technology is now so mundane it is ready for dissemination to plebs. This isn't tin foil hat stuff this stuff is basic. Some people have put such an enormous amount of personal data out there a hunter force has a huge head start. For those that don't have a clue about any of this a grasp of some of the fundamentals can be gotten from watching the stack of video starting here.
 
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We bought 10 acres last year in the Caribou, no well, power.
Off the grid, self reliant homestead was always was a fantasy of my dad's and transferred to me.
Building a cheap(recycled/scrounged wood) little 10x12 this spring to get started.
So I get to play with being off the grid this year.
Very interested in any info or links
 
Brad "the butcher";7744266 said:
We bought 10 acres last year in the Caribou, no well, power.
Off the grid, self reliant homestead was always was a fantasy of my dad's and transferred to me.
Building a cheap(recycled/scrounged wood) little 10x12 this spring to get started.
So I get to play with being off the grid this year.
Very interested in any info or links
Click to expand...

There's some good info on this site. Get the gaiters on and prepare to scrape off the hippy-happy-clappy which is in abundance. The site stems from a TV show in which the goal was to go self sufficient to a good degree but also to have a decent quality of life. If you can twinkle toes amongst the turds there's some great engineering type tips. Not surprising, Dick Strawbridge, the central bloke, has a flair for that kind of thing from Scrapheap Challenge to building waterwheels.
 
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