The Shut-In Economy • Hacker News Board

Re: The Shut-In Economy

#301

Post by madcaptenor » Thu, Mar 26, 2015, 6:57 PM UTC

Amezarak wrote: post #218

zaroth wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$1.50 a meal? In what country? Where are you buying your protein for $3 per pound? Ground beef costs more. 100g before cooking is a pretty small serving. My local Safeway wanted $7/dozen (!!) for store brand eggs last week. I walked away shaking my head. Dollar isn't what it used to be. This week it was a "more reasonable" 5.49.

> Where are you buying your protein for $3 per pound? That's easily doable, at least here in the southern US. I regularly buy $10/3lb of chicken tenderloins. You can do much better if you're prepared to buy in bulk. Of course, venison is cheapest, if you're willing to kill it yourself/eat fresh roadkill/get the excess from hunting friends. ;) Catfish runs about the same here as chicken, but tilapia can be had for sup…

In Atlanta (specifically, the Buford Highway Farmers Market) I regularly buy 10-pound bags of chicken legs for $0.99 a pound, and I've seen them as low as $0.69.

The comparison isn't quite apples-to-apples as legs have bone, but I can't imagine I'm paying over $1.50 or so for the meat.

Note for non-Atlantans: we don't know what "Farmers Market" is here, this is basically a large grocery store with a good produce section.

Re: The Shut-In Economy

#302

Post by derwiki » Thu, Mar 26, 2015, 7:01 PM UTC

__john wrote: post #228

derwiki wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a birthday in ~24 hours. I plan to deactivate Facebook in ~12 hours and leave it off for a day or two.

I'm pretty sure you can change the privacy setting associated with the day/month and leave the year public.

But some people remember, and once one person posts, more people post.

Re: The Shut-In Economy

#303

Post by gallifreyan » Thu, Mar 26, 2015, 7:02 PM UTC

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #160

anupshinde wrote: post #150

I started working from home as an employee and then moved out of the job to be an independent consultant working from home. I enjoyed the freedom, there was so much I could do apart from work after saving on daily travel and lesser restriction on time. Slowly, it turned the other way round - I got shut-in. Started from not having to go to local store daily - because it was a waste of time. I could not relate to a cal…

Oh god this is so familiar. Work from home, too, pays the bills just fine but I've lost any semblance of schedule. Barely need to go out anymore, just for groceries but my gf who goes out daily and loves to cook likes to do this part, only occasionally do I run to the store to get some things for her. So I barely get out. Been meaning to go out on a daily basis but I think I have DSPD [0] and so I tend to wake up lat…

Hi IkmoIkmo. I sent a private message to your Reddit account.

Re: The Shut-In Economy

#304

Post by ild » Thu, Mar 26, 2015, 7:12 PM UTC

WorldWideWayne wrote: post #287

JohnBooty wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah it's weird. In the city, you can meet all these people, but actual neighbors treat each other like strangers. In the suburbs, neighbors are often (not always!) super friendly. My neighbors and I have watched each others' pets and helped each other in a lot of ways. I think it's just the "buying" versus "renting" thing. In the city most people are renting. There's less incentive to make friends with your neighbor…

I think it's dangerous to make friends with the neighbors wherever you live because you can't easily get away from them if you end up having problems.

You do not have to be a close friend.

Re: The Shut-In Economy

#305

Post by ars » Thu, Mar 26, 2015, 7:45 PM UTC

UK-AL wrote: post #216

ars wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you, but you are also losing the message. They are trying to say it's not a matter of willpower that you can just make it go away. It's something real and outside your control. The chemical imbalance part is nonsense, the message it implies is not.

If depression caused by terrible things happening, or loneliness, that is not also outside of your control? I've had depressed periods, but it was completely understandable given the situation I was in. I think the whole "chemical imbalance" is an easy fix, rather than trying to fix society, or the situation they are in. It's quick and easy to give pills rather than fix a life. Now i'm sure they're are actual medical…

Obviously there is depression caused by events, that type is "easy" to fix because (usually) you can fix the external events, or at least talk about them and come to terms with them.

But there is also depression caused by nothing whatsoever. Nothing detectable anyway.

People tend not to believe it can be possible, until they experience it (personally or by talking to someone who is experiencing it).

Talking about it (therapy) does nothing, because there is nothing bad happening to talk about. The person is just depressed for no reason at all, it's like someone pressed a "be depressed" switch in their brain. The person is aware of it, wants it to stop, and has no control over it at all, and no ability to change it.

It's that type that they call "chemical imbalance". The chemical imbalance part is nonsense of course, but the existence of this type of depression is not.

> but I think its overused.

In TV commercials, yes, I agree. But in real life? No, I don't think it's overused.

Re: The Shut-In Economy

#306

Post by IkmoIkmo » Thu, Mar 26, 2015, 7:49 PM UTC

gopher2 wrote: post #247

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure I would.

Okay, here's some suggestions. Test them out and see what happens I guess. Frankly, I have no idea what will happen if you do them: 1) Take a random amount of money... $25...$50... research and donate it to a charity you think is cool. Pick one and do it. Like now. 2) Are you in your house right now? Still on your computer? Go outside and walk around. It doesn't have to be supremely interesting or perfect. 3) Go to a…

1) I've been donating to Doctors without Borders since I was 18 and help fund a project on Kiva every month or so.

If anyone's interested in researching where to give I also recommend checking out the Give Well foundation,[0] as it matters more how you give, than whether you give. i.e. there are millions of people who have partial or full blindness due to lack of vitamins. A simple $20 operation will restore their eyesight, which is gigantic. Alternatively, there are millions of blind people who will never be able to see. We have alleviate their blindness with a guide dog, but it costs $20k to raise and train the dog and blind person. That's a three order of magnitude difference in cost, and the 100x cheaper operation actually cures blindless, while the 100x more expensive option 'merely' makes a blind life better.

In other words, one person donating $100 can be much more effective (curing 5 people of blindness) than 100 people donating $200 (giving 1 blind person a guide dog). This is the sort of thing the Give Well foundation tries to approach in a data-driven manner: what is the most effective way to give. This is an extreme example, but I think it's a really important approach to charity.

2) Went to my mom's birthday today instead. Was fun to see family again.

3) 9PM, reall cold and dark now... but yeah, I'd really struggle with this one even in the afternoon. But I'll try to do it tomorrow.

Thanks!

[0] http://www.givewell.org/

Re: The Shut-In Economy

#307

Post by IkmoIkmo » Thu, Mar 26, 2015, 8:09 PM UTC

zaroth wrote: post #196

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Edit: I just realized that's your per-person figure. Mine is for two. That is quite expensive :( $450 a month is definitely a lot by my standards, where/what do you tend to buy? But comparing it to his $60/w, $240/m, isn't quite fair. His meal plan is for 6 meals at $10 a meal. Considering you'll want a meal everyday, that's $300 a month and that's just for dinner. If you add breakfast and lunch he's either paying…

$1.50 a meal? In what country? Where are you buying your protein for $3 per pound? Ground beef costs more. 100g before cooking is a pretty small serving. My local Safeway wanted $7/dozen (!!) for store brand eggs last week. I walked away shaking my head. Dollar isn't what it used to be. This week it was a "more reasonable" 5.49.

the Netherlands. Pretty easy if you cook, it's actually about a dollar. Check some of my latest comments for a breakdown of pricing.

Prices are from AH, one of the more expensive supermarkets here. [0] Chicken breast is $6.50 per kilo, no bones just the breast, or indeed ~$3 a pound. 100g serving is recommended here, but then that may be the difference between Europe and the US.

Ground beef is even cheaper. Of course these are the lower-end prices, you can pay $20 for a kilo, too. But for the cheaper prices the meat is still excellent as AH is one of the most expensive supermarkets.

The cheaper supermarkets here, which are still decent quality overall, get you a 10-20% discount. The cheaper shops have small discounts (5-10%) on things like meat or salmon as we don't see a lot of branding premiums here on meats. And bigger discounts (15-20%) on things like ketchup or cola, where if you buy a no-name brand that tastes just fine you pay a third less.

Wouldn't have thought the US had more expensive meats. When I was last stateside I remember paying a pittance at the golden coral and leaving with the feeling I just ate 5 cows for the price of a cinema ticket! How they remained profitable boggled my mind at the time, even with cheap & absolute garbage ingredients I must have cost them some that day :P

Eggs are as cheap as 15c and as expensive as 40c an egg. So a dozen can be less than $2.

Two things must be mentioned... one is that it's not a purchasing power parity comparison. I'd say average wages are a little lower in the Netherlands than in the US (although I think the median family is a lot better off here), meaning there's a bit less to spend here, putting cheaper prices here on some foods in perspective.

And the Euro is abnormally weak right now which is likely a temporary thing. Normally the Euro is about 30% stronger, so any price conversion I do now would normally be 30% higher.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Heijn

Re: The Shut-In Economy

#308

Post by IkmoIkmo » Thu, Mar 26, 2015, 8:25 PM UTC

glogla wrote: post #207

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. Live in a beautiful city, cool friends, lovely girlfriend. Plenty of things exist here of which I can objectively say they're awesome, and in many things I'm genuinely interested, and so I avidly read and follow the news, whether it's social topics, economics, politics, tech etc. Yet I hold very little interest in experiencing anything personally. If I had to describe it succinctly; I've become a dedicated…

I read an article (or maybe comment somewhere?) once - and sadly, my search-engine-fu is not strong enough today, so I can't link it - that talked about two kinds of depression, two kinds of "beasts". Once was called black I think. It's the one people think of, when you say depression, and how movies portray it too: sadness, despair and the feeling that everything is bad, and everything ever will be bad. The other on…

Yeah so I think I'm depressed but it's nothing like in the movies. No alcohol, no smoking, no crying, no suicidal thoughts (other than intellectual), no real sadness or despair (there's some disappointment but it's again more intellectual than emotional) and I don't really consider anything 'bad' in my life. In fact objectively most things are great. I get 3 nice meals every day, live in a nice apartment next to the park with a cool gf. Family's part of my life, as are some good friends I can rely on. Work my own hours and it pays the bills.

At the same time it's completely empty. Going outside or making career moves or traveling or going dancing or eating out or whatever, just doesn't do it for me anymore. I feel pretty empty about most things, and I'd be mostly comfortable losing touch with say my friends. I tend to leave my house, in total (whether it's groceries or seeing friends) maybe 40 times a year and I tend to wake up and spend an hour in bed lying there without any reason to get out of bed, and then finally do because it's so boring to just lay there a whole day.

So yeah definitely 'gray' for me, while the 'black' thing just absolutely doesn't resonate.

Re: The Shut-In Economy

#309

Post by sthreet » Thu, Mar 26, 2015, 8:42 PM UTC

JohnBooty wrote: post #272

sthreet wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having done a small amount of required volunteering for school I would disagree. Of course, I live in the middle of nowhere, and it was mostly my classmates volunteering with me who are also required to volunteer for so many hours.

> required volunteering So, uh, not volunteering, then? :) I know what you mean; my school had that too. It's compulsory but you at least get to pick where you work, right? Anyway, yeah. I'm talking about actual volunteer work. The kind where you volunteer.

Well, ya, it isn't really volunteering. And there are so few places I know to work that I really don't get to pick where I work, it is just whatever one I find I do.

Re: The Shut-In Economy

#310

Post by wutbrodo » Thu, Mar 26, 2015, 9:10 PM UTC

michaelchisari wrote: post #290

wutbrodo wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem I have with people who say things like this is that these things are easily Googlable. I didn't "know" how to do laundry until I went to college (my sister and I had specific chores and laundry was one of hers). During a fight with my sister when I was still in high school, I recall her using that as an insult: "You don't even know how to do LAUNDRY". I needed to do laundry my first week of school: I coul…

The only gap between "knowing" and "not knowing" is perhaps three seconds of Googling Have you ever worked tech support and had to help a lawyer or doctor set up their router? It's not about mental deficiency.

That example is not relevant in the slightest. Setting up a router quite clearly requires prior knowledge, even if that knowledge is something implicit like "familiarity with navigating Web UIs" or "general familiarity with basic networking concepts".

Neither of those are applicable to doing laundry. There's literally no knowledge required other than "clothes and detergent go into machine". Hell, you don't even have to know WHERE to put detergent because machines are variable enough that they usually just tell you where to put detergent.