Comment by icantevenhold
6 hours ago
Thanks for sharing
>society been making it less and less possible. It's made less and less posible mostly by people who are all about "improving it for not just yourself but for everyone else"
You kinda lost me in this paragraph, why does this follow, I don’t really understand the connection you refer to here.
Since we’re sharing anecdotes, plenty of my friends and acquaintances have bought old abandoned farms on the countryside and now live somewhat off grid. It’s definitely possible and I would say at least in my bubble&age group it’s become a trend almost.
Not op, but a small example: my elderly friends had 5 acres they owned and lived on for a few decades and wanted to split a lot off for their kid's family. The modernization costs (no continued septic - must run sewer, must put in additional access, must this, must that. They gave up after spending $40k in permits and paperwork when they realized it was going to cost a few hundred grand before construction of the new house even began. The city wants developers who can invest a lot of money for semi-luxury apartments.
I'm not in the US but in Belgium.
But as said the other guy said there's increasing legal hurdles.
Like for the construction he mentions: My grandparents built everything themselves including pouring the reinforced concrete ceilings/floors. My dad did much of the house himself with more premade and delivered components, his own expertise in electrics and with some help from a tradesman family member. Now if I were to build i'd need even more tradesman help, I'd need to get the house very insulated and have it certified. That conservatory example is also a thing for people i know who moved abroad and this seems to be a trend across western europe. Should I want to renovate instead and recoup some of my tax money trough subsidies then the work needs to be done by a tradesman even if i can do it myself. The plumbing must be connected and must be certified. After the electrics are done and connected as is required I need to quickly add a heatpump and solar panel otherwise i'm getting my electricity setup certified 3 damn times. For me building a fireplace becomes impossible. Even if I'd want something much more efficient with external air intake I'll soon to get something by a big manufacturer with certifications (usually optimised for ease of installation) if i want to avoid high cost. (and it'll still give a major penalty to my epc insulation certification so idk if it'll remain possible.) This trough an EU law that first popped up in germany.
Alternative construction methods can be possible but again, there's more and more hurdles and limitations.
Then when it comes to the rest. Having farm animals beyond a certain small amount becomes an administration hell. I can no longer butcher anything myself for own use beyond poultry even tho i'd get a captive bolt pistol. My grandma tried to get rid of my uncles animals when he got paralysed and only got trough it after a government worker took pitty on her and went out of his way. I did software and sensors and whatnot for an abatoir at some point and i started to realise why a load of farmers don't own their own animals anymore and instead are farmers for hire.
The informal exchange my grandparents did with food and the like would not be legal anymore.
Family friends had a business selling heirloom tomato seeds. They needed to get each variety individually lab tested for plant/seed pasports which would cost such a huge sum that they'd have to close shop. The inspector seemed genuenly baffled that this was the domain of anyone but multi million euro operations.
Meanwhile most of those old farms you talk about go for more than a million here. Far out of my range. Our natality has been below replacement since the start of the 50's but we keep growing and cutting up the land.
And so our progressive folk who care for our society push for this stuff along with others. Because they want cleaner air, cleaner energy, no invasive species(of tomatoes i guess),couldn't imagine building their own home since they're largely white colar and have lost that knowledge or live in the city and think they're fending of crooked developers with this, want to embrace migration(endlessly),want to prevent animal suffering but push to factory style animal husbandry, etc, etc
It feels like society begets more society, leaves little room for escape and it's complexity and growth is in some aspects self-reinforcing ...so now I want away from it.