a college degree in 2025/2026/2027 ... don't

Michael Cox wrote:

How many degree level people does the world need in ethnobotany? I suspect that the number is small because, as you imply, the knowledge is readily accessible to the interested lay-person through books and other resources. Degrees shine on the level of an overall society when they are deep, and that deep expertise brings special insights that are valuable to a society in a way that is uniquely distinctive. But even then, the utility of having more people with the same narrow expertise is limited.

Not only that, things can be learned about herbs and plant uses, not only through how other people use(d) plants (ethnobotany) but also through experimentation, accidents, glimmerings, instinct and random bursts of creativity—I think there is also an element of, if you listen, the plants will teach you. It’s something the modern, scientistic approach that is encouraged in society does not typically allow for, the spontaneity of it all. I believe sometimes, in order to learn, you have to make a complete fool of yourself, and that is something that, if you are in a place liable to be judged by others—i.e. as a professional scientist or student, is extremely discouraged.

These teachings from the plants helped me through a difficult sickness and continue to be making their way into my life, not because I’m seeking them out but because I stay receptive. Maybe that receptivity is another of the things you can’t get from any amount of education on a particular subject—being educated implies it’s someone else teaching, so you stay firmly planted in the human-linguistic world, the word-mediated perspective—elevated above, separated from the animal, the vegetable, the life speaking in that “language older than words”. To learn from nature in this way it seems important to be receptive to that which is beyond the human, the non-verbal, the instinctual communication between radically different forms of life, the inexplicable for which the human body/mind is the instrument of scientific measurement.

I guess the ultimate question is this: are we at a point where the kind of life most people want will soon be out of reach?
Lets face it: the gert life, even the life of a skipper who gets ahold of larger property for farming, will sound great to people on this site. It will not sound great to the majority of Americans, many of whom are freaked out by the idea that their carrots ever touched dirt.
At the risk of over generalizing, I think that the majority of Americans consider a nice house with flush toilets, automatic thermostats, purchased food, and a Netflix subscription to be prerequisites for a comfortable life. To maintain these things and cover other expenses throughout life, you need a stable job with a decent income. Historically and even today, people with those jobs are far more likely to have a university degree. Is that about to flip? Are the white collar jobs about to become so rare, and standard of living so low, that growing your own food on a few acres with an RMH and willow feeder and an income way below the poverty line is actually your best option even if you don’t like gardening, despise building fires, and gag at the thought of a bucket of aged poop?
I honestly don’t know. It is hard to imagine. To me, it seems more likely that we will see an extension of the computer era: computers automated a lot of jobs (human computers, hand accounting, research aides) but created so many more by expanding what was possible. Maybe AI will do the same. Or maybe it will collapse under its own energy needs. Or maybe we really will see massive unemployment of college degree holders, beyond anything that went before. Wish I had a crystal ball.

I wonder how many folks on the forum do not have a college degree?

I wonder how many of the folks work in permaculture related careers?

I believe there are folks who have made this their career without getting a college degree.

Some might own landscaping businesses.

Some might train animals, especially horses.

Some might hold workshops or sell permacultural products

And then there is permaculture consultations ....

Lina Joana wrote:Wish I had a crystal ball.

Don't we all? As it stands, best bet is to cover as many bases as you can and to teach others to do the same in any small way you can have an effect. I wear self-designed graphic t-shirts, hoodies and hats (and have plans to put together more designs) any time I go out in public, generally with permie related themes. This results in random conversations in supermarket aisles or in line at the checkout with other shoppers. The topic of growing or raising our own "is the only way I could survive" with the inflation, "never mind the loads of chemical gack in the food these days", is a regular. It's actually pretty neat to see how many people are becoming hip to the idea that growing and raising your own food is healthier, and there have been a few over the past 5 years or so that noted their own desire to live on a homestead where they could produce much of what they need for themselves.

Directing the youth to open their minds to alternative paths, such as Paul discusses, should be easier than it is. I suppose Paul could go full bore on tiktok, putting out 2 or 3 bids at virality per day - that's where most of the still impressionable are it seems. We could also all become walking billboards for a more sustainable counter-culture as this AI thing comes on and leaves people questioning their paths.

Whatever happens with AI, things don't look all too great 5, 10 and 15 years out for those on the "conventional 4-year degree leading to decent paying job" path. Hasn't been that way for a while now and all signs point to that path reaching something of a cul-de-sac.

Will there be jobs? Will there be professions? Will there be careers? .... I think that never goes away, but the form in which these things present themselves always change over time. Depending on how disastrous the AI automation and robotics cliff ends up being for society, we just might find ourselves "circling back" to an economy more calorie based. That or we could be living in some sort of steam-punk dystopian mish-mash where Gert's skills of stacking functions, closing energy loops and design of self-perpetuating systems will be valued much more highly than today.

I am going to throw out a thought and just see what people think.


Many responses here say something along the lines of “I went to college, but I am not using my degree.”

My thought is that perhaps one is using the degree without realizing it.

Most every degree earned at a four year college requires a series of general studies courses.  Good!  These classes are a miniaturized version of a liberal arts degree.  One that fosters critical thinking, creativity, analytical thought, lateral thinking.  The list can get longer, but you get the idea.

So while many may not utilize the verbiage specified on the degree, the critical thinking fostered and developed during the time at college is still highly valuable.  And I see examples of critical thinking, lateral thinking, analytical thought, creativity, and on and on all throughout Permies. I am positing therefore that perhaps not the specific degree, but just the act of earning college graduation itself is still a highly valuable, desirable endeavor.

Is college worth the money?  That’s a hard question to answer.  In my case, it obviously was.  I didn’t pay for most of my college tuition (in dollars at least).  But my credits are specifically tied to a salary scale.  And I can’t speak for others.



Eric

Interestingly, the Russian government - in the throes of an exhausting and unsuccessful war and burdened with heavy sanctions - is advocating for more homesteading!! They say homesteading is the answer to falling living standards and poverty. Here is an english translation.

https://beefeaterresearch.substack.com/p/resurrecting-kulaks-in-russia?r=4r2ohh&triedRedirect=true

Degree or no degree, homesteading enhances my quality of life.   I get the benefit of being able to live as independent of the “system” as I like.  I raise pigs, goats, and chickens.  I have a large garden.  Yesterday I went grocery shopping.  The bill came to less than $25.00 …and most of what I bought was optional.  Less than $5 was needed … and even that could have been done without.  I will go grocery shopping one more time this month. I expect to spend less than $50.00

While I do have a gas furnace for backup…I recently put in a new one…I generally heat with wood.  And, I do keep enough wood around to take me through the winter.   I have a solar array to supplement my electricity use.  I could rely on it if needed.  I am in the process of building a Voltswagon to provide a supplement/backup to the primary system.  All the parts are bought…it is a matter of assembly.

My biggest expense is livestock feed. I have more animals than needed or useful. I am beginning to reduce the numbers I have.

I have tried to follow all the comments here.  It sounds like, in the scenario of trying to figure out what to do now, **if** there is gonna be 70% unemployment in two years is ...

exactly the stuff I suggested and nothing else.  

True?

Did I miss anything?  

A humble home and a large garden is the only solution?

College is currently a fools errand if it leaves you in debt.  


for those currently without a humble home and a large garden, there are two paths:

     - skip

     - join a gardening gardeners program



 

I don't know if this counts as another approach. But being part of a community that's willing to pay for the college (or take on the debt) in exchange for reaping the benefit of you having the degree might be a path. This could be as simple as having your family make the decision whether to pay for your college. But it could also be joining an intentional community that trusts they'll be able to farm your skills for cash. Or maybe they need someone with those skills. In that last scenario, I'm thinking of the TV show Northern Exposure from the '90s where a town in Alaska paid for a kid's med-school and he had to come be the town doctor for five years or something.

paul wheaton wrote:I have tried to follow all the comments here.  It sounds like, in the scenario of trying to figure out what to do now, **if** there is gonna be 70% unemployment in two years is ...

exactly the stuff I suggested and nothing else.  

True?

Did I miss anything?  

A humble home and a large garden is the only solution?

College is currently a fools errand if it leaves you in debt.  


for those currently without a humble home and a large garden, there are two paths:

     - skip

     - join a gardening gardeners program



 

I can see some other options. I made a thread about when people don’t have land:

https://permies.com/t/285115/Ways-sufficient-land

So another option is, a humble home and large basket, i.e. foraging and wild-tending. If we learn how to cook our weeds, roots, acorns, etc., then they can provide an enormous amount of food.

Good local community helps too, and community gardening is an option that sort of falls under your “humble home and large garden” concept. Also, neighbors and friends may share produce or land for gardening—I know someone who gardens on her neighbors’ land across the road because there is not much space on their side of the road. The garden is mostly kale; otherwise they grow a good quantity of food within a very small area.

Also, I cannot overemphasize! https://permies.com/t/36874/Edibility-Acorns

So many acorns just get left sitting on the ground all winter. Especially in pathways, roadsides, etc. where squirrels don’t get as many. Then they sprout in spring and die. If you can gather up as many acorns as you can and then plant a small percentage of them, that is lovely.

Good stuff!

  - foraging

  - forage gardening

  - community

Join Paul, Alan Booker, Mike Haasl and Alexandra Malecki on Saturday November 22nd at 10 am Mountain time to join this discussion live. Post your questions here so we can bring them up.

Click Here to go to youtube and press notify me, to be notified when the live begins!

Some more of my thoughts, expressed via a combination of historical context and kidney stone pain.  



Regarding 70% Unemployment:

The numerical value here is speculative, but that’s not the point.  In this context we are talking about very high unemployment and the exact value isn’t what’s important.  Seems to me that the best context and/or parallel would be unemployment in the Great Depression.

At its peak, the United States had 25% unemployment which is staggeringly high.  Further, and barely mentioned in the popular discussion of the GD was underemployment where a person has a job (so he is NOT counted as unemployed), but the job is well below his qualifications, previous job, etc.  Hard to get a precise figure on what exactly underemployment was, but general consensus is that it is another 25%.  Many years ago I was at a teacher conference in the Fed. Reserve bank of St. Louis.  They brought in an economist to explain much of the economics of the GD. The presenter explained how his father (grandfather?) was the manager at a natural gas plant in West Virginia.  When the GD hit, the plant closed and every single employee was laid off, including the manager.  That manager was then re-hired as. Par-time night security guard.  His income plummeted to something like 5% of his previous income which added very little money to him yet took up his time.  Although he lost almost all of his income, he was not counted as unemployed (sorry, confusing, run-on explanation.  Combination of pain and pain meds).

The presenter gave a very basic rundown of the American income:

10% had income go up!  Some drastically!!

40% kept income at approximately same as pre-GD levels.  Maybe took a slight hit.

25% unemployed

25% *UNDER*Employed




OK, that’s all. Very, very bad.

BUT—silver lining

If you were in that %40 group, you had a secret weapon—DeFlation!!

As the economy tanked, people did whatever they could to get money.  There are all kinds of historical records showing a stock-Broker, financier, or similar dressed in a suit trying to sell their very expensive car for $100.  What a bargain if you have the money!!  Those %40 actually saw their purchasing power increase—substantially.  If they had no outstanding debt and maintained close to previous income which, they were in a strangely good position (economically speaking).



What does this have to do with Permies?  Fair question.  

I think %70 unemployment is unlikely, but the precise number is not important.  If this upcoming disaster does happen, good prep looks like:

No debt!!  Debt is perfectly fine if income is steady, but if it disappears, debt drastically hurts.  Do whatever to minimize debt in advance.

Having one’s own food and NOT having to buy is always good for finances

Can outside expenses get further minimized?  Surely yes.  It’s amazing how satisfying life can be without Netflix.


About college degrees:

I go back to critical thinking & creativity (and more.  Kidney stones + + pain + pain med s= blurry thinking).  Liberal arts fosters these ideas and abilities exceptionally well.  Think of Liberal arts as keys to brain power that is useful and applicable in most every subject, situation, environment, etc.

Are the thinking skills worth it—I say definitely!  But the current tuition—makes it hard to justify.  I will say that just living in a dorm as d long, ongoing discussion with neighbors of all different backgrounds and majors was tremendously educational by itself.  But it cost money and as a teacher I almost feel ashamed that I am wondering if college is worth it—at least for some people.,


To reiterate, I think %70 unemployment is unlikely, but high unemployment is definitely possible. Critical thinking helps navigate these rough times well.  All the previously mentioned prep ides are perfectly reasonable.


Pain and pain meds are getting worse and my own critical thinking is severely impaired.  Many good ideas here.


Eric

Of course I have no clue what will actually happen. Speculations on top of speculations.  

At the same time, the changes are starting now.  

When asked the question about going to college ...  specifically, going into debt to go to college ...  going into debt to go to college four years ago was a bit dodgy.  $100,000 of debt that the average american pays off in 20 years.  And for many of those people (not all) it turns into a bit of an albatross.

So this whole thing starts off with:  

assume 70% unemployment in two years.  What is now the wise path for the woman asking the question?

Suppose you have a full acre of gardens.    I asked google about an acre of sunchokes and saw

Purdue's numbers are more conservative, citing University of Minnesota trials with an average production of 30,000 lbs/acre for sunchokes, ...

So if half your land is sunchokes, you have 15,000 pounds of food in the middle of winter.  This stuff currently sells for $5 or more per pound.  If you have a humble home, your need for cash is small.  So you could get "some" from selling sunchokes.  And you might have some other foods to sell too.  And some broke people might be willing to trade.  

My guess is that in two years the commercial food systems will be as bad as they are now, so untainted food, and just food in general, will be of great value.  

My guess is that unemployed people will no longer be able to afford living in the city.  They will desperately find something far more humble.  

I would think that if, by then, there were 100,000 homesteads with "gardening gardeners" programs, that they would all fill up fast.

paul wheaton wrote:Of course I have no clue what will actually happen. Speculations on top of speculations.  
At the same time, the changes are starting now.  

Indeed.

I've written and dumped this response about 3 times already.
What is going to happen? Nobody knows.
what I do know is that right now very few people are happy or hopeful about where things are going.

it all comes down to human needs- we need to eat, we need a place to sleep, we need some sort of joy/satisfaction/love. (the Raffi song, for those parents who suffered through it: "a song in my heart, food in my belly, love in my family").
If you can combine these basic needs, which many of us who love homesteading do, how can you go wrong? (and i'm being super inclusive with homesteading here-- I homestead in a city, in a tiny yard). Producing food, supplying our own basic needs, developing the skills one needs for an uncertain future... while also being able to derive joy and satisfaction and community in the process, how can you go wrong?

(and just as an aside--- when online content is all slop and almost entirely unbelievable [yesterday one of my favorite online talking heads, who specializes in AI, got taken in by a fake AI story-- nothing can be trusted anymore], and attention spans are destroyed, the "real" takes on a lot more value. What is more real than dirt? Livestock? Processing herbs? Sanding wood? Making things? I'm surprised at how often people ask me questions about crafts or herbs or cooking now..... I personally think we're on the cusp of a big pendulum swing, when people start to take more interest in real life than online, for the sake of mental health and just plain happiness, if not skynet/AGI/bots taking over all jobs. I guess we shall see!)

I went to seattle/portland a few days ago for permie stuff.  I saw things.  I am glad to be home.  And the stuff I am writing about in this thread was made about three times more important.  

Going to college used to be about investing in yourself.  But that seems over.  So what is "investing in yourself" today?  Is it still measured in money?  

According to recent data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and other sources:
High School Diploma: Median annual earnings are around $49,192.
Bachelor's Degree: Median annual earnings are around $79,716.

For the whole "humble home and a large garden", for a lot of us, that is "plan A".  And maybe for others, it is more like "plan B" - something to fall back on.



For this scenario, is it fair to say that living in the city is a bit too expensive?  Even if you have an urban garden?

If you're planning to be jobless and grow your own food, yes, living in the city is absolutely too expensive. But if you plan to work a jobby job, you should count on your pay being a *lot* lower in the country. (I like having a city job (and salary) and working remotely from the country, but I don't think that's easy to put together for someone new to the job market.)

To add to that ...  

I think that if you are going to be one of the few that remains employed and you are going to continue to live in the city without a garden, then it does seem wise to explore ways to cut your expenses and live more humbly.

When looking at "early retirement extreme" it seems the lessons are to go from renting an apartment, to renting a room in an apartment.  Eventually going cheaper still to the point of sharing that room (and splitting the expense).  Along the way, it may be wise to explore minimalism and have quarterly "yard sales."

I guess if I had a student with no idea of what he/she wanted to do, had absolutely no direction, and wanted to go to a well-known university “for the experience,” which almost always means heavy partying then I might raise a suspicious eyebrow while my brain is screaming “NO!” Inside my skull!
Of course, add to this that the purdy university costs a fortune—maybe two— and the whole endeavor seems like a great big expensive way to avoid getting a job.

I have something of a gripe against Ivy League universities and similar—I really wonder what a student is paying for and what do they get out. For instance, Harvard University has a teacher education program, but I gotta wonder what is so special about the Harvard package that the state school doesn’t do perfectly well and at a fraction of the cost.  Can a teacher even make up Harvard tuition in their life?

But more back to the original question, I reluctantly agree that college is not for some people, so why incur the cost.  And why not consider cheaper alternatives like a community college if funds are that scarce.

If one is young, has plenty of time, can afford, and serious about studies, it’s hard for me to say “No.”. But those Art History and Philosophy majors better know what they are in for regarding the job market.

But if a person can get a degree—any degree, even Art History—and fails to find employment in that field (s very common occurrence), all is not lost.  There is a ton of knowledge gained along the way—if one is serious.  And if the plan changes to become Gert after graduation, I bet Gert is more well-rounded, happier for having gone through college and having had the liberal arts background, understands relationships better than without college.  And so much of my growth here on Permies comes from recognizing and eventually utilizing relationships in my garden.  My Wine Caps and Tomatoes thank me, but I thank a combination of a good college background that sharpened my curiosity and the culture here at Permies that helped fostered my growth in permaculture.




College is not the only way to accomplish this.  But it can be invaluable.  However, translating that into a dollar figure is something I can’t do and varies with the person.  At the moment, college is fiercely expensive, giving rise to this question that tragically shouldn’t be.  But it does.

I will leave you with this.



Eric

I would venture that when we are talking about "investing", right now investing in a place to live to not have to pay rent is a big deal.
whether you're rural or urban, renting is rough, even more so when the job market is shaky.

when I was young and questioned college (maybe age 11), my father said he would give me choice: he'd buy me the Porsche I coveted, or I could go to college, saying it would be so much cheaper to buy the car. [in my family such offers were traps, and in any case by the time i understood the economics of this trap i was 'in the chute' to get myself into college].

The smart investment now would probably be an opportunity to buy into a place to live, and I'm always impressed with young people who own. I hope some alternatives open up in terms of access to ownership, because I remember the horror that was renting, being at the mercy of a landlord, and not being able to afford to buy anything. And having the rent/mortgage payment disappear is what changed our financial position significantly.

Maybe that opens up more possibilities for gardener type situations. As it is, I can't believe people aren't beating a path to Wheaton Labs for the chance to have a place to live AND learn stuff.

Eric,

While I agree with your post, I will say I do have a college regret.  Entering my second year of college I had somewhere between 1500 and 2000 in savings in 1969.  I have since learned that land in Wisconsin was going for $50 an acre.  Now, I was dumb as a box of rocks at that time and would have failed at homesteading. I had no idea how to build a cabin.  I question how I would find a job in a rural area, etc.  But I sometimes wonder.

To add, this is one reason why I say if Wheaton Labs had existed at the time, I would have been a Boot.

John,

I have done similar too.  That sounds like a beautiful opportunity—and surely it may well have been a reality if you had all the information, general knowledge, depth of character and a lifetime of experience that you have today.

I remember back in the fall of 1997 when I made my first purchase of a mutual fund—I bought two different funds, one with $500, the second with $600.  That first one was a growth-oriented fund.  The second was an aggressive growth fund—it took some pretty big risks but the payoff was potentially significant.  Its performance over its lifetime was impressive.

Being the late 90’s, I was asking myself “ what if this dot-com boom was a real thing?”  The next year I got my statement and I jumped!  I thought surely I got someone else’s mail.  I could hardly believe how much my investment grew (that $1100 really grew up!”

Did I sell right then?  No.  I decided to ride it out and see where it would go.  By the next year it was almost worthless.  I should have sold.


In the end, I am pleased that I didn’t get the shiny thing.

John, your land is not a shiny toy and I don’t want you to think that I trivialized your missed opportunity.  I have missed opportunities too.  One of my only regrets was selling my 1990 Ford Escort.  I miss a stick shift.  And it could get 40 mpg. But these are things easily recognized in hindsight..


That land does sound nice!





Eric


Edited to add:  like John mentioned, finding employment in a rural area is such a challenge.  I know that search well—so spent a fair amount of time in the 90s trying to put those things together

Also,  weird comparison—mutual fund and beautiful rural land, but my point was about how hindsight is so clear,.

Also Also, the few regrets I have steer me away  from making similar mistakes.  Present day failures are tomorrow’s wisdom.

Tereza Okava wrote:As it is, I can't believe people aren't beating a path to Wheaton Labs for the chance to have a place to live AND learn stuff.

I'm really surprised as well.  Yet, it is a radical leap out of the system.

As a permaculture homesteader who has been farming full time since 2012 and as a college drop out, I largely agree with the sentiments of this thread. The reason my farm works is because I keep expenses really, really low. No restaurants, no excursions except free stuff like hiking and camping with friends in free parks or on private land.  No luxuries or smart devices in the home except a smart phone each for me and my partner. No subscriptions, no memberships, no services. We're grid tied but thanks to net metering we send twice as much electricity TO the grid as we draw from it, so the utility bill more than pays for itself. Luckily the power company here actually writes checks for surplus kWh production. We grow 100% of our starches, fiber, veg, and meat consumption, and hopefully dairy will join the list next year because we just got a cream separator--finally making butter and cream efficient enough to produce at home from our sheep and goat milk.

So I've never put my English major, which I completed in 2 years before dropping out halfway through junior year, to any use. I adore learning, researching, writing research papers and being surrounded by great debate cultures like you can be on campus.  However, I was in college during the recession of 2008 and it was already becoming thoroughly uneconomical back then. Costs have gotten worse and the prospect of AI taking jobs has been on my mind since about 2015 (as in, what will people do if they can't find work?).

Personally, I really want a few dedicated robots: first, a pasture crab!  I want a multi-legged robot similar to a Roomba vacuum or those lawn mower robots, but capable of navigating over my very uneven, steep pasture terrain.  All it needs to do is identify thistle, barberry, wisteria and other invasive pasture weeds, and then mechanically kill them with loppers, or a mini saw, or girdling.  It can be almost 100% solar direct powered, and just run during the daylight hours, but with a small battery to save programs and remember where it is in the grid of the pasture.

Next, I want a little robot that collects eggs from the coop for me, and sweeps out the nesting boxes and moves the chicken tractors and rabbit grazing tractors. And next, I would like a set of radio based electric collars or ear tags for the sheep and goats that would allow safe rotational grazing around a radius-defining transmitter. No more moving the electric nets! Current versions of these collars don't work for small ruminants for much time, so we're waiting on battery life improvements and affordability.

Anyway, I largely agree that a healthy post-AI society will embrace small homesteads and crafts and community as deliberate lifestyle choices to provide purpose and fulfillment.  Do I really believe that AI can replace all current human jobs?  Absolutely.  Give it a few years to keep learning at the phenomenal rate of improvement that it has been already demonstrating. As for the 'no hands' argument, I'm currently healing from my second robotic surgery this year.  The robot was guided by a human surgeon in both cases, but the use of the "daVinci robot" meant that the incisions could be much smaller and the removal of tumors was much more precise than feasible for human hands after several hours of effort.  Each surgery took about 4 hours, but robots don't get tired.  Once AI can run surgical robots, I would expect most surgeries to be done entirely by robot, perhaps with a decade or so of direct human oversight.

There is one point in this thread, however, that I must kick back against, hard.  While I personally love living humbly and with practically no income, mostly living off the land and needing little...  The medical necessities that hit me this year demonstrate just how problematic it would have been to not have health insurance and savings.  I'm in my 30s and have always lived a healthy, active, outdoor life with no illicit or recreational substances, not even alcohol, and eating cleanly.  It didn't matter; you can't overcome genetics, and I ended up with the same cancer my dad had at an even younger age.  Without insurance, I couldn't have pushed the doctors thru screenings, scans and follow-up visits on a fast enough timeline to prove that it was cancer, and treat it.  

Many of my friends have disabilities; extremely poor vision, or hearing, or cerebral palsy.  Some have auto-immune disorders that are fatal without constant injections.   How are they supposed to drop everything and live off the land with no income and no savings?  Their medical care costs don't disappear just because they grow a garden.  How about the parents with little kids who have diseases or special needs?  Should they shrug and hope that healthy garden food will fix the problems, and then watch their kids die like 19th century kids did?  How will green woodworking skills and a food forest work for a 25 year old who is blind?  How can my friend with only one arm and one leg be expected to turn a compost pile or haul firewood out of the forest?

It's harsh to sneer at folks who cannot turn to the permies life.  I'm basically healthy, with no kids or human dependents, and able to live almost expense-free, but still, cancer hit and brought medical bills with it.  My farm cannot cover even the tiniest fraction of those surgical costs, not in a hundred years, literally. I'm very lucky that I came to farming with reserves already in place and don't need to rely on the farm to cover those expenses. But I would never act as though a minimalist, agrarian, subsistence life is the only solution to the future, and most especially not for anyone dealing with special needs and disabilities.

My two cents:

If you go to college:

1. Do so for some specific skill that pays well enough to at least pay off any education related debt you accrue in a reasonable time.  Then save every penny and hope the employment lasts at a wage worth doing it at.

OR

2.  Do so only for specific psyche enriching classes such as history - it is important to have a sense of where we come from - at a junior college where tuition is low.   NOTE: you can do the same thing now via the internet, so while I think classes can provide some added benefit to this, the internet has changed things.  Note also that there used to be book collections for self made men to do just this thing, e.g., the Harvard Classics.  I think this was back in the 20s or 30s...  You can still find whole sets for next to nothing in thriftshops and bookstores.  I would contend that these older collections convey additional value in that they provide insight into the thinking and values of the generations that compiled and published them.  This is sort of a bridge to prior thinking and helpful in creating a comprehensive world view.  But I digress.

Next, do not get into massive debt, especially now, while most asset classes are in a massive bubble. The flip side of this is: Live as FRUGALLY as you can, particularly if you are single.  Every purchase has an opportunity cost, i.e., the cost in forgoing other purchases.  When you are young the opportunity cost of things like a new car (instead of a reliable older one) can be massive.  It can mean NOT owning a paid off income property by 40, for example.  All those parties, alcohol, and expensive phones add up over a decade or two.   When you consider what you could have bought or invested in, the conclusion can be dramatic.    

Find the cheapest way to house yourself.  Don't get yourself killed by living in the projects, but consider an RV or minimally, house sharing.  Again save every penny.  What do you think the Afghani taxi drivers in big cities used to do?  Three or 4 would go in together to rent a taxi and take shifts driving it. The engine would never get cold.  Find a cheap rental in the rough part of town and load the bedrooms with 3 or 4 guys.  They would work most of their free time and in 5 years go back home, get married and buy or start a business.  I knew guys from Mexico doing exactly this back in Philadelphia, working in restaurants - 20 to an apartment unit.  Save every penny and send it back and eventually move back, comparatively wealthy.

Now regarding the discussion here of AI and Robots, it seems to me that the fact that there is a distinction has been missed.  One can have dumb non AI robots. They;ve been in existence for fabrication for decades.  What they did and do is allow for the replacement of human workers.  They will be employed wherever the calculation of savings (re: investment, amortization, depreciation, cost of financing, productivity, maintenance, avoided labor payments, and avoided labor issues (e.g., workman's comp, accidents, lawsuits, etc.)) favor them.  So you see them in auto manufacturing and hazardous or semi hazardous situations.  I realize that the discussion here is more regarding humanoid robots, but they are merely the next step, and coupling them with basic AI will follow.  Given that AI can be remotely transmitted to them, this will likely follow quickly after the the robots themselves (structure of) has matured.  

Where I am going with this is to make the point that humanoid or versatile robots (the kind that can theoretically do anything from picking lettuce to construction work, to surgery) will replace occupations based on the same considerations that automation has over the 20th century.  So I would expect to see robots in hospital settings in all positions.  Compare the cost of a leased robot to the salary, benefits, etc of a human doing any job in a hospital, and it will likely soon be a better deal.  

But here's my main point, what this is going to do is to DRIVE down the compensation for human workers in occupations where they can be replaced at rates below their current compensation.  Minimum wage regs will be irrelevant because the employers will simply not offer employment to humans if they can sub robots into those position for less cost.  Will we see robots picking lettuce?  Probably not immediately in the US, but possibly eventually.  But will we see them picking coffee beans in Central America, where they can hire desperate workers for a fraction of the pay they'd receive in the States?  Probably never.  Will we see them mining lithium in Africa?  I doubt it, ever.  Why, when you can get kids to do it at $3 per day...  

The point is that it will be industry by industry and the main effect will be to depress wages, and then eliminate the positions altogether.  

I will venture a value based comment in closing.  It is tragicomedic that the wisdom one can glean from the old classics (like those in the book series') would be very helpful in coping with the new economic exigencies, but never acquired due to their neglect in favor of video games and such...  

Ditto...

[quote=Tereza Okava]I would venture that when we are talking about "investing", right now investing in a place to live to not have to pay rent is a big deal.
whether you're rural or urban, renting is rough, even more so when the job market is shaky.

when I was young and questioned college (maybe age 11), my father said he would give me choice: he'd buy me the Porsche I coveted, or I could go to college, saying it would be so much cheaper to buy the car. [in my family such offers were traps, and in any case by the time i understood the economics of this trap i was 'in the chute' to get myself into college].

The smart investment now would probably be an opportunity to buy into a place to live, and I'm always impressed with young people who own. I hope some alternatives open up in terms of access to ownership, because I remember the horror that was renting, being at the mercy of a landlord, and not being able to afford to buy anything. And having the rent/mortgage payment disappear is what changed our financial position significantly.

Maybe that opens up more possibilities for gardener type situations. As it is, I can't believe people aren't beating a path to Wheaton Labs for the chance to have a place to live AND learn stuff.[/quote]

One approach, that I expect to be unpopular, is to go to college, incur the debt, and make payments on that debt as long as the economy rewards you for it, and not a second later. Just default if the shit hits the fan. What, are they going to reposes your education? If the powers that be want repayment, they’ll arrange for a functional economy.

paul wheaton wrote:College is currently a fools errand if it leaves you in debt.

An easy solution to a lot of the issues raised would be seeking to live a life that is debt free. If you allow that principle to guide your path, most of the foolishness can be avoided fairly easily.

Sabd—

This is why herbalists are so important! (Not to be overly pompous…)

Current herbal knowledge is nowhere near where it could be. I was cured of a dramatic and sudden illness last winter (that hung on into summer), by two herbs with no recorded use in medicine. I figured out that they would work because they “glimmered”, they spoke to me, talked to me and beckoned.

Once the blood tests figured out it was three different things and soon enough two of these were dismissed and I was being browbeaten down the road to being dissected…I said, no, I’m getting better and they’ve not done a thing to me, I’m done. It was definitely the right path.

I can’t tell someone how to manage their health but I can say that if I had trusted in human knowledge, professional knowledge or the advice of well-meaning but misguided friends and relatives……so much for my physical and economic wellbeing!

Tereza Okava wrote:

Maybe that opens up more possibilities for gardener type situations. As it is, I can't believe people aren't beating a path to Wheaton Labs for the chance to have a place to live AND learn stuff.

Really? I can, and I say that as a long time listener of the podcast and participant/supporter of permies, who thinks the bootcamp sounds fun and useful.

Think about the prerequisites. You need to be healthy, unattached (no family of pet commitments), and have enough resources to store any stuff you have and pay for transport and expenses while you are there. I’d guess mostly 20-somethings from at least somewhat affluent backgrounds.
  What is that demographic looking for? To sleep in a bunkhouse and get food in exchange for 40 hrs of work per week? Without pot or alcohol? (sorry, don’t mean to imply that kids just want to party) Now of course you are learning things. Are those marketable skills? Is anyone going to pay you a living wage to split wood by hand, build junk pole fences, harvest rhubarb in a homestead setting? Bootcamp doesn’t set you up for a career in our current society, and doesn’t pretend to. From my understanding of the the program, it teaches you to run a small homestead mostly by hand, with occasional use of the excavator and tractor. In order for this to seem like the best career option, you have to have a prepper mindset (assume societal collapse in the next few years) and assume that whatever comes after the collapse wil make homesteading a better option than 20 years of food and ammo in a nuclear proof underground bunker.

Or you just think that is fun, or you are called to the lifestyle. The fact that bootcamp is not empty obviously means a certain number of folks find it worth the trip. And I am glad they do - I think it is a worthy endeavor! But I don’t expect huge numbers of people to flock there, when I consider the current situation .

I think there is truth to what you are saying lina:  this is a crappy school.  And if you were gonna drive to a fancy school in chicago, you probably need to get there, have a housing and food thing you can do, and a huge amount of stuff is probably not helpful.  

Is anyone going to pay you a living wage to split wood by hand, build junk pole fences, harvest rhubarb in a homestead setting?

I suppose a person could come to the bootcamp in pursuit of that sort of work.  But I don't think anybody is doing that.  And I don't recommend it.  

I think most people are getting their earliest experiences in gardening, natural building and homesteading.

To sleep in a bunkhouse and get food in exchange for 40 hrs of work per week?

Work?  I hope that nobody sees it as work.  It is a chance to grow your own food and build your own shelter.  At a pretty easy pace.  

I see communities where people gather to do this, only they end up doing very little of this.  I feel like the bootcamp adds a sort of structure.  Everybody is gonna try to get stuff done at the same time.  Learn together.  elbow-to-elbow.  

"Exchange" doesn't quite fit either.  Granted, the boots get food and a bunk, but a lot of that food came from past boots.  And all of the bunks came from past boots.  

Bootcamp doesn’t set you up for a career in our current society, and doesn’t pretend to. From my understanding of the the program, it teaches you to run a small homestead mostly by hand, with occasional use of the excavator and tractor.

I think the bootcamp is amazing for existing gardeners, natural builders and homesteaders that love to create.  Now there are people that do it with you, five days a week.

I think the bootcamp is the foundation for retiring to a gert package.  

Your words seem to be about getting a person into the workforce.  I think the bootcamp is about getting people out of the workforce and into retirement.



Another angle:  A lot of people want to get into homesteading.  They buy land, put years in, and burn out.  They then sell everything for less than they paid.  The bootcamp is a far better path:  cheaper to get into and there is no loss.  Building a style of community at a pace that dodges the burnout issues.

Hi Lina,

Because I have more than a few grey hairs, I do have a gentleman who works for me on occasion.  Because he does have the skills needed to homestead and is a hard worker, I pay him $25 an hour. To me, that is a living wage, and his income is well above the average in my county.  Between me and others, he seems to have all the work he wants to have.

paul wheaton wrote:
Work?  I hope that nobody sees it as work.  It is a chance to grow your own food and build your own shelter.  At a pretty easy pace.  

Might have to agree to disagree there. Splitting wood and peeling logs is the kind of thing I love to do, but it is still work. Especially if you have to do it to stay warm, and can’t wander off after an hour.

paul wheaton wrote:

I think the bootcamp is amazing for existing gardeners, natural builders and homesteaders that love to create.  Now there are people that do it with you, five days a week.

I think the bootcamp is the foundation for retiring to a gert package.  

Your words seem to be about getting a person into the workforce.  I think the bootcamp is about getting people out of the workforce and into retirement.

But how many young adults dream of retiring to that humble a home before they’ve done much else? Or, going back to the root of this thread - how many believe that the world is about to implode so that this is their best option? My thesis is that most folks in their early 20’s are likely to want a life that requires some money. So, they are thinking in terms of career, or at least marketable skills. Convincing them that going to rural Montana to grow their own food is a good way to start their adult life is gonna be an uphill battle.

paul wheaton wrote:

Another angle:  A lot of people want to get into homesteading.  They buy land, put years in, and burn out.  They then sell everything for less than they paid.  The bootcamp is a far better path:  cheaper to get into and there is no loss.  Building a style of community at a pace that dodges the burnout issues.

I guess I am not sure what you are advocating - do you want to see most boots come and stay forever? Or do they come and hang out, build skills and then move on?
If the latter, you haven’t quite solved the problem. If the former - yikes. I would not do that, or suggest anyone else do so, without a significant nest egg - enough to cover any health or other emergencies, and all the other expenses that come up, as well as enough to start over if at some point they feel like they want a different life in a different place. Oh, and enough for flights to family, unless you are local to the Missoula area. I bought a sepper package when they first came out, and the looked at flights to Missoula. Whew!!! They were pricey. Doubt I will ever redeem it.
Problem is, by the time you have that much money, you probably have other ties, like a partner and kids, which make something like bootcamp hard. Or maybe you are just set in your ways and would find the rules of the lab confining.
I guess my feeling is that gardening gardeners programs, like self sufficient lifestyles in general, will remain very much a niche thing up until the shit actually hits the fan (the world would be a better place if this weren’t true, but there it is). At that point - assuming people can still travel, it will probably become very popular for the reasons you listed, such as the structure and community and free food.

Another question- say you stay a boot long enough to get an acre of land. Will you still have access to the boot workforce? That is, will bootcamp help you build and maintain your house, install the gardens, and lighten the load of getting the homestead off the ground? Sorry if I missed how this is handled, but I assume that if it fills up, not every boot who stays can get an allerton abby.

A new vid from Paul about this subject:

I'm old.  Wish I had this book when I was 20, but it was just released this year.  "The Preparation", written by Doug Casey, Matt Smith and Maxim Smith.

I edited this once, but it didn't stick.  I'll try again.

It presents another no college path that prepares one for all sorts of things.  I encourage anyone who knows young folks to at least look at this possibility.  Could tie in nicely with the permaculture path.  Or maybe not, but it does present a very strong case against college and I think a terrific alternative for someone wanting to better themselves.

I would have been ecstatic to have had this available to me back in the day.  Check out the description on Amazon and see what it entails.

Here's the Amazon link.  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FLRKZCKL?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title

Things have changed a lot since I got my music degree and teaching degree in the mid 80s in Canada.

I didn't have the ability to pursue biology and geology and I was expected to get a degree, so after the first year, I transferred I to a 3 year program which put me almost half finished because I had taken music performance on top of my required credits, requiring 2-3 hours daily practice and keeping me out of trouble, and I took a music education summer evening course while I was working as a teaching assistant, having volunteered as one the previous summer. It was suggested I take the concurrent education that was new and I did.

I never regret that I did this, and had many fun years teaching music.

Now tuition is even expensive in Canada, but I have a friend who worked as a store manager up.north before it's reorganization, and he doesn't have a high school diploma. In his case he asked and I recommended he try to get in to any college program as a mature student, because then he won't need the high school diploma. I suggested he might consider personal support worker, a thankless job but in high demand and some colleges are even offering it free. The main reason would be he wouldn't likely need any upgrading courses. So why spend time doing high school credits when you can at least be employable which is his main concern.

So it depends. If you are new to your country or didn't finish high school and need credentials, yes, get some post secondary  courses. I also told him about all the open university courses available throughout the world, plus Athabasca university offers the option to challenge for credit which is way cheaper (it turned out I was a computer programmer whiz so I took a bunch of credits by reading the text book and writing the exam -- and made some real cash doing that in between music teaching cintracts)

I really don't know if getting into debt is wise though. I went the gert route as soon as I could in my early 40s and have been debt free for 20 years.

I would say every situation is different, but if you think you can handle nursing, that's a great skill that is guaranteed to provide a job in the rat race but also has transferable skills in an alternative lifestyle. That's what my son did, but tuition is as close to free as is possible in Quebec (called CEGEP) and we did it debt free.

[quote=Christopher Weeks]One approach, that I expect to be unpopular, is to go to college, incur the debt, and make payments on that debt as long as the economy rewards you for it, and not a second later. Just default if the shit hits the fan. What, are they going to reposes your education? If the powers that be want repayment, they’ll arrange for a functional economy. [/quote]

You know, this isn't such a bad idea, but you still have to take classes that convey value.  Again, it's an opportunity cost situation.  Do you spend 4 years getting a degree in woke ideology?  Or a combination of basic economics, history, and 5 welding certifications?  Frankly, if you go the trades/skills/knowledge route - which I think you should; even if the skills get replaced by robots it will be a while before it happens, and it won't happen everywhere all at once - minimally, you will find your clients respect you (and will pay you) more once they realize you are far more than just a set of hands, albeit skilled.  I have experienced this personally.  

In addition, buy silver pre 1965 dimes, quarters, and half dollars.  IF your plan is to accrue debt and then default when the dollar finally crashes, or the entire economic edifice does, transforming into a different arrangement [Remember that Economics is merely the study of resource flows, Finance is about money per se., So just think about it all as the structure of resource flows and how to direct them (with money) (not bringing up military, force, and politics here, though this is a big part of it all)] then you will need something fungible and liquid to convey wealth value from old system into new system.  

Christopher's proposition (rhetorical I think) that the powers that be COULD arrange for a functional economy.  There is a lot loaded into that statement and he is 120% correct.  They don't, or perhaps more accurately, they want an economics system manipulated for their interests, at the expense of 95% of the rest of the global population.  One can play along, cooperate, have a few relative luxuries (relative, remember the lower consumption brackets in the West still live like royalty compared to most of the rest of the world)  but ultimately exist as a fat neofeudal serf.  Or one can recognize the situation for what it is and find ways to manipulate or 'game' it, and increase one's independence and decrease one's 'exposure.'

I know I am being verbose here, but nobody is forcing anyone to keep reading, but one more comment.  He (Christopher Weeks) writes that his suggestion may be unpopular.  Why?  He is right, I think, but why would it be unpopular?  I think, because acknowledging its validity constitutes an acknowledgement that the system is, minimally, corrupt  and skewed, and likely, as I believe, doomed anyway (due to that corruption.  Why exist by rules that our skewed and guarantee failure (relative failure)  if the rule structure contains aspects that allow it to be circumvented?  I could answer that question directly but instead suggest that the answer is more or less the same as that about sheep:  Why do sheep accept their situation?  (Nothing against sheep, per se...)