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How to Survive When Money Is Worthless [video]

nytimes.com

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Re: How to Survive When Money Is Worthless [video]

#91

Post by karlmcguire »

tigershark wrote: post #48

Inflation in Venezuela is over 25k%. People are jailed during demonstrations when they are not shot in cold blood. Children are dying of malnutrition. But for everyone on HN the biggest problem is the article format. Utterly and completely unbelievable...

I agree that the situation in Venezuela is dire. I would expect an article about the situation would respect that, and rather than presenting it as some cinematic experience it would present the facts in an easily consumed format. This "article" doesn't do that.

Re: How to Survive When Money Is Worthless [video]

#92

Post by mrfredward »

cgopalan wrote: post #41

Who else felt the irony of people complaining about the presentation format when there are human beings suffering from such a crisis? I was moved when I saw the clip of the kids being fed in a soup kitchen. Not saying you cannot criticize the format, but shouldn't the discussion be more about what actually caused this situation and how it can be remedied or prevented?

The situation is the result of a corrupt and incompetent government, and short of starting a war to overthrow said government I'm not sure what we can do.

We shouldn't miss the humanitarian crisis, but given that the HN community has a lot more influence over UX than foreign governments, the focus on content format isn't irrational.

Re: How to Survive When Money Is Worthless [video]

#93

Post by jstewartmobile »

TimTheTinker wrote: post #66
jstewartmobile wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

libertarian edition of "we've never achieved true communism"

True communism is impossible without perfect (i.e. morally incorruptible) people. People who hate on "capitalism" are often (I think) troubled by the behavior of rich/powerful people. I am too. But the solution isn't to remove property rights.

Both are over-abstracted materialist belief systems of how society should function. The new religions.

Re: How to Survive When Money Is Worthless [video]

#94

Post by AnimalMuppet »

aspyct wrote: post #74

So... the country needs help. How do we help?

I don't think we can.

Any attempt to do so will be resisted by the government as the meddling of the imperialists, to be opposed at all costs. We either have to invade to remove the government by force (and kill a bunch of the army), or we can do very little.

One thing that we might, in other circumstances, do, is to tell Columbia, for example, that any refugees that come over the border we will take, so that they don't need to try to keep them out. But under current political circumstances in the US, even that seems out of reach...

Re: How to Survive When Money Is Worthless [video]

#95

Post by fallingfrog »

TimTheTinker wrote: post #27
CptFribble wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Trump != capitalism Capitalism is: - freedom to own property - freedom to use or trade property you own - freedom to trade services for property or other services Of course that's not enough to create a viable society. Whatever else you add to the sauce is not capitalism, it's something else.

This is a popular misconception. All societies including feudal ones and modern socialist societies have private property. What capitalism means is that the people who own the places where people work, and the people who do the work, are not the same people. An alternative might be a society in which all the businesses were worker owned; it would still be a free market society, but since the businesses were all owned and controlled by the employees, there would be no stock market and would not be capitalism.

Re: How to Survive When Money Is Worthless [video]

#96

Post by andyidsinga »

I found this maddening to watch from a technical perspective - it was beautifully produced, subtitles, video and audio - but it didn't work right in my browser! (latest chrome on win10)

- the audio and subtitles didn't sync

- if I touched the scroll wheel on my mouse it would rapidly generate events that caused the 'next' action

- if I click on next after the audio was complete on one page there was no audio on the next page - just the subtitles.

..so I struggled through it and wondered how this was tested before they pushed it out.

finally, getting to the end - I didn't see anything that actually discussed how people are actually surviving!?

I lived in the USSR in the early 90s while crazy inflation was starting to happen; here are a few strategies people used in those days (in fact I and my family used too). Note that inflation got even crazier after I left - and I'm not sure what other things people did to handle that; but I suspect friends/family/connections continue to be extremely important.

- they kept dollars or other western currency and traded for rubles as close to purchases as possible

- everyone would use private connections with others get access to goods that we're not readily available. didn't seem to be at lot of bartering here - but taking very good care of those connections and reciprocating whenever possible.

- people would grow food at their datcha - and share with their friends and sometimes sell it at local open market / bazaar.

- finally, you take on any work - and I mean any work - to get a bit of extra cash - especially in foreign currency. You're not like "I'm a doctor, I've above doing ______" if someone will pay you to do ______; and you can do it - you probably will.

Re: How to Survive When Money Is Worthless [video]

#97

Post by dylan-m »

TimTheTinker wrote: post #27
CptFribble wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Trump != capitalism Capitalism is: - freedom to own property - freedom to use or trade property you own - freedom to trade services for property or other services Of course that's not enough to create a viable society. Whatever else you add to the sauce is not capitalism, it's something else.

Taken too far, capitalism is also private, for-profit prisons, it turns out. How are those going for you?

Re: How to Survive When Money Is Worthless [video]

#98

Post by csomar »

tigershark wrote: post #48

Inflation in Venezuela is over 25k%. People are jailed during demonstrations when they are not shot in cold blood. Children are dying of malnutrition. But for everyone on HN the biggest problem is the article format. Utterly and completely unbelievable...

The format is as important. You can only learn about the Venezuela issue if information is transmitted and processed to your brain. The format can affect that in a big way.

Re: How to Survive When Money Is Worthless [video]

#99

Post by loeg »

TheCowboy wrote: post #56
lisper wrote: post #33

This is not an article, it's a movie with subtitles. (It should have a [video] tag.) And it doesn't address how to survive when money is worthless, it just shows some vignettes from Venezuela that illustrate how hard it is to survive when money is worthless.

It's a hybrid article. Mixed media. Interactive web page. The categorization of movie seems to imply some dismissiveness as well. The article isn't so much an instructional video on how to survive, and could be interpreted as ironic on some level. I don't think the title is beyond critique, but the content addresses how people are surviving by showing people who are surviving, even barely. If people think conditions…

In what sense is it hybrid or mixed media? It's ordinary video, with subtitles.

Re: How to Survive When Money Is Worthless [video]

#100

Post by StavrosK »

icebraining wrote: post #81
StavrosK wrote: post #73

Are people there still using the Bolivar? Why haven't they switched to some alternative currency? Wouldn't that solve many of the current problems?

There are probably heavy controls on the import of foreign currencies.

That makes sense... Cryptocurrencies might have helped there, but with how hard they are to use and with how impossible it would be to actually exchange them to and from fiat, they'd practically be no help at all.
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