Could you Survive Without Money? Meet the Guy Who Does. • Hacker News Board

Re: Could you Survive Without Money? Meet the Guy Who Does.

#81

Post by tokenadult » Wed, Jul 22, 2009, 5:30 PM UTC

kragen wrote: post #74

pj wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not where I live. 5% of my state suffers from "food insecurity" which means they dont know where their next meal is coming from. I went on a field trip as a child through a state park and the game ranger warned us all, he said, "Don't poach deer kids. If you are hungry and your parents want to poach deer out of season, tell them to call me and we'll help." He wasn't saying this as a joke. Many families here do procur…

"I actually do think that some people may starve." Yes, that's been happening for a long time in the US; as you said, 5% of your state (and many others) suffer from food insecurity. The rates are going up now, I'm sure. 'I asked my grandmother what her thoughts about the current financial situation, remember, she survived the great depression and she said, "I haven't seen anything like this."' I would like very much…

that's been happening for a long time in the US

What you were agreeing with is the proposition that people might starve, by implicitly claiming that some people in the United States already do starve. Where? Has anyone in the United States, and I mean anyone, actually died of a cause attributable to undernutrition caused by anything other than mental illness in the lifetime of anyone posting here? Who? There are people in the United States who cannot buy food out of their own family budgets, and there are children who are not well fed by their neglectful parents, but I don't think there is any adult who actually lacks enough food to live. Where is the example?

Re: Could you Survive Without Money? Meet the Guy Who Does.

#82

Post by kragen » Wed, Jul 22, 2009, 7:47 PM UTC

tokenadult wrote: post #81

kragen wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I actually do think that some people may starve." Yes, that's been happening for a long time in the US; as you said, 5% of your state (and many others) suffer from food insecurity. The rates are going up now, I'm sure. 'I asked my grandmother what her thoughts about the current financial situation, remember, she survived the great depression and she said, "I haven't seen anything like this."' I would like very much…

that's been happening for a long time in the US What you were agreeing with is the proposition that people might starve, by implicitly claiming that some people in the United States already do starve. Where? Has anyone in the United States, and I mean anyone, actually died of a cause attributable to undernutrition caused by anything other than mental illness in the lifetime of anyone posting here? Who? There are peop…

The WHO's figures are that in 2002, in the US, about 7400 people died of "nutritional deficiencies", broken down into 4300 deaths from "protein-energy malnutrition" and 2500 deaths from "iron-deficiency anaemia". That's a total death rate of 2.5 per 100 000 population that year. It's not one of the major causes of death, it's less common than suicide and far less common than diabetes, and it is indeed much more common in many other countries (the rate in Cameroon, for example, is five times higher) but it's a little higher than the estimates for more socialist countries like Canada, Sweden, Japan, and especially Finland. (But not France.)

If that rate were typical over our lifetimes, which seems optimistic (surely the rate was much higher in 1932, and for that matter in 2009) that would add up to a few hundred thousand deaths by starvation over the last 80 years.

These rates don't include deaths in which malnutrition was only a contributing factor. Malnutrition grossly increases the risk of death from infectious diseases, for example.

If you think that out of those hundreds of thousands of deaths, not a single one was caused by anything other than mental illness, you are the one with the mental illness. In fact, I think that just by posting your comment, you have demonstrated that you are really out of touch with the reality of what's happening in what I assume is your own country. You need to adjust your estimates of your own competence downward by a few orders of magnitude in order to have a chance of having an opinion that is worth something. Right now you're living in a dream world.

Figures from the World Health Organization Global Burden of Disease report from 2004:

http://www.who.int/topics/global_burden_of_disease/en/

(There's a spreadsheet floating around there somewhere with the per-country stats, although I'm not having any luck finding a link to it.)

Re: Could you Survive Without Money? Meet the Guy Who Does.

#83

Post by zackattack » Wed, Jul 22, 2009, 8:57 PM UTC

sethb wrote: post #77

zackattack wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Loneliness and boredom are not real issues. They're issues fabricated by the mind. With presence, they disappear. That's the whole point of his lifestyle: presence. The reason he dislikes money is because money indicates a distaste of the present and an obsession with the future. I recommend reading Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now for more information.

Loneliness is definitely a real issue. The fact that this guy keeps a blog and Eckhart Tolle expects an audience shows the value they place on social contact.

It's only an issue if you place importance on it.

Re: Could you Survive Without Money? Meet the Guy Who Does.

#84

Post by zackattack » Wed, Jul 22, 2009, 8:59 PM UTC

robryan wrote: post #66

mjgoins wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If everyone in the world was an investment banker, no one would have anything to eat. Ditto hackers, unless they were hackers with an eye towards agriculture.

Hackers are more likely than investment bankers to come up with a mostly automated agricultural system.

What is the basis for your comment?

Re: Could you Survive Without Money? Meet the Guy Who Does.

#85

Post by tokenadult » Wed, Jul 22, 2009, 9:34 PM UTC

kragen wrote: post #82

tokenadult wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's been happening for a long time in the US What you were agreeing with is the proposition that people might starve, by implicitly claiming that some people in the United States already do starve. Where? Has anyone in the United States, and I mean anyone, actually died of a cause attributable to undernutrition caused by anything other than mental illness in the lifetime of anyone posting here? Who? There are peop…

The WHO's figures are that in 2002, in the US, about 7400 people died of "nutritional deficiencies", broken down into 4300 deaths from "protein-energy malnutrition" and 2500 deaths from "iron-deficiency anaemia". That's a total death rate of 2.5 per 100 000 population that year. It's not one of the major causes of death, it's less common than suicide and far less common than diabetes, and it is indeed much more commo…

I was looking for the same WHO statistics you refer to while you were writing your reply. I see we both found the same landing page, but you are referring to figures that thus far neither of us can find on a specific webpage giving figures for the United States. Where did you get them?

Using some of the keywords you kindly provided, I Google and see lower mortality figures for the United States, by more than an order of magnitude, I think. It also appears that most cases of malnourishment in the United States are secondary to disease states. Remembering that my dad was paralyzed and unable to swallow for the last six years of his life (he was fed by a gastric tube, with the help of a relative) brings to mind examples of people who could starve to death in the United States, although they wouldn't be able-bodied people who were not eating because they can't afford to get a meal.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/mor_oth_nut_def-mortality-...

(The numbers I am finding on the above site, which claims to be based on WHO statistics, don't back up the numbers in your reply, which evokes my curiosity about how we can a primary source for the official figures.)

http://www.answers.com/topic/protein-energy-malnutrition-3

http://www.worldmapper.org/display_extra.php?selected=411

http://books.google.com/books?id=L5fGm_7ThKEC&pg=PA496&#...

Let's keep following up on this. I'll ignore your invidious personal criticism [smile] in the interest of getting the facts on the issue. What magnitude of problem are we talking about in the United States by the standard WHO definitions, which I accept as an authoritative count of deaths by malnutrition in each country? How many of the United States deaths are secondary to neglectful caregivers of minors (a problem I acknowledged in my first reply) and how many are secondary to adult medical complications (an issue we both forgot in previous replies)? How do the United States figures compare to specific countries elsewhere in the world?

It sure ought to be possible to get the WHO figures directly from the Web, but I'm still searching. The keywords in your reply were helpful for finding other sources.

Re: Could you Survive Without Money? Meet the Guy Who Does.

#86

Post by philwelch » Wed, Jul 22, 2009, 11:43 PM UTC

zackattack wrote: post #83

sethb wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Loneliness is definitely a real issue. The fact that this guy keeps a blog and Eckhart Tolle expects an audience shows the value they place on social contact.

It's only an issue if you place importance on it.

How exactly does one avoid placing importance on the company of others?

Re: Could you Survive Without Money? Meet the Guy Who Does.

#87

Post by kragen » Thu, Jul 23, 2009, 1:05 AM UTC

tokenadult wrote: post #85

kragen wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The WHO's figures are that in 2002, in the US, about 7400 people died of "nutritional deficiencies", broken down into 4300 deaths from "protein-energy malnutrition" and 2500 deaths from "iron-deficiency anaemia". That's a total death rate of 2.5 per 100 000 population that year. It's not one of the major causes of death, it's less common than suicide and far less common than diabetes, and it is indeed much more commo…

I was looking for the same WHO statistics you refer to while you were writing your reply. I see we both found the same landing page, but you are referring to figures that thus far neither of us can find on a specific webpage giving figures for the United States. Where did you get them? Using some of the keywords you kindly provided, I Google and see lower mortality figures for the United States, by more than an order…

http://www.who.int/healthinfo/statistics/bodgbddeathdalyesti... is the spreadsheet I got the numbers from; I downloaded it years ago, which is why I didn't know where it was linked from. Unfortunately it doesn't cite sources. It's linked from http://www.who.int/research/en/ as "Causes of death [xls 3.03Mb]".

The NationMaster number is 0.056 per 100 000 population per year. I don't see how to square that with the 50× higher numbers from the WHO spreadsheet.

Thanks for the reminder of adult medical complications.

The US figures seem to be in the normal range for OECD countries, although maybe toward the high end, and they are much lower than the worst countries (typically those in the middle of a war).

http://www.worldmapper.org/extraindex/death_notes.html#table... (from your third link) matches the stats from the WHO spreadsheet (at least for Mali and Angola, to all three decimal places).

Re: Could you Survive Without Money? Meet the Guy Who Does.

#88

Post by kragen » Thu, Jul 23, 2009, 1:09 AM UTC

erlanger wrote: post #79

hyperbovine wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Property tax rate in Moab: 0.00% Effective tax on a $100,000 property in Moab: $0 Effective tax on a $500,000 property in Moab: $0 Effective tax on a few acres to grow his own resources: $0 Sound of another anti-government nutjob scuttling back to the drawing board in search of a new red herring: priceless http://propertytax.utah.gov/taxrates/taxarearates2008.pdf http://www.moabcity.org/business/index.cfm

Yes, let's all pretend that there are no federal levies on property. > anti-government nutjob Cavalier assumptions coupled with ad hominem FTW.

There are federal levies on owning real estate? I haven't owned real estate in the US in several years, but I don't remember ever hearing about federal property taxes.

Re: Could you Survive Without Money? Meet the Guy Who Does.

#89

Post by tokenadult » Thu, Jul 23, 2009, 1:46 AM UTC

kragen wrote: post #87

tokenadult wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was looking for the same WHO statistics you refer to while you were writing your reply. I see we both found the same landing page, but you are referring to figures that thus far neither of us can find on a specific webpage giving figures for the United States. Where did you get them? Using some of the keywords you kindly provided, I Google and see lower mortality figures for the United States, by more than an order…

http://www.who.int/healthinfo/statistics/bodgbddeathdalyesti... is the spreadsheet I got the numbers from; I downloaded it years ago, which is why I didn't know where it was linked from. Unfortunately it doesn't cite sources. It's linked from http://www.who.int/research/en/ as "Causes of death [xls 3.03Mb]". The NationMaster number is 0.056 per 100 000 population per year. I don't see how to square that with the 50×…

Thanks. I learned something about finding WHO statistics with your help.

I think the conclusion here is that people in the United States who die of severe malnourishment do so mostly because they have diseases that impair their eating (something I didn't consider at all in my first reply). So I learned something else today.

In the overall context of this thread, I am not particularly worried that the economic crisis we are now in is going to push my family, or even much poorer families, into starvation. People will still buy and sell and trade and (in North America) mostly eat very adequately.

Re: Could you Survive Without Money? Meet the Guy Who Does.

#90

Post by jerf » Thu, Jul 23, 2009, 1:57 AM UTC

erlanger wrote: post #21

jerf wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I can go out into the woods and find an animal and kill it and skin it and cook it and eat it." What animals? If society collapses to that point, deer will be hunted to extinction in a matter of months, if not weeks, with smaller critters probably not getting hunted to extinction after that, but certainly to the point you won't find them readily anymore. There's still too many people with the skill to do that for yo…

You forgot about the firearm aspect of survivalism.

Actually, part of my point is about the firearm aspect of nonsurvivalists. # of armed people >>> # of survivalists. This is part of the reason I've not dedicated a whole lot of time to survivalism.