[BigTex]

Independence can be very liberating. Doing things for yourself, not relying on others, having a range of skills, etc. is invigorating, but......

It's very inefficient.

I am not going to be nearly as good at 10 different things as I am going to be when I do just one thing. Division of labor is good. Jack-of-all-trades types often do kind of sloppy work.

I'm not sure where the right balance is, but I sometimes think we throw the baby out with the bathwater when we suggest that being able to do EVERYTHING for yourself is some kind of ideal. It's not (though I'm guilty of thinking is would be cool to have a range of skills like that).

[mekrob]

I think it'd be inaccurate to say that anyone here, except for maybe a few, want to be completely independent. What I would imagine is that most people want to be independent of outside forces like corporations or the government. It seems like most of the "independence movements" like ecovillages and such rely upon a range of people hosting a set skills in specific categories like engineering, agriculture, etc.

[Plantagenet]

I'd settle for just being independent of foreign oil suppliers.

[dinopello]

Efficiency is not the only relevant metric. There is resilience, robustness, adaptability, quality and a whole lot more.

[wisconsin_cur]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dinopello', 'E')fficiency is not the only relevant metric. There is resilience, robustness, adaptability, quality and a whole lot more.