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Doomsday Prep for the Super-rich

newyorker.com

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Re: Doomsday Prep for the Super-rich

#141

Post by disordinary »

Tomminn wrote: post #117
bootload wrote: post #104

“I typically ask people, ‘So you’re worried about the pitchforks. How much money have you donated to your local homeless shelter?’ This connects the most, in my mind, to the realities of the income gap. All the other forms of fear that people bring up are artificial.” I like Max Levchins idea behind this statement. The underlying anxiety shown by a lot of the characters interviewed in this article display a real huma…

In NZ there is free healthcare, free accident insurance and a decent welfare program. Being a capitalist country, there is still income inequality, but the situation is no way near as bad as it is in the US because of these safety nets for the bottom quartile. The homicide rate in NZ is less than 1 per 100,000 inhabitants. And almost all of those homicides are solved, because the police force is large compared to the…

Not only would NZ society pay for your healtchare if you lost your leg but they would also pay for your rehabilitation, any other health issues, and guaranty you an income for life.

Also if you pass a certain threshold of medication usage (it's not much, I get prescription allergy medication and I passed it) then you don't even need to pay the $5, that's not to mention the fact that if you are poor or unemployed you also don't need to pay for medication.

The problem with private healthcare in NZ is that if there are complications they call an ambulance and send you to a public hospital for an emergency, which are better equipped.

Re: Doomsday Prep for the Super-rich

#142

Post by anigbrowl »

Karunamon wrote: post #85
bambax wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone is part of society. If society "collapses" (which can take many forms), the responsible, respectable reaction is to stay with it and try to restore it, not cut it loose -- retract to a shelter somewhere with "lots of guns and ammo" to wait it out. When disaster strikes it may be very natural and expected to save oneself, if possible. That's survival instinct. But prepare for it is not admirable, to say the l…

But at the end of the day, you're not restoring anything if you're dead due to lack of food, water, or shelter, or violent action by someone else. That's what's confusing me about your view, here. There's a reason these basics are at the very base of Maslow's hierarchy[1], and that's because without them, such niceties as polite society aren't possible. It would be foolish to not concentrate on having the basics avai…

Your post presumes conflict with all the other survivors, which says a lot more about you than it does about them. In reality, people tend to help each other out in the wake of disasters, rather than engaging in a zero-sum struggle for exclusive control of resources.

Re: Doomsday Prep for the Super-rich

#143

Post by anigbrowl »

VLM wrote: post #78
dmode wrote: post #46

Having grown up in poverty in a third world country that is extremely chaotic, the doomsday obsession in America is laughable and a little disturbing at the same time. Society doesn't break down like that. Can someone explain why is there such paranoia in the US about societal collapse ? It it video games, movies, media frenzy, hyper partisan politics ? All of it ? I know people who have created bunkers and stock pil…

The topic is example number 258726 of the most photogenic controversial clickbait not really having much to do with the reality of anything. "Society doesn't break down like that." Unfortunately it does, in the USA. See the aftermath of hurricane Katrina for an example of how well we get along when things are temporarily bad. Also the geography of the USA frankly sucks. We're rich and its not because our weather is u…

Post-Katrina most people focused on helping their neighbors rather than engaging in a struggle to the death.

Re: Doomsday Prep for the Super-rich

#144

Post by anigbrowl »

fallingfrog wrote: post #72

How many paid people does it take to maintain these huge compounds?? These people don't seem to understand that all of their wealth and possessions only belong to them because there is a big organized power system that says so, with lawyers and cops with guns and people that are required to obtain cash money every month. 5 seconds after things go south, that helicopter belongs to the pilot, not to you. That land you'…

Quite. If the shit actually hits the fan and the ultra-rich head off to their boltholes, I give it about 72 hours before the servants realize that there won't be any consequences for simply doing away with their erstwhile employer and opt to turn the compound into a collective farm instead.

Re: Doomsday Prep for the Super-rich

#145

Post by Karunamon »

anigbrowl wrote: post #142
Karunamon wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But at the end of the day, you're not restoring anything if you're dead due to lack of food, water, or shelter, or violent action by someone else. That's what's confusing me about your view, here. There's a reason these basics are at the very base of Maslow's hierarchy[1], and that's because without them, such niceties as polite society aren't possible. It would be foolish to not concentrate on having the basics avai…

Your post presumes conflict with all the other survivors, which says a lot more about you than it does about them. In reality, people tend to help each other out in the wake of disasters, rather than engaging in a zero-sum struggle for exclusive control of resources.

And you presume that you know the friendliness status of every other survivor. Such assumptions only hold within your limited circle of acquaintances. What happens when you encounter someone who you and your circle of friends and neighbors don't know? The social order is gone.

There's a "disaster", and then there's the total collapse of society.

Re: Doomsday Prep for the Super-rich

#146

Post by anigbrowl »

Karunamon wrote: post #145
anigbrowl wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your post presumes conflict with all the other survivors, which says a lot more about you than it does about them. In reality, people tend to help each other out in the wake of disasters, rather than engaging in a zero-sum struggle for exclusive control of resources.

And you presume that you know the friendliness status of every other survivor. Such assumptions only hold within your limited circle of acquaintances. What happens when you encounter someone who you and your circle of friends and neighbors don't know? The social order is gone . There's a "disaster", and then there's the total collapse of society.

I presume no such thing.

Re: Doomsday Prep for the Super-rich

#147

Post by qball »

Apocryphon wrote: post #137
qball wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They still used bows, but took to guns due to their power. Not necessarily. Early guns were inefficient; one shot every minute is nothing compared to what a good bowman can do and you couldn't place an accurate shot outside of a few yards. The reason an army switches to guns is because they require very little strength (and consequentially, training time) to use. In fact, for a musket, the limiting factor would be t…

For modern day preppers, why not use crossbows, as a compromise?

Because military surplus exists, and it's cheap.

You still need a significant amount of strength and time to ready a crossbow. Anyone can fire it, but not everyone can load it. Also the bolt is relatively slow (the shot travels in an arc that's more pronounced the slower the projectile), requiring you to be close to what you want to hit.

And if you're hunting game, even firing a crossbow will likely spook your target.

Or you could buy some 100-year-old military rifle and become proficient with it. Nearly all of them fire rounds that can be (and frequently are) successfully used for taking all North American game.

And a bolt-action surplus rifle (or any other repeater) is still faster than any bow, and you can carry more rounds than you can arrows in a quiver for the same weight, and bullets don't snap in half or depend on delicate pieces on the shaft to fly straight.

Re: Doomsday Prep for the Super-rich

#148

Post by dkarapetyan »

Either these folks truly don't understand how interdependent modern society is or the article cherry picked sound bites to make them look like idiots.

Instead of investing in strengthening the institutions that made their way of life possible these idiots are trying to sequester themselves. It is sad that we have allowed morons to such high ranks of power. The only sensible voices in the entire article are Levchin and Johnson.

Re: Doomsday Prep for the Super-rich

#149

Post by maxerickson »

LyndsySimon wrote: post #130
Atheros wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to read more about how Bitcoin works.

I've been involved since early 2011. I'm quite aware of how Bitcoin works.

The difficulty is arbitrary and set socially (mechanistically it is currently set by a formula in the software; it could be set differently if people decided to use different software...).

So having a lower difficulty at time t is a terrible reason for a given miner to move to a given chain, they have to also believe that it will be the consensus chain that maximizes their value/opportunity in the future.

Also, if you don't care about distributed consensus (discarding chains outside the network to make it keep working), POW mining is an expensive and inconvenient way to keep a ledger.

Re: Doomsday Prep for the Super-rich

#150

Post by cr0sh »

optimuspaul wrote: post #39
ratsbane wrote: post #7

I've got a titanium spork and some dental floss in my backpack and in the trunk of my car I've got a hi-vis vest, white hard hat, and a two-way radio. Am I missing anything? Are some of these prepper people are missing out on the key concept that to live by your wits you need wits? Or maybe they're aware of that and that's why they stockpile the shotgun shells and dehydrated water capsules...?

> dehydrated water capsules Is that a real thing? that sounds like nothing at all.

No - but there do exist "survival water packets" - you can find them on amazon and elsewhere (basically small pouches of clean water - think ketchup packets, with clean water instead).
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