Family died in Rockies after trying to live ‘off the grid,’ official says
Two sisters and a teenage son moved to a Colorado campsite last July, living off canned food. They had wanted to take a break from a world that distressed them, a local coroner said.
This is very sad, and preventable.
Reading the article it sounds like this woman unfortunately just spent too much time on social media reading all the doom and gloom of the media and people amplifying it in places like reddit, Twitter and Facebook.
wanted to live in a land disconnected from the world, which she viewed as chaotic and dangerous
she and her teenage son could be happy and safe away from the news, the viruses, the politics of modern-day America
had been “discouraged with the state of the world”
Rebecca Vance’s fears intensified during the pandemic
Consuming too much of this crap has really affected peoples mental health, from Trump, to BLM riots, racism, covid, it’s broken some people who spend too much time on social media.
So much so that they think the only way out is to hide away from society.
Reminder, friends, to take frequent and extensive breaks from social media for your own mental health.
The teenager — whom Jara described as a smart and caring son who had been a “mama’s boy” and had been home-schooled
The only food found at their shelter was a single package of ramen
Please, I knew people who were exactly the same back in the 90s, there are always people who go down the paranoia rabbit hole and don't come back out.
Lot of them were praying for the collapse because that's when God would raise them above the wicked heathens and sodomites because they're secretly special but everyone else is too evil to admit it.
The BLM "riots" were 99% protests where the only violence was on the part of the cops harassing protesters.
100%. Some people exploited the riots to break into stores but they were the significant minority, and additionally some were outed as bad actors who actually didn't support the movement.
You can't lump in blm riots in there, those were protests stoked to violence by police officers, so what you should be saying it's, corrupt police forces resulting in blm protests
Maybe I'm being too generous, but I was reading it as this person consumed too much media, including lies and exaggerations, and it warped their world view. I guess I read it as a topic like and not calling them riots themselves. Kinda like the "race riot" in Tusla, but idk.
Man gotta love when those protesters storm the local grocery store to fight social injustice. BLM!
Not reading Twitter has a tangible impact on my anxiety. You can feel it rise when I used it, fell away when I stopped.
I haven't used Facebook in almost 2 years now and it's so nice
And remember that despite some unique large scale issues we have today, there were much, MUCH worse times to be alive. “Majority of Americans live a peaceful life and die at 70-80” is not reportable news but still largely true.
Things are far from perfect, there are major issues, but I’d choose to live today than almost the entirety of human existence previously.
There were definitely way more violent times in the US: there were pandemics, there were revolts, there were wars. We live in an amazing time but it takes a bit of grand perspective to realize that all the bad news is easy to see in a matter of minutes. You can have death and destruction delivered right into your home in a matter of milliseconds. It’s much much harder to see all the wonderful things happening in the world
she and her teenage son could be happy and safe away from the news, the viruses, the politics of modern-day America
Just close the apps. That's literally all it takes to avoid like 90% of the crap that she's talking about. But the viruses.... did she think those don't make it to the forest or something?
I hate how people talk about off grid living as something you can pull off alone, that's difficult even if you allow for buying food and installing all kinds of fancy infrastructure in your home.
The truth is that properly sustainable and reliable off-grid living requires a small community, because you need a lot of labour.
Right? Living off grid used to be called being banished by your tribe and it was basically a death sentence.
Other people are annoying as fuck, but I recognize I need them to live.
Casuals ruin everything
You nailed it. And these folks were simply living off canned food and ramen... For how long?
Communal living is great if you get the right mix of people with a shared vision... In the right location... With the right resources... To be successful it seems you need to have a pretty organic evolution of the process and attract people with shared vision. The dark side of this devolves into cultism; the brighter side is a sustainable living and sense of belonging.
Now there are people who live off the grid in places like Alaska (just watch Life Below Zero) and do it successfully... But these people grew up doing that or studied and prepared A LOT. And man, doing that solo is not easy. None of them seemed to be super healthy or cheerful.
In the past it took entire villages who still engaged in trade. Even back then you were on the grid even if it was a stone age one.
Somebody read Little House on the Prairie once and said, "I can do that!" I'm joking, but only slightly.
And everyone that wanted to live off the grid wanted to get away from people.
That should be the key takeaway. Prepping or off-grid that isn't at the community level is at best one step away from disaster.
We should learn from Lemmy, federated community is the way.
I am reminded of that guy who did that in Alaska solo, for like 30 years Dick Perniky or some such I believe his name was. He took video of wildlife and got it edited. I think he was 50 or there abouts when he left the lower 48.
I wish people would realize that humans only got to where we are because we are a COMMUNAL species. We developed complex language and tool usage BECAUSE we work together. Being "off the grid" is usually isolationist and therefore extremely dangerous. We need community in order to develop and manage the resources we need to survive.
Also, we're living in kind of an unprecedented part of history that enables is to be independent of other people in ways never before possible. So that gives people a very distorted sense of that, a lack of any notion of the importance of community. And of course this "independence" is achieved by a complete dependence on this huge ubiquitous economic machine.
I think sometimes it's the extreme dependence that makes the attempt at off the grid freedom seem more attractive; it's weird how the technology seems to both take away so much freedom and yet make people feel independent at the same time
theres a reason why banishment was historically a death sentence. It took communities to prosper!
It's dangerous to go full off the grid, but in reality it's never complete isolation. In Leave No Trace/My Abandonment (based on a true story) the father relied on disability checks to buy goods and educated his daughter using encyclopedias.. In Walden Thorough is living alone in a remote area, but it's not like he's completely cut off from the benefits of society and has visitors somewhat regularly. I think there's a difference between trying to minimize the brunt of society 24/7 vs going full isolation.
I'm a world of growing instability where the inputs for modern lifehave their supply consistency threatened, learning some basic survival skills is not a bad thing. Many countries will likely have huge energy, food, and water shortfalls in the coming years. Germany is burning what amounts to wet coal to make up for losing Russian oil. Ukraine was one of the world's biggest wheat producers. Russia produced a lot of the world's fertilizer. There are reasons to learn how to live without the entire support network most of us take for granted.
Though you should be pretty decent at living off grid before commiting to it.
Don't assume that you're cougar-proof or that 40°F and below weather with no real insulation is something you can save yourself from with enough bootstraps.
Well, why aren't we practicing that communal specialty into you know, bettering society from it's current dumpster fire state? Or is that just too tall of a task?
Humans usually live in peace in groups smaller than 18. Above that, troubles hints. @nieceandtows said 40 &up here ... i like (her//his) comment.
I feel for the kid, who got dragged down by the hubris of his mom. It's troubling that we've grown so disconnected from the world we've built; we dont feel like we benefit from it at all. We can all sit here and shame this mother for being neglectful and stupid, and yet the feelings she had of a chaotic life with no upside...that's so fucking common right now.
Its a commonly floated idea among my circles, and by me personally, that we kinda just want to fuck off and build a comfy commune somewhere not too hot, not too cold, just away from cities, and try to be as self-sufficient as possible. Just a small group of friends and family. It's kinda what I'm saving up for, if I'm honest, because buying a city house is just.... Prohibitively expensive for what it is.
Probably easier to survive in a commune of a few dozen than it would be in tents with 3 people. But yeah I think a lot of us have had dreams of fucking off to the wilds to live like a hermit.
I would probably last like 3 days and only if I'm being extremely optimistic.
I mean, we kind of did this with lemmy right? Same thing with people escaping British rule to come to USA?
The problem is that 'we' didn't build this world. Our society was (is) shaped by people who's situation and life experience have very little in common with the average person, and yet we continue to let them shape policy to their own benefit and our detriment because... money? Or something? Idk.
What a terrible way to go. They sounded less prepared than even Chris McCandless.
I can't believe I'm recommending reality TV, but Alone is a fairly good representation of being alone in the wilderness with no resources. It is extremely unpleasant.
Alone is a great show. But I’ve got to tell you, while I watch and know I do not (currently) possess the skills to do what those folks do, there is a draw for me to want to do it. I mean I’m sure I’m over-romanticizing the thing to an extent, and - again - I know enough about me to know I can’t do it today, but there’s a distinct pull to want to.
Love this video essay related to this topic
I think many people have that pull to nature, but most that do it and survive recognize that living without the infrastructure of the rest of humanity is at least extremely challenging and so will thoroughly prepare.
I would guess a good portion of US adults, these days, have no idea how to survive away from modern convenience for any length of time
Into the Wild was a cautionary tail that for some reason people romanticize...
The difference between what I took away when I first read that book and the 2nd or 3rd time I watched the movie was night and day.
I feel bad the kid he had a privileged shit life. But going out into the middle of the Alaskan wilderness to survive with no formal training was punching way above his weight...
The thing that dawned on me when I watched it as an older adult was his sheer selfishness. Smug, cliched little prick. His father's violence aside, what about the rest of his family?
How did they leave a car at a campsite for months and not have any kind of search and rescue triggered?
My buddy got lost on a trail once and had to do an shitty night out in the woods, the next morning there were forest service personnel out looking for him because they spotted his car parked overnight with no camp permit posted.
I thought this was standard practice at every national and state park. An unattended vehicle is seen as a sure sign that someone is in trouble. I guess I’m never going hiking in Colorado, cause if I get in trouble the CO forest personnel are apparently just going to leave me for dead.
Yeah, that's insane. Also, now I know where to go if I ever need to store my vehicle for extended periods of time!
It wasn't a park, so unless someone filed a missing person report the car itself wouldn't necessarily trigger anything since people abandon all kinds of crazy shit on national forests.
Why didn't they just get back in the car and head back to civilization?
Probably froze overnight while sleeping. Between hypothermia and malnutrition, sometimes people just never wake up.
The roads would have gotten buried with snow. One snowy day would do it. By the time they realized it, too late. Those forest service roads are not plowed.
They must have made some sort of effort to hide the vehicle, or park it somewhere it wouldn't be questioned for some time. If the goal is to get away from people, you don't want your vehicle to cause someone to come looking for you.
I feel like too many people do not respect nature. They romanticize it, and that’s a very dangerous thing. They forget that you need actual skills to survive in the wild. This didn’t have to happen.
That has gotten worse with all the "survivalist" shows acting like its easy to survive with just a knife and fig leaf in the wild.
They see a show grab some gear and off they go. Not realizing those shows are often fake and when not, the star has many years of actual experience and training.
I didn't watch a lot of him but I enjoyed Les Stroud's Survivorman.
Red in tooth and claw...
I'd say they increased their distress, they were naive too. Living off the land is a major commitment and requires skill and knowledge. People in the past still used trade and tribes to survive that way. Even back then they didn't try to live in something as flimsy as a tent. Also, going 100% solo was a death sentence. Reminds me of Chris McCandless ("Into the Wild").
Reminds me of the Netflix series Alone. Only one out of ~12 people make it to 100 days, and they're all experienced survivalists
Sounds like this wasn’t thought through and was perhaps an emotional decision. True off-grid living takes lots of knowledge and prep. Surviving 100 days is basically conservation of resources to last till the e d. Off grid still requires shelter and resources.
For once though, their motives seem more noble/less crazy than most of the headlines. Heck, a bunch of us are here on Lemmy cause we got fed up with a system and want something better. At least they wanted something better.
The tent was what got me. A fatal choice. Tragic, but avoidable.
Another article I read stated that the incomplete beginnings of a lean-to or similar shelter were present at the camp, seems like they tried to build something more permanent but ran out of energy to finish it. Which is why you build your shelter first.
Once I watched a season of alone I dropped all illusions about running into the woods to live the naturalist life.
If anyone is thinking "lol I could do that" just watch alone, it is HARD out there in the wilds.
In the show Alone the take away is that fat beats skills. All of the super fit "survival experts" with 5% body fat are being carried out on stretchers in a couple of weeks. The 300lb dude with minimal skills out lasts all of the experts.
The environment just doesn't have enough fat calories available. Skill won't change this.
For the first few seasons sure but that Jordan guy that won season 6 was all skill and attitude.
If you can’t at the very least identify what mushrooms you can or can not eat in the forest, you should not go out there to live. I 100% can not, so my dumb ass will never try to go live off grid out in the woods. I can’t find food and I acknowledge that. More folks need to realize their limitations.
For real though, they are straight up experts, and after 60 days, 90% of them are on the verge of death lol
Bullet points of what's the ass kicker?
If they had read a few more books on survival, this would have been prevented.
Usually those books tell you that you need provisions through winter and if you don't, you need to get those provisions from someplace.
Nobody typically lives 100% off the grid the first year or more unless they're a super expert.
You also need someone who isn't with you to know where you are and arrange check-ins of some sort, or at least give them a time frame of when they can expect to hear from you again if all is well.
...the whole family?
Like, one didn't die and the rest of them didn't go "hmm this isn't a good idea..."???
Looks like it was probably from hypothermia or malnourishment or a bit of both. They could have died the same night, very sad.
The fact that a hiker found one and the other two weren't found until the next day makes me think that one left to try and get help, froze to death, and the other 2 died waiting.
Apparently this was during winter. If they got hit by bad weather unprepared, they might not have had any options left once they realized they were fucked.
First rule of the Rocky's, don't camp / hike outside in the winter, you will not survive.
Even with a well-stocked cabin, the cold alone will sap your energy and kill you slowly.
Trying to survive it in a tent isn't mere ignorance, it's outright stupidity.
I just feel bad for the kid. Mom wanted to get off the grid but Colorado has a history of killing those who try it without a lot of money and infrastructure to support it. Go off the grid in like South Carolina, not Colorado.
That's rather silly, as long as people can hear you shouting it's almost always going to be safe no matter what you do.
Believe in many stupid trending ideas and you will end up killing yourself and your family. This is not the first time and it will happen again.
Indeed... this is a major life change, not just a "we'll pop off the grid for a week to chill out and definitely not die of botulism".
"How long were they out there, sheriff?"
"I'd say 2... Maybe 3 hours?"
Imagine not giving up when out of food and cold
Imagine not giving up when out of food and cold
Running out of food would bother me more than running out of cold
With the way climate change is going, we'll be running out of cold pretty soon.
running out of cold
Lmao
During winter, in bad weather it might take a while to get back to civilization if you are somewhere out there. I mean sure you should always plan for stuff like that and be prepared (and look for help well before running out), but this really wasn't a well planned thing from the start.
Technically, they’re still off the grid.
Maybe under it?
I understand many people are frightened in this strange world, but this is outright murder-suicide by stupidity. The kid didn't know what's happening to him. Don't run away, change the world. Or -at least- try to.
Extremely predictable outcome of extremely stupid choices.
I don't think living "off-the-grid" is a stupid choice, but doing so without planning and preparation is just plain irresponsible.
For most people, it’s going to be tough. It takes a very high level of dedication and skills.
Are you trying to "well, actually" me? There were a myriad of choices made here, all under the guise of "living off the grid." I very specifically used a plural word, not a singular one. Choices. All of them stupid, including the one you protest as not stupid. It is made stupid by way of their sheer incompetence, unpreparedness, lack of education and training in the matter, and their sheer stubbornness to not call it quits when reality descended upon them.
I feel like Humans don't understand how fragile we are
They should all have Fragile branded on their foreheads at birth.
Think they rule the world and then a tiny mosquito wipes them out.
Starvation and cold. So sad
Well, I guess the world no longer distress them :/
amprim go brrr
Just heartbreaking!
"living off the grid" is a privileged, spoiled white person idea. The amount of physical space and resources it takes to pull off requires you to be rich -- or having someone else pay for it (national forests etc).
We are communal, social beings. We band together for good reason. And going "out on your own" is literally impossible anyway -- you're taking the knowledge you gained living communally til now, plus books tools etc.
What nonsense. Preppers and survivalists are mostly right wing, it takes that level of self deceit to attempt.
Yeah there's lefty/hippy ones too, and I know a bit about some, was around and took part in partial attempts.
Don't get sick or break a bone!
Of course you couldn't resist blaming white people for this. Actually sad because I agree with the rest, but what do race have to do with that? such an American thing.
Have you ever been to the US? Do you know anything about our history? Race and class are so deeply intertwined in this country, it's going to take a lot more than some non-Americans mad on the internet, telling us to just quit bringing up race, to fix it.
And don't mistake this as excusing our deeply ingrained racism, I just tire of people who have never spent a day in the US thinking that if we just "stop talking about race" then all of our race issues will magically go away, when it's just not that simple.
Ah, actually there are places where many people live like that. I know such places (one, namely republic of Artsakh, has become worse in the last couple of years due to partially being occupied by savage racist apes thinking it's inside their "territorial integrity").
It's just that this requires a set of skills most don't possess, having grown in big cities or places not too different from big cities for this purpose.
EDIT: About "level of decision" - nothing really prevents you from gaining the same. Just going to live "off the grid" with pretty much "on the grid" mindset is something leftists do more. Being prepared and having technical means to get to a doctor is important.
It's just that this requires a set of skills most don't possess
Thank you. I hate these comments implying that this is one hundred percent impossible or even that you need to be a rich person to accomplish it. I did it for a short time. But I went to town to get water and food, it's not like you need to have every single thing be completely self sustaining (you can, but it's not like it "doesn't count" if you go get something). It was uncomfortable and hard, but that also contributed to what made it so rewarding. It was one of the best times in my life.
It is stupid to try to live in the wild without knowing what you're doing though. The area I was in had good weather, close to a town etc. It wasn't at the top of a mountain or anything.
So sad but at the same time LOfuckingL are people dumb!
Oh my, finally a subinstance drama 🍿