{snerk!}

Yeah, gold will keep some value — so long as people have FOOD. Gold will get you no where if your trading partners really just want to eat;-)

Janene

Maybe bring your friends?

It gets to be a regular thing with the same circle.

Longer camping trips, more frequently…

Until one day, you just don’t come back.

Yes, it’s a big change, but it can be done gradually.

It’s a good question if any meaningful number of people could ever exit civilization without a cause, since there are so many restrictions these days against living apart–taxes, permits, fees (hmm, money, eh?).

Post die-off there will probably be plenty of salvageable resources ready for the pickings. Long term, post-civilization, I can’t see a need for currency.

As for gold, sure iron and shells have been used as mediums of exchange in the past, but we don’t use shells anymore, nor iron. Gold is still money though - its made it through thousands of years, used by umpteen societies. That’s where I’d put my money, though admittedly some other medium could emerge. Coke cans, old car tires, compact discs. Paper would go the way of the dodo - governments would print like crazy, flood the system, massive inflation, loss of confidence.

Given a melt-down scenario, do you think we’d still have exchanges between small groups - not only barter - but also money-based exchange? Would a medium of exchange actually emerge?

But I forage on the weekends, and I go camping an awful lot, and I’m learning how to make this life merely a transition–all in a way that seems perfectly “normal.”

As for how to make yourself free, I agree with Benjamin that there are many small and not so small changes you can make to remove yourself from the hold of society. But, college students have more license to practice alternatives to mainstream living; once you enter ‘the real world’ you are expected to stop your childish ways, and live as a responsible adult.

Change things small, and never stop changing. If the ball and chain is a mortgage, the only way you’ll ever realize how much of a chain it is until it’s gone. Jobs? Cut back, even if it means new job, lower pay, backing down the ladder. By all means, you lose face when you ask for a reduction in job responsibility, time, and pay. But if it is face you are after, why even post on a primitivist site?