Things that I've been pondering

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Human society really irritates me. The more I find out about it the less I like it. Politicians are corrupt, self-serving, professional liars. CEOs get rewarded for screwing other people over and get rewarded even when their companies fail. The consumer culture sucks and just by living an average middle class life people do a lot to harm others without realizing it. Gasoline companies alone are involved in so many screwed up things it's unbelievable.

I don't really want to contribute to things like this but if I can ever remain sane for more than a few days at a time, I'd like to find some sort of career path that won't contribute to this cycle. It's complicated though. Being a monk or nomad seems like the most obvious but I don't know if I could handle that.

I think the consumer culture is a result of a primal instinct. We were originally scavengers. It's where our first tools came from: cleaning dead carcasses that we'd find. The consumer mentality continues this scavenging feel...you're looking for something until you find it and you feel a reward for finding the thing you were looking for.

concider off grid organic farming.

1st you buy land at a cheap price but enough to have a farm
2build your own house...see Rob Roy books on cordwood construction and how to be morgage free
3 learn basic of organic gardening and off griding Read "The Good life" by helen nearing
4 instal alternative energy not hooked up to the grid
5 plant a big garden/ small farm
6 sell produce at farmer's markets or start a CSA (community supported agriculture)
7 recycle what you can, resuse or donate what you cant,
8 go dumpster diving for needed things
9 live off the land and very simply
10 learn to preserve your own food
11 learn about permiculture

reasons for doing this:
by doing this...you will not contribute to the comercial culture, you will learn basic skills of survival when the economy tanks,and you will be self sustaining and require much less money to survive in the long run thus lessening your dependance on comercialism. You will be harder to find when all of our human rights are stripped from us.

Don't you think such people would be the first to be targeted if such a thing were to happen?

true but being connected to the grid does make finding someone alot easier than say in the thick of the mountains somewhere.

Most of the country doesn't contain mountains and the inhabitable mountains contains Site R.

It's complicated for me. Even though I don't like human society, I like technology and I'm kind of ambitious. Plus I think a lot so I'm not sure being a farmer would work for me. Those are some interesting ideas though.

This is called "homesteading", actually, and there's a whole subculture of people who live like settlers. I'm on a homesteading forum, homesteadingtoday.com, but it tends to lean heavily to the Christian conservative side of things, so liberals may not find themselves welcome. I am having a really hard time deciding between homesteading and wandering. Each have advantages and disadvantages. I don't think I could sustain a tramping lifestyle for very long, that's the main drawback to wandering. The main drawback to homesteading is the cost of land. I'm currently looking at Oregon, the western part of that state has lots of water and you can hide in the mountains.

Meh, people do not understand the use of politicians. The truth is that NOBODY WANTS TO GOVERN A COUNTRY. Not you , not me. It is just an immense amount of responsability and work and it will forcefully end with people putting the blame on you,

In fact, that's the reason we invented authority in the first place, to be able to blame other people instead of ourselves. Politician's role is to get blamed for all our problems. This is the reason G. Bush was such a great president.

it is such a lame job that the only people that would be willing to take it are precisely the self-serving kind. "Oh, I will get blamed for everybody's problems for the rest of my life, but if I abuse my power I could get a permanent soruce of money and never worry about it! That's great".

Whenever a president is blamed for his people's problem, you be sure that he is doing his job correctly. The whole point of politicians is for us to have someone to complain about in the internet or while having dinner with your family and friends. "I am unemployed, it is all the politicians' fault, not mine".



Well, but CEOs probably deserve it because their world is filled of people that are as self-serving and astute as them. Make no mistake, a guy that is capable of reaching CEO position and keeping it for enough time to capitalize on it would probably do just as fine (and destructively) if he was in any other position (climbing slowly until he becomes a CEO again).

Who are these others? People that didn't work their lives to be able to stay/reach middle class? It is true that sometimes, it is not their fault, but most of the time when an individual is in a class it is completely because of the individual's actions.

You really should be thankful of the politicians and CEOs and middle class consumers, if it wasn't for them, you would have no one to blame for the world's problems. Whose fault would they be? YOUR Fault! So just embrace this great contribution to society these people do. These silent heroes do a perfect job at being a blame target and that makes everyone's lives much, much easier.

My son who also has Aspergers now lives in Thailand as a Buddhist monk.

As someone mentioned why not become an organic gardener or a forest ranger?

When I was young I thought that being a lighthouse keeper would be a great job but by the time I was old enough they had automated or scrapped all the lighthouses.

Think outside the box. Make hand tooled purses and leather belts or pottery and sell them at the local market. Learn to be a Naturapath or something. Start a canoe rental business or an ice cream stand at some holiday resort.

Vexcalibur, that post made very little sense. I don't think these things are not my fault. I think that because of the way the world is, they are. I also don't see any reason to pretend that these things or people are good just because of the way the world is. That's why I don't wish to contribute to a world that's so f****d up you can't buy gasoline without really being complicit in a crime.

There's not much you can do without being complicit in a crime of some fashion. You should look up all of what goes on in the Congo, where we get most of our minerals for manufacturing computers, technology and the like.

That's my point. I'd consider doing something extreme just to get away from that society and even if I didn't I'd like to balance it out or something.

Thanks for the information so far, would like to hear more. Wombat, I don't know if you'd want to but I'd like to hear more about your son and I've messaged you.

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Possible resources to understand how society at times works:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/theymadeamerica/
http://www.naphill.org/
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packa ... 85,00.html
http://www.chickensoup.com/

Something you should ponder: how can you help introduce the needed information to other people without turning them off and actually turning them on about being more aware of what's going on within our government and what our government is doing to others.

Removing yourself from the problem won't help fix it. It'll just remove another person who actually gives a s**t.