This time it’s different, though.

Why?

Homelessness world wide is at an all time high, and a huge swath of people can’t afford all the basic necessities anymore.

I highly doubt your homelessness stat. If it is at an all time high by any metric, it is almost certainly a statistical artifact from (1) increased homelessness in developed nations, where tracking is decent and (2) improved tracking in developing nations. Meanwhile the people who can’t afford “basic necessities” are, again, in developed nations - places where the notion of what constitutes basic necessities would be considered grand opulance in many parts of developing nations.

Instead, the majority of people in the world have seen improvements to their quality of life over the past 20, 40, and 60 years. Improved water and sanitation systems, more robust and resiliant food systems, greater access to life saving medical care, huge drops in infant mortality, hugely increased access to technology and education.

If an economic crash happens now, will the 99% of the people finally wake up and just TAKE the resources from that 1%, like it or not?

This is, quite frankly, a ridiculous fantasy. The wealth of the top 1% primarily exists not in vaults of gold bars, but in the ownership of what are intangible human constructs. Particular segments of land (lines on a map); businesses (organized structures of people); intellectual property (literally just ideas).

Elon Musk, for example, has a large portion of his wealth in Tesla. Of course, Tesla has physical assets in its factories and such. But most of the value of the company is speculative - people expecting Tesla to be wildly successful in the future. The next part of its value comes from IP - the exclusive ownership of its various inventions and innovations. And another part comes from the organizational structure itself and the knowledge and intelligence of the individuals who make up that structure. At its root, the value of Tesla is the goose that lays the golden eggs (Musk’s cult of personality and the expertise of the individuals that make up the business) and investor confidence that the goose will continue laying golden eggs. In your glorious revolution, presumably Musk will be beheaded, and all the Tesla employees will scatter to the far winds as the proletariat storms their offices. Without the stable interaction of these technical experts, no more innovation happens, and investor confidence dries up (assuming the investors weren’t also beheaded). The wealth of Tesla, then, does not go to the people, but goes up in smoke.

A revolution premised purely on taking assets from the rich has a predictable ending: in the slim chance that the revolution succeeds, even if the tangible wealth is equally distributed to the people (also a slim chance), the engine that generated that wealth has been destroyed and, deprived of the ability to generate new wealth, the people eventually spend away their windfall and are left with less than they had before they started. This sort of phenomenon was literally the impetus for Adam Smith to write The Wealth of Nations. Spain had spent a couple centuries robbing the Americas of its gold via murder and slavery - enough to literally collapse the price of gold in Europe. And yet, during Smith’s time, Spain was in dire financial straights while England was the world’s predominant economic power. Why? Because England had invested in technology and had developed industrial factories. It had invested in public and private institutions (ie, structures of people) that would continuously generate new wealth, rather than relying on hoarding gold bars.

The “glorious revolution” fantasy, meanwhile, is largely counterproductive to the actual goal of improving normal people’s lives and improving the equality of political and economic power, because it plays into the childish notion that if we just throw a big enough temper tantrum, then we will get our way. And maybe that might be true for a brief moment. It is certainly true for some children some of the time that if they yell and scream and cry enough, they will be given the ice cream they want. But they only get that ice cream because there is an adult there, listening to them cry, who has a job that makes money that they can then use to buy the ice cream. The problem is that, ice cream or not, at the end of the day the child is still a child, completely dependent on the adult to provide for all their needs and make all their important descisions. The child gains real autonomy in their lives not when they throw “The Glorious Temper Tantrum” - they gain it when they get a job outside the purview of their caregivers and are able to spend the money they make at that job on the things of their own choosing.

So, too, with average people growing out of the controlling influence of the political and economic elite. Independence is achieved via building things - communities, relationships, physical infrastructure, businesses, governments, unions - which can be relied on instead of the options presented to us by the elites. And building things takes time and effort. It doesn’t happen overnight with a few molotovs and a good photo op - that’s the narrative the elites want you to believe, the one they put in all the popular movies and tv shows, because it is the strategy that is absolutely sure to fail. The idea that The Great Battle will be followed by Happily Ever After serves the elites because it tells us that we will win when we just put in a reasonable amount of effort right at the very last moment, and then we can relax. This is not how the world works. No - the world gets better when people put in unreasonable amounts of effort right now to gradually improve things and build things bit by bit, and keep putting in that effort for years and years and years. Sure, maybe there will someday be a tipping point or a big marker in history that we can point to and say “ah, that’s when things changed”. But make no mistake - that moment can only happen, and will only lead to a better world after the fact, because of the long term, boring hard work of people who care more about building things to help their friends than destroying things to hurt their enemies.

I dont think this is why no one is saying this. But the reason you shouldn’t do this is because of the Efficient Market Hypothesis. This is the same for basically any investment where you are trying to be “smart”, whether you are buying gold, low tech stocks, various currencies, crypto, etc. The fact is, sitting on your ass and clicking a few buttons on an investment website takes literally no effort - which is why there are trillions of dollars in investment funds trying to do it as profitably as possible. Every dollar in the market is competing to eak as much value out of every minute in the market as possible, and these dollars are very smart.

Like, if you graduated top of your class from MIT in financial analysis, you are still at an unimaginable disadvantage, because the evil capitalist hedge funds hired all your classmates, and also all the equivalent graduates for the past 40 years where they have all been competing against each other that whole time. And they have shit tons of money to spend on the best tech they can possibly afford in order to make tiny improvements in trade returns.

You can exchange dollars and euros on the open market, which means the banks and hedge funds can do that too, which means that the anticipated difference between the two is already priced in.

Right.

I will say also that if you want to hedge against AI, then you could invest in non-US based index funds.

Another option is to invest in something like real estate. Do the math and find something you can profit off of even with a down economy and you’ll be able to get your investment to ride out the hard times and earn in the good times. But similar to index investing, these investments should be made with an eye on long-term gains (on the order of decades).

A final option - possibly the best - is to invest in yourself. Put the money into good health (physical and mental), skills that pay dividends (like being able to cook or do your own repairs, or building a community around yourself of hard working, optimistic, and sensible individuals. Skills education can be a great investment - either going to a university (careful here with costs, but college graduates still do tend to have better lifetime earnings than non-graduates), a technical school (AI probably won’t replace plumbers for quite a while), informal self-teaching (you can learn a lot of skills just making personal projects at home or in a makerspace). And for the more ambitious, you can start your own business, which could be as simple as buying a ladder to clean people’s gutters or a snow plow attachment and truck to plow driveways and parking lots.

Hard times are coming - they always are. The people who do well in hard times are the ones with a diverse set of useful skills, a resiliant set of assets, a positive mindset, and a supportive community around them.

Riding out economic ups and downs is really just about good personal finance. The good advice is the same in good times and bad, which is why it is good advice - in economics, you never really know when good or bad times are coming.

1. Spend less
2. Earn more
3. Invest the difference

I’ve never seen any ads. I think you downloaded a scam app. Newpipe is only on fdroid, or else direct download from their website

Youtube

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Use uBlock on desktop and NewPipe on android to remove ads

They fuckin’ blow that’s why.

lol

I think it was a good step forward in our understanding of economics at the time, and I think a lot of what was proposed by this school of thought has stood the test of time.

On the other hand, this is a bit like asking what you think of Newtonian physics. It isn’t necessarily “wrong”, but it isnt what any real expert things is true anymore. No real economist is actually an Austrian anymore (… except, yaknow, actual Austrians…) - they are just economists, who study economics as a science rather than cloistering themselves into rigid schools of thought.

The heros we need. To warn us of geese teeth

I’ve never been fired. I honestly don’t know how people do it. Boss says “do X”, you do X with a smile, whether you like it or not. If you don’t like it, you start applying to other jobs while keeping your paycheck. Then leave, shake your boss’s hand and say it was great working with them (even if they were a POS), and forget about the whole mess with your new, higher paycheck.

I feel like these are kindergarden level skills. Follow instructions. Hide your emotions. Don’t let authority figures know you hate them as long as they have power over you. It’s not that complicated.

Considering that so many people are circumsized, and I have yet to meet anyone who says they are terribly unhappy about it, I’ll start off by saying that I really don’t think it matters either way.

However, I am uncircumsized, and American. I literally don’t think about it at all. I was bullied a lot in school - but never about my foreskin. I’ve slept with a lot of women - none of them have ever cared (the foreskin stretches away when you get hard, you can’t even see it).

Focus on giving your kid material resources and emotional support, and on setting a good example of being a happy, functional human. This just doesn’t matter

I feel like hiking and climbing equipment wouldn’t work well. At least where I live, tents, backpacks, etc would almost certainly be booked out by the homeless population indefinitely. That the homeless need camping equipment is a whole other discussion to have… but I don’t think most libraries would be equipped for the demand they would recieve.

I would not want to check out publicly owned rock climbing equipment. That sounds sketchy af. And I am a rock climber who knows how to inspect their equipment.

I drink coffee mixed with protein shake.

Then I eat more of a traditional breakfast around lunch time. I saute a bunch of veggies and a but of sausage (just enough to grease the pan) and then add some eggs, put it in a tortilla for breakfast burritos.

Even better: tax land exclusively.

Sure, the plural of anecdote isn’t data. But the existance of anecdotes is what drives scientific inquiry.

Anyway, the last time I was on the keto diet, I came down with a serious illness and underwent a battery of blood tests - essentially everything came back as totally normal, and healthier than an average adult. Turns out I had rocky mt spotted fever.

I mean, I sure do like pizza and beer. But my personal experience is that low carb diets are awesome. I’ve done the keto diet probably about half a dozen times in my life, and (after ensuring my electrolytes stay balanced) it has consistently given me positive results.

I first tried it with the notion that fat and protienn were satiating, and therefore it would be easier to stick to a calorie deficit. Simple. I disregarded all the people who talked about “more mental energy” or whatever bullshit - I just wanted to lose fat. But the results blew me away.

Without counting calories and while eating lots of deliscious food, I lose fat basically without trying and get a six pack. My athletic performance isn’t diminished, and my hunger levels drop noticeably. Hunger itself feels less important, and my emotions in general become more positive - I am more likely to feel happy and grateful and to fall into flow states, and setbacks and bad moods bother me far less. I fall asleep easier and sleep more soundly. My skin looks better. And these effects persist as long as I am on the diet - it isn’t just “losing water weight” or whatever.

Why does it do this? I dunno. Just does. Typically I eat a diet with lots of veggies, beans, some meat, and the occasional pizza and beer night. But comparing a whole foods keto diet to a standard american diet of processed junk food, I’m gonna go ahead and say that keto will come out far ahead, and I’m not gonna let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

I’ll fall back on my default null hypotheses here.

1. The effect is probably minimal if it exists at all.
2. If there is any effect, it is probably negligible if you are doing the big things right.
3. Your body is smart, and responds to changes in its environment with an eye towards improved survival and fitness. It is not a simple CICO machine.

So suppose we have an overweight person who is trying to lose weight. They hear about cold water exposure, and how being cold burns more calories. So they start running 10 miles every day at 5 am wearing nothing but a t shirt and shorts in the middle of winter. Then they go to starbucks, buy some hfcs with a touch of coffee, and go work at their office job that they hate because capitalism or something. Almost certainly, this person’s jounts would start to give out quite quickly, but let’s say they hate themselves enough to keep at it all winter. At the end of winter, I would be unsurprised if they gained weight. Sure, they exercised in the cold - but more importantly they were over training, consuming a poor diet, and living an otherwise stressful life. One of the body’s best defences against coming hard times is to store calories for future use - by increasing appetite, decreasing subconscious calorie burning, and shunting resources towards fat storage rather than, say, growth and maintenance of muscle, skin, hair, etc.

On the other hand, suppose we have the same individual. They start with the premise that their body is already great, but they would like it to be better, and the way they will achieve this is via having fun and living well. Thus, their fat loss program consists of learning how to ice skate at the town park after work, going snowshoing on the weekends with their local hiking group, adopting a journalling routine before bedtime, and frequently inviting friends over for dinner parties where they make sure the emphasis of the meal is on protein and vegetables. They also open up to friends about how they aren’t really motivated in their job, and their network of friends helps them gain the skills and industry contacts necessary to get a job that is more to their liking where they get to do interesting and meaningful work with other people whose company they enjoy. At the end of the winter, I would expect this individual to have lost fat despite exercising in the cold. While fat is good for energy storage and insulation, hiking and ice skating are activities where the body generally benefits from having a lower bodyweight - and warmth can be achieved via increased muscle activation rather than fat insulation. Meanwhile, they were spending a lot of time in beautiful natural environments, interacting with people they liked, eating healthy food, sleeping well, and working towards improving their lives in all aspects. “Things are good and I can expect them to get better” is the antithesis of the doom and gloom stress that will likely drive weight gain. Instead, the body will think “the present is not bad, and the future looks easy - and meanwhile, this extra weight is hindering my ability to move easily. May as well get rid of it.”

This is why we find hot people hot. In the past when calories were scarce, a high bodyfat percentage indicated that in the hard times you were living in, this person had access to a lot of calories, and you could expect this trend to continue. These days, life is relatively easy, and storing excess calories is an indication that a person finds life to be hard. A lithe person’s body indicates that they have rarely experienced difficulties beyond their abilities, and that they generally live a happy life. This is a good indication of genetic fitness, and hence, they are hot. Same reason why having good skin, healthy hair, a cheerful and outgoing demeanor, and perky tits are hot - they indicate a prolonged state of positive life circumstances which potential mates could generally count on to continue.

For the first question - well, first of all, don’t spend too much time or effort writing this blurb. After all, you don’t even know this person - why waste your time writing a deep dive thinkpiece? If they like but don’t respond, I say something cheeky that explicitly opens the conversation.

For the second question: because people are lazy, or not really interested in dating apps in general but are just bored, or are bots, or a million other reasons. You’ll never know, and it doesnt matter. Write a message, throw it away, move on to the next one. Again, you two don’t know each other. You owe each other nothing.

As president, I run the executive branch.

1. Remove Trump’s cronies from positions of power in the executive branch. Re-hire the people he fired/layed off/quit.

2. Review currently effective executive orders. Cancel any which don’t directly deal with national security. Orders which might be supporting some significant aspects of large numbers of peoples lives will be ramped down slowly but predictably so no one suffers undue economic hardship.

3. Attend a bunch of boring meetings, occasionally decide the fate of Ukraine.

4. Respect the boundaries of my branch of government by not acting like a king and issuing a bunch of decrees without the agreement of congress.

5. Respectfully prod congress to reign in the executive branch’s power, implement reforms in the electoral process, and create term limits for supreme court justices.

No no, you don’t understand. They are being forced at gunpoint to commute to air conditioned office jobs where they fuck off for hours every day by complaining about their jobs on Lemmy. It truly is the worst existance. If only they could escape that farm potatos in Kamchatka!