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Comment by buffet_overflow | Hacker News Reader

I still know people that pre-emptively buy toilet paper "because hoarders might buy the rest of it" with absolutely no introspection.

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Hoarders will buy the rest of it.

During the 2-month lockdown a year ago, I would purchase 4 frozen pizzas at a time when I had a chance to buy them, because I was so upset that I could not buy one when I wanted a single one during the 2 previous weeks, because of hoarders who had been faster than me.

People think of toilet papers, but it is not just that. Pasta, rice, flour, yeast, plenty of useful things went missing due to hoarders during lockdown. Thankfully, I don't eat meat, because there was no meat at the supermarkets. Fish was also hard to find in the frozen shelves of the supermarkets. I am not a big fish eater either, so it was fine for me as well, but you get the idea: if you don't hoard a tiny bit, you get increasingly frustrated because hoarders will hoard, and you will have to wait for weeks before you get the chance to have what you want.

but that's the point, by responding in that way you have become one of those hoarders.

You could say it's a real tragedy

a common one at that

The common tragedy of the commons. Sorry anytime I see something inplicit, I feel like I need to say it out loud.

This is a really perfect illustration of both parts of the parent comment.

The meat situation was kind of interesting actually. At the beginning of the lockdown I remember going shopping for lots of shelf-stable foods. Very perishable stuff like meat or fresh veggies were out or hard to find (and yes freezing meat works fine I know). However, lots of stores had tons of shelf stable boxed and canned goods and for meat jerky and other dried meats which are simple to boil and turn into simple soups in case of emergencies -- and yet nobody was really buying them at that time.

I think I "prepped" for the worst by buying a 10 lb bag of flour, 40 lb of rice, 5 lbs of oatmeal, a sack of potatoes and a few bags of beef jerky and trail mix. Even if the worst didn't come to pass I figured we'd eventually eat it all anyways and it wouldn't really be hoarded, but in pinch we could ration it and it would last a few months and give us nutritious meals. It's basically what ships crews used to survive on during the age of sail as they spent months at sea. Not a ton of variety but it will keep you alive.

I bought a bunch of rice, and all that happened was little rice bugs started living in it, so I had to throw it all away. But if there were a rice shortage, I would probably have eaten it.

If you freeze it for 24 hours it will kill them off. Can be a good idea to do that when it comes into the house anyway as they might be in there already.

Easy enough to separate them out of the rice after freezing too.

Extra protein (not to mention a few deviations from the OP)?

For the same reason (kill bugs), the same thing is recommended when you buy flour. Put it in the freezer for 24+ hours, then take it out and store at room temperature.

I noticed a weird thing here. All the regular pasta rapidly disappeared. Rice also was gone.

But "Gluten Free"(I am a GFer) pasta - in this case, pasta made from rice - was fine!

I amused myself with the idea that people:"would rather starve to death than eat that GF crap." :-)

Pasta didn't sell out because people were afraid of starving.

Pasta sold out because people didn't know how to cook anything else themselves.

They can cook, but they can’t be arsed to.

I know how to cook, but when you suddenly have to cook 2x as often because you can't eat out anymore your are going to cook a lot more of everything, including pasta. Suddenly the supply chain was out of whack - it was built for people that eat out a lot.

Out of curiosity: did people really experience empty grocery shelves or are phrases such as "rapidly disappeared" meant more as hyperbole?

I live in a Chicago suburb, and while variety did decrease (I still can't get Coke Zero Cherry) the basics were always in stock throughout the pandemic time.

I am in Melbourne Australia. Yeah, the normal pasta and rice disappeared for about a week, the shelve were literally empty.

But as mentioned, my GF pasta was fine.

And I don't think anyone really starved as most of the shelves were full of something. Just reduced options thanks to hoarding.

Yes, I have pictures of empty shelves on my phone.

Part of the problem was state government response. After each further restriction, people panic bought more.

Some grocery items actually went into scarcity.

Why? Because the channel mix changed, and distribution and packaging are channel-specific.

For example, toilet paper is shipped to commercial customers in cardboard boxes, while retail customers by it in plastic-wrapped, branded, and SKU’d blocks of 4, 8, 12, etc. When everyone suddenly stopped going to offices and restaurants, demand plummeted in the commercial channel and soared in the retail channel. It took time for factories and distributors to adjust to that. The same thing happened to a bunch of food staples too.

Since a lot of manufacturing is regional, different areas of the nation and world experienced different impacts.

Toilet paper is interesting because it takes up lots of space, can’t be “compressed”, so most stores doesn’t store too much of them. That’s why they are the first thing to disappear.

Check Target for your Coke fix. Multiple stores in the Chicago burbs list of in stock.

In the UK flour and yeast disappeared from the shelves for quite a while during the first lockdown baking boom.

The issue wasn't a shortage, but a shortage of flour in small bags.

Interestingly I saw some supermarkets fill up bags they usually use for bakery items to just sell the flour which seemed like a smart solution!

Also in March/April last year hand soap and toilet roll was hard to come by.

Is fish not considered meat?

Not in some cultures. My youngest daughter isn't a big meat eater, and certainly hates seafood. She was on an organised tour to Spain with her youth orchestra so ticked the "vegetarian" box for meals. Inevitably her meal came with fish as the protein. Apparently in Spain, fish aren't considered as sentient like chicken or hoofed animals and hence are akin to vegetables.

It’s a Christian thing.

Which is not just lacking scientific basis but goes straight _against_ what we know today of fish.

Any vegetarian who eats fish because of that reason really needs to update their ethics to the current millennium.

I hear this derogatory term "hoarder" being thrown around a lot. When the pandemic first hit I bought a ton of food. I still ate and bought the same amount over time.. Nothing went to waste. I just wanted to make FEWER but BIGGER trips to the supermarket so I had reduced chance of getting infected.

In the same sentence you complain about "hoarders" being faster than you whilst justifying (reasonably well imho) why you yourself bought more.

People did what they thought they needed to and will always do so. The world was always still a bit of a jungle out there (any nation is three meals away from anarchy). I'm sure those with immune compromised or elderly family members were more excessive on "hoarding". We need to get out of this blame mentality and realize our system needs improving so it can respond to these challenges.

The trick is to do exactly what they tell you not too immediately.

Masks don't protect against covid - jump on Alibaba and buy some.

Don't buy extra toiled paper, there will be no limits on its sale - immediately do a order on amazon prime. Because within a few days there will be price caps on the sale of TP (increased prices would deter hoarding) so everything will sell out right away.

I think people have really learned this by now - as SOON as the announcements come that there is nothing to worry about and they won't do price caps or other things, they will be doing exactly that soon.

Places like Alibaba do seem to continue to function - masks are maybe 50 cents per mask instead of 5, so folks buy a lot less, but you can still get a few for $5. Same with TP, it's not dirt cheap per roll, but you can get a few.

To rationalize this phenomenon... They don't warn you about it until they think you'd be worried about it, and they don't think you'd be worried about it until they start thinking about doing it. ;)

They warn you because they don't want you doing it. So if it's a tragedy of the commons (it usually is), the obvious thing to do is to do what they don't want you to.

Interesting to think about this in the context of inflation - "We do expect some price increases as the economy warms up but that's not inflation."

I think you’ve just described a self-fulfilling prophecy. TP is running out because enough people think like you, turning a not-scarce commodity into a scarce commodity.

True, but if you are already aware of this the only logical solution is to join in, otherwise you’d just end up with no toilet paper.

The issue is they regulate so

a) you simply can’t buy them - while other countries tried to get n95s and equivalent to everyone the us blocked sale to reserve them.

B) price cap everything which means things like hand sanitizer can’t be bought through normal channels because retailers can price to deter hoarding or incentivize production because it sells out at capped price right away

It's not really irrational or some behavior that they'd change if they did introspect. I suspect a significant portion of these people are internally like "Yeah, I'm part of the problem now, but the problem is not going to go away if I don't join in on it, I'll just get screwed."

In other words, they understand game theory and tragedy of the commons.

Yes but you have to recognize that there is something irrational in the perception of the problem. How do you go from -> a lot of fragile and old people are going to die to -> omg I am going to be starved to death ?

I think there were two fears. One is that you might want to stay in your house for a long time without having to go and get groceries. Either because you are quarantining, or because you're very afraid of catching a dangerous virus if you go out. Having plenty of food in the house could be the difference between having to take a risk and avoiding that risk.

Secondly I think a lot of people worried, rationally or not, about a 'breakdown of society'. If there is enough death and disease then maybe everything stops working. People don't go to work, transport and food production break down, there is looting and widespread lawlessness, and so on. Perhaps it's very hard to get food, or impossible to get some foods, or some form of government rationing starts. In that case having a stockpile could be very valuable.

The Costco I shop at only seems to sell the good Charmine toilet paper (the red stuff that doesn't leave lint and TP balls everywhere) during February. If I want enough to last, I have to stock up for about a year's worth at once. As you might imagine, this figure is rather difficult to estimate for in advance.

The introspection or lack thereof, might be defined by Nash equilibrium. Nevertheless, the situation depicted in the article is a life hack -- exactly as described. There is no malicious intent/compliance, rather it is about having the foresight and ingenuity to save the day.

https://theconversation.com/a-toilet-paper-run-is-like-a-ban...

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