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Doomsday Prep for the Super-rich

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Re: Doomsday Prep for the Super-rich

#151

Post by cr0sh »

sjg007 wrote: post #114
tossaway322 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+10 on the dental floss. I've been trying to find a way to buy (the remainder of) a lifetime's supply in case of thermonuclear war. Once out of floss, I can either pull my teeth out (Well, OK, every _other_ tooth) or kill myself. Life w/o floss is unimaginable.

Floss actually isn't necessary and its benefits haven't been scientifically proven. Sugar is the enemy. Drink water.

Floss is useful for things other than cleaning teeth; it's fairly strong, lightweight, and you can get a lot for little money. You can use it to tie up things, as a wick for a candle or oil lamp, sewing (in a pinch), etc. Basically, get a small roll for your bug-out bag, make sure it is unflavored and waxed.

Re: Doomsday Prep for the Super-rich

#152

Post by big_youth »

aaron-lebo wrote: post #61
virmundi wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are an a lot quieter. But don't be fooled. Even with shitty long guns (not even riffles since they weren't riffled), the American Indians swapped bows for guns. They still used bows, but took to guns due to their power.

Interestingly, in the American Southwest guns didn't really challenge bows until the introduction of the Colt revolver. Even Kentucky long rifles which were very effective against infantry were pretty much worthless against mounted natives who could fire dozens of arrows a minute. This was the case up until about the 1850s.

This article disagrees with you: https://aeon.co/essays/how-did-the-introduction-of-guns-chan...

"It is common to deride early modern firearms as slow to load, inaccurate and undependable in wet weather. Indians had a more favourable opinion of these weapons, particularly of the flintlock muskets that became available at the beginning of the 1630s. ...

Flintlocks were still cumbersome. They required about 25 seconds to load, and were accurate only to about 100 yards. Yet Indians did not intend to use the weapon in open-field, pitched battles. Rather, they wanted flintlocks to fire on human or animal targets from ambush at close range. After firing, they would rush in with hand weapons. The manner in which Native peoples used guns is critical to understanding their demand for them."

Re: Doomsday Prep for the Super-rich

#153

Post by zeveb »

1812Overture wrote: post #110
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'…

I think this is what a lot of libertarian types don't get (a lot of overlap with prepper types). Taxes aren't the government stealing money that you willed into existence out of thin air, you're paying to live in a society built to protect your wealth.

> Taxes aren't the government stealing money that you willed into existence out of thin air, you're paying to live in a society built to protect your wealth.

Well, the Mafia do protect businesses which pay them protection money, too. Sure, you have a (single) vote for a few legislators and an executive at the state and federal levels to influence the IRS, but the influence of your vote is probably less than your shared humanity is an influence on a don's enforcers.

There's a question of the extent to which the government's (or the Mafia's) taxation is commensurate with the services it renders, but they're equally involuntary.

(and yes, government is necessary, and preferable to lawlessness; that doesn't mean that everything it does is right, nor does it mean that it's voluntary, any more than the execution of a convict who doesn't physically fight every step to the gallows is voluntary)

Re: Doomsday Prep for the Super-rich

#154

Post by zeveb »

anigbrowl wrote: post #143
VLM wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And yet a few people engaging in a struggle to the death sure can inconvenience all the folks trying to help their neighbours.

Re: Doomsday Prep for the Super-rich

#155

Post by science4sail »

doikor wrote: post #27

I really don't see a scenario working where you pay money to someone to protect you in a doomsday scenario working. The guard is the guy with the guns (and the training to use them). Why would the guard not just kill you/kick you out of the secure place once shit hits the fan?

It's like one of the sayings in A Song of Ice and Fire: A swordsman receives conflicting orders from a king, merchant, and priest. Actual power lies with the swordsman, everything else is just an illusion brought about by societal convention.

Re: Doomsday Prep for the Super-rich

#156

Post by unabridged »

shuntress wrote: post #40
drcode wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, Bitcoin technically doesn't need a true internet, just an ad-hoc mesh network. (Not that those will be easy to come by, either, but they would be somewhat more feasible to establish.)

What would be the mechanism by which which two previously separate but each fully legitimate (in their own network) ledgers interact? Not trying to poke holes; Just curious. E: To clarify, imagine that the North American Free Peoples Conglomerate and the New China Society finally re-establish contact between the two continents for the first time in hundreds of years. They have each been running fully functional bitco…

After a hundred years each blockchain's software would already have different hard coded checkpoints. They would effectively be 2 different coins and treated that way.

Ethereum has already forked on purpose and ETH and ETC are treated as two separate coins

Re: Doomsday Prep for the Super-rich

#157

Post by erikpukinskis »

LyndsySimon wrote: post #120
Spooky23 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you do in your bunker? Sit around, eat canned food and watch DVDs? What happens when the beer runs out? It's one thing to seek shelter. It's another to go live in a hole. The other issue is that billionaire or not, once everything goes poof, your billions go with it.

I think the idea is that they're looking for a safe place to ride out the collapse itself - the transitionary period between our current civilization and whatever follows, where a large percentage of the population dies from violence and resource shortages.

... then you come out of your bunker yelling "A Lannister always pays his debts! A Lannister always pays his debts!"

Re: Doomsday Prep for the Super-rich

#159

Post by erikpukinskis »

Atheros wrote: post #126
LyndsySimon wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... but the individual transactions on the losing chain could would still be valid and could be incorporated into the winning blockchain. It wouldn't be quite a simple as "the shortest chain loses" Oh, and the country with the lowest amount of energy spent mining would win. Both countries hashing after unification would work on the chain with the lowest difficulty, which would be the one with the least hashing power.…

You need to read more about how Bitcoin works.

Apparently you're the one who needs to read up. Any valid transaction from the shorter chain could (profitably) be incorporated into the long chain. Only double spends would be invalid, which are difficult to do in a network partition.

Re: Doomsday Prep for the Super-rich

#160

Post by erikpukinskis »

sjg007 wrote: post #114
tossaway322 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+10 on the dental floss. I've been trying to find a way to buy (the remainder of) a lifetime's supply in case of thermonuclear war. Once out of floss, I can either pull my teeth out (Well, OK, every _other_ tooth) or kill myself. Life w/o floss is unimaginable.

Floss actually isn't necessary and its benefits haven't been scientifically proven. Sugar is the enemy. Drink water.

It's usefulness depends a lot on how straight your teeth are and what kind of food you eat.
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