Thread: Prepper vs Prudent

Checks are not used anymore (excepting formal ones made out by banks themselves) because they are too easy to forge. And if someone write an unbacked check, you're out of luck. Banks don't back them if the money isn't there. I also don't understand why someone would prefer checks over cards because of 'hacking'. As if a scribbled note is som much more secure than a digitally signed transaction. Checks are outdated and while they might see anuptake again in contrarian US villages, I don't see it catching on in big cities where people don't know the one scribbling the piece of paper.

As for homesteading, I think many people have an image that is too romantic. It may work for low amounts of people, but it'll never catch on in big number.

Originally Posted by Euclid440

So yesterday my bride and I were in Walmart buying some water, yea 5 cases…

She writes a check, old school… and the gal at the register says, “All of a sudden we are getting more and more checks, nobody used to use them until everyone started getting hacked."

The question is how many Ruskies does it take to bring down a banking system?

I highly doubt that 'everyone started getting hacked'.
European countries like Belgium rely predominantly on debit cards (in other words: the money goes directly from your account) and to a much lesser degree on credit cards and cash. Stories about peoples account being cleared out... they just don't exist.

Originally Posted by Bruno

I highly doubt that 'everyone started getting hacked'.
European countries like Belgium rely predominantly on debit cards (in other words: the money goes directly from your account) and to a much lesser degree on credit cards and cash. Stories about peoples account being cleared out... they just don't exist.

EU cards are different from the US ones,,, we are way behind the curve for Card Security

My understanding is that Banks and the Retailers are fighting over who pays for the added security


Last week had a Health Ins company get hacked to the tune of 80 million people's info being taken we don't know how much / what info...

Originally Posted by Bruno

As for homesteading, I think many people have an image that is too romantic. It may work for low amounts of people, but it'll never catch on in big number.

Comparing it to us "Wetshavers"

We also thought that wetshaving wasn't going to ever grow like it has,, I myself thought we would always just be an eclectic little odd ball group of guys that enjoyed an better shave and slipping back a few years and doing things an older way..

We (SR shavers) have grown a hundred fold in the last 8 years if not more

The numbers on the "Prepper" "Survivalist" "Homesteading" Forums and Sites make our growth look tiny in comparison..
Even simple "Home Gardening" sites have doubled in just the 2 years since I joined...


So no it might not ever be mainstream, but it is growing quite rapidly...

The US banking clearing house is stuck in the 70s and is basically the same check exchange system just implemented with computers instead of trucks and driving bags of checks to exchanging them at night in secluded parking lots. Fundamentally the computers didn't get rid of the structural limitations, only saved on gasoline and payroll for the banks - just like you'd expect from a highly fragmented system when everybody prioritizes their own short-term profit.

Europe redid that and now people there make money transfers within the actual time which is milliseconds, not the days that the US banks impose artificially. But that was possible only because there was a big government forcing the banks to make it happen.

It's similar to the internet - every large technology company had their proprietary network technology and each was fighting to take over the whole market with it and then cash out by owning the electronic communications infrastructure. But nobody is ten times smarter or ten times bigger than all the ret combined so it was impossible to happen. It only happened when the one player that dwarfs everybody else, the US government took their military project and made a big public network - none of the private entities could compete with that, their idea of becoming the sole proprietor died and instead they hopped on board with the new de-facto standard that nobody would own and be able to profit from that ownership.

The free market is great for some problems and terrible for others - typically structural changes.

and the same with wireless spectrum....

I'm going to assume that the prepping thing is so widely viewed because it plays into a fantasy that a lot of people have, but certain parts of it are useful. Once it makes reality TV, then it's way out of my scope (in terms of every boob who believes everything they see doing it). It reminds me a lot of the custom knife movement on youtube where you see someone in an apartment with a 1/4" thick knife trying to peel an apple and talking about how they "need" some kind of 2.5% carbon powder metal hardened to RC 66. Or you see a kid that weighs 110 pounds hacking a $300 knife into the side of a sapling talking about the things "he needs".

Anyway, I'd bet a lot of people watch the prepper stuff, even the legitimate stuff, and think "i could do that" but don't do any of it, and still consider themselves preppers or especially more knowledgeable than the next person going down the street.

I had a friend who is the finest craftsman I've ever known (I'm a woodworker, not a person who watches TV woodworking shows, but one who actually works wood) who I was discussing the Woodwright's Shop with, and I complained that I was tired of seeing stuff hacked up in white pine with large knots, and that very little of what's ever shown on there would I ever put in my house (and I'm by no means a snob, I just have a minimum level of competence and materials displayed in anything that I make). The friend remarked that Roy Underhill is a master of making people who watch thing that what he's doing is something they could do, and that's enough for most - they're satisfied to watch and never actually do it, but dream that they could.

There's a lot of element of that in prepper shows. "I could mill flour with a manual stone, I could get 350 pounds of wheat in buckets that would be consumable for at least 40 years, I could....", and then they get in their car and drive to a restaurant when it's over.

I knew people when I was young who lived like survivalists. They butchered their own meat, they cut their own firewood, and they didn't drive many places too often or buy expensive stuff at the grocery store. They did that out of thrift and personal satisfaction. I think I said earlier I grew up in a very PA dutch type of place (non-anabaptist for the most part - people weren't amish or mennonite except for a few) and a lot of folks did that stuff because they didn't want to pay anyone to do it. The worst thing they worried about from the government is getting charged sales tax on something.

Long way around of saying that I think a lot of this stuff appeals to people because it's conveyed as something they could do, but we are now a generation of people who watch someone else do work or do hobby, and we're satisfied to make sure we don't stand up and raise our heart rate to do anything other than get something to eat and take a pee while we're watching someone else do it.

SR shaving won't quite have that widespread appeal, because you actually have to do it. there's not much excitement in pondering scenarios. How complicated could they get? "i walk into the bathroom, I take a shower, strop my razor, soap my face and shave". there's not much variation or dreaming about government intervention or any other such things.

Far as the checks go, living in a large city, we *do* see a lot of checks, but they are not written by young people. They're written by old people and especially a lot of the older ethnic folks who live in neighborhoods where they might still speak their original language. They live pretty simply, and (pa german thing again), I recall a lot of my relatives doing so when I was a kid because they didn't believe in any form of payment that didn't remove the money from your possession right away (due to an extreme aversion to any kind of debt). They felt like spending anything other than "cash money" or something else that goes just as fast was a very good way to get yourself in trouble with debt.

Originally Posted by Bruno

I highly doubt that 'everyone started getting hacked'.
European countries like Belgium rely predominantly on debit cards (in other words: the money goes directly from your account) and to a much lesser degree on credit cards and cash. Stories about peoples account being cleared out... they just don't exist.

Been years since i saw anyone using checks. I'm not sure if they are good any more.
People here use either cash or debit cards. I rather take money from my account from the wailing wall (bank automat) and pay with cash. I do not use credit card (buy now, pay later) unless in some rare situations.
The banking system within union is very reliable these days. Because of the swift/iban system all the money transactions happen in real time.
It's handy, specially when traveling even if you play with different currency. But also buing/selling something to another country goes perfect.

What it comes to prepping i can understand it to some point. But where i live it's rather easy to get enough water, firewood and food from the nature. I cannot imagine any situation where i would need ammo to survive.
The most likely situation there is to come is to get isolated by water or snow or get hit by the huge storm. But even then society will work.
If the worst unlikely happens and we get hit by the nuke then no prepping will help.

Originally Posted by Sailor

I cannot imagine any situation where i would need ammo to survive.

Have I got the answer for you, poor thing with little imagination

Ready?

Two words - television, movies!
Well, perhaps with a qualifier - american

For that matter I think about anything american will probably do it - just breathe some american air and you'd be maxing out that credit card stockpiling ammo.