The teenager — whom Jara described as a smart and caring son who had been a “mama’s boy” and had been home-schooled

The only food found at their shelter was a single package of ramen

Please, I knew people who were exactly the same back in the 90s, there are always people who go down the paranoia rabbit hole and don't come back out.

Lot of them were praying for the collapse because that's when God would raise them above the wicked heathens and sodomites because they're secretly special but everyone else is too evil to admit it.

The BLM "riots" were 99% protests where the only violence was on the part of the cops harassing protesters.

You can't lump in blm riots in there, those were protests stoked to violence by police officers, so what you should be saying it's, corrupt police forces resulting in blm protests

Not reading Twitter has a tangible impact on my anxiety. You can feel it rise when I used it, fell away when I stopped.

I haven't used Facebook in almost 2 years now and it's so nice

And remember that despite some unique large scale issues we have today, there were much, MUCH worse times to be alive. “Majority of Americans live a peaceful life and die at 70-80” is not reportable news but still largely true.

Things are far from perfect, there are major issues, but I’d choose to live today than almost the entirety of human existence previously.

There were definitely way more violent times in the US: there were pandemics, there were revolts, there were wars. We live in an amazing time but it takes a bit of grand perspective to realize that all the bad news is easy to see in a matter of minutes. You can have death and destruction delivered right into your home in a matter of milliseconds. It’s much much harder to see all the wonderful things happening in the world

she and her teenage son could be happy and safe away from the news, the viruses, the politics of modern-day America

Just close the apps. That's literally all it takes to avoid like 90% of the crap that she's talking about. But the viruses.... did she think those don't make it to the forest or something?

Right? Living off grid used to be called being banished by your tribe and it was basically a death sentence.

You nailed it. And these folks were simply living off canned food and ramen... For how long?

Communal living is great if you get the right mix of people with a shared vision... In the right location... With the right resources... To be successful it seems you need to have a pretty organic evolution of the process and attract people with shared vision. The dark side of this devolves into cultism; the brighter side is a sustainable living and sense of belonging.

Now there are people who live off the grid in places like Alaska (just watch Life Below Zero) and do it successfully... But these people grew up doing that or studied and prepared A LOT. And man, doing that solo is not easy. None of them seemed to be super healthy or cheerful.

In the past it took entire villages who still engaged in trade. Even back then you were on the grid even if it was a stone age one.

Somebody read Little House on the Prairie once and said, "I can do that!" I'm joking, but only slightly.

And everyone that wanted to live off the grid wanted to get away from people.

I am reminded of that guy who did that in Alaska solo, for like 30 years Dick Perniky or some such I believe his name was. He took video of wildlife and got it edited. I think he was 50 or there abouts when he left the lower 48.

Well no, there's a difference between offgrid and alone and an offgrid commune.

Well, why aren't we practicing that communal specialty into you know, bettering society from it's current dumpster fire state? Or is that just too tall of a task?

Also, we're living in kind of an unprecedented part of history that enables is to be independent of other people in ways never before possible. So that gives people a very distorted sense of that, a lack of any notion of the importance of community. And of course this "independence" is achieved by a complete dependence on this huge ubiquitous economic machine.

theres a reason why banishment was historically a death sentence. It took communities to prosper!

It's dangerous to go full off the grid, but in reality it's never complete isolation. In Leave No Trace/My Abandonment (based on a true story) the father relied on disability checks to buy goods and educated his daughter using encyclopedias.. In Walden Thorough is living alone in a remote area, but it's not like he's completely cut off from the benefits of society and has visitors somewhat regularly. I think there's a difference between trying to minimize the brunt of society 24/7 vs going full isolation.

I'm a world of growing instability where the inputs for modern lifehave their supply consistency threatened, learning some basic survival skills is not a bad thing. Many countries will likely have huge energy, food, and water shortfalls in the coming years. Germany is burning what amounts to wet coal to make up for losing Russian oil. Ukraine was one of the world's biggest wheat producers. Russia produced a lot of the world's fertilizer. There are reasons to learn how to live without the entire support network most of us take for granted.

Though you should be pretty decent at living off grid before commiting to it.

Don't assume that you're cougar-proof or that 40°F and below weather with no real insulation is something you can save yourself from with enough bootstraps.

Its a commonly floated idea among my circles, and by me personally, that we kinda just want to fuck off and build a comfy commune somewhere not too hot, not too cold, just away from cities, and try to be as self-sufficient as possible. Just a small group of friends and family. It's kinda what I'm saving up for, if I'm honest, because buying a city house is just.... Prohibitively expensive for what it is.

The problem is that 'we' didn't build this world. Our society was (is) shaped by people who's situation and life experience have very little in common with the average person, and yet we continue to let them shape policy to their own benefit and our detriment because... money? Or something? Idk.

The difference between what I took away when I first read that book and the 2nd or 3rd time I watched the movie was night and day.

Alone is a great show. But I’ve got to tell you, while I watch and know I do not (currently) possess the skills to do what those folks do, there is a draw for me to want to do it. I mean I’m sure I’m over-romanticizing the thing to an extent, and - again - I know enough about me to know I can’t do it today, but there’s a distinct pull to want to.

I would guess a good portion of US adults, these days, have no idea how to survive away from modern convenience for any length of time

Yeah, that's insane. Also, now I know where to go if I ever need to store my vehicle for extended periods of time!

From what I've read they weren't in a sanctioned Park, this was more of a back country area tucked away in the woods.

It wasn't a park, so unless someone filed a missing person report the car itself wouldn't necessarily trigger anything since people abandon all kinds of crazy shit on national forests.

They must have made some sort of effort to hide the vehicle, or park it somewhere it wouldn't be questioned for some time. If the goal is to get away from people, you don't want your vehicle to cause someone to come looking for you.

Why didn't they just get back in the car and head back to civilization?

That has gotten worse with all the "survivalist" shows acting like its easy to survive with just a knife and fig leaf in the wild.

They see a show grab some gear and off they go. Not realizing those shows are often fake and when not, the star has many years of actual experience and training.

Red in tooth and claw...

Sounds tough. I dont even know how to find and catch wild ramens.

Reminds me of the Netflix series Alone. Only one out of ~12 people make it to 100 days, and they're all experienced survivalists

The tent was what got me. A fatal choice. Tragic, but avoidable.

In the show Alone the take away is that fat beats skills. All of the super fit "survival experts" with 5% body fat are being carried out on stretchers in a couple of weeks. The 300lb dude with minimal skills out lasts all of the experts.

The environment just doesn't have enough fat calories available. Skill won't change this.

If you can’t at the very least identify what mushrooms you can or can not eat in the forest, you should not go out there to live. I 100% can not, so my dumb ass will never try to go live off grid out in the woods. I can’t find food and I acknowledge that. More folks need to realize their limitations.

For real though, they are straight up experts, and after 60 days, 90% of them are on the verge of death lol

Bullet points of what's the ass kicker?

You also need someone who isn't with you to know where you are and arrange check-ins of some sort, or at least give them a time frame of when they can expect to hear from you again if all is well.

Looks like it was probably from hypothermia or malnourishment or a bit of both. They could have died the same night, very sad.

The fact that a hiker found one and the other two weren't found until the next day makes me think that one left to try and get help, froze to death, and the other 2 died waiting.

Apparently this was during winter. If they got hit by bad weather unprepared, they might not have had any options left once they realized they were fucked.

Indeed... this is a major life change, not just a "we'll pop off the grid for a week to chill out and definitely not die of botulism".

Even with a well-stocked cabin, the cold alone will sap your energy and kill you slowly.

Trying to survive it in a tent isn't mere ignorance, it's outright stupidity.

Lol this is ridiculous. I’ve been hiking in the Rockies plenty of times during the winter, as long as you take the proper precautions you will be fine.

That's rather silly, as long as people can hear you shouting it's almost always going to be safe no matter what you do.

Like an episode of Alone, but without the planning, support and logistics.

Dark thought, but maybe that was the plan.

Imagine not giving up when out of food and cold

Running out of food would bother me more than running out of cold

During winter, in bad weather it might take a while to get back to civilization if you are somewhere out there. I mean sure you should always plan for stuff like that and be prepared (and look for help well before running out), but this really wasn't a well planned thing from the start.

Maybe under it?

I don't think living "off-the-grid" is a stupid choice, but doing so without planning and preparation is just plain irresponsible.

They should all have Fragile branded on their foreheads at birth.

Think they rule the world and then a tiny mosquito wipes them out.

Of course you couldn't resist blaming white people for this. Actually sad because I agree with the rest, but what do race have to do with that? such an American thing.

Ah, actually there are places where many people live like that. I know such places (one, namely republic of Artsakh, has become worse in the last couple of years due to partially being occupied by savage racist apes thinking it's inside their "territorial integrity").

It's just that this requires a set of skills most don't possess, having grown in big cities or places not too different from big cities for this purpose.

EDIT: About "level of decision" - nothing really prevents you from gaining the same. Just going to live "off the grid" with pretty much "on the grid" mindset is something leftists do more. Being prepared and having technical means to get to a doctor is important.

They had a 14-year old kid with them. That poor kid didn't deserve to have been led to his death because of the adults he had no choice but to depend on.

Oh my, finally a subinstance drama 🍿