[HN Gopher] Thousands trapped on Pine Ridge burn clothes for war...
___________________________________________________________________
Thousands trapped on Pine Ridge burn clothes for warmth in wake of
storm
Author : mooreds
Score : 201 points
Date : 2022-12-26 14:45 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.argusleader.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.argusleader.com)
| yalogin wrote:
| It took me a while to figure out where Pine Ridge is. The local
| newspapers should mention that given they are all online.
| zoklet-enjoyer wrote:
| Local newspapers are written for a local audience
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| The real story here seems to me to be not that people burned
| their clothes to stay warm but that people in a place with
| fragile connections to the outside world had so little in the way
| of supplies to weather a relatively short period without food
| deliveries. I'm not blaming them, I assume that many of the
| affected people don't have the resources to keep a buffer stock.
| sillystuff wrote:
| They cannot afford to stockpile fuel.
|
| I listen to a podcast by a man who grew up on that reservation.
| While he was back visiting his grandmother, a propane truck was
| filling her tank. He told the driver, "Whoa! Stop! We can't
| afford that much!" The driver told him, "Don't worry, it's
| free. Venezuela is paying to fill everyone's tank."
|
| Those propane tanks are mostly empty unless Venezuela is paying
| (before Venezuelan oil revenues dropped, Venezuela provided
| free propane and heating oil to the desperately poor throughout
| the US [and many other countries]-- in solidarity. The illegal
| sanctions by the US and the US's illegal seizure of Venezuela's
| foreign assets, that have crippled the Venezuelan economy mean
| it is highly unlikely this Venezuelan program will return.)
|
| Edit: Corrected initial cause of the termination of Venezuela's
| heating fuel program-- per child comment by vorpalhex.
| gabythenerd wrote:
| Regarding the Venezuelan comment: In 2009 the country was
| also entering economic turmoil, and it never recovered.
|
| I couldn't find anything in English, but this wikipedia page
| also mentions that propane gas has been in shortage since
| 2014 domestically for Venezuelans (years before the first
| sanctions were established): https://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/
| Escasez_de_combustible_en_Ve....
|
| PDVSA (government company responsible for gas and fuel
| extraction and processing) has been mismanaged for more than
| 20 years, the "free" propane was never going to last, and it
| was extensively used to gain political allies while it was
| given away.
|
| For those interested, there was a national strike in PDVSA
| against Hugo Chavez in 2003 that IMHO started the company
| demise, they fired pretty much anyone who knew how to run it:
| https://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paro_general_en_Venezuela_de.
| ..
| vorpalhex wrote:
| It looks like that program was halted in 2009 due to oil
| prices increasing dramatically, not due to sanctions.
| uoaei wrote:
| You think there is no causal link between the two
| happenings?
| [deleted]
| scruple wrote:
| What's the name of the podcast? Sounds interesting.
| sillystuff wrote:
| "The Red Nation Podcast" by The Red Nation
|
| https://therednation.org/
|
| Many of their older episodes are very good, so IMO worth
| listening to back episodes.
|
| Recently (last couple years?) they merged the, "Red Power
| Hour" segments into the main podcast feed (it was a
| separate podcast). I skimmed several of these, but now just
| skip them-- they were things like (Hollywood) movie reviews
| and folks in conversation where I didn't feel I learned
| anything. So, don't discount the whole podcast if the first
| episode you listen to is one of these. The episodes hosted
| by Nick Estes are the ones I found the most informative
| (most of the early episodes fall into this category).
| scruple wrote:
| Thanks! I've been looking for a new podcast that I might
| learn something interesting from... And that's completely
| outside of my regular wheelhouse. Appreciate the reply!
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| > the drifts of snow have rendered their wood stockpile
| inaccessible
|
| It mentions a family running out of baby formula. Baby formula
| is in short supply around the country and also very expensive -
| many stores won't allow you to buy more than one or two cans at
| once and if you're buying it with WIC funds then you can't
| afford more than a month at a time anyway.
| ethanbond wrote:
| The _real story_ of every tragedy that hits a reservation is
| that they all sit downstream of a horrific, orchestrated
| genocide campaign intended to destroy these people's history,
| culture, and knowledge of self-sufficiency.
|
| Put 'em on the shittiest plots of land you can find, steal
| their children, ban them from speaking their languages and from
| passing their knowledge between generations, then we can sit
| and gawk at their 100% intentional and designed cultural death
| spiral.
|
| Not to say that indigenous life was some suffering-free utopia,
| but it's worth remembering their plight is not some emergent
| accident.
| eternalban wrote:
| I honestly wonder if the native Americans were (destined to
| be) screwed even before Europeans set foot in Americas. They
| were behind a formidable technology curve and I truly wonder
| would they have fared better if Japanese or Russian (or
| possibly even Chinese) colonists (the closest geographic
| candidate colonists) showed up.
|
| Consider it as a thought experiment - something that's been
| popping in my head lately:
|
| under what sort of ideal conditions would have the native
| civilizations and peoples of Americas been left unmolested by
| _anyone_? An entire continent left in isolation while the
| more technologically advanced societies reached the way
| station of 'universal human rights'?
|
| [typically don't mention downvotes but a difficult question
| does not merit it. If you so strongly disagree, discuss it.]
| mynameishere wrote:
| If migration from Europe (and I suppose Africa) hadn't been
| unrelenting, then the natives would have gradually built up
| a modern-ish, defendable civilization. Maybe. It would have
| required some centralization of government as well, to
| prevent the divide-and-conquer tactics used against them.
| dinkumthinkum wrote:
| Is that serious? Behind the technology curve is a massive
| understatement. They were thousands of years behind in
| nearly every area of development.
| j-krieger wrote:
| I wonder if the massive riches of nature they had for a
| low amount of people played a role in this
| eternalban wrote:
| Right, the question is precisely this: who would leave
| the juicy morsel of Americas on the table in the
| 15th-20th century historic range. The means and processes
| may possibly vary.
|
| Just to be clear, even today in 21st you will note there
| are many global actors that deny the very notion of a
| "universal human rights". I'm not European myself and
| definitely not defending what happened. But it seems to
| me that what happened is an (inevitable) accident of
| history: two worlds that evolved in effective isolation
| for thousands of years. And I wonder: which of the
| relatively advanced societies would have left them in
| peace so they could catch up and integrate as you
| propose?
| katbyte wrote:
| What happened to natives in America was anything but an
| accident https://youtu.be/A5P6vJs1jmY
| dinkumthinkum wrote:
| I think you are not aware of the way the word "accident"
| is used here, or you are using its misinterpretation as a
| jumping off point.
| neither_color wrote:
| The Russians did explore Alaska and interact with natives,
| but all they did was set up some missionary and trade
| posts. China explored Africa and then became isolationist.
| Japan was always isolationist until forced to open up by
| the US.
| eternalban wrote:
| Russians had to pass through the Caucausus and Steppes
| before they reached Alaska.
|
| https://www.international.ucla.edu/apc/centralasia/articl
| e/1...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuban_Nogai_Uprising
|
| https://fountainmagazine.com/1993/issue-2-april-
| june-1993/th...
|
| (The Chinese are in the clear imo, so I parenthesized
| them.)
| wpietri wrote:
| And not just Alaska, but California as well: https://en.w
| ikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_colonization_of_North_...
| landemva wrote:
| "their languages" were recognized as unique and useful in
| 1950s.
| https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/american-
| indi...
| joemazerino wrote:
| A nice cop out. Are you saying those on the reserves are
| generationally crippled beyond reproach? Are all cultures
| stuck in wintery conditions facing the same issues and if
| not, why?
| zdragnar wrote:
| Even though it's not technically wrong, but I also don't
| see how viewing a people (or worse, viewing yourself) as a
| perpetual victim is in any way useful. There's no rewriting
| the past. Saying "I'll never amount to anything because of
| what happened 50, 100, 200 years ago" denies your agency,
| and thus a fundamental aspect of your humanity.
|
| Some people seem to think that the bigotry of low
| expectations is "social justice".
| ethanbond wrote:
| No, my argument is that this is ongoing.
|
| The moment something of value is found on native land,
| _even today_ , it's taken from them.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| Pine Ridge has unemployment of 80-90%, median income of
| $4000/year, and life expectancy of ~50 years. Many people
| live without electricity or running water.
|
| I don't know that people who live there say "I'll never
| amount to anything", I don't think any of us
| participating in this conversation live there; probably
| none of us are natives. So we're not talking about what
| they say about themselves, we're talking about what we
| say about them.
|
| If not the legacy of expropriation, displacement, and
| cultural destruction... the usual explanation is that
| there is just something wrong with these people as
| people, something diseased, pathological with their
| culture. I don't see how that is in any way useful, or
| somehow more respectful of "agency".
|
| Up until the 70s, children ( _children_!) were still
| being forcibly sent to prison-like (for real, prison-
| like) boarding schools.
|
| https://archleague.org/article/cheyenne-river-
| reservation-bo...
|
| I don't think there is anything wrong with Oglala culture
| -- I think they have the cultural and personal resources
| they need to thrive if conditions are changed to make up
| for _generations_ of intentional targetted destruction of
| their _material resources_ and _cultural life_ and
| _social networks_. "Social justice" would be restoration
| of sovreignty, reparations (a massive "marshall plan"
| level of physical and human infrastructure investment),
| an apology and general cultural recognition and education
| throughout the USA of native history, legal enforcement
| of treaty rights that have been ignored/thrown out, etc.
|
| While it's a situation with great differences as well as
| similarities, New Zealand's reparative policies toward
| the Maori can provide some models.
| https://www.justiceinfo.net/en/79224-new-zealand-leads-
| way-r...
|
| Blaming the Oglala Lakota people for the result of
| generations of targeted destruction of their way of life
| and ability to survive is not somehow more respectful of
| their "agency" or dignity.
|
| Like, what are we actually talking about here right now?
| The lack of capacity of people on the Pine Ridge
| reservation to handle a weather emergency? How is it more
| respectful of agency or dignity to say we shouldn't talk
| about how this is the result of generations of
| colonialism, that intentionally removed the material and
| cultural resources people would use to take care of
| themselves? Is it more respectful of agency or dignity to
| suggest that they are the poorest community in the USA
| because of their own cultural failings? I agree that
| liberals as well as right-wingers can pathologize native
| culture, suggest that their culture is broken and needs
| to be "fixed", that the problem is internal -- I think
| suggesting that there is something wrong with native
| culture is what is disrespectful of their actual dignity,
| agency, and continued ability to survive under conditions
| designed for the opposite. They are very strong people,
| the evidence is that they are still there, and I hope
| they think of themselves thusly.
| zoklet-enjoyer wrote:
| My girlfriend's mom went to a boarding school. The abuse
| she experienced as a kid still affects her and her
| family.
| spanktheuser wrote:
| The trapped individuals are living are living in a
| location where these sorts of conditions are extreme.
| Prior to climate change they may have been unthinkable.
|
| People with limited resources don't devote them to
| mitigating once in a lifetime risks. Their everyday life
| is constrained: buy a more reliable car vs. save for a
| child's education. Eat healthier food vs. visit the
| doctor.
|
| These Native Americans live in a vulnerable location that
| provides little land-based wealth, isolates them from
| population centers & thus opportunity, and exposes them
| to environmental threat.
|
| If you can't see how that impacts their opportunity to
| "amount to anything," I suggest relocating. Become their
| neighbors and report back in 10 years whether you think
| this had any deleterious impact on what your career has
| amounted to.
| zdragnar wrote:
| The first paragraph is absolute nonsense. This storm is
| an outlier, for sure, but winters have on average been
| getting easier, not harder, in the upper Midwest.
| landemva wrote:
| > Prior to climate change
|
| Now climate change in winter makes wheel loaders not
| function properly and people are too cold?
| pigsty wrote:
| Put someone in a village 100 miles from the nearest town,
| deny them the basic infrastructure you provide for
| everyone else, deny them proper education, skimp on
| government job programs provided to other struggling
| towns that would eventually lead to wealth flowing in and
| free enterprise, and let this wealth divide grow for
| decades and you'll see you've successfully made a hole to
| trap people in.
|
| It's not bigotry. Even if you want to ignore the
| centuries of active destruction of their families, the
| infrastructure gap is huge. Take a look at, say, the
| difference between Japan and Vietnam. Both got absolutely
| leveled by the US. One of them had infrastructure rebuilt
| by the US and investment in local enterprise by the US
| government. One is a rich country. One is a very poor
| country that's only recently rising up... because other
| people are coming in and helping build infrastructure and
| providing jobs for a people who were crushed and isolated
| from the world for decades.
|
| There's a wealth and basic life standard gap that is
| impossible to bootstrap. Any successful place built from
| "nothing" got there through getting outside investment in
| some form, or through centuries of time left to grow
| through their own means. Plus their lands continue to be
| exploited. When oil or water or something is used by an
| outside company, instead of letting them have it and
| enriching the people on the land, eminent domain is
| exercised or companies buy it from the gov for pennies.
| zdragnar wrote:
| The point isn't "are they poor?" or "why are they poor?"
| but "how do you lift a community out of poverty?".
|
| There are many poor communities across the country, in
| all races and creeds. The past can't be rewritten-
| focusing on "you are poor because X happened in the past"
| is just telling someone there is no reason for hope.
|
| The way out involves both external and internal forces;
| external in the sense of support for development of
| infrastructure and economic activity, internal in the
| sense of a willingness and belief of capability of
| change. Many tribes who have successful casinos don't see
| significant improvements depending on their payout
| structure, because simply giving money to people with no
| financial literacy is a recipe for loss.
|
| This is true for _all_ communities facing poverty.
| pigsty wrote:
| Also because a casino isn't infrastructure. A casino is
| the equivalent of building liquor stores and calling it a
| job well done. Amidst a thriving economy it's fine.
| Otherwise it's making a few wealthy at the cost of
| community health.
|
| Casinos are a way tribes found to generate wealth as an
| exception to state laws. It's one of the very few
| possible "true" bootstrapping examples. But no healthy
| community is dominated by casinos.
| landemva wrote:
| > There's a wealth and basic life standard gap that is
| impossible to bootstrap.
|
| USA southern border is over-run with poor people trying
| to get in. I wonder what is different for these folks?
| ethanbond wrote:
| I've just explained what's different. A successful
| genocide campaign carried out over centuries that has
| slowed but not stopped and certainly not reversed course.
| zdragnar wrote:
| Many of those crossing illegally are also descendants of
| repressed peoples, either African and / or already native
| at the time of Spanish settlement. They come from
| communities facing brutal repression, either at the hands
| of government military or drug cartels.
|
| You seem to view the world as if any of these problems
| are unique to America.
| ethanbond wrote:
| Well yes, the problem of being targeted by a centuries-
| long genocide campaign carried out by and within the
| borders of the wealthiest and most advanced nation on
| earth is, in fact, unique to American indigenous peoples.
|
| I'm not saying "bad things only happen to native
| Americans." I'm saying "the American campaign of genocide
| against native Americans only happened to native
| Americans."
|
| At this point you seem to be willfully ignoring the
| numerous _modern day_ examples of injustices perpetrated
| on these people. This is not some long-gone history. As
| mentioned in other threads, governments _kidnapped native
| children_ as recently as the 1970s. They showed up to
| houses, stole children, shipped those children to
| boarding schools to be raped, tortured, and killed en
| masse - optimistically to be brainwashed out of their
| culture. Governments are continuing to wrestle natural
| resources from tribes as recently as _today_. _Right
| now_. Across the entire country.
| JCharante wrote:
| While Vietnam is a poor country, the quality of life for
| those who make $200/month is still good. It doesn't have
| the overtime or societal issues that Japan has. Vietnam
| has a better trajectory for its population count and does
| not face stagnation. What's the point of being a rich
| country if your people are broken inside?
|
| I know you're saying that countries can't develop
| themselves without external support, but I'm not
| convinced that a richer country = better quality of life
| for people which is an assumption you made.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| They are people warehoused in obscure rural areas with
| subsistence support.
|
| They get enough to live not enough to thrive. The federal
| government provided healthcare, for example, but funds it
| in such a way that they run out of operating funds in month
| 10 or 11 of the annual budget.
|
| Like most people in this sort situation, the malaise takes
| over. Alcohol and drug abuse is rampant. Opportunity is
| nil. Breaking out of the cycle is very difficult and
| requires an individual to have the right combination of
| luck, street smarts, ability and ability to walk away that
| is hard to find.
| bombcar wrote:
| More like everyone who can escape does; this obviously only
| leaves those who cannot escape.
| kevingadd wrote:
| > Are all cultures stuck in wintery conditions facing the
| same issues and if not, why?
|
| The person you're replying to explained why: We did it to
| them on purpose to wipe them out.
| chasd00 wrote:
| > We did it to them on purpose to wipe them out.
|
| "we"? I wouldn't be so presumptuous.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| You did not. The society that you are a part of did
| systematically disassemble their society and slaughter
| any resistance.
|
| So "we" got our trains, oil and highways, and turned the
| Great Plains into one of the great breadbaskets of the
| world, at least for awhile. Unfortunately the depletion
| of the aquifers will leave those same plains a desert
| from an agricultural perspective in many of our
| lifetimes. Maybe when that land is worthless to society
| again the Sioux will get it back.
| chasd00 wrote:
| Once again, you're making a lot of assumptions about the
| person you're replying to.
| kevingadd wrote:
| That or you're just choosing to unfavorably read the word
| "we" as if it refers to you specifically, instead of to
| the poster and their cultural, racial or national group,
| in order to avoid engaging with the substance of their
| post?
| ethanbond wrote:
| Hmmm, nope? I'm saying that these particular people had
| very particular things done to them _intended_ to yield
| exactly these particular outcomes.
| MonkeyMalarky wrote:
| Yes, why aren't these people self sufficient after we took
| away all their means of self sufficiency? It's a real big
| mystery isn't it.
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| >Yes, why aren't these people self sufficient after we took
| away all their means of self sufficiency?
|
| This sounds very much like "racism of low expectations".
| "These people" are just as self-sufficient as any other
| group of modern people of similar socioeconomic background.
| It's been 100+ years since they were mistreated in any
| serious fashion.
|
| I come from eastern Europe and 150 years ago most of my
| ancestors were serfs, only a rung or two above chattel
| slaves on the ladder of human condition. If someone
| seriously suggested that well, what do you expect of these
| poor chaps, serfdom and all, I think I'd get quite upset.
|
| Just food for thought about how both your phrasing and
| implications of what you're saying might seem to people who
| aren't from your background.
| xyzelement wrote:
| This is exactly it. Many peoples suffered extremely bad
| histories (Jews, Armenians, Chinese under Communism etc)
| and rise to overcome it in modern day.
|
| History is not fair but your actions yesterday determine
| your life today and your actions today determine your
| future. It is extremely damaging to sustain this culture
| of _of course your life is shit because of what happened
| hundreds of years ago, nothing you can do_
| ethanbond wrote:
| "100 years ago" is a weird way to describe "ongoing harm
| as recently as... earlier this year."
|
| https://www.npr.org/2022/02/18/1081872135/native-
| americans-p...
|
| Or the US government's uranium mining on Navajo land
| continuing to poison people today: https://en.wikipedia.o
| rg/wiki/Uranium_mining_and_the_Navajo_...
| xyzelement wrote:
| What does mine placement have to do with a community's
| ability to store emergency firewood where it's accessible
| in an emergency?
| msrenee wrote:
| Well, that example was about a Navajo community. Quite a
| long way from the Pine Ridge rez. Very different people
| and culture.
|
| They gave that as an example in response to the claim
| that the abuse of natives is historical and not actively
| happening. While it is not directly damage done to the
| occupants of Pine Ridge, it does demonstrate that the
| sort of injustices that destroy native communities are
| still occurring.
| ethanbond wrote:
| The same genocidal policies that enable resource
| extraction with complete disregard for local populations
| are the ones responsible (intentionally) for the abject
| poverty that renders these populations extremely
| vulnerable to weather events. Most Americans cannot
| comprehend that this level of poverty exists within their
| borders.
|
| For example, these populations have to be spread across
| massive ranges of completely worthless land, making
| infrastructure extremely inefficient even in scenarios
| where they have the financial means to invest in it
| whatsoever (which is also rare for all the same reasons^)
| thebigman433 wrote:
| > It's been 100+ years since they were mistreated in any
| serious fashion
|
| This is just patently untrue. Land is still being stolen,
| programs to help Indigenous people are still being cut. I
| dont think people realize how close our history actually
| is. There were still nearly 10,000 children in Native
| American residential schools as of _2007_. The height of
| them ended in the 70s, which is barely 50 years away.
| Thats quite literally the parents of modern day teenagers
| and young adults.
|
| These schools have absolutely decimated the population
| and culture of indigenous people.
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Indian_boarding
| _schoo....
| katbyte wrote:
| I really suggest you watch this video:
| https://youtu.be/A5P6vJs1jmY
|
| You cannot really compare the successful genocide natives
| in NA to being poor in Europe.
| ethanbond wrote:
| Or what you're comparing is a largely _successful_
| genocide (American natives) to either a non-genocide
| (yeah history was mostly poverty-stricken) or
| unsuccessful genocides (various groups in Europe).
| dmkolobov wrote:
| There's a very real difference between mostly everyone
| being serfs long ago, and a relatively small, particular
| group being targeted by government sponsored
| economic/cultural/physical violence in your lifetime.
|
| I live in Denver, with a very large Native population,
| and many still remember being taken from their families
| and being forced to speak English, while the rest of the
| country experience the affluence boom of the suburbs and
| such. Acknowledging that recent history isn't
| controversial in those communities.
| fencepost wrote:
| _I come from eastern Europe and 150 years ago most of my
| ancestors were serfs, only a rung or two above chattel
| slaves on the ladder of human condition._
|
| 50 years ago a lot of their descendants in the Eastern
| Bloc countries were probably still in that condition or
| in the USSR factory worker equivalent.
| poulpy123 wrote:
| Lol you should learn a bit about the history of these
| countries. 50 years ago was the seventies. While not as
| confortable as in the west, its was far to be at the
| level of serfs.
| smcl wrote:
| The original quoted statement in GP is a pretty common
| thing I have seen in younger people in now-prosperous
| former-communist central/eastern European countries.
| Minorities being subject to institutional racism in the
| form of apartheid, redlining and such is completely
| handwaved away and countered with "we had it bad under
| communism, but we recovered so why can't they". There are
| thankfully a growing number who don't think like this,
| but many simply cannot be convinced and will dismiss your
| explanations as excuse-making, or try-hard "woke"-ness.
| Hell, I've even encountered guys here insisting that
| because they're so non-racist they can use the n-word.
|
| I think that many just don't know how widespread, deeply
| ingrained and recent much of this was - they think there
| was slavery, a bit of racism hanging around and then (in
| the USA at least) the civil rights act sorted things out
| and made everything equal. And that's really similar in
| nature to the comment you replied to - people have picked
| up a simplified and wrong version of history of Warsaw
| Pact countries and they're just a bit ignorant of the
| truth.
| [deleted]
| paultopia wrote:
| This this this this this this this this. ZERO coincidence
| that this tragedy happens on a reservation.
| zdragnar wrote:
| From the article, the community has stockpiled resources, but
| their plows and skidsteers are all out of commission. They
| literally cannot get to the firewood, and every time they clear
| some snow out more blows in.
|
| Some people have been completely isolated in their homes for 8
| days. I'd say most people, even in rural areas, don't have a
| supply that'll last longer than that, except for some hardcore
| preppers.
| survirtual wrote:
| Most people in rural areas have some kind of food store with
| canned goods. With things like Soylent and Huel, those can
| also be used. I had 6 months of Soylent back in the day. 2
| bags of Huel can last about 6 days and fits in a small bag --
| it is one of my hacks for backpacking.
|
| If you haven't already, I recommend having a supply of canned
| beans, canned tuna, canned meats to preference, canned
| sardines, bulk rice (you can drop dry ice in a 5 gallon
| container and fill it with rice, then put silica packets on
| top, then seal it). With that, you can eat pretty good
| limited only by the duration being prepared for, and it is
| relatively cheap & space efficient.
|
| For water, buy a Sawyer filter. I like the squeeze. They are
| capable of removing most harmful organisms out of the water,
| are very portable, and would help a lot during a water supply
| issue. They do not filter chemicals or dissolved solids. I
| use mine when backpacking to drink out of just about every
| fresh water source you can imagine, and I use it when
| traveling to other countries with questionable water
| supplies.
|
| Also, do yourself a favor and buy a bidet seat. These will
| change your life. Not only is it more hygienic, it reduces
| the use of toilet paper significantly. In the event of
| disaster but water is still flowing, that is one less thing
| to think about.
|
| For warmth, have the layers available. A wool base layer can
| keep you warm in even the coldest climates. Do not use
| cotton; cotton is deadly when wet in cold. Wool insulates
| even when wet -- this is commonly known but I have actually
| tested it with wool socks walking around in the Virgin river
| in Zion National Park during the height of winter, among
| other places. Also would want an insulated windbreaker that
| can be removed as needed. Warm clothing / blankets / etc is
| more reliable than a fuel source for heating in my opinion,
| because you could get snowed in and cut off from the fuel.
|
| These are not actions reserved for just preppers. I think
| everyone should have this kind of basic readiness on some
| level. No one in the US, for instance, has any excuse because
| it is all very very affordable, and also contribute
| positively to the environment in the case of a bidet seat.
|
| If I was in the position most of you are in (I have opted out
| of the housing market for ethical reasons), I'd also be
| powered mostly via solar and a 3 day reserve battery for the
| house. Expensive, but worth it. All my heating and cooling
| would be electrical and I would have an inductive stovetop.
| Everything electrified. It is a privilege to have that kind
| of prep but it has a dual purpose of not hurting the
| environment.
|
| When I am in the wild, I do not like to carry anything that
| is singular purpose. Everything must have multiple uses. This
| reduces waste and increases efficiency in many ways.
| Likewise, for disaster readiness, you need to tweak the way
| you live normally to be efficient during disaster. A bidet
| seat, for instance, is a good example. This makes your life
| more efficient, more comfortable, and reduces waste.
| Simultaneously, it functions much better during disaster.
|
| Food storage can also be done similarly. Store things you
| would actually eat but preserve well. Rotate the storage by
| actually using it; this lets you keep track of what is still
| good and integrates it into your diet realistically.
|
| Water filters can be used while hiking. Use them. Go on a
| hike and take a drink from your rivers or lakes. It is
| refreshing. If your rivers and lakes have dangerous chemicals
| dissolved in it because of human activity, don't you think
| something should be done about that?
|
| Aim for at least dual purpose in things. Readiness should
| function without the survival aspect and flow into survival
| without friction.
| literalAardvark wrote:
| You should start a show. "Survival with Marie Antoinette"
| is a good title.
| brookst wrote:
| > No one in the US, for instance, has any excuse because it
| is all very very affordable
|
| As another comment pointed out, median income in Pine Ridge
| is $4k _per year_.
|
| I don't think really any of your advice is compatible with
| that income level.
| survirtual wrote:
| Beans and rice in storage is directly compatible with
| that income level.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Beans and rice take quite a bit of fuel to cook, and that
| sounds like a major problem.
| bumby wrote:
| I get the impression from a lot of HN comments that many
| people are unaware of the variability in living standards
| in a country of 350+MM people
| [deleted]
| phil21 wrote:
| > If I was in the position most of you are in (I have opted
| out of the housing market for ethical reasons), I'd also be
| powered mostly via solar and a 3 day reserve battery for
| the house.
|
| You are getting a lot of flak for this, but I completely
| agree. For the salaries many on HN take home (well into the
| six figures) this should be far more of a priority. There
| is almost no excuse to not do it in any semi-rural setting
| - I see it as outright negligence if you make that sort of
| money and have a living situation that allows it.
|
| You mentioned $75k previously - that would be for an
| extremely small house. I've also ran the numbers, and for
| $250-500k (depending on climate) you can basically live in
| a normal sized house and be completely off-grid
| indefinitely. That's a ton of money, but almost nothing
| when compared with a FAANG salary over a decade.
|
| If that is a bit too crazy for you, you can get back to the
| ~$150k number by the simple addition of a backup generator
| fueled by on-site propane. Get a few tanks on-site and it's
| pretty easy to have a 60 day supply on-hand at all times
| when combined with your solar generation during the day.
| Propane doesn't go bad so you can basically store it
| indefinitely. Add in a wood stove and you really can go as
| long as your food and medical supplies last.
|
| It's strange to me more folks in this position do not make
| this a priority. Just adding rooftop solar+batteries+roll-
| up generator seems to be too far "out there" for most
| people to even consider.
|
| I've noticed since COVID these attitudes are slowly
| shifting, so we'll see what the future brings. The sheer
| number of friends I know who have less than a week's worth
| of food in the house and not even a little Honda 2000w
| generator is uncomfortable to me.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Count me among the people for whom COVID was the needed
| wake-up call. I realized how dependent I was on
| civilization for things like energy, water, and so on,
| and watched neighborhoods break down into chaos and
| madness over a few supply shocks. It was the kick in the
| pants I needed to move the fam out to the boonies. I'm
| not fully off-grid and independent yet, but for the first
| time making good forward progress in the right direction.
| My energy mix is now propane, rooftop solar, a wood
| furnace, and the grid. I've got space on the property to
| store an abundance of food and water indefinitely. Fresh
| water stream behind the home. Yea, I know, this makes me
| barely a Level 1 Noob Prepper, but it's a start. Maybe
| one day we move more fully off-grid, when we are ready.
|
| I realize a lot of good fortune and privilege allowed
| this which is why I can't fault the poor folks in the
| article.
| dzdt wrote:
| > No one in the US, for instance, has any excuse because it
| is all very very affordable
|
| The article is about the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation,
| with >80% unemployment and average incomes of $4000 per
| year. I expect their notions of "very affordable" may not
| match yours.
| ScoobleDoodle wrote:
| Are you suggesting the inductive stove top because it's
| more energy efficient?
|
| Thank you for sharing all of these recommendations.
| bombcar wrote:
| Inductive fails when power fails, however. If you have a
| gas furnace you should consider having a gas stove
| connected even if you rarely use it - it can provide heat
| if power fails.
|
| Remember that without power you have no exhaust fan and
| must ventilate appropriately.
|
| A kerosene heater is a great investment in colder areas,
| hardware store sealed kerosene will last nearly forever.
| survirtual wrote:
| No, that is only if you have a solar setup and are
| efficient enough for offgrid independent electricity. It
| is a suggestion for people with money to do a setup that
| doesn't compromise on modern luxury even in disaster.
| Given the population here, I figured there are people who
| can afford that kind of setup; it would be in the range
| of $75,000 to do properly but do it yourself (so cost of
| materials).
|
| Without that, the method for heating food I'd use is a
| propane stove. You can get a single burner for under $30.
| I always have 4, 5lbs propane canisters with me to cook
| while traveling. For a house, you can have a large
| propane tank.
| Cipater wrote:
| >No one in the US, for instance, has any excuse because it
| is all very very affordable
|
| What a thing to say.
| mindslight wrote:
| > _3 day reserve battery for the house_ ... _All my heating
| and cooling would be electrical_
|
| I don't think you've run the numbers here, at all. Battery
| storage that can provide off-grid heat-pump heating for a
| single dead-of-winter design night is bordering on
| impractical. Creating a buffer that could last 3 whole days
| (4-5x the size) would be blatantly prohibitive.
|
| Batteries only make sense for daily cycling to deal with
| the dark. It's much less expensive and most likely less
| environmentally destructive to supply longer term backup
| electricity needs from a traditional generator and dino
| juice than to manufacture batteries just to have them
| sitting around basically unused.
|
| The sensible way to spend capital investment is on more
| insulation to make your heating load quite low to begin
| with (eg PassivHaus). Perhaps this dovetails into your
| thinking, but if so you should lead with and focus on that,
| as talking about supplying heating loads with batteries is
| just insane.
|
| edit: Also, how is it even possible to opt out of the
| housing market? The only ways I can think of:
|
| 1. Bundle up with warm clothing and sleep rough (moving on
| when needed)
|
| 2. Squat, in an unoccupied structure or even an occupied
| one without the knowledge of the other residents.
|
| 3. Build your own house and claim that you're at least not
| part of the economic market. But you would still need land
| to do that, which is the main problem with the housing
| market.
| bombcar wrote:
| And three days is nothing when you could be without power
| for a week or more.
| survirtual wrote:
| That statement was in a context of a paragraph about
| solar for wealthy people / upper middle class on a site
| with tech people who, coincidentally, near universally
| fall in that category.
|
| If you have solar, you won't ever go 3 days without some
| energy generation. The 3 days of battery is mainly a
| buffer for night time when solar is offline.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| It sounds like the people in this article could be snowed
| in for a week or more. Your experience and insights are
| interesting but you're kinda tripping over your own feet
| with generalities that are at odds with the article we're
| discussing.
| survirtual wrote:
| I agree with you. I thought replying to the post I did
| and honing in on the statement about rural folks was
| enough to go on this tangent, but I will look towards
| being more focused on the root topic in the future.
|
| I just think, at the very least, getting people thinking
| about these topics and perhaps even convincing someone to
| make some lifestyle changes could be really helpful, and
| well, it just isn't often words from internet strangers
| could have such a direct impact.
|
| Ultimately, my thinking is that I can't help the people
| in that article here, but I can try and contribute to the
| readers in my small way.
| survirtual wrote:
| I have run the numbers and with proper insulation and
| lower sq footage it is completely practical.
|
| That recommendation is for people with the money to do
| it, which is most of us here. I was replying to someone
| talking about most "rural" people and extended the reply
| to be relevant to people here.
|
| Given I sleep most nights in a hammock in woods
| backpacking and travel around nonstop, and have no
| trouble in sub-zero wilderness, I have definitely opted
| out of housing and may or may not know something about
| what I'm talking about.
|
| Believe it or not, people with ethics and willpower to
| follow through still exist. I have opted out of housing
| and opted out of having children, because the housing
| situation is unconscionable and refuse to participate in
| it (nor will I enrich people participating in it by
| paying their outrageous rates). I would never bring a
| child into this world as it is and where its going, so
| that is an easy one.
| mindslight wrote:
| > _Given I sleep most nights in a hammock in woods
| backpacking and travel around nonstop, and have no
| trouble in sub-zero wilderness, I have definitely opted
| out of housing_
|
| Okay, I do agree this qualifies as opting out of the
| housing market.
|
| > _Believe it or not, people with ethics and willpower to
| follow through still exist_
|
| Sure. I'm there myself on a few topics, and have lived
| them for quite some time. But you need to understand that
| this puts you at odds with 99% of society, and as such
| your example isn't going to be found as actionable advice
| by the sheer majority of people - even people who agree
| with you 90% of the way.
|
| Would you mind sharing your numbers? If I just spitball
| with a 10kBTU/hr design load, a heat pump COP of 3, and
| assume that your heating requirements are entirely taken
| care of by that design load for 8 hours at night, that's
| still like 3 Powerwalls to last 3 nights. I'd say there
| are better ways to spend those resources, especially
| considering that batteries wear out like everything else.
| survirtual wrote:
| I'd have to find my notes on the topic, but if memory
| serves for the results, I was targeting 200kWh of battery
| with a ~1000sqft space. I can't recall my calculations on
| the number of panels because I was later working on
| another design for mobile use with my car, but I do
| remember it being around $20k-$30k in panels alone to do
| what I wanted. Panel efficiency and price has gone down
| since then, so I would expect that price to be lower now.
| I wanted enough generation to simultaneously charge two
| EVs as well as be capable of heating a space. I was
| planning on doing all the labor myself so that is not in
| the numbers for cost.
|
| All things told I was prepared to spend around $75k on
| electrical to make this happen in a remote location,
| which seemed reasonable to me given the capabilities &
| stability I would get in return. It is not something most
| people could afford, but most people here on HN probably
| could which is why I mentioned it.
| mindslight wrote:
| Well, I apologize for what I originally said because it
| seems you have seriously run the numbers out. On its own
| that still seems like a massive amount of battery for a
| single dwelling, but hard to put into context without
| other numbers (design heating load, electrical load,
| atrophy over time, oversized for slower wear, etc)
|
| Still, in general it seems like the ultimate design
| constraint is always low probability events adding up -
| eg solar generation getting severely cut for a week, due
| to snow on the panels and cloudy days or hardware
| failure, coupled with many cold nights in a row. For
| which a fall back to a more traditional denser energy
| source (wood or gasoline) that you'd end up using every
| few years comes in much cheaper than trying to oversize
| the primary battery storage to handle every long tail
| event.
| Someone wrote:
| Did you consider how that would do in a week-long storm
| that deposits a foot or more of snow on your panels?
|
| For emergencies, I think I would put more trust in a low-
| tech wood burner, moving extra wood in-house whenever
| there's a serious storm forecast.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| It seems like any child you would have would be extremely
| well prepared for wherever the world is going
| ISL wrote:
| _No one in the US, for instance, has any excuse because it
| is all very very affordable_
|
| More than half of people in the United States may not be
| able to cover a $1k emergency expense from savings.
|
| https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/01/19/56
| p...
|
| While some of that effect is due to economic choices, much
| of it is not. It is difficult to prepare for a long-tail
| disaster when you're facing oodles of short-term needs.
| survirtual wrote:
| People in the US can afford a 5 gallon container of beans
| and rice. My suggestion isn't financially impractical for
| anyone, this is nonsense.
|
| It is just a matter of priorities and knowledge, and who
| is here on Hacker News reading what I wrote? Is it a
| population that can afford these suggestions or isn't it?
| rascul wrote:
| > People in the US can afford a 5 gallon container of
| beans and rice. My suggestion isn't financially
| impractical for anyone, this is nonsense.
|
| There are plenty of people in the US who can barely
| scrape together enough to feed themselves for a day.
| Telling these people to just spend more money isn't
| helpful.
| survirtual wrote:
| I am very aware of the poverty here. I have met people on
| the roads and in the woods with some incredible stories &
| lifestyles.
|
| If you are fortunate enough to have a fixed location and
| are able to survive in general society, I can assure you,
| you can find some way to scrape together a rolling supply
| of beans and rice.
|
| If nothing else, these are served in abundance at food
| banks. I should know because I have friends in some parts
| of the country who are homeless & regularly used food
| banks. They had no place to store long term stuff
| (although I have found buried caches before, I don't know
| people who regularly do that) so my advice wouldn't apply
| to them, but if someone went to a food bank and had a
| fixed location for storage, I am sure they would have no
| trouble being able to secure a large supply of rice and
| beans.
|
| A large issue with poverty is it generates a mindset
| where these kinds of preparations are much lower priority
| than daily survival, so that would be a more reasonable
| reason to point at I think.
| trs8080 wrote:
| [flagged]
| dang wrote:
| Please make your substantive points without crossing into
| personal attack.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| Edit: you've unfortunately doing this so frequently, and
| posting so many flamewar comments, that I think we have
| to ban this account. These things are the opposite of
| what HN is for, regardless of how wrong other people are
| or you feel they are.
|
| If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email
| hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that
| you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
| c-fe wrote:
| > I'd say most people, even in rural areas, don't have a
| supply that'll last longer than that, except for some
| hardcore preppers.
|
| I disagree. Or, at least where I live (densely populated
| europe), nearly everyone with their own house has at lease
| one (small) fireplace with some wood stored outside,
| typically enough for at least a month (otherwhise, do you go
| shopping wood every week?). Food-wise I agree that 8 days may
| touch the limits of food supply for families, but I know
| plenty people that have pasta / rice in stock for days. And
| this is in Europe without any wilderness. I cant believe that
| more rural americans are less equiped than this altough maybe
| I am wrong.
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| Enough for a month of what? Small decorative fires part of
| the day, or fires large enough to heat the house and cook
| food on 24/7? The fireplaces I'm familiar with would never
| heat the entire house, no matter how much wood you had
| outside.
| SyzygistSix wrote:
| In Pittsburgh after the blizzard, we all slept in the
| family/living room where the fireplace was, in sleeping
| bags. I think power was out for a week to 10 days?
| trillic wrote:
| You don't need to heat an entire house to stay alive.
| Just enough so the people sitting next to the fire don't
| die of hypothermia
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| Sure. So enough wood to keep that room warm 12 hours a
| day for a month suddenly became enough wood to keep that
| room warm 24 hours a day for two weeks. The family that
| happened to put in a months supply two weeks before the
| storm started only had enough for one week of full time
| fires, and that ran out days ago. (The suburban european
| houses with a fireplace I know are more likely to burn it
| a few hours each day, which makes their month of wood
| worth only a few days of full reliance).
| LinuxBender wrote:
| That is my take as well. Everyone around me keeps at least
| 1 cord of wood [1] or more. It can get cold here and people
| are expected to be self sufficient. The less fortunate
| people instead of buying wood will get a permit from the
| state to chop wood from a specified area but then they have
| to haul/cut/dry/season the wood themselves usually
| borrowing a neighbors trailer. People here are friendly and
| share tools.
|
| [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cord_(unit)
| barney54 wrote:
| People who live on Indian Reservations are frequently
| really, really poor and likely couldn't afford to stock
| up with that much wood beforehand.
| LinuxBender wrote:
| You've given me something to go do. I've never visited
| the reservation near me. [1] If they are unaware of the
| wood cutting permits [2] I will show them.
|
| [1] - https://windriver.org/destinations/wind-river-
| indian-reserva...
|
| [2] - https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/mbr/passes-
| permits/forestprod...
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Consider reaching out to your local congressional reps to
| get some appropriation done where reservation folks are
| contacted to inform them of their right to the resources
| and automatically provide the wood cutting permits if
| done for personal/tribal use. Happy to provide
| assistance.
| LinuxBender wrote:
| I will first reach out to the reservation to learn more
| about it before I jump to any conclusions. I prefer to
| speak to the people that live in an area. It may turn out
| they have everything they need. But I will keep your
| offer in mind if it turns out things are in a bad state
| of affairs.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| It looks like the Wind River reservation is quite some
| distance from the Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest, I
| don't think ignorance of the permits is their problem.
| LinuxBender wrote:
| There are other areas to cut wood. They don't list all of
| them. The local forestry office may be able to provide
| closer locations. For example, there is a designated area
| just a few miles from me but it is not listed on any of
| the forestry websites. I listed that page to show the
| permitting process, restrictions and costs. As
| toomuchtodo pointed out, it may even be free in their
| case.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| There's a good chance that few of those areas are on the
| reservation, which often were picked to be the worst land
| in the region. So many still may not live within a
| convenient distance of an area for wood.
|
| Plus, even if they do live near a forest, I'm not sure if
| the Forest Service would have jurisdiction. It's possible
| the tribe has the rights, or the BIA handles it.
| kzrdude wrote:
| Whereabouts is this? Fireplaces are really not common in
| new developments (Sweden), but I'm not fond of new
| development houses anyway.
|
| It's a shame for a country with a tradition of beautiful
| and efficient wood fireplaces like these:
| https://www.land.se/hus-hem/skaffa-kakelugn-tips-och-rad-
| du-...
| bratbag wrote:
| You can't believe something that is happening?
| karmelapple wrote:
| I grew up in North Dakota, and the place in this news story
| is in South Dakota. I knew plenty of folks in rural areas
| with enough resources for weeks, not days. Running water
| might be the exception, but many farmers I know had well
| water.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| If you have enough fuel then water is not a problem in the
| snow. I've been in a cabin in Norway when the well which
| was about 70 metres away was buried in snow but we just
| took a bucket full of snow in an put it on top of the wood
| burner to thaw.
| msrenee wrote:
| Running on a well only gets you so far in the running water
| game when the power goes out.
| kneebonian wrote:
| > Some people have been completely isolated in their homes
| for 8 days. I'd say most people, even in rural areas, don't
| have a supply that'll last longer than that, except for some
| hardcore preppers.
|
| I wouldn't say that, I try and always have 3 months supply of
| food on hand in case something happens, even just a temporary
| job loss, in fact the idea of having less than a full months
| supply of food on hand seems terrifying to me, as evidenced
| all you need is one bad winter storm and your looking at
| starvation.
|
| In fact the church I belong to encourages members to have 1-6
| months supply of food on hand in case of emergencies and it
| would be something I'd recommend everyone do. It gives you
| substantial peace of mind.
| EschatonCometh wrote:
| [flagged]
| kneebonian wrote:
| I mean the Church I belong to says nothing about the end
| times but rather encourages it as a matter of self-
| reliance with the idea being you need to be in a stable
| place in order to help and lift others, nothing about the
| end times.
|
| EDIT: I should clarify the Church I belong to doesn't
| encourage having a supply of food because of end times
| although it does accept the doctrine of Eschatology.
| pard68 wrote:
| > EschatonCometh
|
| I can't stop laughing. Your lack of self awareness is
| staggering
| ArmandTanzarian wrote:
| I would encourage Eschaton to re-read the words they
| typed and consider the irony. "F your peace of mind. It
| is a narrow banded one." I am not religious, but your
| hostility smacks of the "narrow bandedness" your post is
| so quick to call out.
| zdragnar wrote:
| As pointed out elsewhere, this is a very, very poor
| community. Stockpiling food is likely not an option for
| most if they truly do have unemployment in the 90% range
| paganel wrote:
| Serious question, why aren't the firewood stockpiles in very
| close proximity to the houses themselves? That's what we do
| in these parts of the world where I live (Eastern Europe),
| where even the apartment blocks that still rely on firewood
| store it very close to the buildings themselves, in walking
| distance (as can be seen via this GStreetView link [1])
|
| [1] https://www.google.com/maps/@46.5413445,22.4545999,3a,49y
| ,10...
| bombcar wrote:
| Firewood also has pest issues and other problems so you
| often want to only store as much as you "need" near the
| dwelling. Remember that the distances aren't even a
| football field away; more like across a large street. But
| under enough snow that's impossible to pass.
| nottorp wrote:
| How's the winter in that area _normally_ ?
|
| Because i've lived my first ~16 years of life in a home
| heated with firewood (and coal but it's irellevant now) and
| by the end of september all the fuel needed for 3 months of
| winter was neatly piled up within easy reach of the house.
| All you needed was to shovel like 20 meters of path and maybe
| a wheelbarrow.
|
| Why would you need something motorized to get to your
| firewood? Doesn't make sense unless they've never had heavy
| winters before.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| I don't know the details, but they are very very poor (Pine
| Ridge is often calculated to have the highest unemployment
| and lowest per capita income in the entire country; life
| expectancy is ~50 years), and I'm not sure how forrested
| the land is, it's mostly grassland/prairie.
|
| The OP article suggested that many people ordinarily use
| propane heat, which normally can be delivered just fine. I
| don't know enough to say why not firewood, but I'd guess
| expense and convenience. Aha, this other article mentions a
| firewood shortage, but doesn't say details:
|
| > In homes heated by firewood, there is another battle.
| Yellow Hair says there is a firewood shortage happening on
| the reservation, but communities are coming together to
| help one another. "Lending that helping hand, when they can
| and where they can," said Yellow Hair. Keeping people warm
| is an issue across much of the Pine Ridge Reservation, with
| a firewood shortage and propane trucks jelling up from the
| cold.
|
| --https://www.blackhillsfox.com/2022/12/22/one-natural-
| phenome...
|
| And here's an article about life in Pine Ridge generally:
|
| > Among the most impoverished of these reservations, Pine
| Ridge is plagued by an 80 to 90 percent unemployment rate
| with a median individual income of $4,000 a year, according
| to the Re-Member nonprofit organisation's 2007 statistics.
|
| -- https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2016/11/2/life-on-
| the-pin...
| brookst wrote:
| Thank you for the context. It's a little cringey to read
| all of the comparatively wealthy and privileged comments
| that boil down to "why didn't they just spend lots of
| money on equipment and supplies."
| daniel_reetz wrote:
| I grew up in North Dakota (where there are a number of
| reservations) and worked on a project in a First Nations
| village in Ontario. Comments here exhibit zero awareness
| of what crushing poverty (and reservation dynamics) can
| do to people. Or, for that matter, what enormous
| privilege and lucky circumstances can do to people.
| Aeolun wrote:
| Another question is why they all still live there?
| trollied wrote:
| I guess you don't understand how things work outside of
| your circle. They're not software engineers on ridiculous
| salaries. Lots of people live day to day, not knowing
| where their next meal is coming from, never mind prepping
| a huge stockpile for storm events, or being able to spend
| thousands moving elsewhere & being able to afford said
| move/rent elsewhere/get work etc.
|
| People's biggest problems are mostly not how to pass a
| FAANG interview.
| itsagavin wrote:
| I can answer this as a dude that started off life at 11
| homeless and went from there. Live in unquestionable
| poverty along with your support network of $4000 a year
| earners? Or take a bus to any random American city and
| get ready for your how many days can a green recruit last
| in Nam scenario?
| citizenpaul wrote:
| >green recruit last in Nam scenario
|
| How is it any different where you came from? Once you
| become a teenager the gangs and predatory "adults" start
| closing in on you to either join/serve or be an outsider
| they abuse for amusement.
|
| I say this from similar situation as you but I was 16.
| Much easier since I could legally work in restaurants
| (which is what I did). I have no idea how you would make
| it without the ability to work. I'm not saying that I
| want anyone to go through what I or you did. However it
| was blindingly clear to me even as a child that staying
| was equal to dying. I don't see how these people stay in
| these places having been there myself.
|
| Someone posted the average income at pine ridge is <$4k.
| You can work for minimum wage for almost a 400% increase
| in income by leaving.
| Kye wrote:
| Where are they going to go where they won't be at a
| severe disadvantage due to racism and lack of both money
| and connections?
| j-krieger wrote:
| Anywhere else. You make it sound like racism is bad
| enough to keep them unemployed
| therealdrag0 wrote:
| Yes they'd be at a disadvantage. Wouldn't you still make
| that choice? Why would you voluntarily stay in a place so
| poor? Can it really get any worse?
| stevenicr wrote:
| I think the problem gets much more complex, and I would
| assume that moving from pine ridge (and similar places) -
| one would find that their rent increases more than 400%.
| I am assuming that living there grants access to
| transportation in some regard, as well as community
| mentors that help with how to live and what can be done
| when something tragic happens. Moving is more than the
| cost in dollars to get from point A to point B - and
| living somewhere in the states could yield a worse life
| for people even if they suddenly increased income by
| 400%. Last report I saw listed 8 counties (?) where you
| could pay rent on minimum wage (?) - I think it was a few
| in New Mexico and western Oregon - not sure this is still
| true - but you may need more than a job and rent if
| moving to these places - cars and other things may be
| necessary. I also don't know how many people could move
| to these last few places before all the available housing
| was taken and prices go up, and all the basic jobs are
| taken and people start working under the table for less,
| bringing the average wage down. The shortage of housing
| in this country is crushing so many, and that's without
| the other tough things being considered.
| bombcar wrote:
| It's a reservation and they're the natives there. And the
| average is quite young, so I think everyone who can
| escape does (which can harm the remainder in other ways).
| itsagavin wrote:
| I spent time in ND, SD and MN matching online and phone
| wagering with receptive reservations. IMHO if you want to
| escape the res you gotta go far far away. Think 1000
| miles. The racism in the Midwest is so entrenched that
| they solved the who!e uncomfortable mingling with people
| you hate thing by COMPLETELY excluding natives from
| society. The amount of times I saw natives bounced just
| for walking in to a bar in Fargo was disgusting. Its just
| assumed by race they are drunk, poor, vagrant and
| violent.
| doodlebugging wrote:
| This also happens in Montana and around Four Corners,
| wherever there are reservations and non-native Americans
| mingling. The old bias against drunken Indians rears its
| head. Local characterizations propagate the narrative
| that the reservation is full of lazy drunks, dopeheads,
| or abusive and combative individuals.
|
| I was able to work with members of the Ute and Navajo
| tribes in Four Corners years ago when our company worked
| on reservation lands and was required to hire a
| percentage of local laborers. Those guys worked as hard
| as the rest of us out in the July sun down in the hot
| canyons. They laughed at and with each other poking jibes
| at each other since their tribes were traditionally not
| allies. It was all good-natured ribbing and I'm sure they
| knew each other or of each other before working with us.
| They worked the length of our contract in the area and
| had few issues with attendance or effort.
|
| Local whites always talked down about the natives but I
| found them to be as dependable as Mexican and central
| American immigrants (legal or otherwise) that I worked
| with in Texas and other states. These people needed jobs
| and were willing to work to keep a job and the quality of
| their efforts was on par or better than the quality of
| local labor.
|
| In contrast, our company cycled through local non-native
| help. Many of those people appeared and worked long
| enough to earn a paycheck and then disappeared. Some even
| played the employment game where a group of friends hired
| out to each of the three non-local companies and on any
| given day your rolls would show all of them working with
| one of your crews, some of them with one of your crews,
| or none of them with your crews that day. They went where
| they thought the best pay opportunity of the day would be
| and had a friend sign them in where they were expected to
| be so they could earn a check there too. This went on for
| weeks until one of our crews had a problem in the field
| and in the process of sorting it out and looking for a
| scapegoat, they went through the rolls of potential crew
| members who should have had responsibility and discovered
| that several people listed as being present and working
| did not show up at all.
|
| Since the three companies were in the same business and
| everyone knew everyone else our party manager had a talk
| with the other guys and they compared employee rolls and
| discovered all the overlap and the system of sign-ins.
| All of those people were fired immediately when they
| showed up for their next day's work. These were ordinary
| white guys who all lived in that area.
| Bilal_io wrote:
| For the same reason they cannot stockpile.
|
| Moving is very expensive. Then how can they afford rent
| in a more expensive area? How will they find jobs?
| bobthepanda wrote:
| We even have the first Gen Z Congressperson being
| rejected from housing due to low credit score, despite
| the fact that his salary as a future Congressperson is a
| known six-figure value.
|
| Once society has deemed you too poor to be useful, it is
| hard to escape that designation even if you make it out.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Your salary has very little to do with your credit score.
|
| Length of history + history of repayment.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Of course, but also it is a little ridiculous that
| someone with $170k+ salary is totally unable to rent at
| most places due to automatic credit score rejection,
| despite pretty much everything being below the rule of
| thumb for rent and salary.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| I have a relative who has generally been in and out of
| debt. Occasionally, she convinces someone in the family
| to give her a cash infusion - enough to clear the debts.
|
| She goes back into debt right after.
|
| In her youth, she didn't make much. She has since become
| a skilled professional though and now makes a very good
| salary.
|
| She is still in debt.
|
| I have friends who make mind boggling amounts of money
| and also have amazing debt. As they have made more their
| debt has gotten worse, not better.
|
| A credit score says whether or not you have paid back
| your debts. Making more money does not fix the broken
| behavior - it often times makes it worse.
| jkepler wrote:
| Doesn't credit score also incorporate depth of payment
| (not sure if that's the term, but a history of paying
| back a large debt)? A financial adviser once told me,
| when I was three years out of university and had finished
| paying off my student loans, that my credit score was
| good (I'd paid off minimal bills ontime on credit cards
| for years and paid off a used car and student loans) but
| not deep - I'd never taken on a mortgage or any other
| high five-digit or six-digit debts.
|
| So, though I'd been responsible for a long time, it
| didn't count like it would have if I'd engaged in a lot
| more borrowing. Problem was, I valued being debt-free
| sooner for the flexibility it gave me.
|
| After all, look at the etymology of mortgage - mort gage
| (old French), literally "death pledge". Thanks, but I
| prefer life without that kind of constraint.
|
| And if one is born into generational poverty, in a place
| highly dependent on government intervention, its probably
| really hard to access the mindset and opportunities for
| education and entrepreneurial examples that could start
| to break the poverty trend.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| You are correct that history of repayment helps the
| score. Someone who borrows $5 once and pays it back once
| is less trustworthy (from a credit sense) then the person
| who borrows $5 every month and pays it back every month,
| as odd as that feels in the abstract.
|
| Credit scores are intentionally a blend of elements.
| Generally the advice is to make one or two small credit
| purchases a month and pay them back - just enough to show
| consistent mild activity. Some people like using gas for
| this since credit cards are more fraud protected, but
| that may or may not be a "small purchase" for you.
|
| When we talk about poverty, we want to seperate out the
| individual case (Bob is broke) from the group case
| (Mary's tribe is broke.) Fixing Bob's problems looks very
| different from fixing the tribes problems. (That doesn't
| mean the root problem is unrelated.)
|
| Financial literacy education is unfortunately overrun
| with scams.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| imagine a ghetto but instead of being in a major city
| like Venice it is 1000s of miles away from any real
| economic opportunity.
| therealdrag0 wrote:
| Thousands of miles? Check a map.
| katbyte wrote:
| If someone doesn't have the money to stock pile some food
| and fuel do you think they can afford to move?
| jkepler wrote:
| Bus fare, then a homeless shelter until you find work in
| your new city?
| poulpy123 wrote:
| Are you seriously advising them to leave their home to
| become homeless in a place they know nobody ?
| msrenee wrote:
| Where do you want them to go? Rapid? Chadron?
| Scottsbluff? These aren't places with a ton of resources
| either. It's not like they can just pick up and go be
| homeless somewhere with good services at the cost of bus
| fare.
| j-krieger wrote:
| Places won't employ you without an address. Homes won't
| be rent to you without a job.
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| It's that easy folks!
| Kye wrote:
| So fight for space in a homeless shelter. Get robbed the
| days you find a bed. Get robbed or stripped of everything
| by the cops the days you don't and have to sleep outside.
| I've never been in the situation, but accounts from
| people who've survived it are a search away.
| kranke155 wrote:
| This comment is peak HN contrarianism.
|
| "How come they didn't prepare better for a brutal winter"
|
| Is the new "Dropbox will never work"
| bombcar wrote:
| I suspect that most HN commentators do NOT know exactly
| how close to starvation and freezing and death they are
| (you can sit down and calculate it based on which
| assumptions could fail) but in the places where it gets
| cold you may be days or less if power fails. If your
| furnace can't run without electricity how long does your
| house stay habitable? What backup heat do you have? If
| the gas lines are flowing you might be able to use a
| stove for awhile, or the water heater (both are often
| firable without electricity) - but how long will your
| food and water last?
| pard68 wrote:
| I too appreciate your comment. Most folks here are
| probably less prepared than those in these rural
| reservations. NYC area has begun warning about blackouts
| to conserve power. They don't even have a fireplace or
| woodstove to burn clothes in.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| I really love your comment because it helps reframe the
| requirements gathering and solutioning process (as well
| as the constraints you're operating within) for an
| audience that, under the right circumstances, can
| effectively direct their engineering experience and
| knowledge to solve real world problems.
| Klathmon wrote:
| >All you needed was to shovel like 20 meters of path and
| maybe a wheelbarrow.
|
| According to the article some of the areas are getting 30
| inches of snow and ice!
|
| With drifts easily doubling that, I could see how 20 meters
| could quickly become near impossible to clear by hand,
| especially while it's still coming down.
| aqme28 wrote:
| Also I'm not sure that every household has someone able-
| bodied enough to do that work.
| zoklet-enjoyer wrote:
| Exactly. Nobody is going to be able to shovel that out by
| hand in that extreme cold. It was -30 with the wind here
| a couple days ago and it took my forever to shovel out
| the driveway because I had to frequently stop and go back
| inside to warm up. And that was just a small driveway
| with a few inches.
| plorg wrote:
| The article mentions drifts as tall as houses. Even if
| you could get a shovel or snowblower under that, where do
| you put the snow? That's a ton of work!
| postalrat wrote:
| Snow drifts can go 20 feet or higher with no place to
| shovel the snow to
| jkepler wrote:
| Could they dig or melt a tunnel to the wood? If the snow
| were melted and then refroze as ice at the bottom of the
| tunnel, one could then slid the wood back to the tunnel
| entrance...
|
| Hardship breeds creativity. Necessity is the mother of
| invention (except under excessive government
| intervention, which may be at the root of reservation
| problems).
|
| Maybe if we could calculate the present day market value
| of all the land the US government stole from the Native
| Americans (I've heard we broke nearly every treaty we
| signed with the Native Americans... to our shame), that
| could be structural payments to encourage entrepreneurial
| activity on the reservation
| klyrs wrote:
| How much experience do you have in -30F with meters of
| accumulated snow? How much experience do you have digging
| tunnels? Because your comment reads like a literal Loony
| Toons episode, and I've never experienced below -10F or
| more than a meter of snow.
| postalrat wrote:
| Sounds like bad idea. But assuming you have no choice and
| need to leave your house you still need to put the snow
| somewhere that you are digging out. Are you going to fill
| up your house with it?
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| This idea sounds like literal murder.
| zdragnar wrote:
| The odds of the snow caving in and being buried alive are
| far greater than the risks of waiting to get plowed out.
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| Same, upstate NY as a teenager. A couple cords stacked a
| few yards from the house, enough for the entire year. One
| problem we would never have is heat, except that if the
| power went out then some rooms would go cold with no way to
| run fans to move the air around. But no one would freeze
| because most of the house could be like a dry sauna.
|
| I think in this case it must be more about a level of
| poverty so extreme they can't even pull together the years
| supply ahead of time, even if the community as a whole does
| have it all ready.
|
| Maybe they don't distribute it except it tiny amounts for
| some reason? Maybe it gets stolen or sold?
|
| I mean I can only assume that there is some reason they
| can't do the sensible thing. I couldn't imagine risking
| relying on daily or weekly deliveries of tiny armloads of
| wood. I can only assume anyone doing that has no choice or
| at least thinks they have no choice. I'm sure there are a
| few individuals who are just, let's say thoughtless,
| because there are always some, I'm not counting those.
| CWuestefeld wrote:
| That matches my experience. We'd typically have enough for
| the winter stacked at the edge of the woods behind the
| house, but maybe 1-2 weeks worth actually _on the porch_
| under cover to ensure it was dry by the time it was needed.
|
| (This was back in the late 70s to very early 80s, on
| account of fuel costs, inflation, etc.)
| qup wrote:
| Supply of wood?
|
| In my area people who don't cut their own just buy a cord or
| whatever they need each fall. Enough to go through winter.
|
| People who cut their own will generally have more than that.
|
| The people I know have propane heaters for backup, with their
| own tanks. I have a 500 gallon tank.
|
| I'm not a prepper.
| xyzelement wrote:
| This triggered two thoughts for me.
|
| First, how much of a killer the cold is. We've moved on from
| "global warming" to "climate change" language but there are a lot
| of places in the world that would be grateful for a few degree
| temperature rise (such as Latvia where I am from). Today, cold
| kills hundreds of thousands of people a year, while "heat deaths"
| are limited to geriatrics in the "first world."
|
| Second, preparedness. Most urbanites and suburbanites don't think
| about the weather beyond high energy bills. But it's good to pay
| attention to the fact that if it's 20 degrees or less out (as it
| is today in NY) and power or gas goes out, your dwelling is going
| to get real cold real fast. What's your plan? In our case we have
| a fireplace which is mainly decorative (it doesn't actually warm
| the house up beyond the immediate radiant heat) but if shit hits
| the fan, we got firewood enough to huddle up by this fireplace
| for a few days. Hopefully will never have to rely on it but you
| kinda have to plan for some infrastructure failings at
| inconvenient times.
|
| To connect the thoughts together - here, it's not totally
| uncommon to lose power. When it happens in the summer, it's
| inconvenient - you are sweaty and hot. If it happens in the
| winter, there's real risk of death.
| arlort wrote:
| The whole world being a couple degrees hotter is not guaranteed
| to be equally distributed. The reason why Latvia, and most of
| "Northern" Europe is livable instead of a frozen wasteland is
| due to climate mechanisms that we're not entirely sure how
| sensitive they are to climate change
|
| It might get a bit warmer, it might get a lot hotter or it
| might even get a whole lot colder
|
| Climate change is a better term because the change itself is
| unpredictable and likely damaging in the short term
| nazgulsenpai wrote:
| I don't disagree with your logic but your conclusion that one
| term is better than the other. The globe is warming, and
| individual climates are changing as a result. One is not a
| better term then the other, people are just using the wrong
| terms to suit their agendas.
| arlort wrote:
| In an ideal world I'd agree, but since one term is
| dramatically easier to misrepresent I still think the
| equivalent but more understandable term is better
| kevingadd wrote:
| > "heat deaths" are limited to geriatrics in the "first world."
|
| There are multiple parts of the world approaching the point of
| "so hot post-climate-change that you can't survive without air
| conditioning" at this point, it's not a first world problem.
|
| See the map in https://climate.nasa.gov/ask-nasa-
| climate/3151/too-hot-to-ha... to get a sense of how it's an
| increasingly global problem.
|
| As a result eventually power loss will be able to kill you in
| the summer, too, depending on where you live.
| slibhb wrote:
| This claim has been made, but it turned out not to be true
| (so far). I.e. everyone without AC did not die when the wet
| bulb temperature exceeded the apparent limit:
| https://www.almendron.com/tribuna/the-mysteriously-low-
| death...
| xyzelement wrote:
| Maybe? I am talking about today. The only number of heat
| deaths I see on this site is average in the US and its like
| 100-something, likely more related to the aging of the
| population than anything else.
|
| To be honest I skimmed this article a few times rather that
| read it but I don't see anything that points to heat being
| anything close to the magnitude killer that cold is today.
| (although apparently in the US heat is a bigger deal probably
| because we are well equipped to handle both and don't have
| old people taking walks in freezing weather but they venture
| out in the summer)
| anderber wrote:
| > there are a lot of places in the world that would be grateful
| for a few degree temperature rise
|
| That's not how global warming works. It's not a "everywhere
| will go up 1 degree". It causes more extremes. Hot places can
| get hotter, cold places colder, but overall, the average goes
| up.
| bumby wrote:
| The most intuitive way I've heard it explained is that of a
| long-tailed bell-curve. The mean temperature may only move a
| few degrees but it causes a more dramatic relative increase
| in the amount of area under the extreme values.
| carbocation wrote:
| Minimizing the fact that real humans die from overheating
| tarnishes an otherwise interesting comment.
| kzrdude wrote:
| We don't need that every comment is written with an universal
| viewpoint and covering all the bases. It's a conversation
| here, not an encyclopedia.
| xyzelement wrote:
| I am not minimizing but comparing two sources of danger.
| core-utility wrote:
| And that the advent of climate control (Air Conditioning)
| have significantly minimized heat deaths and allowed humans
| to live in climates that would have historically been
| impossible.
| ilyt wrote:
| Well, unless you're poor, fuck you then
| gadders wrote:
| Net zero will make this more common, sadly, either through
| energy insecurity or people being unable to afford to heat
| their homes.
| starkd wrote:
| I can't imagine what people in upstate NY are going to do in
| temperatures like this with only a heat pump, since they are
| trying to transition everyone off gas or oil. A heat pump is
| next to worthless in sub zero temps. Many will use wood.
| epistasis wrote:
| Energy will be far cheaper when we switch to a fossil fuel
| free grid, because the newer technologies are cheaper, and
| unlike fossil fuels they are on a decreasing cost tech curve.
| So the sooner we build out the tech, the sooner prices fall.
| dboreham wrote:
| Is this true? It contradicts everything I know about
| energy. Can you post some evidence?
| epistasis wrote:
| Here's a paper that is the best single source of
| quantification of learning curves that I know of:
|
| https://www.inet.ox.ac.uk/publications/no-2021-01-empiric
| all...
|
| With a detailed podcast episode here:
|
| https://xenetwork.org/ets/episodes/episode-159-the-cost-
| of-d...
|
| But any single paper in the literature shouldn't be
| trusted on its own. So I would encourage anybody who is
| interested to look for themselves at cost curves over
| time for solar wind and storage, and notice how they all
| follow Wright's law very well. And then look at the ever-
| increasing cost of fossil fuel extraction, as we need
| ever more sophisticated techniques to continue matching
| supply to demand as the easier sources are extracted.
|
| Wind solar and storage behave like proper technologies.
| Fracking did to some extent, but it is technology for
| making something that was impossible into the possible;
| and there's finite amounts of frackable resources. Oil
| and natural gas have price floors set by these fracking
| costs, which have not dropped precipitously in the past
| 10 years.
|
| We have not yet reached the inflection points on wind
| water and solar where the logistic curve switches to the
| linear phase. So we likely have decades of similar cost
| reductions for these technologies, almost certainly. If
| you look at where that leaves us for an energy future,
| it's unbelievably rosy. That is, as long as we invest in
| the tech.
| starkd wrote:
| During the winter, and in storms like this, solar and wind
| is almost nil. Upstate NY gets very cold. And they are
| mandating people transition away from oil or gas into using
| heat pumps. Heat pumps are next to worthless in subzero
| weather. Oh, and they are also trying to phase out nuclear.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| I think the ultimate combo will be air source heat pumps
| and pellet stoves.
|
| Pellet stoves should keep the insurance companies happy.
| Semi-renewable fuel. Semi-automated operation with
| minimal fire risk.
|
| Not much more expensive than nat gas, much cheaper than
| oil and propane, and most importantly: no nat gas
| network/connection/account/delivery charge.
| starkd wrote:
| How are pellets semi-renewable? Pellets are still burned
| up. Are the ashes re-used?
| epistasis wrote:
| Pellets come from atmospheric CO2.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Of course you re-use the ashes. Great source of potassium
| for the garden. The modern day fertilizer potassium-
| source isn't called "potash" for nothing.
|
| Improves traction on ice, and could melt snow if it's
| close enough to freezing.
|
| Could also make soap with it if you wanted to get really
| creative. Or bricks or mortar (or a concrete supplement).
| mysterydip wrote:
| In addition to the above, learn how to start a fire in your
| fireplace. I had used up my last (easy start) duraflame log a
| few days ago. "No problem," I thought to myself, "I have this
| pile of firewood here to use." Fortunately I wasn't under a
| time crunch to get it started, because I failed on a few
| attempts, had to forage for some kindling, etc.
| starkd wrote:
| Old newspaper used to work well for kindling. But fewer
| people get their newspapers delivered in print. Used paper
| grocery bags could work.
| Avicebron wrote:
| Also proper organization of the wood, I have a wood stove
| (had one growing up as well) and learning how to build a
| little pyramid or log cabin like structure around something
| flammable helps a lot to circulate air allowing the fire to
| spread to larger pieces of wood. EDIT: old newspaper is
| good, I often use "junk mail" as long as it doesn't contain
| any plastic, where I am stores will still send out some
| paper flyers.
| PenguinCoder wrote:
| Don't discount using dryer lint and left over cooking
| grease as a starter. I have a woodstove at the house, and
| I use both to get it going. Left over bacon grease on a
| few paper towels with dryer lint around/on top of it, and
| a few smaller pieces of soft wood like pine.
| Larger/heaver wood on top and behind it like oak. Make
| sure to also pre-heat the exhaust vent pipe, get a draft
| of air going.
| mysterydip wrote:
| Hadn't thought of dryer lint, with three kids I have that
| in abundance!
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > Make sure to also pre-heat the exhaust vent pipe, get a
| draft of air going.
|
| How does one do that?
| PenguinCoder wrote:
| After stocking the woodstove and building the base, I get
| a wad of newspaper and put dryer lint in it. Then put the
| wad on top of the log pile right under the flue/exhaust
| pipe and light it. Then immediately light the rest of my
| kindling to get the fire going.
| nkurz wrote:
| If you can start with a hot fire and sufficient kindling,
| you don't always need to do it as a separate step, but
| otherwise you can burn crumpled newspaper, use a
| hairdryer or heat gun, or sometimes even a large candle.
| If the room temp is higher than the outside, sometimes
| just a fan is enough.
| ericd wrote:
| This stuff is amazing: https://www.fatwood.com/
|
| Two little sticks of that, and you can mostly skip the super-
| thin kindling in favor of sticks.
| smcl wrote:
| > We've moved on from "global warming" to "climate change"
| language
|
| Presumably because during winter certain people would point at
| a freak snowstorm and say "so much for global warming!" to try
| to minimise it (tbh they still do). Temperature rising has a
| few more side-effects than just your winter being milder by
| 1-2C, I think using a different term is entirely appropriate
| epistasis wrote:
| No, because they are both accurate descriptions, but "global
| warming" is talking about the average temp. Even as the
| average goes up, the standard deviation could change too,
| meaning that even with higher average temp, there can be
| bigger and colder winter storms, which are balanced out by
| even higher temps the rest of the time.
| nottorp wrote:
| There were studies 10-20 years ago predicting that global
| warming will bring with it completely unpredictable weather
| and harsher extremes in both directions.
| throw_nbvc1234 wrote:
| Do any governments or institutions have a live(ish)
| updating model of "what would happen" if trends continue?
| People reference studies all the time but what's the
| currently accepted model/outcome in the scientific
| community?
|
| I remember hearing that melting of the ice caps will stop
| current flows in the ocean and bring about an ice age. Is
| that actually a thing or just fake news?
| anigbrowl wrote:
| It's difficult, like the difference between knowing a car
| is going crash and being able to estimate how it will
| look afterward. You can (to some extent) access these
| models and try them out yourself: https://juliahub.com/ui
| /Packages/ClimateModels/dFyeI/0.2.15
| pvaldes wrote:
| Is a real concern. Half of Europe is "kissed" by tropical
| seawater running from the Gulf of Mexico towards Russia.
| This hot water creates a warmer than expected climate in
| the coastal areas. Portugal, UK, Denmark, Norway... all
| is warmer that it should be. If this current stops
| flowing or is weakened things will suck real fast.
| aaomidi wrote:
| One of the things is a weakening jet stream which has
| caused all the recent havoc on getting cold polar air
| come inland.
|
| This is why climate change vs global warming. We're in
| for a hell of winters in the US as the jet stream
| weakens.
| smcl wrote:
| Wait, why "No"? We're saying the same thing in different
| way.
|
| you:
|
| > meaning that even with higher average temp, there can be
| bigger and colder winter storms
|
| me:
|
| > Temperature rising has a few more side-effects than just
| your winter being milder by 1-2C
| kzrdude wrote:
| Another thing we can spell out is that the rising average
| temperature is an average over the whole year, over the
| whole planet. I.e any particular location or country
| could have a sinking average temperature.
| macinjosh wrote:
| The same thing happens on the flip side. I have a coworker
| who genuinely believes every big hurricane is caused by
| global warming and that if it wasn't for global warming it
| would snow more.
| smcl wrote:
| Well that just goes to show that it's possible to be either
| naive and broadly in agreement with scientific consensus
| _or_ naive and in agreement with some loud non-scientists
| who live in the TV and give you the news :)
|
| I guess the harm in the former is that they'll be held up
| in bad-faith in a similar manner to the "so much for
| climate change" argument.
| dragoncrab wrote:
| Heat is less likely to kill you directly if you aren't forced
| to do physical work without any protection. However, tens of
| thousands of square kilometers of agricultural land is turned
| to desert in Central Europe with every single degree the yearly
| average temperature rises. Droughts are decimating crops made
| for prices skyrocket even before the war in Ukraine. That has
| some harder to attribute but none of the less serious killer
| potential.
|
| On your other thoughts: I live in a well insulated home (30 cm
| brick wall with 18 cm graphite insulation). With a 30 celsius
| difference in internal and external temperature and no heating,
| my living room drops about 1,5 - 2 Celsius a day. Starting from
| 21, that gives a week before situation starts to become
| serrious during a complete blackout.
| mderazon wrote:
| Interesting, can you explain more about this type of
| insulation?
| antisthenes wrote:
| It's just polystyrene. The graphite is a marketing term
| that doesn't have much to do with the material properties.
| nikanj wrote:
| Heat has a well-defined kills-you-automatically limit of ~35
| celsius wet bulb temperature. There isn't a similar limit for
| cold.
| NorwegianDude wrote:
| That temperature drop sounds very unlikely. If you live in a
| well insulated home then you must have ventilation too, and
| that alone should replace the air inside multiple times each
| day.
| wizwit999 wrote:
| I mean it works both ways, e.g. thousands of sq km of Russia
| and Canada become would likely become fertile agricultural
| land.
| y-c-o-m-b wrote:
| I'm not a fan of either of those terms. "Climate instability"
| seems a better way to depict what's going on. "Climate
| abnormalities", "climate volatility", etc.
| ilyt wrote:
| I'm perplexed how folks using gas or wood apparently have less
| than a week or two worth of heating stored. Back when I lived
| in small village we always had at least month+ (not too
| uncommon to buy the supply for whole winter too) worth of
| coal/wood there.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Wood is usually cheaper if you buy it green and season it
| yourself, but it's a situation where it's expensive to be
| poor so maybe they buy it dried or as needed through winter.
|
| You can burn green wood, it'll just be harder to start/less
| efficient. If you have no choice...
|
| Wood pellets are usually cheaper in summer (and often not
| much more expensive than firewood once you account for the
| higher efficiences of pellet stoves).
| starkd wrote:
| If you put a woodstove insert into the fireplace, you will get
| a lot more heat radiated into the house.
| giardini wrote:
| Is the fireplace ready to use? Is it clear of obstructions
| (e.g., birds, bats and insect nests)? Have you cleared out any
| "creosote" (deposition from incomplete past combustion) which
| can make the chimney burn like a jet engine (very exciting)?
|
| Actually started a fire in the chimney and keeping it burning
| safely for several days can be enlightening (i hesitate to say
| "fun", except for the children). Try it with someone
| knowledgeable assisting. Keep fire extinguishers (emphasis on
| the plural) handy.
| glogla wrote:
| Moreover, the way fireplaces work is that the fire heats up
| some kind of heavy construction (cast iron, brick, etc) and
| that then radiates heat. Not every fireplace is built that
| way - some of them are decorative and will actually make you
| colder.
|
| Quite a few people found out in not a nice way last time
| Texas has winter storm.
| ilyt wrote:
| Yeah if you want to rely on it as heat source you should
| probably get something modern that doesn't waste exhaust
| heat and doesn't suck the air out of the room getting more
| cold air in. Not just "a hole in a roof above a fire".
| xyzelement wrote:
| I am the original poster. As I said in my post, the
| fireplace is mainly decorative and we are NOT relying on
| it for heat. However it is our plan B/C if shit hits the
| fan, in which case huddling the family in front of the
| radiant fire is a much preferable alternative to dying of
| cold, efficiency aside.
| m4rtink wrote:
| Well, wet heat (35+ degrees Celsius and 90+ humidity) can
| potentially kill you as well, as you might not be able to keep
| your body temperature within safe range by sweating.
| [deleted]
| maria2 wrote:
| Very few places use electricity for heat. It's super
| inefficient unless you use a heat pump, and residential heat
| pumps typically don't work too far below freezing.
| vitaflo wrote:
| Most furnaces require electricity to run even if the heat
| isn't generated by electricity.
| xyzelement wrote:
| Exactly
| astura wrote:
| Very few? Maybe for single family homes, but electric heat is
| very common in apartments - Every apartment I've ever lived
| in had electric baseboard heaters.
|
| Apparently it's #2 is the US with 37% of homes.
|
| https://www.climatecentral.org/news/your-heating-fuel-
| depend...
|
| Now that I live in a single family house I use oil to heat
| the house - but the boiler requires electricity.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| 37% makes sense. When you live in a moderate climate and
| minimally need heating, low capex and high opex makes
| sense.
|
| Too bad so many air conditioners don't have reversing
| valves. One day I want to install a window-shaker "the
| wrong way" and see how well it works as a heater.
|
| As an alternative, one could put water containers in their
| freezer and throw the ice outside as it freezes as a
| rudimentary sneakernet liquid<-> solid phase change heat
| pump.
| tw98521358 wrote:
| Seems like it would be the last thing I'd burn for warmth...
| AngryData wrote:
| Depends on how much they have. Bulk used clothes can be had for
| incredibly cheap, to the point where it can be cheaper than
| wood. And after decades of people building up old worn out
| clothes you will have a lot of relatively worthless cloth
| material. There are places in the world where burning clothes
| isn't uncommon at all because they receive so much clothing
| waste from the rest of the world attempting and failing to not
| throw them into landfills.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Sadly it's increasingly polyester/nylon/spandex and such.
| Cotton would be pretty clean to burn, but would burn very
| quickly.
| tbran wrote:
| Then I guess you know how desperate they are.
| eternityforest wrote:
| There's only so many you can put on at once, and they're one of
| the cheaper things people own these days.
| tw98521358 wrote:
| But they would burn terribly, clog your chimney, and are more
| effective when worn.
| PM_me_your_math wrote:
| It just seems to me that they would be more effective if
| worn. Even if they don't fit, cut them up and stitch up
| gloves and cover-ups.
| pigsty wrote:
| I'm not asking this to be condescending, but have you
| ever felt cold?
|
| My hands lose all dexterity entirely in winter. With
| sufficiently cold weather my hands are either cold,
| stiff, and in pain, or I'm wearing gloves that are too
| bulky to be useful for anything other than crudely
| gripping large objects or swatting things away. These
| people are experiencing cold beyond what I've ever
| experienced, so I can't even begin to imagine how much
| worse it is.
|
| If people are burning things for warmth, they are
| absolutely not going to be holding a needle.
| ilyt wrote:
| well the article cites -20 I assume based on area F so ~
| -7C
|
| ...really -7C is cold beyond what you ever experienced ?
| It's not too bad. I'd imagine the main problem is if
| those temperatures are rare just nobody have proper
| clothes to handle it
| HWR_14 wrote:
| -20 F is -29.6C
|
| -20 C is ~ -7F
| ilyt wrote:
| No, what I did is 20F to ~ -7C
|
| I hate that fucking stupid unit
|
| But yeah, that's "my face hurt being outside" kind of bad
| ;/
| [deleted]
| __jambo wrote:
| You can still use them for insulation.. I doubt polyester or
| cotton would burn very long.
| Retric wrote:
| Don't need them to burn for very long, cotton should have
| roughly the same energy density as wood by weight. Burning
| bags of cold clothes that don't fit isn't that bad of an
| idea.
|
| Negative teens is brutal, even a well insulated house loses
| a lot of heat if you want it comfortable but there's a big
| range between uncomfortable and dead. -15f to 30f is the
| same difference as 30f and 75f.
| zdragnar wrote:
| > same energy density as wood by weight
|
| which means they'll provide a few minutes of heat at
| best. You'd be better off using them as blankets or
| letting some water freeze them into scoop shapes and
| turning them into makeshift shovels.
|
| They also aren't going to burn nearly as cleanly as wood,
| meaning the burn will be far less efficient.
|
| Depending on the size of area that you're heating,
| getting from -15 to 30F will take at least a solid hour
| of burning cleanly.
| Retric wrote:
| It isn't going to be clean burning, but the clothes are
| presumably bone dry which helps.
|
| Really though it's not about how good an energy source
| this is, but just how much old junk people have. I have
| seen people toss several hundred pounds of old clothes
| that don't have any real value. It's the same with old
| books they don't burn that well but when you have a half
| a ton you might as well burn em vs toss them in a
| landfill.
| samwillis wrote:
| Insulation doesn't provide warmth, it only reduces the rate
| of heat loss. If it's already so cold you are looking for
| things in your home to burn for heat, using clothes to
| insulate it (rather than burn them) isn't going to help.
|
| But that's not the point, the dire situation with little
| support is the point.
| mcbits wrote:
| You don't insulate the house; you insulate your body. If
| you're at the point of burning clothes to heat the house,
| heating the house is already a lost cause unless you have
| a _lot_ of clothes.
| badrabbit wrote:
| Yeah, i had to burn furniture once in a slightly similar freeze
| situation.
| fbdab103 wrote:
| In a survival situation, do what you have to do. That being
| said, I suspect you really do not want to be next to a
| modern-furniture fire. Almost certainly full of the worst
| glues, insecticides, anti-flammables (ha), etc.
| calltrak wrote:
| [dead]
| ck2 wrote:
| I could make a horrible joke that at least lithium batteries in
| an EV would burn for days if not weeks for warmth.
|
| But if I had to suffer by boiling in a desert vs sub-freezing
| cold stealing all heat, I would take the boiling, freezing feels
| like death way before it happens.
|
| I imagine too much modern comfort somehow dulls survival prep and
| caution in the winter in those areas. Too many "easy" winters and
| caution fades just like people in Florida who avoid hurricanes
| for several years disregard warnings about a new one to their
| downfall.
| doodlebugging wrote:
| >But if I had to suffer by boiling in a desert vs sub-freezing
| cold stealing all heat, I would take the boiling, freezing
| feels like death way before it happens.
|
| This reminded me of an old poem by Robert Frost memorized back
| in grade school - Fire and Ice.
|
| [0]https://poets.org/poem/fire-and-ice
| ck2 wrote:
| That was fascinating, thank you for enlightening me to it.
| michael_vo wrote:
| I always wonder why the military isn't used in these situations.
| Can't they airdrop supplies easily? Isn't there a gigantic unused
| workforce that could shovel people out?
| nikanj wrote:
| Soldiers aren't any more weatherproof than normal humans.
| Working in those temperatures is equally deadly for them and
| civilians
| therealdrag0 wrote:
| Good equipment can go a long ways. In fact another post says
| the national guard IS being sent.
| lumb63 wrote:
| I'm astounded by the family who didn't feed their infant for 4
| days because they couldn't get formula. Isn't breast feeding
| preferable to your child starving to death?
| cloudify wrote:
| I'm likely astounded some people are not aware that not every
| women can breastfeed their children
| rightbyte wrote:
| I don't think one should be angry at people that are wrong. I
| mean, unless he asked and someone told him he might have gone
| around thinking they choose to let the baby starve etc.
| jcoder wrote:
| Astounded != angry does it?
| hpaavola wrote:
| Milk production might not start at all, it might start but ends
| unless used.
| djha-skin wrote:
| When you haven't breastfeed your baby the entirety of their
| infancy the breast milk dries up. The mother can no longer
| breastfeed their baby because their body thinks that their baby
| is all grown up (or dead) because it hasn't been drinking the
| milk.
|
| You can't just choose to breastfeed on a dime like that, you
| have to breastfeed from the beginning and continue on to keep
| up the milk supply. This is of course assuming you have
| sufficient capacity in the breasts to keep the baby alive in
| the first place, something not all women have these days.
| kevingadd wrote:
| Breast feeding is not always possible, some women are unable to
| nurse for various reasons and in some rare cases babies can
| have an allergic reaction to things in their mother's breast
| milk (that makes it way in from the mother's diet). There are
| probably other reasons I'm not aware of that could be in play,
| too.
| rightbyte wrote:
| Some women just can't. I guess they didn't have cow milk or
| whatever either.
|
| Otherwise, I guess feeding the baby cow milk is preferable to
| not eating?
| spicyusername wrote:
| Doesn't work like that friend.
| pvaldes wrote:
| Modern people really has lost the old skill to analyze problems
| creatively
|
| https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/most-t-sh...
|
| And I'm not dismissing the situation or laughing about other's
| misery, but it looks like a poor solution
| the_only_law wrote:
| So what your solution is some idiotic record stunt instead? Put
| so many shirts that you can't see and barely move? Nah I'll
| just burn shit. Also that record is from 2019. In what
| delusional universe is 2019 not "modern people".
| pvaldes wrote:
| > Put so many shirts that you can't see and barely move?
|
| Don't argue the metaphor. I know that you understand the
| general idea.
|
| Yep, "My" solution is "put this clothes in your own body
| instead to burn them, and will warm you for a much much,
| longer time". Hardly original or controversial.
|
| If the options are ridiculous but alive or stilish and
| frozen, seems an easy choice
| the_only_law wrote:
| What in earth does any of that even mean? What the fuck is
| an "alive" or "stilish" option. You seem to be writing
| complete nonsense. Did you have a stroke?
| pvaldes wrote:
| > What is an "alive" or "stilish" option
|
| alive means: having life, living
|
| stilish (should be written stylish in fact, my bad)
| means: conforming to the current fashion
| the_only_law wrote:
| I'm very well alive means in a vacuum, but what makes an
| option (in this case I'm assuming an article of clothing
| , but it's hard to tell as this seems to be mostly
| unintelligible ramble) "alive" as opposed to perhaps
| "dead".
| DarkmSparks wrote:
| Im not saying the Russians have weather modification tech but...
| someone has been poking the sleeping bear.
| mark336 wrote:
| The National Gaurd was been called out to help 2 days ago. If you
| want to donate
| https://friendsofpineridgereservation.org/a-blankets-quilts-...
| defaultcompany wrote:
| I wonder if there could be some kind of inland Cajun Navy [1]
| which operates using trucks and plows or snowmobiles instead of
| boats for disasters like this. Although given the remoteness and
| conditions this just might not be possible.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cajun_Navy?wprov=sfti1
| jethkl wrote:
| From TFA: "Our wood pile remains inaccessible." They have wood
| but they cannot reach it to make deliveries to people in the
| area. Several decades ago, I recall driving along I90 in SD a few
| days after a large storm, and we saw drifts as tall as the
| highway underpasses. It was incredible. Driven snow takes on a
| texture that is different from powder, more like soft concrete.
| When the snow is sufficiently deep, there is no place to put it
| even if you are able to shovel or plow it.
| xyzelement wrote:
| I am sure I don't understand the nuances of this situation but
| it seems a major failure of foresight and your emergency
| supplies should be stored so that they are accessible where
| they are needed if shit hits the fan.
| x0x0 wrote:
| Not sure how they can deliver firewood when the roads are
| impassible. And in very heavy snowfall -- esp dry powder that
| you get when the air is, and stays, very cold -- you'll
| continue to get significant amounts of snow on the roads long
| after it stops snowing as the wind blows it onto the road.
|
| Additionally, a well-maintained suv with 4wd and snow tires
| isn't a cheap thing to own and maintain.
|
| And if you get your car stuck somewhere with wind chills
| dipping to -50F, dying of hypothermia is a possible and/or
| likely outcome.
|
| You can really tell who has never lived through a serious
| winter.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| In the winter the firewood should be stored right next to
| the house, some of it inside the house. In fact the wood
| that you intend to burn now should be inside the house
| otherwise when you put it on the fire it will depress the
| fire. I have one day of firewood stacked next to the
| woodburner and several weeks in the vindfang (an unheated
| porch with doors both sides). The rest is stacked at the
| back of the house and it would be accessible even if a
| drift buried the house assuming that we are just averagely
| fit.
|
| We aren't preppers but it makes no sense to rely on just in
| time deliveries in midwinter so we buy or otherwise obtain
| the wood for most of the winter in October or November
| jethkl wrote:
| Firewood deliveries have been a regular occurrence in
| past years [0,1]. It seems plausible that these past
| deliveries established a central place where wood is
| stored, and it also established a local norm where
| firewood is distributed. Also, this is the high plains
| where trees grow near rivers but basically don't grow in
| outlying areas, with the result that general access to
| wood is not easy for everyone. So it's also plausible
| that local conditions have established another local norm
| where maintaining a 3 month stash of firewood is just not
| done.
|
| [0] https://www.forestsandrangelands.gov/documents/succes
| s/rushm...
|
| [1] https://www.blackhillsfox.com/content/news/Military-
| supplies...
| throwawaysleep wrote:
| You store firewood for heating at your house for
| emergencies. The solution is a pile, not an SUV.
| benevol wrote:
| [dead]
| bushbaba wrote:
| Can reservations call in the national guard. Seems like such the
| situation to ask for military to step in to assist and evacuate
| (or drop supplies to) stranded families.
| imglorp wrote:
| For some context from someone who's been on that Res, its
| population is highly vulnerable with no margin for mishaps. It's
| a place of generational, crushing poverty, crime, illness,
| genetic-exacerbated substance abuse, broad lack of economic
| opportunity, cultural isolation, and federal disinvestment.
|
| Free federal healthcare is available, but only at an IHS hospital
| in Rapid City 1.5 hours away in good weather: it's antiquated and
| maximally bureaucratic and probably lower standards of care than
| your vet provides.
|
| The local Habitat for Humanity chapter (I served on their board)
| tried to help them with community housing efforts, but houses
| were always gutted of all fixtures before completion.
|
| IMO, at a minimum, the IHS (and the VA) need to merge under
| Medicare for standardization, availability, and economics of
| scale and industry needs incentives to bring employment
| opportunities (I think Cisco tried once and bailed).
| Ntrails wrote:
| > genetic-exacerbated substance abuse
|
| Could you expand on this a bit? Not a concept I am familiar
| with
| _dain_ wrote:
| populations differ in how well they can handle booze. this
| has been known since Roman times; various authors wrote how
| the Germans were more prone to alcoholism than Latins, an
| ethnic difference that persists to this day.
|
| native americans have it particularly bad, and have for
| centuries. colonist traders exploited it for profit,
| missionaries tried to stamp it out, Indian leaders often
| campaigned to keep rum out of their territories, etc.
| gedy wrote:
| Not the OP, but I think a larger factor here is fetal alcohol
| exposure, not epigenetics.
| dboreham wrote:
| Not parent, but this is a generally accepted thing, e.g.
|
| https://www.bumc.bu.edu/genetics/research/substance-abuse/
| ffssffss wrote:
| That paper also seems to heavily qualify the findings,
| implying that environmental factors may dominate genetic
| ones (or may not, the point is that we don't know):
|
| _However, these loci explain only a small proportion of
| the genetic variance. The "missing heritability" may be
| explained by other genetic mechanisms and gene*environment
| interactions_
| imglorp wrote:
| There are definitely some social/environmental factors but
| there's enough anecdotal smoke around a genetic
| predisposition in some populations that the search for fire
| and causation is underway.
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9603607/
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30852706/
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_and_Native_Americans#G.
| ..
|
| Alcoholism rates among Native Americans is higher than most
| groups, which leads some to suspect a genetic reason.
| Currently, there isn't a ton of evidence supporting that
| idea.
| imoverclocked wrote:
| There is also severe distrust of western medicine and
| science in many Native American communities which makes
| doing studies hard.
| Ntrails wrote:
| I knew about the alcoholism rates, but had always assumed
| it was a socio-economic / situational driven thing.
|
| I understand that historically it was used in some sense to
| control and indeed damage the Native Americans by the
| colonists? To what extent alcohol was completely new etc I
| do not know
| lisper wrote:
| It is very hard to tease genetic factors out from socio-
| economic ones, but IMHO it seems plausible that a
| population that has been exposed to alcohol for a long
| time (hundreds of generations) may have been better
| selected for higher tolerance than a population that has
| been exposed only recently (a few dozen generations, and
| with modern technology making selection pressure lower in
| general).
| LarsDu88 wrote:
| I think one thing to clarify here is that western
| Europeans have thousands of years of history brewing and
| drinking alcoholic beverages, but it was only in the past
| 250 years that heavily DISTILLED alcoholic beverages like
| whiskey at affordable prices became a thing. Have greater
| than 5 percent ABV in a beverage would've been a bit
| rarer preindustrial revolution I believe. Even heavily
| DISTILLED high proof colonial rum was quite expensive and
| typically mixed into punch water to bring down it's
| concentration. Mass production and lowering costs were
| what triggered the alcoholism epidemic and temperance
| movements of the late 19th and early 20th century.
|
| Drinking in northern Europe does have a way longer and
| more entrenched history than elsewhere though. Colonial
| men women and children all drank watered down rum and
| beer which were more hygienic than water. In China, by
| contrast, half of the population gets Asian flush and
| cannot tolerate alcohol, and there is a strong
| traditional culture of boiling water and drinking tea!
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| As a long-time tea drinker it was a shock to realize that
| while tea is pretty good for you, historically its
| biggest health contribution has been in drinking boiled
| (or almost boiled) water, not those catechins or
| l-theanine...
| kevinmchugh wrote:
| The evo-bio story of alcohol is confusing though, since
| fermentation has been present in East Asia as long as
| anywhere, and there's a large part of the population
| there that has the alcohol flush reaction.
|
| You could tell the story as like, alcohol puts pressure
| on a population to evolve better responses, and with
| enough time the flush evolves and that helps limit
| drinking. But that's pretty just-so.
| lisper wrote:
| Yeah, I'm not saying that this is actually true, only
| that it's not absurd on its face. As I understand it (and
| I am absolutely not an expert here) North American
| indigenous populations separated from Asians at the end
| of the ice age, i.e. ~10,000 years ago, and since then
| had no exposure to alcohol. That seems like plenty of
| time for genetic predisposition to alcohol tolerance to
| be reduced. So it's _possible_ and worthy of serious
| consideration and investigation. Whether it 's actually
| _true_ is a completely different question, one where the
| jury is still pretty clearly out.
| LarsDu88 wrote:
| This is simply not true. Indigenous peoples of
| mesoamerica have drunk fermented maize beverages for as
| long as maize has been cultivated. Tejuino is still a
| quite popular drink in Mexico.
|
| Arguably what has changed is the ABV of such beverages.
| Post-industrial alcohol percentages are way higher than
| what precolonial mesoamericans, ancient Greeks, and
| vikings we're drinking
| lisper wrote:
| > Indigenous peoples of mesoamerica
|
| OK, but Pine Ridge is in North America. There could have
| been enough isolation in pre-Columbian times for north
| American indigenous to evolve a different alcohol
| response from mesoamericans.
|
| Like I said: I am not an expert, and I have no idea
| whether this hypothesis is true or not. I'm just not
| aware of any facts that would rule it out.
| bsder wrote:
| > You could tell the story as like, alcohol puts pressure
| on a population to evolve better responses, and with
| enough time the flush evolves and that helps limit
| drinking. But that's pretty just-so.
|
| The "alcohol flush" reaction seems to be genetically
| conserved in Asia because it gives resistance to rice
| pathogens not because it protects against "alcoholism".
| SSLy wrote:
| 18th century was only 7 generations ago, not "a few
| dozen".
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| >To what extent alcohol was completely new etc I do not
| know
|
| Kind of a tricky question that is somewhat covered in my
| link. Alcohol was definitely brewed in the Americas pre-
| Columbus, but by the seventeenth century alcohol was
| largely unknown to the Natives interacting with the
| colonists.
| LarsDu88 wrote:
| Tejuino is a precolonial alcoholic beverage that is still
| enjoyed today. It's ABV is incredibly low compared to
| anything you'd buy in a modern 7/11 however.
|
| The tarahumara people's have more alcoholic version
| called tesguino that is only drunk once per year as the
| preparation process is labor intensive, and the drink
| goes bad rather quickly
| bumby wrote:
| I think your points add much needed nuance, but isn't
| there a possibility that both are true? I.e., both your
| examples may be true for Native Americans in present-day
| Mexico while the OP's point could be true for other
| groups like the Lakota at Pine Ridge. (I'm not claiming
| any knowledge on the subject, just questioning whether
| both points have to be mutually exclusive)
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| I always wonder how much was lost in the population crash
| caused by the introduction of old world diseases.
| citizenpaul wrote:
| >socio-economic / situational driven thing
|
| It is. All this new age everyone is a victim BS is
| exactly that. Why? Because having "victims" to treat is
| very, very profitable.
|
| I do agree that a certain percent of people are more
| prone to addiction. However at the end of the day it is
| your choice to stop before it gets bad. Except that no
| longer is the case, everyone is a victim that can't help
| themselves. They need to be coddled like an infant while
| they are a 50yo adult...
|
| I do not come from a good background myself. I know the
| hardships and I watched the majority of the people around
| me shrug and make bad choices again and again even when
| there were good options available. Before you get all
| judgey on my privilege.
| [deleted]
| mathieuh wrote:
| What a callous way to look at the world.
| citizenpaul wrote:
| A single opinion on a single subject is not a sweeping
| view of the entire world. Despite being treated as
| disposable trash by the world I actually have
| unflattering but overall optimistic view of the world. I
| believe people are mostly good but more selfish.
|
| All these problems are not from lack of help but lack of
| personal empowerment. The world has this deranged flow to
| it lately that people "need" help on the most basic
| survival aspects of life. It has become profitable to
| keep the problem rolling. Nothing in the "help" world is
| about empowering people. Its about keeping people stuck
| in various stages of "help" but always pulling the rug
| when they get momentum.
| [deleted]
| archagon wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
| vkou wrote:
| Good options were available? What if there weren't? What
| if you were conditioned to not take them? What if you
| became a child addict? What if literally nobody around
| you escaped the cycle of addiction and poverty?
|
| There's a difference between growing up in an environment
| where *a fourth-grader in your class is always scrounging
| for cigarette butts to smoke (that's what my dad grew up
| with), and your entire community being fucked up every
| way to Sunday before they get into high school.
|
| A town with a life expectancy of 50 is far closer to the
| latter than the former. Throw in violence, maybe a bit of
| domestic abuse passed down the generations, crime against
| you, and a dollop of literally nobody outside of it
| wanting to deal with your shit, and good luck escaping
| that environment.
|
| But I guess that since it's technically possible for a
| legless man to crawl a marathon, the rest of his peers
| are just not trying hard enough...
| mjevans wrote:
| As a thought experiment. How might an AI trying to follow
| the intent of Azimov's three laws of robotics help the
| humans?
|
| Initial conclusion: the community is broken and dangerous
| to humans. Evacuation of at risk life necessary.
| Distribute and re-integrate across functional
| settlements.
| vkou wrote:
| That conclusion might be adjusted a bit when the AI reads
| into our history, and observe that our track record for
| resettling people is not great.
| citizenpaul wrote:
| >Good options were available?
|
| I'm speaking relatively. Like stand on the corner selling
| drugs and probably go to jail or get up at 6AM every day
| to a shitty hard job that pays you hourly. The choices
| are not great but one is good compared to the other. One
| has a potential path to something better one day, the
| other all but guarantees you a cycle of poverty.
| citizenpaul wrote:
| >literally nobody around you escaped the cycle of
| addiction and poverty
|
| I guess your righteousness is greater than your reading
| comprehension. I left home as a minor. I have not spoken
| to anyone from that time including "family" since then.
| They were all garbage people that created their own
| poverty and trouble.
|
| > child addict
|
| I did drugs given to me by "adults" as a minor. I
| realized it was not a good path and rejected it.
|
| edit:The downvotes are a good reason that I never talk
| about this. I've learned that privileged people rarely
| like to hear real stories about poverty. Go back to your
| 100% accurate view of the world as shown on 60 minutes.
| vkou wrote:
| > I guess your righteousness is greater than your reading
| comprehension
|
| I think that's a more appropriate criticism to levy
| against you.
|
| Whatever you dealt with, things could have always been
| worse.
|
| No man is an island, and you could only do what you did
| because there _were_ opportunities around you. If they
| didn 't work out, or they weren't present, or if you went
| for them, and got bitten for worse than you gained, you
| could have well ended up back in that shitty environment,
| homeless, or dead, or in prison. Sometimes shit just
| happens, and is too much to deal with. Sometimes the
| effort required to get out is greater than any one person
| can put in.
|
| There's no shortage of bums living under the I-5 overpass
| who also had great plans for leaving their shitty town,
| and making a better life in the big city. They all have
| two things on common - nobody they could lean on when
| things went to shit, and things going to shit for them.
| When you're born in a shitty environment, the first box
| gets checked for you at birth, and any man only has
| partial control over the second one. Tell me your life
| story, and I'll happily throw a 'but, what if...' that,
| had it gone the other way, could have put you under that
| overpass.
|
| The world isn't some deterministic puzzle where if you
| make the right moves, everything will work out.
| Sometimes, you can do everything right, and still lose in
| the short-term. People who have safety buffers to fall
| back on can bounce back from that. People who don't get
| to move to that overpass.
| aaomidi wrote:
| Not exactly what you're asking but there's also a concept of
| genetic trauma, where some traumas can fundamentally change
| your offspring.
|
| For example, your grandmother from your moms side technically
| made the egg cells that you were born from. That means that
| whatever your grandmother was going through could for example
| pass on all the way down to you.
| phkahler wrote:
| >> For example, your grandmother from your moms side
| technically made the egg cells that you were born from.
|
| That can't be right. Grandma gave mom a single cell. Mom's
| ovaries with grandpa's DNA too produced the egg leading to
| me. Or is there some element I'm not aware of that make it
| more like stated above?
| rolph wrote:
| epigenetic modulation of penetrance, and/or heritability.
|
| environment causes biochemical changes of the state of
| the DNA. methylation is a common phenomenon.
|
| also, vertical transmission of DNA state facilitating
| transcription factor modulation of constituative
| expression. this one is a complex concept but is also a
| common example.
|
| sums up to, physical state of DNA can be transferred and
| conserved, during replication.
| rayiner wrote:
| It this stage inherited "genetic trauma" is a fringe
| scientific theory.
| pja wrote:
| Epigenetics is not fringe science - you inherit the
| methylation patterns from your parents' genes. Two people
| with the same genes can (in principle) have very
| different methylation patterns & thus differences in gene
| expression that result in changes in behaviour.
|
| None of this is controversial.
| rayiner wrote:
| That's about parent's environmental exposure affecting
| gene expression in their children. The notion that this
| can be passed down over multiple generations, where the
| parent's generation wasn't directly exposed to the
| environmental conditions, is fringe.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Its not "fringe", it is demonstrated as a thing which
| occurs.
|
| Some _particular_ multigenerational effects may be
| controversial, speculative, or even fringe, but that
| multigenerational epigenetic effects exist is not at all
| fringe.
| rayiner wrote:
| Confidently asserting that there is a generalized
| "concept of genetic trauma" that explains behavioral
| phenomena, as the poster did above, is not correct. The
| science on this is extremely limited:
| https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190326-what-is-
| epigenet.... And it gets invoked by non-experts to
| support a lot of fringe assertions.
| ridgeguy wrote:
| Look into epigenetic inheritance. This is a mechanism by
| which environmental factors cause inheritable modulation
| of genes, which themselves are unchanged. Methylation
| (attachment of methyl groups) of DNA is one such
| mechanism.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgenerational_epigeneti
| c_i...
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41437-018-0113-y
| _dain_ wrote:
| Yeah but it has absolutely no explanatory power for
| sociological phenomenon. People want it to be true, but
| there's just no there there.
|
| https://razib.substack.com/p/you-cant-take-it-with-you-
| strai...
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Yeah but it has absolutely no explanatory power for
| sociological phenomenon
|
| That's a nice broad generality, but it doesn't seem to be
| true. For instance, on the specific subject of thw
| thread, epigenetic changes related to chronic stress have
| demonstrated to have evidence of both (1) some
| intergenerational transmissibility, and (2) a role in
| alcoholism.
| ridgeguy wrote:
| Thanks for this link, it's an interesting and informative
| post. Gives me an additional PoV to consider.
| soVeryTired wrote:
| I guess the egg cell you came from was made inside your
| grandma when your mom was an embryo in her. So the the
| cell was technically made inside your grandma's body.
| abledon wrote:
| isn't the mother just providing the nourishment for the
| fetus to grow inside her? and the fetus itself, takes the
| nourishment, and actually producing the eggs inside
| itself?
|
| So technically I don't think we can say the grandma is
| making the eggs directly, but has assisted in the fetus'
| creation, and then provided the nutrients/environment for
| the egg creation that the fetus itself makes (which yes,
| can influence things w/ the generational trauma science
| coming out...).
| rolph wrote:
| mom and dad also supply a half helix [single strand] of
| DNA, with conservation of state.
|
| this passes on the structural features responsible for
| regulatory configuration
| citizenpaul wrote:
| > genetic-exacerbated substance abuse
|
| >Could you expand on this a bit? Not a concept I am familiar
| with
|
| Its profitable to pretend that personal choices have nothing
| to do with drug addiction. Then you can "treat" them forever
| collecting a monthly check from the government. I say this
| having grown up in a drug house and leaving as a 16yo
| teenager with nothing. I already regret this comment not
| because it isn't true but people detached from reality are
| going to get all bent out of shape.
| brookst wrote:
| > Its profitable to pretend that personal choices have
| nothing to do with drug addiction
|
| That is true, and there are systemic issues we should fix.
|
| However it is also true that some people will latch on to
| anything -- "personal choices", "systemic issues" -- to
| justify callousness and lack of compassion. It's an ugly
| way to live, always looking for some justification to spit
| on those who are in already in trouble.
| drno123 wrote:
| I know what you mean. Unfortunately, I can only give your
| comment a single upvote
| cr8tivity wrote:
| There are ways to donate to help them.
|
| https://friendsofpineridgereservation.org/an-electric-heater...
| cr8tivity wrote:
| Henry Red Cloud helps change this situation through solar
| installation, forest planting and foamcrete housing. Truly
| amazing efforts.
|
| https://www.redcloudrenewable.org/
| clsec wrote:
| Henry Red Cloud is a good man and does really good work on
| the rez!
| robomartin wrote:
| [flagged]
| trs8080 wrote:
| [flagged]
| therealdrag0 wrote:
| Do they have opportunities to try for tho? There's a big
| difference between arriving poor in NYC and being poor on a
| reservation. I've heard some academic work about how the lack
| of private property is fucking up res life. Private property is
| a key stone in the western standard of living and yet the
| reservations don't allow it to the same extent. So taking away
| the assistance without also changing the fundamentals of the
| game might not help.
| tootrueforhn wrote:
| Good take. The "help" especially native americans are getting
| strongly encourages them to become passive drunks. I consider
| the current official US treatment as a final middle finger to
| the once mighty and proud warrior people who are now not only
| destroyed but humiliated.
|
| For the folks getting uppity for the ugly truth: think about
| rewarding people for doing nothing and expecting good results.
| This extremely naive approach of just throwing money at the
| "problem" has abysmal track record. It'll never work no matter
| how much you wish. Good intentions are good, but that's it, you
| should get real and see for yourself how the "help" has created
| completely dysfunctional communities with no future.
| j-krieger wrote:
| Well, turns out forcibly removing native american property,
| land and riches and then relocating them has effects that can
| be felt even after generations. Who knew?
| uoaei wrote:
| What a sad, empty, and profoundly uninformed view of the
| collective experience of humanity.
| rnk wrote:
| Yeah, thank you for putting it so well. The poster above is a
| real live example of the "don't help poor kids to get enough
| food to eat, it will just ruin them". Everyone shouldn't have
| medical care, they'll be ruined!
| lostlogin wrote:
| There are a fair few comments here suggesting that you are
| actually helping most and doing the right thing by cutting off
| all help and support.
|
| Stronger, faster, better etc.
|
| Some comments use themselves as an example (along the lines of
| 'I got nothing and wasn't helped, look at me now').
|
| It's seriously grim.
| [deleted]
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-12-26 23:01 UTC)