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Homeless, Unemployed, and Surviving on Bitcoins

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Re: Homeless, Unemployed, and Surviving on Bitcoins

#51

Post by mkr-hn »

seansoutpost wrote: post #4
techtalsky wrote: post #2

Seems like you could make more than .60 a day doing Mechanical Turk jobs. It'd be a little less mind numbing than watching commercials every day.

I agree you can make more. But, one thing to consider is, you have to have a bank account to deposit turk money into or buy things from Amazon. Neither of those has the immediacy of Bitcoin. Also, a lot of homeless have issues getting a bank account. We have millions of "unbanked" people in the US alone.

You can withdraw the Amazon Payments balance in the form of $5 Amazon gift cards. Then you can sell those to people for $5. A homeless person will have trouble with that, but people with homes and no bank account seem to be more common.

Since it's relevant: scam requesters are abundant on Mechanical Turk, and they can kill your earning potential if you don't avoid them. I wrote a thing on how to do that: http://mkronline.com/2013/09/17/how-to-make-money-with-mecha...

Re: Homeless, Unemployed, and Surviving on Bitcoins

#52

Post by NovemberWest »

rorrr2 wrote: post #6

The math doesn't add up. At "0.000133 bitcoins a day" it would take 7518 days (more than 20 years) to make one bitcoin. At "0.0004 bitcoins" per video it would take 2500 videos to watch to make one bitcoin. The amount of wasted human capital is insane. Why don't these people get jobs? There are tons of posts on Craigslist for jobs that don't require any education - delivery, waiters, busboys, cleaning, etc.

Why don't these people get jobs?

I am currently homeless. I am not looking for a job because I am medically handicapped. I walked away from a job with a Fortune 500 company that was helping to keep me ill. My condition is very expensive, thus my job amounted to a net loss in income. Since quitting and sleeping in a tent, I have paid down thousands of dollars in debt incurred during the years I had that job. I am currently trying to declare bankruptcy, but being homeless and having chronic health issues means everything is frustratingly slow.

I have alimony, I do a little freelance work online and I have websites I am trying to develop. As a homeless woman, I have damn little credibility and cannot get people to take me very seriously. If you would like to see me stop being a total fucking loser, I could use help developing and promoting my web projects.

A lot of people on the street are medically or mentally ill. Most of them are less well educated than I am. I have made substantial progress towards resolving my underlying problems which are the root cause of my homelessness. Many others do not know how to do that. I need an income that does not keep me sick. That's quite a tall order to engineer while recovering physically and living on the street, but it is my only hope of ever making my life work.

Re: Homeless, Unemployed, and Surviving on Bitcoins

#53

Post by specialist »

SolarNet wrote: post #27
rorrr2 wrote: post #6

The math doesn't add up. At "0.000133 bitcoins a day" it would take 7518 days (more than 20 years) to make one bitcoin. At "0.0004 bitcoins" per video it would take 2500 videos to watch to make one bitcoin. The amount of wasted human capital is insane. Why don't these people get jobs? There are tons of posts on Craigslist for jobs that don't require any education - delivery, waiters, busboys, cleaning, etc.

"Why don't these people get jobs?" Because: THERE. ARE. NOT. ENOUGH. JOBS. * The economy crashed a while ago. We still haven't recovered all the jobs we lost, by either absolute or percentage. * Increased automation and efficiency is slowly removing those jobs you just described. Exec, a YCombinator app, makes a more efficient and automated solution to craigslist cleaning jobs. This is happening in every sector in th…

Agreed. Plus:

* Lack of access to capital. I look around my neighborhood, city, state, country. There is no shortage of useful work to be done.

Re: Homeless, Unemployed, and Surviving on Bitcoins

#54

Post by michaelwww »

Taylorious wrote: post #50

Love the picture of the "homeless" guy using a laptop newer than mine, with his pet, nice bike, playing a video game while he smokes a cig. He also has an energy drink... as if he needs it to get through his day of sitting around. It's people like him who are hurting the homeless people that are actually in need.

Yes, because homeless people should have nothing and suffer as much as possible because they can't afford rent.

Re: Homeless, Unemployed, and Surviving on Bitcoins

#55

Post by danielweber »

VMG wrote: post #32
hooande wrote: post #29

There were a few points that the article didn't bring up. I was surprised that they didn't discuss the speculative value of bitcoins. There's no way that the value of a dollar in your pocket will suddenly double, but the value of a bitcoin has and will again. Obviously volatility isn't all fun...would you want your salary paid in bitcions? In the current market you might actually come out ahead over the next few year…

The minimum wage does a lot of good Interesting you say then when you can clearly see that actually hurts those people.

Policies can have both good effects and bad effects at the same time.

Re: Homeless, Unemployed, and Surviving on Bitcoins

#56

Post by reginaldjcooper »

usaphp wrote: post #48

Ok, so I am paying around 30k of my hard earned money as taxes from working 10+ hours every day, just so this guy can do nothing all day long and get free food stamps...I would rather spend this money on my kids and family...

I know, right? Let's take back all these entitlements from these lazy poors. If they really want to eat they should get a job like the rest of us.

And let's have a word with the inefficient government bureaucrats. How do they start with your hard-earned 30k and end up with just enough to give this guy food stamps? Totally inefficient if you ask me.

Re: Homeless, Unemployed, and Surviving on Bitcoins

#57

Post by rjwebb »

SolarNet wrote: post #22
Romoku wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He could have an online wallet or have his wallet.dat file synchronized to SpiderOak, DropBox, et al.

I think the idea is that his laptop could be stolen/robbed. They are often worth a bit of money. But I bet there is a performance/age/fencing/cost point where it isn't worth it to rob someone for it.

Do thieves understand this?

Re: Homeless, Unemployed, and Surviving on Bitcoins

#58

Post by igreulich »

michaelwww wrote: post #54
Taylorious wrote: post #50

Love the picture of the "homeless" guy using a laptop newer than mine, with his pet, nice bike, playing a video game while he smokes a cig. He also has an energy drink... as if he needs it to get through his day of sitting around. It's people like him who are hurting the homeless people that are actually in need.

Yes, because homeless people should have nothing and suffer as much as possible because they can't afford rent.

Seems like rent would be more important than a fancy laptop, cigarettes, and energy drinks...

Re: Homeless, Unemployed, and Surviving on Bitcoins

#59

Post by jeffasinger »

michaelwww wrote: post #54
Taylorious wrote: post #50

Love the picture of the "homeless" guy using a laptop newer than mine, with his pet, nice bike, playing a video game while he smokes a cig. He also has an energy drink... as if he needs it to get through his day of sitting around. It's people like him who are hurting the homeless people that are actually in need.

Yes, because homeless people should have nothing and suffer as much as possible because they can't afford rent.

I think the point is, the cost of having/using those things is approaching the cost of rent.

Re: Homeless, Unemployed, and Surviving on Bitcoins

#60

Post by super-serial »

runj__ wrote: post #26
techtalsky wrote: post #2

Seems like you could make more than .60 a day doing Mechanical Turk jobs. It'd be a little less mind numbing than watching commercials every day.

cmd-F Mechani Oh, there you are. Exactly. You can easily make ~10cents a minute, that's 6 dollars an hour. It's probably pretty hard work but the premise of this is just so... If you're homeless in america, sign up for mechanical turk. You'll make more than enough for food.

How do you make 10 cents a minute? Have you ever tried?

When I needed money I tried... I made $2-$3 per hour writing articles. Transcribing audio, doing surveys and small 5 cent tasks all paid less per hour.

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