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EXIT Podcast Episode 31: Techbro Dilettante Homesteading
492 Plays3 years ago
Conversation with EXIT member John Dell about being goof-off subsidized homesteaders, making friends out in the country, getting the fellas together irl, etc.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Philosophy of Homesteading
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everybody.
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Welcome to the Exit Podcast.
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This is Dr. Bennett.
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I got here John Dell, and he and I are going to do something a little different this week.
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We're just talking about homesteading, and neither of us is particularly expert in this.
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We have a little bit of experience, and we've definitely done a lot of thinking and reading about it, and we just want to talk about the big picture philosophy behind it and
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why people are actually doing it and whether some of that makes sense and just sort of just sort of riff.
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It's going to be a laid back one, guys.
Challenges and Social Aspects of Homesteading
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So welcome, John.
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Thanks.
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Yeah, it's just a conversation.
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I'm not a guru.
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You're not a guru.
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You know, I've played around with poultry.
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You've played around with poultry.
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That's where we're at.
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Yep.
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Right on.
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So and I think one of the things that that we're up against and, you know, as I as I look for
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land to meet our needs as far as what we dream about with homesteading.
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The biggest problem that I've seen is just remoteness that, and mainly for my wife and my kids.
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I want them to be able to be near other people so that they can socialize.
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And it's not like we have to, especially with lots of little kids in the house, for my daughter to go play with a friend, it's like the whole...
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we have to load up the Mormon assault wagon and everybody's got to get strapped in and there's it's a big production.
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So it doesn't happen as much as it
Community Building and Ideological Challenges
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should.
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And play date play dates aren't Lindy.
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It just it feels weird when you have to when you have to schedule time for your kids to just run around and know other kids.
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Right.
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But that's important.
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Yeah.
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Absolutely.
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So like, and you know, I, we lived in a, we lived in a not particularly Lindy suburb of Fort Worth until relatively recently.
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And, but what was cool about it was that there was neighborhood kids and we taught those kids to play kick the can.
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And they asked us how we came up with it.
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How, how did we,
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How did we invent Kick the Can, which was pretty fun.
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And there's basketball hoop and – Did you charge them royalties?
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Oh, yeah.
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I mean obviously I'm a consultant.
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I don't work for free.
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I mean obviously especially in circles, people like us who are kind of interested in homesteading, there's a lot of criticism of the suburbs and how dead and stultifying they can be.
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I think a lot of that is accurate.
Community Models and Historical Inspirations
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But a suburb with a lot of people with kids is awesome for kids in a lot of ways, especially if they're willing to get outside.
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It's pretty fantastic.
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And I think that's where we're getting at here is you have this vision, and it's a pretty awesome vision of getting back to the land.
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You're the pioneer, settler, patriarch looking over your broad, rolling acres and
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Like Abraham in the Bible, looking over his cattle and thinking, this is awesome.
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This is my land.
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These are my cattle.
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That's a great thing.
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But I mean, it's a great thing.
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I love looking at – I don't have 100 acres and 1,000 head of cattle or anything.
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But I look at something that I built or that I planted.
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I look at –
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a basket full of fruit that comes from my trees and I feel pretty good about life.
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It can be grinding even for the man in the picture.
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There can be some grinding loneliness involved in it.
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Yeah.
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I think partly what is happening is that there's ideological sorting because everybody has access to very like-minded people.
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which is cool for me.
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I'm really happy that I'm able to connect with people that are
Homeschooling and Social Networks
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pretty much simpatico because I'm like this weird right, schizo post, latter-day saint.
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There's a lot of boxes to tick to find somebody that I really vibe with.
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And not typically just in my neighborhood ward that there's like a really strong connection.
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And there's like a chicken and egg question there.
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Like maybe, well, that's not maybe, unambiguously, if I was less online, I would be less weird politically.
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Yes, but then once the egg's broken, once you've made that- It's not going back.
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Yeah, yeah, you can't unsee, right?
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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And there's there's a lot of truth to that.
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But the the downside and this is, I think, what our conversation is headed towards.
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Your access is just digital.
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Right.
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And I have that right.
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And we're talking we're talking in a remote podcast right now.
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You know, the exit groups online, you put together a group of great guys.
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I love hanging out with them and having those conversations.
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But, and if I was going to say, none of you guys are going to help me, you know, change my plumbing.
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Now, some of you might talk me through
Balancing Ideals and Practicality in Communities
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it.
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Huge resource there.
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And that's amazing.
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But it's not, it's not flash.
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It's not face to face.
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Yeah.
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And I've always viewed it as, I've always viewed it as a, as a stop on that, on that journey.
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Like it's my, my ambition for exit is not for it to be,
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well put it this way there are a lot of guys for whom it will be a digital resource but any any of the guys who are looking to get closer together get to know each other face to face introduce our families to each other build those kinds of connections anybody who's down for that I want to do that with and get together and so you know this there's
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There's this planned community that I saw that's basically like cul-de-sacs with their yards sort of blooming behind them.
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These big, long yards that come to a point at the back door of the house.
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And I don't particularly like that layout, but I get where it's coming from, which is like I want the suburban cul-de-sac, but then I want the big... Land behind it.
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Land behind me.
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And I really don't know how you thread that needle.
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So let me... Yeah.
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Let me throw out a couple of things that just makes me think of.
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So there's a...
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There's a Twitter guy, Rath of Non.
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He also has a substack and other things.
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And he's pretty famous for just preaching permaculture and traditional villages and all of that.
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And he has – I love him.
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He won't come on the program.
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I've tried.
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No, that's too bad.
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All right, if you're listening, man.
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Come on down.
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Yeah, exactly.
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You have an audience here.
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People care about the stuff you're saying.
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But if you follow them at all, you've heard that some guys near Austin approached him and said, like, hey, how would we design a traditional-style village?
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And he came up with this little plan, and it's really cool, and it's basically what you're talking about.
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It's not the actual tiny, tiny point of a homestead that widens out into a larger homestead, but it was having this little –
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cluster of houses and then the land around it that they can use for, you know, having the milk cow or having the poultry.
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But then the other thing, getting back to your Latter-day Saint roots there is Joseph Smith, the plat of the city of Zion.
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One of this guy was a visionary.
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And one of the things he was a visionary about was trying to come up with a way that people could do farming and land and have that sort of resilience, but still have the social life with each other.
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Some density.
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Yeah.
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And that was his plan.
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Let's put the city of everyone living on these little farms that are all spread out.
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Let's have this.
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Let's have this setup where you have a village, a little land for just an immediate garden, but you can visit with each other.
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Just a lot of traditional work, women's work, men's work is so much more fun to do if you have people around.
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Oh my gosh.
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Yeah.
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It just it does.
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It doesn't suck up your mind.
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You don't have to have that sort of intense focus you do if you're coding or something.
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So you have you guys there, you're chopping wood together.
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You know, the other women are there helping you quilt.
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It's so much fun because everyone's just chatting and laughing, and you see the grins, and they're bringing up old stories.
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It's one of the most human things you can do, but you can't do it.
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And nobody does it.
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You can't do it with just one family.
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Yeah, that's the biggest problem that we have to solve.
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So a lot of...
Motivations and Visions for Homesteading
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a lot of these guys are just trying to get their family locked down.
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Like they're just trying to get, you know, either, either find a wife, have kids, get the wife out of the office so they can raise the kids, you know, but, but, but for those of us that have a ton of debt, you know, I get that.
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Right.
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You got to start, get, you know, get the kids in an educational situation where they're not constantly being bombarded with, with, you know, filth.
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And, but, but for those of us that are,
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that are more or less out of those problems, the next step becomes like, I've got my immediate zone of control as dialed in as I can make it without being, you know, as dialed in as it should be, as much in my control as it should be.
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Yeah.
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But now, now what?
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Now how do I find, I can't raise my kids' boyfriends and girlfriends.
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I can't raise their best friends.
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I can't raise their rivals that are gonna challenge them.
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And so then it becomes like, we gotta get together, we gotta start talking.
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It's really interesting that you said that.
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It's like you're reading my mind.
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Kind of freaky.
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Because I was just going to say that what we're talking about here, how homesteading can be really lonely and isolating despite all the good things.
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I was going to say that's just an example case of the larger problem we have with people who are trying for exit in one way or another.
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Trying to step back from this
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this headless idiot system that is just driving everything human into the ground.
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And that could be homesteading is an example of that.
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But you're also talking about homeschool would probably be the biggest one.
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Or just anybody who's trying to step outside the current a little bit, paddle in a different direction.
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Working remotely.
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I mean, there's huge freedom and huge flexibility in working remotely, but, um, you know, and, and people make a lot of like the water cooler FaceTime thing from a, from like a networking perspective, but really like, there's also an element of just human connection there.
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I think, I think, uh, a lot of those things that have been LinkedIn-ified, um,
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We tend to disdain them because they've been LinkedInified, but they also have some value intrinsically.
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They have some value to it.
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Yeah, for sure.
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Yeah.
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But let's talk about homeschooling.
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So a lot of people homeschool now, and a lot of times it's for fairly exit-type reasons.
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greater and greater, lesser degrees.
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But the original homeschooling was people who were hard exit, you know, like in the 70s and 80s when you were the weird kid if you homeschooled.
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And it's because those parents were saying, we don't want anything to do with the modern world.
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Sometimes that worked.
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It almost always worked when the kid was actually being homeschooled, but then they turned 18 and 19.
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And what happens next?
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They go up to college.
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And what does their college do?
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How many how many how many homeschooled girls turned into?
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Short hair, blue hairs.
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Yeah.
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And it's because the homeschool was just their family.
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And now they're now they're thinking of things like a social network.
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meeting guys, and to do that, you gotta conform.
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Well, I got a theory on that.
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I got a theory on that.
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I think whatever
Authentic Connections Through Community Involvement
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solution you come up with, particularly for your kids, but this goes into politics, this goes into everything about the return with a V movement, returning to tradition in general.
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whatever solution you have has to be post the current thing.
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It can't be pre the current thing with, with your kids.
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If your goal, you can't.
00:14:04
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So I have these great conversations with my daughter.
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Every time we're watching some garbage movie, um,
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Because, you know, I'll confess some sins.
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I let my daughter watch some Disney movies, even though I know they're garbage and I rail about them being garbage on the internet all the time.
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She's seen some Disney movies.
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And, but, but, we have these great conversations where I will stop the movie.
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There was one of them where...
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a boy is given like a sword and it's like a real sword and it's cool.
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And the girl is given a doll and she's like, uh, this doll is bullcrap.
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She didn't say that, but she's like, oh, I hate this doll.
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Like, why don't I get the cool boy toys?
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And I paused it.
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Right.
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Right.
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And I paused it and I was like, why do you think, I mean, you, so, so sweetheart, you like dolls, right?
00:15:03
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And she was like, yeah, I like dolls.
00:15:04
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I was like, it's cool that you like dolls.
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I like that you like dolls.
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Dolls are neat.
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That's a cool thing for you to play with.
00:15:12
Speaker
Would you be happy if somebody gave you a doll?
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Speaker
Yes.
00:15:16
Speaker
So like this show was written by grownups.
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Why do you think that they want to talk about...
00:15:24
Speaker
dolls being bad why would they do that and she's like I don't know is it like is it a girly thing to like dolls and I was like yeah it's kind of a it's kind of a girl thing to like dolls why would you think they wouldn't want you to like girl things and she's like I don't know and I was like you know
00:15:40
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I have some thoughts about that, but I'm not sure either.
00:15:43
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But let's just keep that in mind, that these are adults telling you a story and they're telling you a story with a reason.
00:15:49
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And she's seven, but she caught on that this is not a window on reality.
00:16:01
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This is a version of events that has been constructed for a reason.
00:16:10
Speaker
And I would so much prefer to
Privilege and Practical Skills in Homesteading
00:16:14
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have that conversation with her rather than just say, I'm turning this off.
00:16:19
Speaker
You're not allowed to watch it.
00:16:23
Speaker
Okay.
00:16:23
Speaker
Fair enough.
00:16:26
Speaker
Yeah, I'm not.
00:16:26
Speaker
And I mean, there's definitely, I mean, there's clearly like things that I just won't expose her to.
00:16:35
Speaker
But I think some of that – she's going to encounter it from other girls.
00:16:41
Speaker
She's going to encounter it – it's going to be in the air.
00:16:45
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Yeah.
00:16:46
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And the more she's equipped to think about that in terms – to deal with it critically and not just swallow it, I think the better off she'll be.
00:16:56
Speaker
No, and I think what I hear you saying –
00:17:02
Speaker
Going back to the original conversation is that these families were almost too protective of their children.
00:17:11
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So that when they were thrown out into the world, it was you're jumping off the diving board into the water.
00:17:18
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You don't have any context to help you justify and explain things.
00:17:24
Speaker
And I have a friend who sort of fits that description.
00:17:27
Speaker
He's a guy, not a girl, but same thing.
00:17:29
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Family, very, very protective.
00:17:32
Speaker
And he went through this rough patch when he moved away from home and started experimenting with things.
00:17:40
Speaker
But notice the assumption though, and I think it's a true assumption, but the assumption you're saying is you've got to work on inoculating your kids a little bit because eventually they're going to end up out in that environment.
00:17:51
Speaker
And that's the point I'm making is that one of the big weaknesses we have here is that you can create your own sort of protected thing, but eventually you're going to have to throw your kids out into that environment because there's no alternative.
00:18:05
Speaker
And if you look at people like the Amish, they're not sitting there saying like, hey, we got to let our kids watch a few Disney movies because otherwise once they go to college, they're going to fall over, fall off the edge of the world.
00:18:20
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They're just like, yeah, we're just doing our thing.
00:18:22
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And when our kids grow up, there's other people doing our thing and they'll marry into that and they'll keep doing our thing.
00:18:27
Speaker
And if you look at the attention rates, it's like 80, 90%.
00:18:29
Speaker
They hit their stride.
00:18:33
Speaker
I mean, that's true.
00:18:34
Speaker
That's true.
00:18:39
Speaker
You will be expelled from the community though, if you don't.
00:18:43
Speaker
Like, there's a, like, Rumspringa, they talk about, that's the meme, is like, they send the kids on Rumspringa and they go experience the world.
00:18:54
Speaker
And then they always come back because the Amish way of life is so clearly superior.
00:18:59
Speaker
And I think that there is truth to that.
00:19:02
Speaker
But there's also this element of like, if they don't come back, they're not welcome back.
00:19:08
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And so it's their whole social universe.
00:19:11
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For sure.
00:19:12
Speaker
And, you know, I don't feel right about that.
00:19:18
Speaker
That doesn't seem like the right solution.
Like-mindedness and Diversity in Community Building
00:19:21
Speaker
Yeah, as a moral issue, or as far as wanting the best for your kids, I think you're probably right.
00:19:28
Speaker
But the point I'm making is that
00:19:31
Speaker
They have a model where they can afford to raise their kids in a way that is extremely separate from the mainstream.
00:19:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:41
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Because it's more than just one family.
00:19:43
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So that they can count on this remaining separate from the mainstream as being a viable long-term way of life.
00:19:53
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So yeah, you're going to do your Rumspring.
00:19:54
Speaker
There is, in fact, a community to come back to.
00:19:58
Speaker
Whereas, you know, someone like I'm probably a generation older than you.
00:20:03
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I don't know.
00:20:05
Speaker
We've never sat down and compared birth dates, but I have I have some older kids than you do.
00:20:10
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You know, and I've got to get to that point where we're about to start kicking people out of the house.
00:20:14
Speaker
You know, I mean, not really, but, you know, there's there.
00:20:17
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They're about to fly the coop.
00:20:19
Speaker
They're about to fly the coop, right?
00:20:20
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And a few years ago, I hit my stride as a dad.
00:20:24
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I'll brag myself up.
00:20:25
Speaker
I'm a fantastic father.
00:20:26
Speaker
My kids are doing great.
00:20:29
Speaker
Good.
00:20:30
Speaker
But now what happens next, man?
00:20:32
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Yeah.
00:20:33
Speaker
Like, who are they going to marry?
00:20:34
Speaker
Who are they going to date?
00:20:37
Speaker
And even people that I know and like, I look at their kids and I'm like, you're just – there's a lot that's missing here.
00:20:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:50
Speaker
And that's, I mean, just in terms of anytime you try to do something extraordinary, even if there's, well, there's a kind of, there's a perception of arrogance, right?
00:21:07
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from anybody that tries to do something extraordinary.
00:21:10
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Why, like who are you to do something different, something special, something better?
00:21:19
Speaker
I guess what it amounts to is who are you to say that it's better?
00:21:22
Speaker
And people feel judged a little bit by that, right?
00:21:24
Speaker
If I'm – you know, like the Disney movie thing.
00:21:28
Speaker
If I'm going around saying, well, I don't watch Disney movies because I don't want to expose my kids to that.
00:21:32
Speaker
What I'm saying is all the rest of you crappy parents – and I'm just going to give you an example because you've talked about that.
00:21:38
Speaker
But I'm saying you guys suck as parents.
00:21:40
Speaker
You're not as good as I am.
00:21:42
Speaker
Right.
00:21:43
Speaker
And that's – I mean that's our ability to even like talk about moral things.
00:21:49
Speaker
And I think you especially see this with the ladies.
00:21:52
Speaker
Like they just, they just, and like every, every online community that I've ever thought about, like, Hey, my wife might be interested.
00:22:00
Speaker
Maybe I could get my wife some friends in this, in this little online, you know, LDS, whatever, or, or even not LDS,
Connecting and Sharing Homesteading Experiences
00:22:08
Speaker
just like sort of more, more, more conservative, more people she could relate to more, man, they just rip each other to shreds over everything.
00:22:17
Speaker
And they get into fights about everything.
00:22:21
Speaker
And I don't know how you, I don't know how you, I mean, well, I guess, I guess the way that like the Amish do it and the way that like the early church did it was like top down.
00:22:37
Speaker
Like we, we, we're all going to keep the same standards because there's going to be like one authority that's going to like define those standards.
00:22:44
Speaker
And it's, it's become much more like pray about it.
00:22:50
Speaker
Think about it.
00:22:54
Speaker
Do what the spirit directs.
00:22:58
Speaker
Which then opens you up to the arrogance of like, I got revelation to do this and you didn't because I listened better or whatever.
00:23:10
Speaker
Communities that are not authority driven are consensus driven.
00:23:15
Speaker
And especially for women, that's pretty...
00:23:19
Speaker
like how the consensus gets made is not pretty.
00:23:25
Speaker
Right.
00:23:28
Speaker
Yeah, man.
00:23:30
Speaker
I mean, so I have seen my wife be involved in those communities in person.
00:23:40
Speaker
And then we leave town and then she's involved with the same women virtually.
00:23:47
Speaker
And I don't know if it's just like the stones that you get when you're anonymous.
00:23:56
Speaker
You're not like in someone's physical presence.
00:23:59
Speaker
The gall that you get to kind of speak your mind.
00:24:05
Speaker
But those communities, even very small communities, can become like rapidly, intensely dysfunctional.
00:24:14
Speaker
When they were fine, when we were hanging out.
00:24:17
Speaker
And I don't know what that is.
00:24:18
Speaker
So you mean what – that's really interesting.
00:24:20
Speaker
Once you've got the physical separation, the virtual thing just tears itself apart.
00:24:28
Speaker
Yeah, and I may be dramatizing the point a little bit, but only a little bit.
00:24:34
Speaker
Like the –
00:24:37
Speaker
the health of those relationships, the one-on-one relationships and the sort of network of relationships, the four by four or five by five matrix or whatever it is.
00:24:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:50
Speaker
The difference was very noticeable.
00:24:54
Speaker
And I mean, there's, well, and it's also, it's gotta be confounded by the fact that there's so much ideological sorting happening right now.
00:25:07
Speaker
And so many people are like no longer accepting consensus values.
00:25:15
Speaker
And so they're trying to like synthesize them from their peer groups, which are increasingly sorted themselves.
00:25:23
Speaker
And like people are flying apart into these ideological tents, which
Closing Remarks and Encouragement
00:25:31
Speaker
is clearly part of the problem.
00:25:34
Speaker
But yeah.
00:25:35
Speaker
It is.
00:25:37
Speaker
I just – going back to the whole idea of like quilting together or chopping wood together, I just – I don't know.
00:25:45
Speaker
I don't have like a worked out theory of this.
00:25:47
Speaker
But I think that there's something about friendship that's facilitated when you're working on a joint project.
00:25:54
Speaker
And virtually that's a lot harder to do.
00:25:59
Speaker
That's one of the things that's making X successful in my opinion is you've got these guys who have this – a little bit of a sense of shared mission.
00:26:09
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, like, there's only so much you can, there's only so much you can connect with other people by, like, shared complaints, unless you're, like, I feel like some of the kernel of that group was guys who got together to complain about, you know, BYU stuff or whatever.
00:26:30
Speaker
But even there, there was a lot of schism.
00:26:32
Speaker
There was a lot of fractiousness.
00:26:35
Speaker
And I think there's a,
00:26:40
Speaker
I mean, I'm definitely finding as I think about preparedness and I think about who I want in my corner, I'm way less concerned about like, do we vibe?
00:26:55
Speaker
Do we click?
00:26:56
Speaker
And I'm much more concerned about like,
00:27:00
Speaker
do I think that you would, that you would, you know, help me defend my house?
00:27:05
Speaker
Do I think you would let me borrow a cup of sugar kind of thing?
00:27:08
Speaker
Because like, that's the, the rubber meeting the road.
00:27:11
Speaker
Right.
00:27:12
Speaker
And I think stories about the, the, the Balkans and other like war zones, how people come together.
00:27:19
Speaker
I think, I think that's ultimately what it is.
00:27:21
Speaker
It's just the, if you, if you don't have any real problems, um,
00:27:31
Speaker
like you're sort of solving your financial problems yourself, you're taking care of your basic needs through your job, then the purpose of your social circle is to like entertain you.
00:27:46
Speaker
and to enjoy leisure together.
00:27:49
Speaker
And so you just want to be around people who maximize that experience for you.
00:27:54
Speaker
But then- You can say whatever comes to your mind without being worried that they're going to flip out because you have the right opinion on who knows what, Ukraine or transgender, the managerial class or whatever the issue of the day is.
00:28:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:11
Speaker
But there are so many, and there's like,
00:28:15
Speaker
There's a narrow set of people who can meet my need in that way or for whom I can meet that need.
00:28:24
Speaker
But the set of people whose needs I can meet, if there's a disaster, I mean, I could help almost anybody and almost anybody could help me because it would just be sort of...
00:28:38
Speaker
will and hands and feet you know what i mean like it's it's yeah yeah right i mean you're not gonna you're not gonna stop a guy and you're like well you can't help me put the fire out of my house because you got vaxxed and boosted so right you know take right take your normie sheep hands away from you you're not gonna do that
00:29:04
Speaker
But what, you know what, the idea that this occurs, the idea I'm getting out of this though, is because you don't want, you don't want to artificially manufacture the hard times just so you and other people can get along with each other.
00:29:19
Speaker
No, you can't, you can't tickle yourself.
00:29:21
Speaker
You can't convince yourself that it matters if it doesn't actually matter.
00:29:26
Speaker
But having some real ambition, not in the like I want a better job sense, but having like you have some actual goals, you're driving for something.
00:29:36
Speaker
Consuming.
00:29:36
Speaker
Yes.
00:29:37
Speaker
That can help substitute it for it because all of a sudden you start looking at the gap between where you're at and where you want to be, the gap between your means and your ends, and you feel that sort of sense of urgency, that willingness to overlook things a little bit and do what you've got to make it there.
00:29:56
Speaker
So, I mean, like, you know, like getting back to the homesteading thing, I think that it makes a real difference if you're homesteading just because it's kind of cozy and you like the pictures or if you have this sort of sense of mission as a family.
00:30:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:12
Speaker
We're literally trying to, you know, I don't know, create a –
00:30:19
Speaker
a home for the clan that will last a hundred years or something like that.
00:30:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:25
Speaker
I really, it makes it easier for everybody.
00:30:29
Speaker
I mean, fundamentally, I mean, the project basically is to rebuild civilization ultimately.
00:30:33
Speaker
Like that's, we're trying to get back to like the ability to, to have societies.
00:30:40
Speaker
We no longer have societies and, um, Oh, how your, how your vision,
00:30:48
Speaker
the extent of your vision can substitute for need.
00:30:52
Speaker
And I think that's the same answer that I hear when people talk about, when people talk about like, how do you, how do you help your kids like deal with your wealth?
00:31:04
Speaker
Like, how can I, how can I pass along the resources that I have to my children without it corroding them, poisoning them?
00:31:12
Speaker
And I think
00:31:13
Speaker
I think part of the answer is that there needs to be a vision.
00:31:16
Speaker
And if you're, if basically a spoiled person is someone who has like literally more money than they know what to do with.
00:31:25
Speaker
And like they have no productive, no like meaningful application for their money.
00:31:33
Speaker
And so it just becomes about sort of entertaining themselves and passing the time.
00:31:37
Speaker
And that's intensely important.
00:31:40
Speaker
spiritually corrosive kills you yeah for sure i mean yeah you know i'm no like fan of the french revolution and a lot of the a lot of the stuff about how evil the aristocrats were was just nonsense but the reality is is that they were worthless they were decayed they because because they had more money than they knew what to do with and they didn't have any
00:32:05
Speaker
they didn't have any goal in life kind of by design.
00:32:08
Speaker
The King didn't want them having goals, but they, I mean, they were completely useless and they knew that about themselves.
00:32:16
Speaker
So they didn't, you know, of course they didn't have the, they didn't have the steel when, when the rocks started flying because they knew themselves that they were, you know, a waste of time.
00:32:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:30
Speaker
And I think, I think you're seeing that with, with the present system too.
00:32:33
Speaker
It's, um,
00:32:35
Speaker
The will to defend it is just increasingly not there.
00:32:40
Speaker
And the best of our society is just not at all invested in keeping this machine running because it kind of shouldn't stay running.
00:32:53
Speaker
And so much of the weird behavior that people have, the little cults around COVID or Black Lives Matter, all these little social justice things,
00:33:06
Speaker
To what extent is it just lonely, sad people who are trying to fill?
00:33:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:13
Speaker
Looking for a, looking for a, I mean, you know, you, and it's the way they, the way they look back on basically World War II and the civil rights movement.
00:33:23
Speaker
It's like, that's the last time the nation like really, I would guess, I guess 9-11 is the alternative, but like 9-11,
00:33:33
Speaker
is still got sour living memory.
00:33:37
Speaker
Right, right.
00:33:38
Speaker
It's still fresh how that went bad.
00:33:43
Speaker
But like World War Two and and civil rights movement, it's like everybody from like, you know, the Reaganite to, you know, Bernie is like, those were good things.
00:33:56
Speaker
I'm glad we did those things.
00:33:58
Speaker
And so there is like, and it's, it's, it's, it's the consensus seeking types who are the most like, uh, all of our enemies are Hitler or, or like bull Connor.
00:34:15
Speaker
Um, because that's, that's the last point of contact.
00:34:21
Speaker
Well, and that's, you know, that's just the same thing that we're talking about, that people are so hungry to make some kind of connection.
00:34:30
Speaker
So one of the points that I'm making is that, you know, homesteading is a desire for a more authentic, connected life.
00:34:41
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:34:42
Speaker
I love it.
00:34:43
Speaker
And, you know, if I can find the right situation, you know, by the land, I'm going for it.
00:34:49
Speaker
But
00:34:50
Speaker
My idea would be what you're talking about where I have almost like a little compound or something.
00:34:56
Speaker
My brother is there.
00:34:57
Speaker
You're there.
00:35:00
Speaker
Friends are there.
00:35:01
Speaker
And we have these families that are working together.
00:35:04
Speaker
And that's because just what you said, where these little niches of civilization.
00:35:11
Speaker
Being social, being human, being loyal, having friends, that is the true revolutionary act.
00:35:17
Speaker
We live in an amazing age where you can be a rebel and spit in the face of power just by being a decent person to people around you.
00:35:30
Speaker
And what that means is that if this appeals to you, and I assume to a lot of people it does, you can start now just by
00:35:41
Speaker
reaching out to people around you.
00:35:43
Speaker
You just did.
00:35:44
Speaker
Joining the volunteer fire department.
00:35:47
Speaker
What an awesome thing to do.
00:35:49
Speaker
And that is the saying, you know what?
00:35:52
Speaker
I'm going to have relationships that aren't these media-driven extravaganzas.
00:35:59
Speaker
I'm going to have a human relationship on my terms, on their terms, and it's defined by the two of us, not defined by these categories we have to fit into.
00:36:10
Speaker
Yeah, I love it.
00:36:11
Speaker
And that's I mean, that's a that's a that's a perfect example that the VFD around here, it's guys who are like, OG county guys who have grown up here, been here a long time.
00:36:26
Speaker
And I'm not gonna say they're not the type of guy I would hang out with, because I think I would, but I may not be the type of guy that they would hang out with.
00:36:34
Speaker
Yeah, if someone tells them a consultant, a business consultant who moves around the country and he has an online business, what's going through their mind?
00:36:45
Speaker
What's going through their mind?
00:36:47
Speaker
Here's your weather boa.
00:36:49
Speaker
I think you dropped it.
00:36:52
Speaker
Right.
00:36:53
Speaker
But they need people to pick up phones and get in the car when there's a fire or a snowstorm or something.
00:37:04
Speaker
And so they're very warm, they're very welcoming.
00:37:07
Speaker
There's a need, there's a real, there's something I can do to help.
00:37:13
Speaker
And so yeah, it's a way of breaking down those barriers because those barriers don't matter in that context.
00:37:23
Speaker
And you can just shut up and work.
00:37:25
Speaker
And I think homesteading lends itself to that kind of thing if
00:37:32
Speaker
if it's purposeful, you know, like, like if it's not just for the gram, although I will say like, I'm, I'm, I'm pro homesteading for the gram.
00:37:43
Speaker
I'm, I'm pro like hobby influencer, like heavily subsidized by a software job homesteading because you know, if it goes down,
00:37:59
Speaker
And there's like, there's a need for those skills.
00:38:05
Speaker
Like, however you got them, I'm glad you have them.
00:38:09
Speaker
People should have, like, you know what I mean?
00:38:10
Speaker
Like there's, there's, it's the same basic thing.
00:38:16
Speaker
Like what I, what I want to like hang out with that person socially.
00:38:19
Speaker
If I just, if that was, that was all I was concerned about, like maybe not particularly, but just, you know, just for entertainment.
00:38:27
Speaker
Right.
00:38:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:28
Speaker
I was going to say that the conversation you had with Normonics recently and you talked about, hey, how much homesteading is just rich guys with cool software jobs playing around on the side?
00:38:42
Speaker
And he's had some good things to say about it.
00:38:45
Speaker
But I think a lot comes back to what you just said is that somebody's got to start.
00:38:52
Speaker
I mean, this broken society isn't going to fix itself.
00:38:55
Speaker
It's not going to spontaneously heal.
00:38:58
Speaker
And expecting systems to do it for us is what got us here in the first place.
00:39:04
Speaker
So I'm all about some men who are saying, hey, I have the luxury that supports me trying to live a more authentic way of life and make connections with the locals.
00:39:17
Speaker
If you look at our politics and how
00:39:20
Speaker
nasty and divisive it is so much as just the the the rural working class people feel hated and and disrespected by the kinds of people who do have software jobs and i think that's pretty legit a lot of times they are hated yeah and i like a guy who says no i'm going to be in the volunteer fire department it's very american ultimate so yeah we're gonna have to deal with some lag man hang on one second let me see if i can um improve things at all
00:39:48
Speaker
Yeah, so we were talking about Normonix and his discussion about homesteaders being rich needs of programming jobs, which, you know, like fair point, but also like who cares?
00:40:05
Speaker
Like it's good to have people learning those skills.
00:40:09
Speaker
And like what are they supposed to do?
00:40:10
Speaker
Are they supposed to –
00:40:13
Speaker
just live in the pod and eat bugs?
00:40:15
Speaker
Are you only an OG if you try to immediately quit your job and just try not to starve that first year?
00:40:26
Speaker
I don't know.
00:40:28
Speaker
It seems like an unreasonable ask.
00:40:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:34
Speaker
What it really is getting at is this idea that, and this is the lie that's embedded in all of this, that
00:40:42
Speaker
The only way you can really have a traditional, healthy, happy life is if you give up on the modern world completely.
00:40:52
Speaker
You can't watch any Disney movies at all.
00:40:57
Speaker
And if you do, it's like you're cheating or something.
00:41:01
Speaker
And I don't think that's true at all.
00:41:03
Speaker
I think we just, we took a wrong turn somewhere and we just went pell-mell into these headless systems.
00:41:10
Speaker
But that doesn't mean that everything that happened or even the idea of progress and making things better is bad.
00:41:14
Speaker
So this is going to sound crazy, but I think of these guys with software jobs who are out there also trying to do the homesteading and put it together.
00:41:23
Speaker
I think it was like the Vanguard.
00:41:25
Speaker
Like the Marxist idea of the Vanguard is the fake and gay version where you have a bunch of intellectuals who are going to tell everybody else what to do.
00:41:32
Speaker
But this is the real version where you have people who can afford it who are trying new things.
00:41:38
Speaker
And you know what?
00:41:39
Speaker
They're discovering stuff that's going to work for the rest of us.
00:41:41
Speaker
That's exactly what they should be doing.
00:41:43
Speaker
Yeah, 100%.
00:41:44
Speaker
And to be clear, the discussion with Normonix, I mean, he's a knowledge economy guy who is homesteading.
00:41:52
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:41:54
Speaker
I don't want to make it sound like he was being hard on those guys.
00:41:59
Speaker
Yeah, no, that's just the topic that we were discussing.
00:42:04
Speaker
Yeah, and I mean, I...
00:42:07
Speaker
I think there's also anything people can do to like bridge the gap between themselves.
00:42:13
Speaker
And I mean, so exit for me in large part, for me personally is like, I want to, I want to be as close to God in terms of where I get my food and where I get my money as I can.
00:42:33
Speaker
And I think like somebody who,
00:42:38
Speaker
gets like the flesh pots of Egypt.
00:42:43
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:42:44
Speaker
They sort of get paid to do this mechanistic job for people that hate them and they have to lie all the time about who they are.
00:42:55
Speaker
I think that there's a way to get sort of closer to the ultimate source of your blessings.
00:43:02
Speaker
And maybe that includes growing things out of the ground, but maybe it also just includes like
00:43:09
Speaker
trying to, trying to do things for yourself where you're, where you're more like dependent on providence than you otherwise would be taking a little bit of risk.
00:43:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:17
Speaker
Getting yourself out there.
00:43:19
Speaker
And, um, so yeah, it's, it's, it's all of a piece.
00:43:25
Speaker
When the weather is meaningful to you,
00:43:28
Speaker
There's just something transformative about that.
00:43:31
Speaker
When you really care if it rains or if it's too hot, not just because it makes you uncomfortable, but you're thinking like, oh man, you know, you've got to get the cows in for the pasture.
00:43:42
Speaker
It's a big hell storm.
00:43:44
Speaker
We just had a snowstorm that we had to go by tarps and hang them around our deck so that our cow could hide under our deck and get out of the wind.
00:43:57
Speaker
because she's about to have a baby.
00:43:59
Speaker
And my fingers were numb.
00:44:04
Speaker
And I was trying to like tie this tarp down and the wind was blowing.
00:44:07
Speaker
And it's just a and it was like it was like one in the morning, because we'd stall on getting it done.
00:44:12
Speaker
And we were like, maybe we don't need it.
00:44:13
Speaker
And then we were like, now we're gonna need it tonight.
00:44:16
Speaker
And
00:44:17
Speaker
Just having to do stuff like that.
00:44:19
Speaker
Well, and I say having to.
00:44:24
Speaker
If the cow threw the calf and we lost the calf, that would have been sad.
00:44:27
Speaker
We would have been okay.
00:44:30
Speaker
So, yes, there's an element of LARP to all of this, right?
00:44:34
Speaker
But you're still trying out those muscles.
00:44:40
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:44:41
Speaker
Well, yes and no, because...
00:44:47
Speaker
Yes and no because animals and cows and things like that, they're not just assets.
00:44:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:52
Speaker
You weren't just trying to save your investment.
00:44:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:56
Speaker
Even plants.
00:44:57
Speaker
Once you've worked on it, there's a bit of a relationship there and it's a commitment that goes beyond what it's going to do for your bottom line.
00:45:05
Speaker
Yes.
00:45:06
Speaker
Yes.
00:45:07
Speaker
And I mean there's also a sense of – They have to move or something.
00:45:09
Speaker
They don't just slaughter all their animals.
00:45:11
Speaker
Right.
00:45:12
Speaker
Right.
00:45:13
Speaker
And I mean, you're talking about the bigger picture and how the vision helps you.
00:45:17
Speaker
Like, if you have a sense that you need to figure this out, because even if your survival doesn't depend on it now, it may soon depend on it.
00:45:31
Speaker
Like, if you feel like you're on a burning platform and you need to get this dialed in and figure out exactly how it works...
00:45:40
Speaker
Yeah, that changes the urgency.
00:45:42
Speaker
I do.
00:45:44
Speaker
I feel like I need to figure this out.
00:45:46
Speaker
This is going to – well, gonna is too strong.
00:45:52
Speaker
I am not willing to accept the risk.
00:45:55
Speaker
I mean I think we can all see that there might come a time soon when you might really appreciate having some fresh milk.
00:46:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:01
Speaker
It may not just be as easy as running down to the grocery store.
00:46:04
Speaker
I was going to say, do you want me to finish up our little chat?
00:46:06
Speaker
This has been a fun chat, by the way.
00:46:08
Speaker
I had a blast.
00:46:08
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:46:09
Speaker
Do you want me to finish up by telling you a little more about that crazy book I read?
00:46:12
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:46:13
Speaker
Tell me about that book.
00:46:15
Speaker
Okay, so there's this guy who went the whole way, quit his job, and he's not just going to be doing software or whatever.
00:46:25
Speaker
He had some money saved up, and he was just going to make a living being an homesteader.
00:46:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:32
Speaker
He wrote a book called The Prosperous Homesteader.
00:46:33
Speaker
I think his name is Jeffreys or Jeffers, something like that.
00:46:37
Speaker
So he decided that – he tried all this permaculture stuff, decided it was all terrible advice.
00:46:43
Speaker
He was losing money every single year and he eventually ended up becoming secular Amish.
00:46:51
Speaker
Like he fell in with some Amish – Old Order Mennonite, same idea basically.
00:46:57
Speaker
And he fell in with them and they're like, you're doing it wrong.
00:47:00
Speaker
And so he is, at least at the time of the riding, he's out in Kentucky somewhere with his 50 acres, with no electricity, using an outhouse.
00:47:13
Speaker
He has a couple of horses that he uses to plow his land and to cut his hay.
00:47:18
Speaker
Wow.
00:47:21
Speaker
It's just a blast to read.
00:47:24
Speaker
You'd get a kick out of it.
00:47:25
Speaker
It's a short read.
00:47:25
Speaker
What's it called?
00:47:26
Speaker
And he's going through how you – I think it's called The Prosperous Homestead.
00:47:30
Speaker
The Prosperous Homestead.
00:47:30
Speaker
I want to say.
00:47:31
Speaker
Okay.
00:47:32
Speaker
He later wrote a novel, which is not a good novel, but it's also a lot of fun because he actually expands on his ideas a little bit.
00:47:41
Speaker
He has guys out finding old oil wells and cracking the crude to make kerosene.
00:47:47
Speaker
It's just – it has a vibe that's just fun.
00:47:51
Speaker
Very cool.
00:47:52
Speaker
Although as a novel, it's – I mean so –
00:48:01
Speaker
One of the things that we're doing in Exit is we have a little – some of us are writing short stories and things, silverwolf.substack.com.
00:48:09
Speaker
So if anyone wants to go read it, they can see how bad my own writing is and they can feel like I'm making fun of this guy Jeffers for no reason.
00:48:15
Speaker
But anyway, so he wrote this – he wrote this basically a practical guide on how to become –
00:48:22
Speaker
a secular Amish.
00:48:24
Speaker
This is the amount of money you need to start off with.
00:48:26
Speaker
This is the kit you need.
00:48:27
Speaker
Here's how it's going to cost you.
00:48:29
Speaker
Here's the techniques you use.
00:48:31
Speaker
He walks you through how it's sustainable, like how the Amish do it.
00:48:34
Speaker
The kids start earning money when they're this year's old.
00:48:37
Speaker
Eventually, mom and dad move into a small nearby house and the youngest kid takes over the original homestead.
00:48:44
Speaker
It's pretty awesome.
00:48:47
Speaker
Here's what ties back into
00:48:49
Speaker
the conversation you and I have been having.
00:48:51
Speaker
He closes up by saying, I would love for people to come out here and do this with, you know, in the area.
00:48:58
Speaker
If this interests you, literally just call me or, you know, send me a letter.
00:49:03
Speaker
I will invite you to come to my place for two weeks, you know, four weeks, whatever.
00:49:07
Speaker
So you can get a feel for it.
00:49:08
Speaker
See if this is for you.
00:49:10
Speaker
The point is the guy's desperate to have other people who are doing the same thing, right?
00:49:15
Speaker
Doing it by yourself.
00:49:16
Speaker
when you're the only ex-banker in a neighborhood of Amish, it just isn't cutting it.
00:49:24
Speaker
And this is a guy who's way more committed than you and I were able to be.
00:49:27
Speaker
I mean, I look at this and I dream about it.
00:49:29
Speaker
I'm like, this would be my midlife crisis.
00:49:32
Speaker
Honey, we're selling the house.
00:49:34
Speaker
We're quitting the job.
00:49:35
Speaker
We're living on buckskins from now on.
00:49:38
Speaker
But he did it.
00:49:41
Speaker
He's doing it.
00:49:42
Speaker
He's just learned so much and has a great time and
00:49:45
Speaker
but he's just, you know, hungry for other people who are willing to do the same thing.
00:49:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:49:52
Speaker
That's what we're all looking for.
00:49:53
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:49:53
Speaker
And that's, that's the problem we got to solve.
00:49:56
Speaker
That's what we're trying to do.
00:49:57
Speaker
Like, ultimately you do have to have a certain amount of like mindedness.
00:50:02
Speaker
Like, um, there's a reason that I went to the VFD and not like the Peace Corps, you know, but, uh,
00:50:10
Speaker
But yeah, like the level of like, how much do you really need?
00:50:14
Speaker
That's a question that I'm constantly wrestling with.
00:50:17
Speaker
Like, how much could you sort of trust and tolerate one another despite your differences?
00:50:27
Speaker
When what you're trying to do is so weird.
00:50:31
Speaker
Like, I wonder if that guy, I mean, he obviously wouldn't wanna like bring in agribusiness.
00:50:39
Speaker
But like, what if it's somebody who wants to do like the, the sort of Mennonite light version where they've got, you know, they're still getting healthcare and they're still, you know what I mean?
00:50:50
Speaker
Like, I wonder how important the totalizing vision is and how precise it needs to be for him.
00:50:59
Speaker
To be honest, I'm thinking about writing him and finding out.
00:51:04
Speaker
I mean, I, I,
00:51:06
Speaker
That might be for me and the family.
00:51:09
Speaker
That might be a cool vacation.
00:51:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:11
Speaker
Take a week during harvest season and just go live on this old-fashioned farm where you're doing it with sickles and a horse.
00:51:20
Speaker
I'd enjoy that.
00:51:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:22
Speaker
It'd be great to try.
00:51:24
Speaker
Yeah, and that's the thing.
00:51:26
Speaker
He's saying, hey, just try it out.
00:51:27
Speaker
It's a week, two weeks.
00:51:29
Speaker
What do you got to lose?
00:51:30
Speaker
I'm going to shield myself a little bit.
00:51:34
Speaker
So I have also started my own sub stack.
00:51:37
Speaker
It's not for money.
00:51:39
Speaker
because I doubt anybody would pay me for it.
00:51:41
Speaker
It's called steder.substack.com, steder, S-T-E-A-D-E-R.
00:51:47
Speaker
And the whole point of it is just to explore what you and I have been talking about.
00:51:52
Speaker
How can people find ways of living more...
00:51:56
Speaker
like more natural lives but also more connected and i'm hoping ultimately that i'm gonna start finding those people and maybe we can make some things happen the the whole the whole idea of doing this stutter's substack a smart guy i wish i remembered his name so i can give him credit one time he said if there's something weird you're wanting to do the way to accomplish is you just start writing about it and then all of those other people who all thought they were the that weirdo too they all find you so that's that's my goal
00:52:25
Speaker
One of the things that I love in exit is, is that I can, I can solicit, I can solicit answers by giving the wrong answer.
00:52:39
Speaker
And like, you know, be, be, be sort of the, like, was that, cause I'm, I'm very much a dilettante with all of this stuff.
00:52:47
Speaker
And so I can just put it out there that like, Hey, this is what I'm trying.
00:52:51
Speaker
Am I an idiot?
00:52:53
Speaker
And then like Chase or one of the guys will be like, yep, here's why.
00:52:57
Speaker
And then we have the answer.
00:52:59
Speaker
And it's very good.
00:53:02
Speaker
Right.
00:53:03
Speaker
And I'm not trying to be – there are so many people who are trying to be homesteading viewers out there.
00:53:07
Speaker
That's not me.
00:53:08
Speaker
I mean as you know because you see me on the forums and exit all the time asking Chase the farmer to tell me what I'm doing that's stupid.
00:53:16
Speaker
And a lot of times his answer is that's really stupid.
00:53:20
Speaker
That's never going to work, which normally it takes me two years and several dead plants and –
00:53:28
Speaker
To discover.
00:53:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:30
Speaker
Oh, if I'm going to – can I do one more plug?
00:53:32
Speaker
Go for it.
00:53:32
Speaker
I just thought of one.
00:53:32
Speaker
Go for it.
00:53:33
Speaker
All right.
00:53:34
Speaker
So the other thing that I and some of the exit guys are doing, the Silver Wolf, the stories thing, I should mention that one of the stories that I'm going through, it's called Polk, is a fictionalized version of me growing up.
00:53:50
Speaker
And the connection here, my parents were OG back to the Landers back in the 70s and early 80s in the first wave of homesteading.
00:54:01
Speaker
That was my fault.
00:54:02
Speaker
So this is – I'm writing up this kind of like this fictionalized sort of Lauren Mary style, what it was like to grow up when your parents are –
00:54:12
Speaker
Way back in the day doing what we're talking about now, my dad was not a farmer by any means.
00:54:18
Speaker
He had a, you know, kind of the equivalent of a software job.
00:54:21
Speaker
He was an engineer.
00:54:21
Speaker
He, you know, commuted to the plant where he was an engineer and then drove back to our, our place out in the hills.
00:54:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:31
Speaker
silverwolf.substack.com or steder as in homesteader.substack.com.
00:54:38
Speaker
Check out John Dell.
00:54:40
Speaker
Hey, John, this is an awesome conversation.
00:54:41
Speaker
It's great to talk to you.
00:54:43
Speaker
And thanks everybody for listening.
00:54:45
Speaker
Thanks for all you do, sir.
00:54:46
Speaker
Put out those fires.