There are plenty of reasons to want to opt out of your current situation or location. What does opting out look like for you?
Obviously technology has its pluses and minuses. It’s opened innumerable doors and opportunities. It’s made things faster and more convenient. But in a world dominated by tech giants like Apple, Microsoft, Google parent Alphabet, Amazon.com, Nvidia, Meta Platforms and Tesla, known as the “Magnificent 7” in the stock trading world, one might wonder what does opting out look like. These are all tech-based companies resting at the top of the trading markets.
Clearly, a good amount of wealth and human living relies heavily on this sort of modernization. Unto itself, that’s not a problem.
But there are vulnerabilities. To say the measure of surveillance and tracking is out of hand would be an understatement. It’s creepy, let’s face it; and it’s scary to think that your life can be veritably “turned off” by a flip of a switch if one of your digital metrics are not where it “should” be (whatever that means and whoever defines it).
Maybe advertisers having metadata isn’t so bad for you, but government having it is a bridge too far. Maybe letting certain apps know where you are to receive better service is okay. However government tracking your every move is unacceptable.
So what do you do? What does opting out look like for you when it comes to these downsides of technology and government encroachment?
Going Off Grid
There are people who move their lives off grid. They cash in their corporate chips, get some land, a well, some solar panels, and grow their own food. Others convert a bus and park on some land and basically camp. They’ll go into the nearest town for some things, but otherwise try to break the dependency on modern creature comforts if and wherever possible.
“The Grid” is any centrally planned infrastructure like city utilities such as water, sewage, electricity, and even the internet.
Instead, people collect rain water or drill for a well and they use a leech field or septic system for sewage. They compost to reuse instead of trash collection and have solar panels that don’t feed into the power mainframe. Perhaps they even restrict their internet use to when they go into town or to none at all. Imagine something similar to the Amish.
Novelty of Opting Out
There’s the novelty, which might wear off after a bit… but there’s also the general skepticism of centrally planned grid systems. One need look no further than the failures behind the Flint water system.
It was decided that Flint would get its water from the Flint River rather than the Detroit water system. The latter was treated for corrosion, the former was not. This had the people of Flint, Michigan suffering from lead poisoning and other contaminants.
That alone is horrific. Being $ forced to keep paying a water bill$ while your family is getting sick from it, and putting liens on homes that didn’t pay so they couldn’t move out, made it even worse. According to $ Human Rights Watch$ , as of 2024 Flint still didn’t have clean water.
California Rolling Blackouts
There were no real consequences for this. States like California have regular rolling blackouts due to poor maintenance of their power lines. Would it make more sense to live off grid and have a more predictable energy source than to pay for the privilege of electricity that isn’t so reliable? This just has you restocking your refrigerator semi-regularly.
$ California shuts power down$ to prevent fires rather than clear brush to eliminate the kindling that leads to fires, as we saw in the recent fires in January. If you recall, the Maui fires were caused by poorly maintained power lines since maintenance was secondary to alternative energy promotion. Now factor in all the data centers that will be cropping up to support AI. What does that means in terms of available energy for private homes and businesses.
Opt Out of the Central Grid
Moving off grid eliminates those factors from affecting you directly. Your dependence on a central grid is greatly reduced and that can offer a sense of freedom and independence for many. It’s not easy or necessarily inexpensive, but if you’re going to toil, you want it to pay off as close to your terms as possible.
Utilities is not the only issue. It’s also food supply. People don’t trust how food is cultivated. Moreover, the government recently $ subsidized the culling of millions of chickens$ over a spook about bird flu, making egg prices soar!
If you have your own chickens, this isn’t as much of a problem. You can have a regular store of pasture-raised laying hens and pay the cost of upkeep and protection. Maybe it’s the same as buying them, but it’s still one less worry.
The Egg Shortage
$ Tractor Supply$ CEO Hal Lawton confirmed to investors on an earnings call this week that the nationwide egg shortage sparked an unbelievable surge in chick demand at stores nationwide.
Tractor Supply Co., a rural retailer best known for its animal feed and ranching equipment offerings, expects to sell a record amount of chicks this year as customers expand their broods and first-timers seek to avoid record-setting egg prices.
Those novice poultry farmers are attempting to “take more control of their food supply,” Tractor Supply Chief Executive Officer Hal Lawton said during the company’s first-quarter earnings call Thursday, after egg prices more than doubled this year.
What does opting out look like? Does it look like creating distance between you and all the central planning (and its failures)?
Expatriation
There are some who are just tired of what’s happening in their home countries, whether it’s political, economic, or both. The surveillance, the regulations, the inflation, all of that is enough to get some people to just call it quits on the country itself rather than the grid.
And why wouldn’t they? If they can earn the same and live well below their means, while dodging some of the developed world’s overdeveloped power grabs, why not? In fact, people from expensive developed countries are routinely finding a retirement refuge in other, less expensive countries like $ Portugal, Greece, Malaysia, and Costa Rica$ .
Low-Tech as a Solution
There’s something to be said for having tech in a country that isn’t as technologically advanced. There’s a level of safety to it in that they generally don’t have the bandwidth to do what countries like the UK, China, or the US do to its people. Granted, you did have the case of Brazil and X (formerly known as Twitter) go down, where X was banned in Brazil for not having a legal representative in Brazil… however, that looked to be a set-up for someone to get carted off to jail.
Fortunately, that whole brouhaha was resolved with a $ $5 million fine$ . But still, it’s understandable why someone might think to leave a country for that reason alone. Given what the $ UK$ and $ Germany$ are going through with their censorship regimes, it’s not so baffling to think they are looking for somewhere else to go.
Each country has its pros and cons, of course. And each government comes with some sort of baggage, but if there is a country that is more conducive to your lifestyle, maybe the battle to live your life doesn’t have to be as hard.
There are not only benefits to living abroad generally, there are tax benefits if you are coming from a high tax country. What does opting out look like for you? Is it packing up and $ moving out of the country$ altogether?
The In-Between
Moving off-grid and leaving the country are very massive changes and not everyone can take those plunges. So then what? You don’t have to be a total slave to the grid or the country you’re in. There are still ways to quietly create distance that aren’t very expensive, and don’t require you to give everything up.
Privacy:
Take a little extra precaution with your privacy. Start with a VPN and maybe an LLC in state like New Mexico.
Liabilities:
Find a way to restructure your assets and work to shelter some of your assets from highly litigious people and government seizure. Getting a trust is a great start.
Food:
That’s going to take some effort, but there are some things you can cultivate yourself like say an herb garden, and there are things you can try to source locally like milk and eggs. There are even services that allow you to buy half and full cows that are fully butchered, and you stock your freezer with it.
Maybe you can’t escape the national politics or economy entirely, but it’s worth taking whatever measures you can. What does opting out look like for you? Maybe it’s in phases.
