Are we really free?
Often times, I get the urge to go build a cabin somewhere remote and live there or get some land away from the city and live off it. I guess Im not really satisfied with how things are at present. Not necessarily about my life, but life in general. AI being "king" and taking away our jobs and professions, algorithms made and molded to take as much of our attention as possible, scarce moral fibre amongst people, empathy being a stranger of an emotion, and in general useless slop being spout ad infinitum with different flavor LLMs, are some of the things amongst the usual daily struggle, making one feel the need for some distance from all of this. So are we actually able to escape? Lets see.
I have tried making the escape. Not in a physical sense but in a more of a theoretical, prepare before execute kind of way. Bare in mind all of the hurdles are from an European perspective and Euro laws, so this might not resonate with someone from the "land of the free". So lets say one decides to go into the woods somewhere, find a piece of land, build a small cottage and live off the surrounding environment.
A simple life in the forest
You would think in order to prepare, you would need to gather some materials and tools in order to work the land and build a shelter, but you would be mistaken. First and foremost, you need to read the law. The law clearly states, you cannot, under any circumstances, build on state land without a permit. In order to get a permit, you will need to own the land. Makes sense so far. So we buy some piece of land hypothetically. Whats next? In order to build on that land, the same land needs to be qualified as a "buildable land". Can any land be buildable? Not by the letter of the law. In my country, there is a local body who decides which land should be buildable, and if its buildable, decide exactly how big of a building can be put there and where on the plot. For example lets say they work on a neighborhood, and they decide all of the houses will be 10m x 10m. They draw the exact square where you are permitted to build on your property. You cannot build anywhere even on your own property. You need to build exactly in the 10m x 10m square that some government employee drew for you. Lets get back to the woods now to put things in context. Rarely you will find buildable land there. Maybe some expensive area for some luxury holiday houses will be put on auction from time to time but thats it. You cannot just go, pick a piece of land, and build and live there. Even if no one else owns it (except the state), and its not being worked or used by anyone for hundreds of years. Not even if you keep the surrounding nature intact and build with materials that are not bad for the environment. If you build, you will face criminal charges, your building will be forcefully vacated, demolished, and you might do time in prison. Hmm, looks grim to go this path. Lets go and buy a piece of land somewhere far from the city. Not in the suburbs or in a village. Just a piece of lands thats for sale used for agriculture outside of civilization.
Building a homestead
We find a nice, cheap piece of land that some very kind folk sell to us. They have been using it as an orchard. There are apples, pears, apricots, all kinds of trees in there. Even some walnuts and hazelnuts here and there for some nice shade. Looks great and feels great. Lets plan some one or two bedroom log cabin that we will live in and go from there. Lands not buildable here too though. Its a workable land, not a buildable one. Lets try and get a permit to build. So if you go and ask in the local municipality government offices, you will find an answer thats not fitting the dream. You might be able to get a permit for a building, but only if its a building that will produce some food or help you in your farming. A barn, greenhouse, hay storage etc. No way legally to build even a one room cabin for a small family. Another roadblock. What are our options? What if we say fuck it? What if we just build something anyway? Illegally. Under the radar on our land surrounded by trees and understanding neighbors. We want our freedom and we're going to get it.
An anarchist lifestyle
So we have our land and we have our home. We move there a happy family of three. We tend to our chickens, we grow our vegetables, we pick our fruit and live a simple, happy life. Naturally, we decide to homeschool our child. The law says thats illegal too. If a child does not finish high school in a formal school approved by the ministry of education, it will be unable to legally work, get a driving license, start a business, and on top of it all, the parents face prison time again for child neglect and possibly their child taken away from them. Again, this path leads nowhere desirable.
Considering our options
So I ask the question again: are we really free? If we don't own our games, digital media, if we don't really own our land, if we are forced to use credit cards and every transaction we make is logged, if we can't even choose how we live our life but must conform to the system and its design of how we should operate and live, then how free are we? The illusion of choice is always there but all paths really do lead to "Rome". We have open source but you can only use your bank account with certain operating systems, we can vote but are forced to choose the lesser of two evils most of the time, we can own land but we don't have a say really on what to do with it, we can buy digital media but it can get taken away from us, we can have children but we cannot decide what they will learn and how. I don't know about you dear reader, but I feel suffocated and not really free in this world. We have nothing to lose and yet there is room for a few more chains.