Hacker News Reader

Sri Lankan here. I personally experienced this last year and was very surprised. We Sri Lankans love to criticise ourselves for our wonky moral compasses, so when the early protests started, I stocked up on food and installed an extra CCTV camera, expecting widespread riots and looting. They never came. There were many organised protests, and protesters did clash with riot police around government buildings, but people overall were unusually helpful toward each other.

Several times, I had taxi drivers refuse to accept fare when they picked me up from a bus stop late at night (both petrol/gasoline and buses were in short supply for a while). Once a motorcyclist literally stopped by and handed me his spare helmet saying "If you're heading my way, I can take you". Many people (including my wife and I) drove around distributing food and supplies to folks we felt were in need. It's hard to describe what came over us, but it seemed like a common phenomenon that affected a lot of people.

I still think if food became really scarce, selfish, violent behaviour would have emerged. But fortunately it never came to that and the country managed to go into a debt restructuring program with the IMF.

People vs the corrupt govt of Rajapaksa - we are all in this together fosters this.

The question of course is the very same people who voted in these clowns in the first place.

Very positive post. Thank you for sharing.

My spouse and I both had a short part of our childhood in a poor and wonky South Asian country. We both feel that people (and ourselves) are far less helpful to our neighbours and strangers in the west vs. back home. It actually felt different in the 90s vs. today. I recall being in the west and someone offering me a ride when the subway was closed (like 25 years ago). I just can't see that happening today. Just too many MLM schemes have been pushed on me, and too many reports of crazies on the news .. I dunno.

Thanks for sharing. That reminded me of another experience: around 2012, the front left wheel of my car ended up in a ditch by the side of the road. I was considering calling a tow truck, when a crowd gathered and told me to get in the car and hit reverse when they gave the signal. Then they proceeded to literally lift the car out of the ditch. I had barely enough time to mumble thanks before the crowd dispersed as quickly as it had assembled.

On the other hand, once in the New York subway, I was running toward the closing doors of a train, and some of the folks inside tried to keep the door open (which was not really possible) and clapped when I made it in by a hair's breadth. But then again it was a Friday night and many passengers at that time were a bit sloshed and quite friendly.

The car and ditch thing is still very common in the Midwest when it snows. I swear the pastime there is to hide in the snow waiting for someone to get highcentered in an u plowed parking lot given how many people appeared out of nowhere to push.

> I stocked up on food and installed an extra CCTV camera, expecting widespread riots and looting. They never came.

Turns out, most people aren't psychos and at one extreme, some would rather end themselves than hurt others.

> I still think if food became really scarce, selfish, violent behaviour would have emerged.

That does emerge, as you said, but it needs to be SUPER extreme. By SUPER extreme I mean gulag or shipwrecked crew on an island with no food. In human history these scenarios are very rare, probably since the dawn of agriculture.

And, I mean, we could implode that badly, but we're talking regressing 3+ thousands of years. It looks more like a post-apocalyptic nuclear wasteland or Earth being hit by an asteroid than a "regular" economic meltdown.

Reminds me of this comment from Dee Xtrovert on Metafilter, who survived the seige of Sarajevo: https://www.metafilter.com/78669/What-if-things-just-keep-ge....

“But here's the main point: 'Preparing' for the disaster really didn't do anyone much good. Those who 'prepared' ate a little better for a while. They stayed warmer for a few extra days. They enjoyed the radio for a while longer (via batteries.) But in the end, they ended up hungry, cold and bored too, just like the rest of us. Guns and weapons helped no one directly and were even of little to no use in the defense of Sarajevo, since they were toys compared to the shells, bombs and high-powered armaments of the attacking forces. The worst parts of war were psychological - the fear, anxiety, boredom, loneliness, paranoia, bad dreams. Respite from those things came with sharing food with a neighbor, finding a piece of clothing that would fit someone you knew, commiserating with others in your position, figuring out how to make make-up from brick or french fries from wheat paste and spreading this newly-acquired war knowledge around the mahala.

We knew who had extra food and supplies. For the most part, they weren't attacked or hassled or bothered. Contrary to what these survivalists say, those in dire times generally hold on to their personal sense of pride even more than they do in normal times. I'd take a bite of a friend's salad without bothering to ask in normal times. I'd never have done that in wartime, no matter how hungry I was.

Within the domain of those trapped in the city, civility greatly increased.”

How is the situation currently in Sri Lanka? I'm considering going there for a vacations.

Not sri lankan, but I had a good time this September. Just like every other time in that country.

Pretty much back to normal as far as tourism is concerned. Although you might want to wait a few more weeks if you prefer the sun and sand -- it's been rainy or overcast for the past month.

I think that prepper scenario is way more likely in a «I got mine, screw you» society like the US. All the countries you list have their issues, but their base level of societal egalitarism is orders of magnitude higher.

I would not be surprised if the US is one of the few countries to end up like Mad Max if the world order should fully collapse due to climate change or other large scale events.

I also think that the fact the prepper vision is a large part of the cultural zeitgeist makes it somewhat of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It's not a large part of it. There's a large vision of self-reliance, which is definitely not the whole country, or more than half the country, but that's not quite the same thing.

I’ve lived in two dozen countries and the US is the most community oriented of them all outside major cities.

US charitable giving alone suggests your view of the country as individualism run amok is likely not the whole story.

The biggest share of US charitable giving goes to megachurches and other religious institutions who don't need it.

A fair amount of the rest goes on political lobbying and influencing.

The proportion that goes on direct no-strings plain simple humanitarian work is not all that huge.

Most of the US population lives in cities. If the US wasn't "individualism run amok" it wouldn't have tent cities of homeless people, and its health industry wouldn't be bankrupting half a million people a year. (For example.)

You're correct that the largest share of giving goes to religiously-affiliated organizations, but the idea that the largest shares goes specifically to megachurches seems unlikely to me. If you've seen this reported somewhere I'm primed to change my mind.

And I don't think it's totally fair to exclude religious donations as somehow "not valid", especially in the context of the critique that Americans don't value community with each other. Religious charities tend have less access to alternative funding sources, so rely on these donations more. Note: I'm very much not religious.

> A fair amount of the rest goes on political lobbying and influencing.

I get a little mixed-up on whether donations to non-tax-deductible non-profits "count" in the metrics (e.g., does my donation to the ACLU which has a lobbying arm count just as my donation to the ACLU Foundation which cannot be used that way?). Nevertheless, I think it's wrong-minded to discredit charitable giving to organizations that influence public policy given the multiplicative impact that policy has on the lives of people and communities. Some of the biggest impacts to the lives of people came out of organized efforts to influence policy.

> If the US wasn't "individualism run amok" it wouldn't have tent cities of homeless people, and its health industry wouldn't be bankrupting half a million people a year.

This feels like a pretty uncharitable and over-simplification of very complex issues that also get into inter-state dynamics. I also think there's an error made in treating US culture as some sort of homogenous cultural construct. More than many other countries, the US is constantly at war with itself culturally.

Charity is peak individualism. In real communal places helping those in need is handled structured and organized, not just hinging on individual decisions.

Charity used to structured and organized locally with Local churches, rotary clubs, and Samaritan organizations working to help less well off people in a town/neighborhood/city.

All this has fallen to the wayside in the US as we have some weird form of individualism permiating on both sides of the political spectrum.

Charity is not individualism. You’re making a false equivalence between collectivism and the government. There are huge collectivist communities in the US (generally centered around religions) that have very structured and organized ways of helping those in need.

It is peak collectivism to accomplish this without requiring the monopoly on violence and the taxation that comes with it.

>You’re making a false equivalence between collectivism and the government And you are imagining things and claiming its what I am thinking.

You literally said charity is individualism, with the implication being that anything voluntary (which is charity) is not collectivism. for it to not be voluntary, you need the monopoly on violence to force it.

except prepping mostly isn't "I got mine, screw you" but "I need to protect myself and my family". even then, US society isn't even "I got mine, screw you". I don't understand where that even came from because its not even close to true. maybe europeans thinking they're somehow more collectivist even though I've found Americans to be far more friendly and collectivist than europeans.

The US is the only major Western country where its citizens buy guns to protect themselves from other citizens with guns.

I'm not really seeing how that counts as "friendly and collective", but I live in the EU so perhaps I just don't understand these things.

Being prepared for a robbery has zero relationship with how you treat people in general.

We’ve had localized collapse due to hurricanes and other disasters in the USA and it didn’t go mad max and in fact people helped each other.

There’s always a few bad apples but there’s always some counter pressure, too. The story of the deuce and half owner who drove into a hurricane comes to mind.

I think you're saying the same thing as this, but, to me ... The prepper fantasy clearly says more about the ethics/ideology of the person having that fantasy than it does about what a crisis-society looks like. By adopting that lifestyle they're basically giving an early look at how they might behave in crisis, and how they see their fellow man.

And I think you're right; if you look at how people behave in times of flood or famine, they do tend on the whole to come together.

From the outside looking in, I think in part it has to do with the history of parts of the US as a slaveholding society. In a society where a large minority (or in some places even a majority) are under the thumb of coercion, when order breaks down, there will be reprisals and violence. And I think this history has formed a cycle in some parts of the US long after the end of slavery, and also informs a lot of the gun ownership self-defense fetish there. e.g. for me, growing up in rural Canada guns were just a rather boring part of life because people hunted or had farms. But since then the have clearly become a kind of shibboleth, or cultural marker. Gun ownership is apparently at an all time high but actual hunting for meat is at an all time low.

When smaller countries collapse (as measured by percentage of global GDP) then the IMF, neighboring allies, etc can step in and keep things stable. If the US economy collapses, that's 25% of global GDP, not to mention the ripple effects on other economies and possible power struggles as countries try to adjust to a post US world.

If you think the US is at risk of collapsing however I would suggest you buy a gun before gold.

> If you think the US is at risk of collapsing however I would suggest you buy a gun before gold

You need friends and allies before you need guns.

> You need friends and allies before you need guns.

In one short sentence you may have summarised the difference between other societies and the USA.

Friends and allies are no longer sold in the USA, but guns still are.

As someone pretty well marinating in "right wing" - based on where I live and the social circles I tend to run in - you're mostly right. They aren't mutually exclusive; you can have guns and friends at the same time. You can even have friends with guns.

Of course, but from what I can tell, all the "preppers" seem to know that they need to buy supplies and weapons, but all of that is useless if you are not part of a community tight knit enough to be willing to defend you, and that takes years of work to build up and constant maintenance of relationships.

There's a weird place between "preppers" and "homesteaders" that's pretty much this.

I'd say I'm "prepper" enough that I'm heavily armed and have enough shelf-stable food to feed by family for a few months in an emergency - but I'm also "homesteader" enough that our garden seems to get bigger each year, I know all of my neighbors, and we regularly share skills and information.

I don't think anything catastrophic is likely to happen, but it's had an overall very positive impact on my day-to-day life. If something does happen, I have far more tools to deal with it than either approach alone would give me.

In all of these scenarios, the prepper stuff like stockpiling ammo and canned food wouldn't have been much help, but storing your wealth in gold bars for the time after would have been a great choice, certainly compared to cash.

The fact that society didn't descend into complete apocalyptic anarchy made it even better for the gold hoarders, because they didn't get robbed and murdered for their savings.

> The prepper scenario of "I've gotta defend myself against mobs out to raid for food" really doesn't happen.

> Maybe a civil war breaks out, maybe there are food shortages, but for the most part if violence breaks out, it's organised, mainly in the form of civil wars.

If a war breaks out, the tradition is that the armies will raid you for food. The issue was never that other locals would do it. A war breaking out is what people are afraid of.

Ah yes, my gun and my gold will protect me against the organised army out to raid for food.

That's what I meant -- people get organised very quickly. In Rwanda, people quickly formed armies and militias, the same in Ethiopia, Columbia, and literally every other time this has happened before. One guy is not gonna accomplish much.

Civil war is also, by most measures, the least likely outcome. Usually civil war causes the breakdown, not the other way around. Usually it's really a deterioration of state capacity that leads to a powerless central government (see Venezuela, Yemen, Syria), or repeated coups that lead to unstable governance (all of west africa basically). Things are mostly stable, by and large.

You’re pointing out yourself the usefulness of being one guy with a gun.

Once you need to form a militia, you bring your gun and join your neighbors. That way you can actually resist the army. They will do more than just raid for food. They raid for people: conscription, slavery, and “comfort”.

In South Africa we strict gun laws - getting a 9mm sidearm is difficult enough - don't bother with something like an AR-15.

But we have per capita probably the largest number armed private security companies - what happened when we had unrest in one of provinces - the owners of these companies formed self defense groups where they lived with their staff and had AK'47/AR-15 and stuff not available to normal citizens.

Our suburbs are still racially segregated so they turned around those folks who did not fit the profile.

They kept the looters out - but some got out of control and shot up innocent people that was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The army was eventually mobilized and the sight of soldiers and wheeled APC's convinced them it is was time to go home now that the professionals were here.

Thankfully haven't experienced it but my parents and relatives were in challenging situations during some parts of their lives. The point of Gold (as I was taught) is not to store your hoard of wealth but to facilitate getting out.

>t for the most part if violence breaks out, it's organised, mainly in the form of civil wars or local power struggles.

Yes, as we all know Sri Lanka, Argentina and Venezuela are all known for their low degree of violence.

Violent places are not violent all the time, to all the people, in all the regions. Violence is frequently very localized, even in those very violent places.

Because governments indoctrinate people into thinking they're needed to keep society stable and safe. I'd argue the opposite is true.

I suggest reading Larken Rose - The Most Dangerous Superstition.

I feel way safer in places with a neighbourhood watch and local people banding together to fend off criminals over places where the police may show up some times, if they're done fining people for going 5km over the ridiculously low speed limit or jailing people for selling pot.

Source: the EU pays my government to allow into the country jobless economic migrants, males in their 20s-30s, and local people have to defend themselves because the police won't do shit.

most of the prepper fantasies seem to revolve around societal collapse - not financial - loss of electrical power grid etc.

secondly it is true that most short term instability results in people pulling together, but I do remember a study from about 30 years ago on long term multi-generational social collapse (I think it was Eritrea) in which the population became much less let's pull together to get through this and much more f* you I got mine.

> it's happened multiple times already. What happens is not immediate apocalypse where people riot and society breaks down; it's mass protests, shows of solidarity, people help each other out, etc

What a bizarre interpretation.

To this date more than 20% of Venezuelans left the country.

What happens over and over is that fiat currency becomes worthless and that people who have the means to leave leave.

Obviously if you own some gold you have a better chance of being able to escape to another country.