In the 1800s you could go somewhere, kick out the natives and declare yourself the owner of the land. I don't think that's possible anymore. At least not in most habitable zones. Where in particular do you recommend people should go?

They left much of the areas they slaughtered the natives for, the midwest is still incredibly empty. Five states with eleven people per square mile or less, including Alaska. Plenty of space.

The "empty" midwest is all owned, though. $4000/acre, maybe? That's not much if you are trying to buy land to build a house. It's a lot if you're trying to acquire 1000 acres for a farm, though.

Alaska is largely government owned. It's empty, but that doesn't mean that you can take a chunk of land there.

Can you go the Midwest somewhere and live off the land? I doubt it.

You can, but you'll be dirt poor. Back when "dirt poor" was normal, and luxuries like "bathing every day" or "carpet" were uncommon, being dirt poor seemed acceptable. Now most people won't accept that as a lifestyle.

To all the empty land in central Iceland; Sweden is also not very dense.

Although those places are not very conductive to farming...

You are legally prohibited from building anything above 500m in Iceland, which is most of the central interior.

The problem isn't the abundance or lack of open space, it's the fact that the primary income sources from open spaces now requires massive amounts of capital to be competitive.

This. There's a reason that communist revolutions were fueled by a desire for bread, peace, and land. In the start of the 20th century, you could make a decent living if you owned nothing but the land you lived on.

Nowadays, you really can't.

I wonder what happens if we get robots that can provide a complete living off some plot of land. Like agriculture, energy and whatever you need. So in theory you could live autonomously then.

Somehow I think the owning class will come up with ways to make this illegal or impossible.

Why would robots make a difference? Currently, you can't really live off of a plot of land alone, but you'll be living quite well if you also own a bunch of high tech machinery to farm it efficiently. For a well-off Ferrari-owning farmer, the Ferrari is likely not among the most expensive vehicles he owns, the tractors/combines/whatever cost the big bucks.

That's what the poster above meant by "the primary income sources from open spaces now requires massive amounts of capital to be competitive", and owning these robots would be the massive amount of capital; you'd be able to sustain yourself because (and if) you'd have a lot of very expensive robots, not because you just had some land; and you'd also be able to sustain yourself by just investing the value of these robots.

I think that it was not so much about open space, as an opportunity to establish an economic independence. The likes of which the equivalents only exist in different forms today - much akin to dreams of startups today.