What is self-sufficiency? It is the ability to survive without reliance on other humans. It is desirable because it gives you freedom. Freedom is desirable because no one likes to be told what to do. No one likes having their train of thought disturbed. No one likes attending meetings they don't want to attend. The wild animal does not want to live in the zoo. What is an equivalent to being a zoo animal? I think it is employment, which I define as a contract you make with someone to sign away your time on a fixed schedule to work on something for them Employment is not 100% bad - I would love to work for companies like Tesla and SpaceX right now because I think I would learn a lot and work with amazing people. Not to mention, I would have the pleasure of dedicating my life to such an important mission. Regardless, I would still like the option to walk away from that, which comes from being self-sufficient.
When we were hunter gatherers we were more free than we are today. An individual had the knowledge needed to survive alone in the wild. We knew which plants to eat and how to hunt. A stable food supply was not as guaranteed as it is today, but we used to be more self-sufficient. Obviously, it is neither feasible nor desirable to go back to hunter gatherer times. We must look forwards. Today, the game on how to survive has changed. If you want to live comfortably and even legally in most places, you have to contribute to the free market. Being employed to a company is not the only way to contribute however. They don't seem to teach us this in school. Instead, it feels like they condition us to be obedient workers from the start. My whole life I thought that it was necessary to go to elementary school, then middle school, then high school, then take the SATs, then do the extracurriculars, then get into the college, then apply to medical school, and then become a doctor. I am coming out of 18 years of school + 4 years of earning my engineering degree at a fairly competitive university. So far, I have had no luck with the medical school application process or the job market. Not only did the prescription that society give me not work, I realized I was playing a zero-sum game this whole time. Getting a job means someone else didn't get that job. Same thing for getting a seat at a medical school. My whole life seemed like a lie.
I believe we should all strive to be self-sufficient again becuase not only does it make you free, which is a selfish reason, but it also makes the world a better place. This is because it forces you to play a positive-sum game. It forces you to directly contribute to the free market. Instead of wasting your time looking good to the admissions committee, you become forced to be useful to people. As I stated earlier, the reason why this is such a foreign concept is because they don't teach us this in school. How do we become self-sufficient? I think Naval Ravikant is right here when he says that you should treat yourself like a mini-business and learn to do two things: build & sell. For me, I love engineering, medicine, energy, mathematics, physics. I will build in these areas. Currently I am starting small with a organic cotton business and an open source iOS health application. I love the process of writing and posting on social media. That can be my form of selling. I am finding that my own curiositiy is guiding me and I hope that with enough time, I can also eventually become self sufficient.
Why do we have to contribute to the free market at all? It is because that is the best way we found to organize society in a place with limited resources. Eventually, I do envision a post-capitalistic world or at least a world with more abundance: Imagine if your town was a city-state that had it's own nuclear reactor, army of worker robots, automated transportation systems, and automated farms. Imagine if you didn't have to go to work and you could use your free-time to do things you wanted to do, instead of waste time listening to obsolete paths society tells you to traverse. Imagine if we all had the knowledge of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics and we were Modern Day Jedi. I personally want to get there. I want to help others get there. Even if you just succeeded on one aspect of it, such as creating robots that do all of your housework for you, that would be great thing because other people will be working on other aspects. Collectively, we will live in massive abundance. Not only does this future sound more free, it also sounds more fun. Let's accelerate.