I only wish I’d disconnected sooner.

Not needing something means more freedom, especially not needing something that

• Violates the Declaration of Independence (for a government to be just requires the consent of the governed, which pollution and depletion violate)
• Violates the Constitution (pollution and depletion deprive people of life, liberty, and property without due process of law)
• Violates property rights as understood by the framers, ratifiers, and public (pollution and depletion do not leave enough as good in common for others)

Good luck maintaining democracy without enforcing the minimum requirements for it.

Good luck leaving at peace with yourself violating your values. I take for granted you value living in a democracy, not descending into civic disorder leading to tyranny, civil war (remember last time this nation allowed one group to deprive another of its life, liberty, and property without due process of law?), being invaded, or some combination. If you don’t prefer democracy over those results, I’m not sure what to say.

I keep trying to prove that living this way—dropping my pollution and depletion by over 90 percent and keeping going—would be what environmentalists tell me: miserable, more expensive, and making life worse for people who aren’t “privileged.” The misery and cruelty they describe in even trying to live sustainably is why they don’t do it.

Hands-on practical experience proves them wrong. It’s delightful. It saves money and time. It helps people who don’t have access.

I offer you freedom and the ability to free others

I recommend trying it. How? I had no role models starting out, unless you count all humans who ever lived for the hundreds of thousands of years before we started polluting and depleting, and I faced resistance all around, especially from family and friends. You have me as a role model.

You can’t go wrong avoiding packaged food for a week, as I started. Once you wean yourself off ice cream and frozen pizza, and switch from plastic bags of pre-cut lettuce that starts decomposing the minute you take it out of the fridge to heads of lettuce that grow if you put them in water, you can unplug your fridge. Whole fruits and vegetables don’t need it.

From there is a short step to unplugging all your appliances and getting rid of the ones making you life worse, like the TV, clothes dryer, microwave, and such.

Now you can unplug your house or apartment from the grid. If you’re like me, aren’t ready to reach zero, and like using the phone, internet, and a pressure cooker every now and then, you might spend a couple hundred dollars on a used solar panel and battery. You don’t need to install them, though if you have a home that gets direct sunlight, you can.

As for reaching zero, as more of us drop 95 percent or so, markets will become more free (markets like our current one that violates the Declaration, Constitution, and property rights are coercive, not free) will form to make such things easier and easier.

You’ll only wish you did it earlier. You’ll see all your reasons to wait resemble those of Thomas Jefferson not to free his slaves. His words and yours may differ in their particulars, but they come from the same part of your minds trying to avoid facing the internal emotional consequences of violating your deepest values. Like nearly everyone in a slave culture, he didn’t hold the whip. He paid people to whip for him. We don’t poison people directly today either. We pay people to do things that cause people to die, only in much much much greater numbers than slavery.

I offer you freedom: Mental freedom for yourself and political freedom from those that our lifestyles force us to oppress, however unintentionally.

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I think this image is from my last electric bill. It took me a while to cancel my account even after disconnecting. I had heard that some law required being connected, but apparently not.

• ← What artificial intelligence does to our minds