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How to Survive When Money Is Worthless [video]

nytimes.com

131–140 of 166 posts

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

#131

This presentation is a great experiment, but it's just that, an experiment in presentation. It should never have been released to the general public, just to UI or web dev forums in order for them to learn from. I think that human computer interaction has taken massive steps back from the 90s. That, or I'm getting old. Could be both too. Aside: some great content here though. so many beautiful shots of the country. A…

I would have preferred something simple, like this:

http://output.jsbin.com/gacizibika/1

Text interspersed with img and video.

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

#132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...why there are so many obese people in these video clips, if food is so hard to come by? This is generally the earlier stages of such a crisis; as the timeline extends, the caloric restriction will gradually chip away at the obesity, but it takes several years as most of these food scarcity crises are not zero calories per day average, but severely restricted, like maybe half TDEE. Fat is an extraordinarily dense…

> A DIY kit for those segments of the population left behind by capital owners Anyone working on something like this?

Yes, but not in a systematic manner. The information is mostly out there, but very scattered. You have to already be aware that this is even a possibility to pursue it over the web.

For example, there are forums who talk about how to deliberately manage property valuations downwards to decrease the property tax burden, but they aren't connected to forums that talk about ditching your decorative lawn for a food forest as part of managing property taxes lower, or how to dismantle an HOA's rules against a food forest, or how to negotiate with property tax assessment jurisdiction representatives for services that really matter, etc. It is all "intertwingled" as one wit used to like to say, which is what makes the solutions in each locality highly individualized yet able to share commonalities.

Most people are overwhelmed when their currency and/or economic order fails them (those systems don't have to fail outright for alternatives to become viable actions, just fail enough for an individual). We don't necessarily need a single one-stop shop for them, just a marketing brand that raises awareness the alternative is even possible could be sufficient. Like Tiny Homes or vandwellers for millenials coping with real estate asset overvaluation, and now spreading to other generations. Just a recognition that there are nearly endless entry points, and people can start very small and iterate their way up.

If enough people reach for alternatives when capitalism in its current form doesn't serve them, then market forces will re-shape capitalism into a form that better serves those people, or capitalism will be replaced by a more efficient exchange tool that people find by iterating towards.

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

#133
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry to be the negative one but, as someone who lived through the 2001 economic crisis, I have no idea what this guy is talking about. He seems to write a lot of survivalist tips, so I would keep that in mind - from a survivalist perspective, all society is at the point of collapse.

Do you mean to say it was better than he depicts it to be? or is it something else?

Yes, I think he's cherry-picking some specific situations to make it seem much more tragic that it was.

For instance,

> Some ate whatever they could; they hunted birds or ate street dogs and cats, others starved. When it comes to food, cities suck in a crisis.

Sure, some did. They even showed up on the news due to how weird even the idea of eating birds was. But that's the 0.001% - the average citizen reduced their expenses, moved back with their parents, asked their relatives for help, and/or started using the food banks.

> in 2001 half the country went without power for 3 days. Buenos Aires was one big dark grave.

That's straight up BS - there were widespread power outages, but they lasted typically hours, not days. And even though specific neighborhoods had days without power, to call it "a big dark grave" is too much.

> There are absolutely NO kids playing on the sidewalks at all, at any time of the day

There are no kids playing nowadays either, but that's because they are at school (the average school day is longer than it used to be), playing with their cellphones, or (at the time) playing Counter Strike in cyber-cafes with dedicated LANs.

And so on. It also doesn't help that he paints the entire country based on Buenos Aires, a city that has a very strong cultural division to the rest of the country.

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

#134
post #61

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...

A large number of people (most?) in the HN community are contributors/authors/creators to web sites such as that linked. I love HN people for their ability to respect content while simultaneously addressing how it is delivered. I believe that ~how~ the message is conveyed is extremely important. If the UI is such that people click 'next' and never get to the content, then all of the breathless exasperation in the wor…

Exactly. The point is to attract attention, and to keep it as long as possible. The starving and exploited Venezuelans are just a tool for that, and in a way just being exploited just that little bit more by these sites, for their own gain.

The discussion here is about the exploitation, not so much about the source of the initial spec of attention to be exploited.

Besides just wait until someone points out which type of politics were at the source of this change.

The same is true of this comment.

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

#135
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I hate those too. A lot of government functions should never be outsourced to industry.

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

#137
post #51

For more of a guide to surviving collapses, this essay about the 2001 Argentine Financial crisis is pure gold. I have printed several copies and read it about once a year: http://ferfal.blogspot.com/2008/10/thoughts-on-urban-surviva...

The post talks about the difference between urban vs rural survival . It talks about the kinds of brutality that can happen when help is far away and unlikely to be called. It reminds me of some of the stories found in this documentary: https://youtu.be/a_bDc7FfItk?t=21m09s . There are some brutal descriptions of attacks that happened on farmers.

Note: I haven't finished watching the video and I dont want to endorse it's message, just to point to some peoples' stories about what can happen if attacked in a rural homestead.

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

#138
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The usual video content I experience isn't presented this way. It's also not all video and includes still images. Video loops with text overlays as a webpage vs. Youtube embedded video vs. a movie on Netflix with no interaction. Maybe multimedia presentation is a better description.

The presentation style is simply not the same as a movie. You can argue that it's not unique or original, but trying to make that point by dismissing it as a movie seems pedantic.

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

#139
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The usual video content I experience isn't presented this way. It's also not all video and includes still images. Video loops with text overlays as a webpage vs. Youtube embedded video vs. a movie on Netflix with no interaction. Maybe multimedia presentation is a better description. The presentation style is simply not the same as a movie. You can argue that it's not unique or original, but trying to make that point…

We'll have to agree to disagree. It's essentially a short film documentary that happens to be presented via a webpage.

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

#140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Can you walk through your logic please?

It was satire of the original parent that claimed "socialism" necessarily leads to economic ruin, even though socialism is a broad category containing many different ideas. I was attempting to show the absurdity of blaming specific problems on a broad category of ideas. But now that the parent is flagged, there's only me, shaking my fist at empty space.
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