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by awolf 1721 days ago
yes we're talking about living in today's world but... off the grid.

no one said "historical reenactment"

?

2 comments

This is definitely not "off the grid", except for very narrow definitions of the grid.

Perhaps "somewhat eco friendly" would be a better designation, or "light on corporate resources" (with the exception of Internet and GP's longish list).

Isn’t the “grid” literally the electricity grid? But the phrase also can connote going completely out of contact, so it’s ambiguous.
Off "the grid" is more than off the utility grid. It implies a rejection of the globalized supply chain, and a return to subsistence consumption. If you can't make it, you don't have it. This also includes non-existence in the financial system, and the minimization of data footprint.
It's just off the electric and waste disposal grid (and sometimes not even that).

Not "off the grid" in a fuller self-sufficient sustainable way.

And there are many people who do live in today's world "off the grid" in a fuller sense of the term - far more than the description of "off the grid" living here. People living in rural villages, island dwellings, and so on, in Europe, for example, can be far more off the grid than above (self-sustainable, that is, growing most of their own food, doing with less, hardly owning a TV or a smartphone, and so on), even if they still have a power line.

This includes not just old rural families and such, but also young people in a "back to the village" movement that's been going on.