Dreaming about RV life. Social media stigma and technology in intentional communities. Comfy clothes and nudism. Northern lights pics from Twitch.
Closing track: “My Luck” by Forrest Keller (CC BY 3.0)
Transcript
Jeremy: Hey so this is a bonus episode that Kristine and I recorded.
Kristine: Yup.
(Laughter)
Jeremy: So we actually recorded this before this whole COVID-19, Coronavirus situation really hit us.
Kristine: It’s a national emergency… pandemic.
Yeah. So it was recorded before that. And we were already, as we’ll kinda discuss, we were already a little pooped, a little wiped out, ‘cause we had just gotten over an unrelated illness of some kind. So we thought we’d just record a little chill episode. And we went to an RV show and stuff so at this point this’ll be a little break from the excitement.
Kristine: Yup.
(Laughter)
Kristine: Sorry, I just got back from work. I work at a public place. And we’re still open.
Jeremy: Well you said on episode 4 that you work in a library.
Kristine: Yeah I work in a library. And while libraries are closing across the country, are library is remaining open, and it was a mess today.
Jeremy: And my place of work also is still open. People are still going in. And it’s public-facing. And we’ve definitely had confirmed cases in our area despite there being limited testing and low-income at-risk populations that definitely aren’t getting tested.
Kristine: Right. You have to pass one of three criteria in order to get the free test. But if you don’t pass that criterion, how do you know if you have it or not? It’s strange.
Jeremy: It’s strange. And also a lot of people that I work with, like I hear don’t worry about it. But it’s really strange to me how people want to cling to this sense of normality and how “don’t worry about it” just means, really, “don’t think about it.”
Kristine: Right. During a time when citizens should be informed and looking for information, it’s really disheartening that they are not… It’s disappointing. I’m disappointed. Once again, I am disappointed in the American people.
Jeremy: We just watched the debate on Sunday between Bernie and Biden. And it just seems like any show of being even-handed is just out the window. I was really frustrated with most of their questions. When they finally got to climate change, the question wasn’t even “what are you gonna do about climate change,” it was, like, somehow trying to relate it to the spread of disease, which is, yeah, let’s talk about that, but really we should be talking about what are we doing about climate change. And that was outside of the scope of their only question I can recall about climate change. Just really frustrating, the way they were framing these questions.
So anyway, with all that bullshit, get ready for a chill episode from a slightly simpler time where we just talk about living in RVs, social media, technologies, community. And while we were recording we were streaming on Twitch and it was actually cool ‘cause there were people from all over the world that were popping in, that we just got to have kind of a chill conversation about the differences between what it was like to live in those countries. And I left a little bit in, but most of it I cut out because it was kinda meandering and didn’t really work as well even for, like, podcast bonus type content. But I think it would be really cool to like do more streaming, the two of us, do some chill streams. I’d like to do more of that that isn’t to, like, to record an episode, that’s just just-for-funsies, talking kind of streams.
Kristine: Yeah I mean if we’re gonna be in a quarantine for al little while, you may see some of that happening.
Jeremy: Yeah!
(Nervous laughter)
Jeremy: All right, then the episode starts now.
…
Jeremy: Mostly on the podcast we talk about doomer stuff. Collapse. Climate change. We’re having a special chill episode to decompress.
I started doing once a week episodes and I think this is week five or six. It’s been… It’s been a lot.
Kristine: Yup.
Jeremy: Also we were both sick last week or so , which you could hear in the last episode in the conversation with Kim, cause it was like kind of just starting around then and I kinda just had a sore throat. But then definitely the intro/outro, my voice just sounded like shit. Pretty sure we had the Coronavirus, so we survived. It’s still a little, you know, today, but yeah, feeling better.
Kristine: Still can’t hear like a normal… Normal me.
Jeremy: What?
Kristine: Huh? Eh?
Jeremy: What?
This is going to be the best episode ever. What should we talk about today?
Kristine: I don’t know.
Jeremy: You don’t know?!
Kristine: I took a nap today.
Jeremy: That’s awesome. Naps are great.
Kristine: It was nice.
Jeremy: So we went to an RV show today.
Kristine: I was telling my friend that we were going to an RV show and I was inviting him to come with us, and he was like, “what kind of show are you going to?” It’s kind of odd to go to an RV show.
Jeremy: If you’re under, like, 60.
Kristine: Mmhmm. There weren’t really many millennials . It was mostly like families and boomers, checking out RVs and stuff. But we’re exploring alternative living situations, which is exciting.
I feel like this is a little step closer to an earthship.
Jeremy: Yeah, one step closer. Well, it is because we’re thinking about like how we’re actually gonna pull off getting property or whatever and putting up a place to live on that property. And it kind of made sense as a transitional point to get like a spacious enough RV that we could just live in it. Do some boondocking, do some traveling, record some in-person interviews with people doing intentional communities and eco-villages and stuff like that now. ‘Cause I think that would be a cool thing to do as like some kind of media project . So that’d be cool. And then save money doing that because the mortgage for an RV is cheaper than we’re paying in rent right now.
Kristine: Yeah, this place sucks.
Jeremy: It’s shitty.
Kristine: It’s crap. So it’s funny going into the RV show and it was my first time going into an RV period. But it was interesting to go in and see how much nicer the RVs are than our current living situation. So…
Jeremy: The kitchens were nicer. Like almost every single kitchen had more counter space and like a bigger sink. I think all of them almost had a bigger sink.
Kristine: But yeah, I’m excited about the prospect of living in an RV.
Jeremy: I think we could do it. I used to go RV camping with my grandparents back in the day. So I was pretty comfortable with them, but it had been a while and if we were talking about exploring that as like a fulltime living situation … We just want it to go and see what they were like now, like some of the newer models …
Kristine: How did seeing the newer models compare to the one that you were used to?
Jeremy: Honestly, they were pretty similar. My grandparents had some kind of Bounder motorhome and we were mostly looking at fifth wheels, I think they’re called, where they’re like, they don’t have a motor vehicle embedded in them. You have to truck it around, because we like the idea of having like a separate, separate-able vehicle that we could use so we’re not always driving our little snail home around no matter where we go. We can be slugs for a little bit. I dunno.
Kristine: Plus I think you can get a pretty decent sized fifth wheel for half the price of a motor home.
Jeremy: But then we also would have to get a truck ’cause we don’t have a truck.
Kristine: Or can pay somebody to move it around because that thing looked intimidating and I don’t want to do it. But you know, maybe once we own it and we get more comfortable with it, then it won’t be so intimidating to move it.
Jeremy: I was looking at them and thinking about how scary it would be to navigate like an urban environment with them. Never want to do that.
Kristine: Yeah. It would take like some planning the route and stuff. Probably like take the back roads. I dunno. But if we break down, we’ll at least be able to live comfortably.
Jeremy: Right.
Did you notice that the guy behind us, in line to get into the RV to buy tickets, guy behind us had a blue lives matter shirt?
Kristine: Oh no. In public, I tend to keep my blinders on.
Jeremy: Sometimes you don’t want to know.
Kristine: Like, don’t want to know what’s going on around me.
Jeremy: Yeah.
Kristine: It’s my day off and I’m in a public place and as an introvert it can be hard.
So my friend sent me this video on YouTube, and this guy, I mean, I don’t know much about him, but he had predicted that Trump would be, I can’t even say it, he talks about social media and how people are looking for connection in social media. And there’s a lot of shaming that goes around in regards to social media, which I thought was very interesting because like, yeah, people do want connection and, people do want to feel heard and find a connection, which is, I think, interesting. Because, yeah, like people are being shamed for using social media, which is like how people are communicating anyway these days. I don’t get what the shame is all about, but, okay. What do you think about it?
Jeremy: Wait, about social media?
Kristine: And connection. Like in the video it talked about how people are kind of desperate for a connection or something.
Jeremy: Yeah. Well, I think a lot of like social media interaction, you’re not getting the full richness of human connection that being in the same physical location entails. And so I think a little bit, it’s like eating candy. It’s a little sweet…
Kristine: Empty?
Jeremy: But it’s a little, yeah, yeah, it’s empty. You’re not really getting a lot of nutrients from it. But it’s also like, there’s a reason everyone’s doing it. Like, I don’t think social media is causing us to atomize. I think it’s like a thing that we’re clinging to in order to maintain some form of connection.
Kristine: Well, like, if we were to start a alternative society…
Jeremy: So if we want to form some kind of intentional community, I don’t want to tell anyone they can’t do something that’s not like directly harming anyone. That feels shitty. I don’t want to have that kind of community where you got, like, authoritarian control over anything. But I do think I would like us to be on the same page about being intentional about what technologies we use and how we’re using them and sort of choosing, as a community, to be intentional about that. Not in terms of setting rules or anything like that, but just what technologies do you think you’re inclined to use and how might you use them differently if you are pursuing an intentional community kind of situation?
Like smart phones. Would you have a smart phone if we’re living in an intentional community?
Kristine: I don’t know. That’s a good question. It’s like I like computers, but I don’t know. Probably not then. Like, do I need to be connected all the time?
Jeremy: Yeah, probably not. If you’re in a community, most of the people around you are just around you. There’s probably going to be alternative ways to get in touch with people
Kristine: Yeah, like smoke signals?
Jeremy: Loud noises. Just shouting.
Well I think that’s part of why we’re all running to social media right now ’cause we don’t really exist in communities anymore.
Kristine: Yeah. I think living intentional community, I want to like simplify my wardrobe and just live in sweats most of the time.
Jeremy: Why would you not just dress in things that are comfortable?
Kristine: Like right now?
Jeremy: Well, I mean, if you had the ability to…
Kristine: Oh, you’re saying–
Jeremy: Without like social stigma. Yeah, like if you look at what people wore, for the most part … Most people were like mostly naked when in environments conducive to that. They had like a loincloth or something. That’s pretty comfortable. I mean, I wouldn’t be comfortable wearing that now, but if I had a hunter gatherer bod, sure.
Kristine: There was a New York times article about a nudist community west of Florida somewhere. You know, I don’t… not interested in that personally, but I wish I could wear my most comfortable clothes all the time. That would be great.
I mean, I think it’s cool that clothes can be a signal of you know, personal style. That’s, that’s cool. But lately I’m just like comfort, comfort, comfort. Just want to be comfortable.
Jeremy: You could do both.
Kristine: I don’t want to signal anything!
Jeremy: Why would you not be down for a nudist colony?.
Kristine: Um. You know, that’s because of the shame.
Jeremy: Yeah, that’s–
Kristine: The shame!
Jeremy: Oh yeah! So on the episode with Sarah, I was kind of talking about, I feel like shame is like a requirement for civilization… Without the, like, social control that’s required to keep that going… I don’t think people, generally are down for that unless you have social myths that paint the society as something that is required in order to survive and like shame for the people who violate… I mean, shame exists among a hunter-gatherer societies too, but for the most part it’s like, if you’re a dick to people, like if you’re doing stuff that’s hurting people, you get shamed.
I mean, I’m, I’m not an anthropologist, so this is a really like small brain take on it, but it seems like shame is maybe more ubiquitous in civilization or an urban society.
Kristine: When was the last time you felt shame?
Jeremy: Oh, just like, every day of my life.
Kristine: Oh.
Jeremy: Like all the time. Most of the time.
Kristine: Adulting is… Ugh.
Jeremy: Rewind to social media. Technology.
Kristine: Okay. Technology. What kind of technology would you like to have in an intentional community?
Jeremy: Like rocket stoves. Like for heating. That’s a good… Rocket stoves aren’t gonna colonize your brain. Right?
Kristine: What is the rocket stove?
Jeremy: It’s a kind of heating structure that’s very efficient. It burns really hot, so it even burns the smoke that’s produced. I don’t know. I was looking at some YouTubes. Rocket stoves!
Kristine: Rocket stoves.
Jeremy: Yeah. Those are cool. So, cell phones? I think I would like to live in a space where cell phones aren’t like ubiquitous.
Kristine: Mmhmm.
Jeremy: They’re kind of annoying. Like sometimes you can’t even have a conversation. People are just like on their… Or they have those little like — I’m going to sound like a really old person now — they have those little dealies in their ears, those like —
Kristine: Yeah, those things look weird.
Jeremy: I just don’t know if they’re actually here or if we’re talking to someone, if they’re talking to me or if they’re listening if I need to talk to them, or if I can talk to them. Like if they have them in, I don’t know if they’re on the phone with someone or if I can to be like, “oh hey!” and sometimes I only see someone, I’m like, Hey. And they’re just like, “I’m gonna call you back.” Just like waaaah! Am I the asshole?
Kristine: It’s so weird ’cause they’re like looking in your direction.
Jeremy: Yeah.
Kristine: And so it seems like they’re present with you, but then it’s like–
Jeremy: Nah.
Kristine: They’re totally not. I’ve had this happen where I was talking to somebody and then they like took a phone call, like in the middle of that was just like, O…kay.
Jeremy: Did they say “excuse me” or did they just pick up?
Kristine: No!
Jeremy: Yeah. I feel like the social mores are sort of shifting — and it’s okay for social mores to shift, but getting away from actually being able to be present… Anything I think that takes us further away from actually connecting to the people we’re with, I view with suspicion.
Kristine: I was at a airport for a while . Our flight got canceled, so I was at the airport for like six hours and there was this guy who was on his phone talking to somebody for like an hour. I don’t know, maybe it’s because I’m not a phone talker person, but I don’t understand… What is the other, like, it makes me wonder what is the other person doing? Like where are they at right now? Are they just at home and they like chilling on the couch? Like, what’s going on?
Jeremy: Well, sometimes the conversations you overhear are very like one person’s just stream of consciousness-ing about like, Diana, I can’t blog. Yeah. And it did that and let me tell you about, I’m just going to vent about Diana for awhile and like there’s no space for the other person to talk. I’m just like, who is on the other side? Is there, is that person listening or is that person scrolling through Instagram or what’s going on?
Kristine: Someone loves the beard.
Jeremy: Oh, Sindre. Cinder? Sin… Sinder? Saundray? Sindruh… loves the beard. Thanks! I grew up myself. It’s real. It’s real, baby. It’s the best I can do. It only grows here. Yeah, that’s what I got.
Kristine: Okay. Well, the guy that was at the airport was talking about how he had gone to this fundraising event or something, like, it was a guy who obviously had a lot of money and so he’s talking about how drunk he got and how he like took the wine from the other table and like him and his buddies got so smashed. It was very odd conversation.
Jeremy: Yeah. Weird little glimpse into someone’s life and you don’t have any context for it, so you don’t know how to assess this information.
Oh, yes. Uh, Bob 59 were both living in the USA. Sindre is a Viking from Norway. What’s up Norway? I want to visit Norway at some point. It looks beautiful. Yeah.
Kristine: Oh, France.
Jeremy: Oh, France! Nice. Oh, this is a very international Twitch chat right now. This is cool. I feel very, like, world citizen and right now. Mostly the people I talk to are around me from where I live.
What’s up France? How’s France? Are you guys still protesting? Is that still going on? I see a lot of news bits about the yellow vests. The yellow vest situation.
“It’s cold here, though. I ride a snowmobile to school.”
Do you really ride a snowmobile to school or is that a joke? Is that a Norway joke? If that’s true, that’s amazing. I want to ride a snowmobile to school.
Oh, you like the, you like USA. I’m like ambivalent about it right now. Honestly. It’s kind of bumming me out right now. And we’re like descending into fascism kind of.
Kristine: Oligrchies and… You know, but we’ve driven across the USA couple of times and it is beautiful place.
Jeremy: Oh yeah, for sure, there’s a lot of natural beauty out there, and there’s a lot of really good people too. I mean, don’t get me wrong.
“What do you think when you look at Norway?”
I dunno, you guys have better healthcare system than us, right? You have like single payer situation. We’re trying to get some of that good health care. You know what I’m saying? Because it costs a bunch of money to get healthcare here. You get universal healthcare in Canada, but not the US. Costs a bunch of money. Like sometimes you get benefits from work if you’re lucky enough to have benefits at your job, but we don’t just like get health care here. We’re working on it though,
Kristine: Working on it.
I would say like in average America, people are not very well off at all and don’t have access to basic things.
Jeremy: Yeah , if you like need insulin or something like that, or if you need blood dialysis, you’re paying a bunch of money to get it.
How hard is it for us to immigrate to Norway? Can we go?
Kristine: Do you take vacations?
Jeremy: It sounds really baller. Let’s see if we can bring it back around. Went to the RV show to look at RVs cause we want to get an RV so that we can travel around, take the show on the road , make some connections with other intentional communities, and then find some land and then stay on that land with our RV while we’re setting up some more permanent structures.
I was really impressed by a lot of the RVs we looked at. I was like, this is pretty spacious. I can make this work. We could live in this. In nice kitchens.
Kristine: Yeah. I was too.
Jeremy: I want to take it boondocking and live in some like wilderness land for a little bit. Just be in the woods, be crazy woods people for a little bit. I have like always wanted to do that. I love being in nature. I love being in the woods.
Kristine: Yeah.
Jeremy: Every time I go camping or backpacking or whatever, I’m like, I wish I could stay longer and not go back to the real world.
Kristine: Right. And with an RV, it’s like you have the comforts of the world that we’re used to: air conditioning, and a working kitchen and like a shower.
Jeremy: Yeah. It can be like part of the transition, you know. Like going from here to composting toilets, that can be kind of intense, but if we work our way there, you work our way to like zero blackwater toilets. Then eventually like set up a composting outhouse when we get land or something like that, and then, you know, get used to it as we go.
Kristine: Yeah. It’d be cool to meet people who are doing that right now.
Jeremy: Yeah. See how they live. Document that. ‘Cause the other thing I, like, I’m not really interested in being like one of those Instagram influencers or those YouTube channels where we’re just like, “we’re just living in the RV lifestyle.” I want to, I want to talk about politics and like talk about like actual intentional living communities and the eco village thing and how to transition as a society to a more sustainable way of living, regenerative farming, that kind of thing. I don’t want the lifestyle to be the message. Maybe the lifestyle is unusual enough to make it more interesting so we can get that message out. Getting the message out is what’s important to me right now. We can’t live the way that we’re living right now, so we have to find alternatives. So maybe we can explore those alternatives and share that.
Kristine: Yeah. Yeah! So RV life. Maybe this is like the start of talking about RV living and it’ll be interesting maybe in the next couple of months we’ll have…
Jeremy: Yeah.
Kristine: It’s just, I think it’s just so funny because our dream is pretty small, you know? Well, like, our dream is pretty small in the grand scheme of things. ‘Cause some people want to like, you know, have a house and 2.5 kids or something, but it’s like… An RV?
Jeremy: Yeah, it’s so modest. We’re just looking for like a tiny place to live in the middle of nowhere.
Oh, the Northern lights? Oh, that’s, that’s badass. Send us a picture, you know, mailbag@itsnoworneverpodcast.com.
Kristine: Mail bag.
Jeremy: Mailbag.
Oh, thanks dude. I’m going to check them out. Checking out the pics from Sindre. Am I, am I pronouncing your name okay? Sindre. Oh, here it is. Northern lights! Pretty cool.
Kristine: The Northern lights.
Jeremy: Look at those. That’s very vibrant. That’s rad. Hey, thanks for sending. That was cool.
Kristine: We’ll have to drive our RV to Norway.
Jeremy: Yeah, let’s do it. Let’s get an RV that can convert into a boat.
Kristine: That sounds terrifying. That sounds really scary.
Jeremy: Oh man.
Kristine: There’s sharks and things out there.
Jeremy: You get shark repellant, which I recently learned is a real thing and not just from the Adam West Batman movie.
Oh yeah, but in season two of Lost in Space on Netflix, they turn their spaceship into a boat, so it’s possible.
Kristine: Why would they do that though?
Jeremy: They had to ’cause… plot… reasons.
Kristine: Couldn’t they fly over the ocean?
Jeremy: No, their ship was busted. It’s just like, yeah, their, like, engine wouldn’t work or they didn’t have fuel or something. For plot reasons.
Kristine: Was there a sail?
Jeremy: Yeah. They made a sail. They like, makeshift a sail.
Kristine: Was it made out of underwear?
Jeremy: No. Actually, the whole like Swiss Family Robinson in space thing is kind of cool. Bootstrapping survival in precarious space conditions. I’m into it. It’s pretty rad. It’s going to be us soon trying to survive in our own atmosphere.
(Nervous laughter from both)
Uh. Well. I don’t know how this is going to be an episode, but it sure was fun. Thanks to everyone who had participated, thanks again to Sindre for the pics! That looks super rad. And I’ll catch you later.
Kristine: Bye!