My logic is that someone who has some talent or ability, will prefer to use that to earn sats and purchase necessary goods, than half-starve on subsistence farming.
Discussion
Yes. Subsistence farming (or more practically, hunting/gathering) SHOULD be the bottom line fallback in case of extremely oppressive employment - NOT an ideal way to live. The problem with industrial Britain was that oppressed workers had nowhere to do it (farming/hunting/gathering). All the land was owned by aristocrats. This drove the attraction to socialism (replacing oppressive capitalists with oppressive government, which somehow never goes away on its own as promised by Marx).
In the hey day of America, there was some positive shakeup of Britain when American millionaires (billionaires in today's money) would buy land in Britain from bankrupt aristocrats, and sell/rent it cheap to those willing to use it productively. Sort of an early "Habitat for Humanity". (Many gave it away, but this was not effective - go figure. )
It's a very hard life. Only one hailstorm or long drought away from dying.
In the US, we have hundreds who pull it off by living in National Parks. In addition to hunting and gathering, they must constantly evade efforts by Park Rangers to evict them. (Tourists do far more damage to the park with litter, etc.) Ironically, squatting in city/suburban homes is encouraged by current Democrat local governments.
Well, they saved the money on title/rent.
If I had it to do over. I would never live in an apartment full time before buying a house as a single man or women. I would live at least 6 months out of the year in a van, and put the rest into Bitcoin savings.
I used to throw my paycheck in a drawer. Sometimes I would forget it. So my employer forced me to accept direct deposit lol. Sweet of them..😊
Also, effective farming/hunting/gathering requires decades of experience. It's one thing when you grow up learning the habits and uses of local plants and animals from your parents. When forced to relocate to a completely different ecosystem (as was done to the Cherokee in the US), you have to start over from scratch. I did learn some gathering from my mother (we went on "picnics" bringing no food, but gathering with her supervision instead). My very modest goal is to add one cultivated crop each year. I started with butternut squash - now an old friend. Added beets, tomatoes, and blueberries last year. We already have wild friend in the yard - blackberries, lemon balm, purple deadnettle, dandelion, peppermint, lambs quarters,plantain. I'm wondering how we can use the onion grass. Thistle is just too hard to utilize - it gets yanked (with gloves!). Yard has been pesticide free for 35 years (except what blows from neighbors).
We have 2 apple trees, a cherry tree, a linden tree, a gigantic walnut tree we have to cut down next fall 😢, gooseberries, Russian blueberries, red currants, rhubarb, wild strawberries, a vegetable patch with raised beds, herb garden, calendula borders, and we want to try potatoes.
Hi. 👋 I have a vegetable garden and while we do not intend to grow 100% of our food, I post under the #homesteading hashtag and enjoy others posts on the topic.
I can't speak for others, but I can say why I personally spend my time on gardening.
1. Fresh vegetables from the garden taste better
2. We've seen supply line problems in the past and expect them to continue in the future
3. It's more convienent to get vegetables from our yard than from the store (they don't go bad as fast when they're still growing)
4. We have concerns about effects of climate change, political unrest, and other societal problems causing trouble and want to be at least somewhat self reliant
5. It's far less stressful than a day job
Those are all just off the top of my head, so perhaps not articulated well, but none of them are addressed by transacting in #bitcoin or buying food.
You're absolutely right that it's hard work and that I would be financially better off if I went back to a job in infosec. And we've been doing this for a few years now and we would be unable to survive on what we produce.
And yet, here I am, choosing to not have a job and instead spending my time making open source hardware and software, gardening, and walking or riding my bicycle places when I could afford to take the car instead. I don't think that many people who are on the homesteading bandwagon are doing this because it's cheaper than earning a salary and paying for food. If they are, I agree they'll go back to a day job sooner rather than later.
Also, we are getting better at preserving our harvest too. Some of it is dehydrated, other crops are frozen. We'll eventually get around to canning. So one huge crop failure would suck, but it'll be tolerable once we build up some more stock.
One of the reasons we never plan on producing all our own food is that we like dairy products, but we don't have room for (or desire to have) cows or goats. We also don't have the land for grains, but we're happy to get those from local farmers. Relying on ourselves and our neighbors seems much more reliable than relying on international trade and food that is shipped/trucked/flown in from thousands of miles away.
Homegrown food tastes wayyy better! Usually, at least haha