What are alternative ways of survival?

I will use the term mode of survival to describe a way of living

What choices do we have for how we get food and survive? I won't be researching how effective or possible the individual choices are for this, merely listing them and providing references. I will separate them by dependence on what I call modern western society and the opposite, the prevention of the mode by the existence of modern western society. There will be overlaps between these concepts. I assume technology and science advance in spite of modern culture and society, not because of it. For example, school (especially up to high-school) wastes the time of geniuses and reduces their intellect, preventing scientific discovery and causing less of it averaged over the span of decades. Therefore, dependence or prevention of a mode of survival by modern culture and society is not dependent on the science or technology we happen to have in our modern western society. By modern western society I am referring to the common mode of survival and culture in the United States. Also, if a mode of survival is commonly associated with modern western society I will list it under that header.

Dependent on modern western society

Living off of the leftovers or waste of modern society:

For example:
Freeganism -

Freeganism is a practice and ideology participation in the conventional economy and minimal consumption of resources, > particularly through recovering wasted goods like food. Freegans...avoid buying anything.....

Freeganism as it is usually thought about, via dumpster diving and collecting wasted or thrown out food, is only possible in modern society. Of course following a strict definition a self sufficient farmer or hunter gather can be considered freegan, but that is not the intention of the word.

I propose that this mode of survival is more easily done in first-world societies because I assume in third world societies there is more competition for the left-overs.

Here is a book about one person who lives without money, Daniel Suelo.

Employed

Employment and working for someone else in a job.

Self-employed

Owning your own business

Cheap living and early retirement

Saving your money and/or living very cheaply to limit the amount of time you spend working.
As references see:
FIRE- financial independence retire early - Lean FIRE - Calculate how much you need - another calculator
Possum living - a book about living cheaply
Mr.Money Mustache - a blog about living cheaply. I think it started the "FIRE" term.

Workamping

Traveling and performing temporary jobs as money is needed.

Begger

Living off of the charity and gifts of others. I typically associate this with urban environments and homelessness

Not dependent on modern western society and perhaps not prevented

Monocultural agriculture

Focus on growing and selling a small variety of crops, or only one crop.

Subsistence or self-sufficient living -

Everything needed is produced by yourself or your family, with a focus on food. Usually this refers to a small scale family farm. In the case of an economic disaster being able to produce your own food can save you from famine. It seems to me that food can be produced in even very arid regions, however people do not have access to the necessary seeds and knowledge so when these regions undergo an economic disaster famine is a result. See desert agriculture, desert farming, desert farming wikipedia. As I stated in the beginning, I don't consider technology tied with the existence of "modern western society" and other aspects such as the acquisition of clean land, clean air, clean water, biodiversity of agricultural species and beneficial insects, etc are impeded by modern western society. I will write another article to detail this mode of survival. Self-sufficiency book

Cooperative

A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly-owned and democratically-controlled enterprise". Cooperatives may include:
-non-profit community organizations
-businesses owned and managed by the people who use their services (a consumer cooperative)
-organizations managed by the people who work there (worker cooperatives)
-organizations managed by the people to whom they provide accommodation (housing cooperatives)
-hybrids such as worker cooperatives that are also consumer cooperatives or credit unions
-multi-stakeholder cooperatives such as those that bring together civil society and local actors to deliver community needs
-second- and third-tier cooperatives whose members are other cooperatives

Prevented by modern society

Hunter-gatherer

This mode refers to gathering food and shelter materials from that which is naturally occurring in your surroundings. Many also did some form of agriculture, perhaps for example to encourage beneficial plants.

Nomadic

A nomad is a member of a community of people without fixed habitation who regularly move to and from the same areas, including nomadic hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), and tinker or trader nomads
The existence of a large amount of private land and regulations about road travel (cannot bring your horse or camel or flock on a highway) impede this mode of survival in modern western society.

Simple Living

Simple living encompasses a number of different voluntary practices to simplify one's lifestyle. These may include, for example, reducing one's possessions, generally referred to as minimalism, or increasing self-sufficiency.
Also see:
Anarcho-primitivism
In the U.S., anarchism started to have an ecological view mainly in the writings of Henry David Thoreau. In his book Walden, he advocates simple living and self-sufficiency among natural surroundings in resistance to the advancement of industrial civilization.

Permaculture farming

Permaculture is a system of agricultural and social design principles centered around simulating or directly utilizing the patterns and features observed in natural ecosystems
Imagine if you can walk into a forest and everything is edible. Edible plants can grow naturally and abundantly if they and other plants re-fertiIize the soil naturally. will expand this in another article.

Pastoralism

Pastoralism is the branch of agriculture concerned with the raising of livestock. It is animal husbandry: the care, tending and use of animals such as cattle, camels, goats, yaks, llamas, reindeers, horses and sheep.

Commune or intentional community

An intentional community is a planned residential community designed from the start to have a high degree of social cohesion and teamwork. The members of an intentional community typically hold a common social, political, religious, or spiritual vision and often follow an alternative lifestyle. They typically share responsibilities and resources. Intentional communities include collective households, cohousing communities, coliving, ecovillages, monasteries, communes, survivalist retreats, kibbutzim, ashrams, and housing cooperatives.

Thank you for your time.

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