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Comment by renewiltord | Hacker News Reader

The thing with guns and ammunition is that you can use those to get the goose down from people like me.

If it's any consolation, the type of person to do that is the type to have their house burned down around them because the solo king-of-the-castle, all plunder survival strategy has a very limited lifespan.

Only in the most simplistic case.

In less simplistic cases, people will gather and organize and decisions will get made over how resources will be allocated and distributed. The people who stockpile other resources are unlikely to be in a better bargaining position than those with the guns. And it might not require any shooting.

Not that any of this is likely--I just don't think it's limited to Rambo / Scarface types.

Haha, you're right. Any notion of private property will be subsumed by the needs of the collective. We already saw that in the early days of this pandemic where it was unacceptable to keep your masks if you had them.

Stockpiling goose down will mean that the tribe will decide that the old man gets the goose down. And the doctor.

Maybe, or maybe not. If they have guns and you don't, it'll be up to them to decide.

And if one tribe has guns, and the other doesn't, guess who gets more of the goose down and who is tasked with locating more goose down?

Here, try this comment a little up in the thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25060550

Might help you answer that.

You make a good point that I grafted the "lone holdout" connotation onto your plain statement about being armed. All other things being equal then yes the armed contingent can have the stuff belonging to the unarmed contingent

Exactly this. People severely underestimate the power in communities when this happens. If word gets out that you stocked up weapons and you’re on the prowl for food, it’s going to be a 50-to-1 situation against your favor.

In this situation, I’m hoping to barter my computer skills

As someone with myopia, I'm just hoping to barter my ability to die rapidly without corrective lenses.

Not sure if this is serious or bad sarcasm? Hope you get some good glasses :)

Haha! I use contacts but I do have backup glasses. I do know that my societal position is what it is because society has been made safe and able.

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