"Make America Great Again has only Just Begun" Trump agrees. Permaculture is the Answer! Woooooooo! Are you Prepped to Garden?

submitted by RelianceTrust from (youtu.be)

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[–]ReeferMadness 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

I'm really into self sufficiency, but I realize now that it's not an improvement on society. I grew up poor and had to figure out how to do everything or it just wouldn't get done. I always had a hard time understanding how people can get by without tools. How can you afford to have a plumber fix a leaky faucet? A mechanic fix every flat tire? An electrician install a ceiling fan? I reasoned that they must go without doing and having a lot of things I have that they just can't afford to pay for.

I extrapolated from that paradigm the idea that if I am so much better off with basic handyman skills that every little thing I can learn to do will have massive compounding benefit. That the best way to live is to do everything myself.

As I got older I learned that there is a reason rich people dont live like that, and it's not because all the poor people are so much smarter. And it's not simply because they are so rich that they would rather pay to have someone else do it. The reality is that specialization is extremely powerful. If you change your own brakes it will take you several hours once you factor in all the time it takes to look up part numbers, order brakes, find all the tools, and do the dozens of little things that add up. As a mechanic you can do that in 15 min.

If you spent the time that it takes you to learn those hundreds of skills, used the money that it cost you to get all those tools, and used them to become a professional at something you end up being far more productive, and far more wealthy.

A society that has 100 specialists vs a society with 100 mavrics with 100 skillsets will be far far more productive and wealthy.

And a person who is a master of one craft will be far more wealthy than a craftsman at 100 skills.

[–]Zapped 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

This is a great write-up. It's exactly what I learned later in life than I could have. A specialist is far more valuable than a jack-of-all-trades. There is nothing wrong with hobbies, but time is, arguably, the most valuable of our tools. A person highly skilled at their trade will do a better job in less time that someone who is not in the top half of their trade. I can add that there is something that life experience instills in a person that can be gained by no other means. This can positively affect any and every part of your life between the professional and personal.

[–]RelianceTrust[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Self-sufficiency is a great improvement to society if those self-sufficient intentioned people also have morals and want to contribute to their immediate communities.

At any rate, that was never the point of this post anyway! Cheers!

[–]ReeferMadness 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

There is nothing moral about contributing to a community that does not contribute to you. That is the logic of a leach who wants to paint those who do not submit to being their victim as the bad guy. Taking more than you give is immoral.

At any rate, how exactly is a community better off with everyone spending 10 times more time on fixing their own car rather than having a mechanic fix everyone's car while everyone else does a job they are 10x better at?

[–]RelianceTrust[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Idk, I never said any of that. You are just arguing with yourself about something no one else ever mentioned lol.

However, it does appear like you are confusing the term "self-sufficiency" with "self-reliance".

Good luck! I think someday you may find the answers you seek, probably from someone who was actually even discussing such a topic in the first place lol

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

As someone who isn't really good at mechanical things, this never really occurred to me but damn if that doesn't really fit the "insightful" upvote. Although I gotta say, I replaced my starter and while it took way longer than it would a mechanic, it also saved me $300 and that's still a wise use of my time. The time involved in earning that $300 would have been more considerable.

We had a Nissan Sentra I couldn't get at the starter. Even with every extension I had I just couldn't reach a bolt. Besides that one damn bolt. If I knew how often that starter was going to go I would have bought the damn tool. That car is the reason we will never buy a Nissan again. Not just the starter, but a whole host of problems. Real POS car. One day it got towed and we didn't care to go get it.

If you spent the time that it takes you to learn those hundreds of skills, used the money that it cost you to get all those tools, and used them to become a professional at something you end up being far more productive, and far more wealthy.

Time is money. Except people usually misapply the concept. That time spent learning and doing things isn't cutting into your money making potential for most people. It's free time I'd otherwise be drinking a beer and shit posting on forums. Where I'd lose time overall in my above example is bc that $300 might take days to earn to pay a mechanic but just part of a day to actually do it.

I do agree the tool costs are not always worth it, and as per my story again, you don't know whether you'll need that tool just once or a dozen times. So you can't always know if it'll work out. My bud used to rent tools a lot, or make liberal use of return policies. Or there's always the Chinesium at Harbor Freight.

a lot of things I have that they just can't afford to pay for.

I think that often when I see full bar parking lots. That's a lot of fucking overhead on my drinking.