Peace and quiet.

40 old me looking at a screen with SSMS and Azure: Instead of an engineer like my father I should have been a tailor like my mom... Or a carpenter...

It's never too late to enter carpentry. I know quite a few programmers who do carpentry as their main hobby. Something about the math and the amount of careful planning is highly transferrable, I guess.
- Whenever I try building something with wood, I get so frustrated that it's not version controlled. In software, I can fearlessly try dumb stuff because I can just roll it back if it didn't work.
- Assuming you can afford all the stuff to do it.
- Nah fuck carpentry. You’ll just end up destroying your body to make shit money.
Don't be a carpenter. Splinters.
At 35 I'm beginning to realize it's good I don't have an office job. Finnaly found a good employer and happy driving through the country.
- After traveling all over for work, having freedom to somewhat set my own schedule as long as I meet deadlines, I know I would lose my mind in a traditional office.
  There's not much I hate more work-wise than sitting around after the work is done so you can get your hours, because someone on the crew thinks that's more moral than leaving and they're a snitch.
- CongraFuckinLations I officially envy you.
- Honestly I am thankful all the time that people are able to find jobs that suit them best. I am a graphic designer by trade, and working from home has basically been the greatest creative boon I've ever had in my life, lol. The routine, access to nature, and just general lack of distractions has been incredible.

They forgot the whole genocide thing which is kinda necessary for this to work out

This is why we colonise space, at least the planets without aliens living there.
- Almost every colony ever: gets oppressed and exploited, fights for independence, gains sovereignty, becomes either a tense ally or a hostile rival to their former empire
  Earthlings: "maybe we should colonize space"
- Have fun up there i guess
- A planet where no conservatives are allowed. We put them on rockets to the Conservatives only planet.
Also the whole industrialization, privatization, and rise of capitalism thing in Europe that led to successive waves of emigrants leaving or being coerced from their homelands. I think in general people don’t leave their communities and families without some kind of direct or indirect violence.
Also homesteads weren't exactly a great place to be. No infrastructure and tornado heaven. People lived there because it was their only choice.
I mean if it would've been empty land it could've worked likes this. I don't think genocide is a necessary part of it

If you weren't rich you couldn't benefit much from "most advanced civilization" at the time. most of the them were really poor and desperate and gave everything just for ticket across the Atlantic with the hope for a better life.

The thing that I hate even more about all this, I could afford to do this. But you are not legally allowed to live on your own land in the UK without planning permission. I think it is vaguely comparable to zoning in the US.

We still have parts where you can disappear into the woods and just sort of fuck off forever. Alaska has the Remote Recreational Cabin Site program as a replacement for the Homestead Act and there's parts of the state so remote you could essentially do whatever you want and nobody would ever know. Provided "whatever you want" involves freezing in the dark wilderness.
I'm sure some of our other low-density states have similar things going on, and zoning laws vary wildly.
- Hey hey hey, the wilderness is only dark in the winter and you won't freeze to death if you don't get wet and are wearing modern winter coats+snowpants+gloves.
the UK is a tiny nation with very little actual nature left, it should not be surprising at all that they don't want tons of people building cabins in the woods and turning the entire fucking island into a single suburb of london
- People living in cabins is a long way from being a suburb, most people should be put off by lack of being connected to the grid too.
  I can understand limits of what you can build and we do have that as well, you are completely allowed to build a cabin in your patch of woodland, up to certain size limits anyway before you do need permission. Tents are also fine. These can be left there for years just fine as well. But you can't live in them.

I live in the country.

It's never peace and quiet. It's constantly filled with the noise of shitty neighbors blasting music at full volume cause they don't understand that sound travels. Then there are the gunshots every damn morning from dipshit shooting in their field. I'm constantly worried one day a missed shot is gonna come through my window.

Let's not even get started on when they brun the fucking fields (sugar cane) and the entire area is covered is astringent smoke and ash.

Living in town, people understood that neighbors exist and at least attempted to be considerate about it; plus, I never had to worry about catching strays. Also, life was so much nicer, not needing to fucking drive everywhere just to do basic things or go get something to eat. Being able to walk or catch a bus was so much more convenient and stress-free than needing to drive myself. I was able to have a lot more free time since I wasn't spending it on an overlong commute just to get anything done.

A decade ago my wife and I quit our jobs packed our kids and stuff and moved 7000kms to our now rural homestead. Our closest neighbor is 2km away. Town and groceries is a half hour drive one way. We have a huge garden and laying hens. We raise our own chickens for meat as well as quail and rabbits. Our kids hunt and fish and play outside. Like we did when we were kids.

It's fucking amazing y'all.

Our closest neighbor is 2km away.
ahhhhhhhhhhhhh that sounds great
A 30min drive to town is perfect. That sounds incredible.
- If I'm any more than a 15 minute walk to my nearest grocer I consider it hell. Fuck needing to pay insurance, maintenance, and gas costs just to be able to perform basic chores.
  Needing to waste an hour just to get groceries sounds so dumb.

I have been working for many years to find the right balance for me.

Currently, by day I am a software engineer, but in my off time I am basically a recreational farmer — as in keeper of animals, not gardening. Though, plants are often involved in service of the animals.

I live in suburbia and am pretty ideally located as far as local resources and infrastructure. So I brought a little bit of the wilderness to me. Currently spending a bunch of time on my koi pond.

Unfortunately we’re living in a world that no longer has much unowned/unsettled land. Everything has been bought and hoarded by the ultra wealthy.

that was already true in 1492.
the land wasn’t "unsettled" before the colonizers arrived.
- Well yes, but obviously there was some point in history where that wasn’t true. You just need to look back further than modern history.

This is something I will never understand. You want all of the trappings of civilization without being part of it? You want your cake and to eat it too.

Right? That kind of mentality is just selfish. It shows that someone doesn't know how to live with others and wants to make that everyone else's problem.
Lol if you want to go live outside of civilization then go ahead; just don't expect things like electricity, roads, and running water unless you can build it yourself. Facilitating all these antisocial people living out in bumbfuck is a massive drain on resources and fucks things up for the rest of us.
Most of civilization isn't needed for the good parts to exist. The invention of the steam motor should've resulted in a ridiculously sharp decline in population, as most labor was no longer needed to feed the population.
thing is that you can have your cake and eat it too, you just have to make some very slight compromises and be clever about things.

If thats what you think happened, then you dont get it. readsettlers.org

I live about 15 miles outside of a small town (~20k) in a trailer park on the side of a mountain. Been here 6 months and it is AMAZING. Super quiet at night, can see the stars and it has a great view of the adjacent mountains nearby.

It'll most likely be awhile, but the plan is to save for a small piece of property with a similar rural location. In my teens and twenties, I used to think that I'd live in the big city, but as I got into my late 30s I couldn't stand being in the city much. I don't mind being able to visit occasionally, but city life just isn't for me anymore. Too big, busy and noisy. Give me a nice, peaceful spot where I can read and enjoy nature quietly.

I relate to this a lot. Grew up in a small town, excitedly moved into a big city when I went to college, then bounced around cities for work for a while, and now that I'm married and have kids, I keep dreaming about living further out where we'd have more space and peace.
Do you get around by walking the old school way, or do you use these newfangled automobiles that are killing the planet?
- Well, in these parts we ride bears to and from places. They're like big, furry tractors :D

Its always a good idea to consult your local fat checker to verify these claims.

Me, Local Fact Checker (who is also very tired and lazy): "seems fine"
my fat is prettyy high, sadly, although these lads had higher fats

I would love to move to some US state with lots of forested country and go build a cute little homestead. Work part time to buy things I need.

Mmm...my dream. Also BTW I'm in my early 20's.

Canada has huge tracts of land in the Canadian wilderness.
get a gun though. the neighbors can be a real bear.
- I need to move to Central or South America. I would love to live like that but I can't stand the cold. This past winter just about did me in mentally.
  It's just a dream though. Got family that I love tying me down here.
- same in Alaska, we just call it alaskan wilderness and have for profit healthcare (it sucks, especially mental healthcare).
  The neighbors here seem to moostly avoid confrontation.
Someone owns the forest and you owe them rent
- Yes and no. Lot of cheap land out there, very little in taxes.
  The bigger problem is someone owns the supplies you need to survive, and there's not a lot of jobs out there to make ends meet.
hope you find the right partner, and a good water source

And this is why you have car-centric infrastructure and suburbia.

Pretty sure that's a post 1900 invention. Trains were the hot stuff in the 1800s

Didn't the Puritans leave England because they really hated the Catholics and wanted to change the Church of England to not be as Catholic but the government of the day told them to fuck off?

The Puritans weren't the only or even primary colonists, but yes that was their motivation. That and their barbaric faith practices were quite literally illegal.. in medieval England of all places. Children weren't even considered people yet but how the Puritans treated them was bad enough to be made illegal.
Yea, kinda.
More that the Puritans wanted everyone else to confirm to their stricter standards and ethics, and the people at the time were fed up and ran them out.
Also they hated taxes. Basically libertarians with a different name.

50 y/o: get the fuck out of my cave.

Then you start talking about colonizing space and people flip the fuck out

we should totally leave the earth and go to the moon and mars and all that, I just don't want Elon leading us there. And ofc there is gunna be environmental effects from all those rockets, but ngl if most of humanity left the earth, the earth might be better off
- Yea, but like locust, we'd be saving earth and dooming dozens of other planets.

i don't like most people. i don't like clutter. i don't like distractions. i don't like hassles. i don't need much. i'm with OP.

56 countries and counting. No I am not couch or hostel surfing. Full time employee with about 1.5 months of vacay, so we travel a lot to every corner of the world. It's different looking at things in YouTube vs real life.

Do people here know who this Fat Electrician guy is? Because I’m vaguely familiar with him and his YouTube channel and my instinct is that the majority of us here on lemmy were rather the opposite of him at 15 (libertarian phase or some other antisocial ignorance) and now around 30+ years old the disposition is much more ‘the modern city is in so many ways a marvel of cooperation and achievement.’

From my encounters he is a ‘society bad, the end’ type and not at all a ‘capitalism bad’ type. I guess that is lumpen proletariat? Anyway I’d love to be proven wrong but I was already too red flagged and turned off to dig further into his content.