I've come to believe that 'off grid' is about the establishment and maintenance of just enough infrastructure to allow the participant(s) to sustain the fantasy that they can replicate and maintain what they perceive as normative reality without reliance on any external factors. It is to maintain the notion that one can be independent of the broader society but still withdraw from that society any material advantages made available. In would seem to me a more benign outgrowth of basic human social patterns: specialized warrior-centered tribes who maintain themselves by raiding more agrarian tribes (particularly I think of the situation with the bandits in The Magnificent Seven as a more contemporary example.)