Best products from r/lostgeneration

Energy sufficiency is simple math. Cities use way less energy. New Yorkers use about 4700 kilowatt hours versus the US average of 11,000 kilowatt hours. The UK average is even lower than New York's with an average of 4,300 kilowatt hours per year. [Source] [Source]

So assuming that the current trend of cities becoming more dense continues (which has been the trend since the 1980s) you could double the population in America while halving the energy use and end up with the exact same net energy usage.

Now you bring up a good point about cost. It is more expensive to live in a city. You are wrong about infrastructure though. Simple truth is rural areas have much more expensive and less efficient infrastructure. Rural infrastructure is used by less people and has to stretch out for more miles and requires more travel and time for maintence. Cities have expensive infrastructure but more people use it. [Ed Glaeser has a book on this subject] He's an economist at Harvard.

Also the cost of living is more expensive in cities...if you require the exact same lifestyle that Americans have come to expect during the post-war boom. If you want a home with a big green front lawn, it's going to cost a lot more in a city. City living is more expensive because the "standard" in America is inflated. Yet that's not how things have to be, and things are beginning to change fast.

People adapt to their environment. It's natural instinct to try and take the maximum available resources into account. That's why we love the taste of fats and salts. If you're a prehistoric hunter gather 12,000 years ago, then if you can get pack on some extra pounds, you take advantage of that. Studies show that people with hybrid cars use JUST as much energy as people with normal cars. They have better mpg, they just end up driving more, because the cost of driving goes down. [Source]

So Americans haven't adopted a more energy efficient lifestyle because they haven't had to. Land is cheap, gas is cheap, resources are cheap. When people have more resources they spend with less care (if you go to Qatar where electricity is state funded by oil money people take electricity for granted in the same way you probably take clean drinking water from the tap for granted). But as those resources are restricted and become more scarce people adopt their lifestyles, and remain fairly comfortable. When people's expectations are adjusted, people can be quite happy and productive. Just check out neat things like the [Tiny House Movement] Do you really need all that space? Do you really want a front lawn you have to mow, water, and care for? Maybe you have a green thumb but even in the urban dense areas people have taken up communal gardening projects that can help satisfy those needs in the community while decreasing total land usage. Personally I'm glad I don't have to mow lawns anymore.

A quick anecdote. I was looking for an apartment with a friend recently. We were looking at some bottom rung houses due to the nature of his and my employment situation at the time. I grew up in Texas and I'm back here but I went to school in Boston and London, so coming back to Texas has been weird. My last apartment room in Boston was 6 feet by 10 feet. It was a closet. Terribly small but I didn't mind in the least. In Texas (a city more densely populated than most in Texas) we were looking at apartments that were cheaper than that room, but 10 times bigger. One house has 2 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. WHY? Why would you need 3 bathrooms if you only have 2 people living in the house? Hell, I've lived in houses with 7 people and only 2 bathrooms and we had zero problems. If it wasn't illegal to have more people occupying such a house (a measure taken by local government to help protect landowners) then I could have easily comfortably packed 4 or 5 more people in that apartment.

With a self managing structure. The basic goals of the business are made in to a constitution of sorts, and then each worker makes their own mission statement in line with the business's goals, which their colleagues agree on and hold them accountable to. Salary depends on how important you are to your colleagues, if you add more value, you get paid more.

I was reading a book called: The End of Average, which called in to question how efficient Taylorist structure / hiring practices (The separation of the worker from management, interchangeability of workers, strict hierarchical structures, and the creation of averagarian human resources practices) as it applies to education and work. In chapter 7, He addresses a lot of your questions with case studies of why Costco, Zoho, and Morning Star. (The tomato company, the site I linked to earlier is run by them.) I can PM you a copy of the book / chapter if you want a more in depth read.

1. Not everybody is paid the same, but everyone has stake in the company
   
   
2. Like any company: to get paid, to have a greater input / control over their work, generous benefits. By hiring those who are highly skilled, but passed over by Taylorist metrics (Think this sub, and people form unconventional backgrounds), providing them with work and opportunities to learn themselves to better positions in the company. Being able to have well paying secure employment for a lifetime.
   
   In that chapter I referenced, the case study of Zoho, talks about how they had great success training and hiring the misfits that other Indian outsourcing companies like Microsoft wouldn't touch. You don't have to have traditional "higher skilled workers", to be able to have highly skilled workers.
   
   
3. Even if they aren't the highest skilled workers, when they feel like have input in to their work, are well compensated, and respected, they produce more than the worker who does the bare minimum to keep their job. All three of the case study companies referenced show this well.
   
   In the end, it's more about the self managed structure than it is about the workers owning the company. It's just that traditionally, worker coops were one of the few companies to adopt this structure. I do think that the workers owning the company is important though, as it eliminates the conflict of interest that comes from having private owners.

Don't bother. It's not worth it.

If you're not happy being extroverted, it is unlikely you ever will be. Introversion and Extroversion are partially genetic traits, and there's things like stimulus sensitivity that play a role. If you don't like loud places with lots of people, you will probably never change that. You can learn to deal with it/tolerate it, but it will always drain the shit out of you. That in some cases is enough for some people to just say "not doing it."

http://www.amazon.com/Loud-Bright-Fast-Tight-Overstimulating/dp/0060932929

Is a good book to read if you're an introvert and want to understand why the United States in particular seems so insane to you. It's not a coincidence. There are countries on the planet that are the complete opposite and have more introverts than extroverts. Currently the estimate is something like 2/3 people in the US are extroverted.

Another book, more specific to introverts: Quiet, by Susan Cain.

The suggestion here in America is always to be like the extroverts (Dale Carnegie pushed this) "fake it until you make it" which ultimately just makes you feel insecure and might as well be genetics-shaming. You build confidence by owning who you are - not by trying to be something that you're not. You might not have the networking ability, but as an introvert, you have a lot of other qualities extroverts have a very hard time developing. You probably make better decisions as a whole with your life, are more risk-averse (which can be great in almost any context), and can handle tasks and jobs that require a lot of focus without a lot of stimulation. Extroverts get bored quickly in an environment that isn't fast moving, flashy, stimulating. Introverts don't.

You might consider trying to get specialized training in a trade, or studying a technical skill/discipline that is more intellectually focused. Or you might find that you're happier in a basic role in a company where you can zen out and complete your day without worrying about politics. There's lots of options - you don't have to settle with a McJob.

It is actually very easy to cause the average person to follow you. You can learn it from a book. Also, some people have a values system that legitimately ranks safety over liberty. I see no easy way to deal with that.

The only proposals for transitioning to a basic income/post-scarcity state that I have found ask that during the transition, people will still need to have incentives to work. Not all people have a "goodness of their hearts" out of which they will work for society and receive no rewards. Many people will work for largely, or only, social rewards (i.e. being respected for keeping the community running) - but structuring a community sociologically so that it rewards people who work with increased status is going to be very difficult (possibly nearly impossible). Several orders of magnitude easier is to provide physical rewards and luxuries for working for society, and let the social rewards grow from things like having the newest cars, being located in better areas, etc. as it does now. In such an arrangement, corruption will happen. This is not a question. This is a prediction that is very strong, given what I know about human nature.

I do not know if it is possible to Good Societal Memeplex one's way to a legit non-coercive anarcho-communist society. I think that it is a really cool end goal, but I don't know if we can make literally everyone adhere to it without exercising coercion at the educational level, by instilling very strong collective values in children, which incidentally prevents parents from raising their children in all the ways they currently do. Which is an imposition on the parents' freedom. Closely related question: is government propaganda to make people adhere to the standards of society coercive? How about peer pressure?

Is banding together to "rehabilitate" (or, more realistically, punish) someone who defects on the social contract (i.e. by killing his wife for cheating, which has existed as a crime-of-passion for millions of years and will exist as long as humans retain our current neurology) coercive?

!!!!!

Well, if it's a local issue, there is an elaborate, but thin, set of skills that are required to pull this off. I was confused at first, because I thought you were referring to a generic "national" issue, which is, while important, totally off-the-table. (But then again, this is /r Lostgen)

The primary thing I would consider is

• Who is the decision maker that is needed to be persuaded?
  
• What would it take for that person to be persuaded?
  
• ...and if the person won't negotiate, then what kind of "stick" can you poke at him to persuade him.
  
  I have as much expectations about Americans in politics as do Children in politics, so people get "shocked" when it is stated openly.
  
  But one of the things to consider is that if a party isn't coming to the table to negotiate, that nonviolent repercussions are necessary to encourage negotiation.
  
  For instance, doing the stuff of the Civil Rights movement in 1963 would get you locked up in 2015 still, but we encourage the former while condemning the latter.
  
  Momentum is useless; contact information is what is valuable. Everytime you get a phone number, consider that a follower + 3-7 sympathizers.
  
  If people show up at a meeting, and are enthused, that means nothing to me, other then I picked a good place to do a speech.
  
  But if I have contact information....
  
  ...let me put it this way. I worked in DC for a bit, and it takes about ~12 dedicated people to control a district of 550,000 people. These people then network with networks, until they are capable of getting the congressman elected.
  
  Furthermore, it doesn't take a tremendous amount of work to pull this off, but again, the average american isn't even CAPABLE of admitting the need for leadership, so the Dem and Reps are "the one eyed leading the blind."
  
  There are so many question marks, my mind is racing, but I would think of it this way.
  
  
• Build a solid core of "organizers."
  
• Have those organizers create a network between "interest groups"
  
• Find a clear objective with a clear "opposition" to that goal, and get them to agree to that demand.
  
  Fuck. If you do those three things at a larger and larger scope, you form an entire political appartus, and get a footnote in history.
  
  http://www.amazon.com/Building-Powerful-Community-Organizations-Personal/dp/0977151808
  
  Get this book. I wish I had known you were referring to local issues, then I would have given an entirely different set of answers. "Protesting" means something different then Organizing.

If you are genuinely curious, I recommend this:

http://www.amazon.com/Class-Through-American-Status-System/dp/0671792253.

It was written in the 80's (by a Harvard PHd if you want cred), so it's a little dated, but still one of the best easily accessable books on the subject. It's a good place to start. He breaks the classes in America down into the following:

Top Out of Sight - The people so wealthy they can afford exclusive levels of privacy. We never hear about them because they don't want us to.

Upper Class - Inherited wealth. Those who don't have to work, but sometimes they go into politics or finance for the prestige value. They refer to tuxes as "dinner jackets."

Upper Middle - Wealthy surgeons and lawyers, etc. Professionals who couldn't be described as middle class.

Middle Class - The great American majority, sort of. Middle managers, desk jockeys, some small business owners, people who don't engage in much manual labor, but are not skilled professionals either. He examines the middle class in great depth.

High Proletarian (or "prole") - Skilled workers but manual labor. Electricians, plumbers, etc. Probably not familiar with the term "proletarian."

Middle Prole - Unskilled manual labor. Waitresses, painters. (In other words, my mom and dad!)

Low Prole - Non-skilled of a lower level than mid prole. I suspect these people ask "Would you like fries with that, sir?" as a career.

Destitute - Working and non-working poor.

Bottom Out of Sight - Street people, the most destitute in society. "Out of sight" because they have no voice, influence or voter impact. (They don't vote.)

He also talks about the "X-Class", which is another way of saying the artist/intellectual class.

But these are social classes, not economic classes. For example, an upper class person could actually have less money than an upper middle class person and still be upper class. I hope that answers some of your question. I would encourage you to do more research into this fascinating and complicated subject.

>I don’t know too much about encrypted chats but it seems like you might. If you ever want to chat more I’d love to learn more or ask you some more questions.

​

If we had a good following then I know how to setup a fully encrypted web/mobile/desktop chat client. The answer is run your own server in Mexico, encrypt the disks, and use SSL. For super paranoid you can setup a VPN that runs on the chat server, so it's transparently encrypted end-to-end from your laptop. (I'd probably use Rocketchat, it's just like slack but open source, and Pritunl for a VPN)

​

How we can start a community? I know the FBI has agents who are members of local state militias, just in case these people really start planning to restore freedom. Some states even require an FBI background check to join a militia, which just lets the FBI have a list of people to watch closely (I am not sure to what degree they tap people.)

​

Half the counter-measures developed by government agencies are from agents who "observe and record" what groups are doing. The FBI cellular wiretapping system that acts as a cellular tower (but stores and forwards all traffic) was designed so they could put this up in an area with armed riots, and isolate / locate "ring leaders" and take them down. The FBI has realized militant groups quickly disperse once all the leadership is arrested. The system they designed finds "hot phones" or basically phones that have lots of inbound calls or SMS, that's a sign you've found a leader giving directions to the large group. They block internet, and then review the network traffic to tear the group apart.

​

Of course, that's why you can use two-way VHF/UHF radios and I've actually got a cheap ($30) way to send encrypted communications via text over those two way chinese radios (FRS?GMRS). The way you would handle this in a skirmish would be sending encrypted VHF communications to "middle managers" who then coordinate with small squadrons with relayed instructions. The FBI might shut down middle managers, but the overall command & Conquer strategy could keep going.

​

Squadron leaders will have their radios compensated, and the FBI will bust your racket open, but you would have a "rolling frequency strategy" ... if you had a simple pnumonic to rotate frequencies (like based on a memorized pattern) then that would be hard to bust. These radios operate all over the air frequencies, and public safety frequencies.... so you could literally hide your communications one frequency below the airport tower frequency. It would definitely take a while for the FBI to infiltrate that network. Most of their agents are ex-marines who depend on $1,000,000 purchased turn-key surveillance solutions, they aren't radio engineers or computer scientists. Digital warfare is the future path to freedom. :)

Hi BrentonTheBadger,

Thank you for your thoughtful feedback.

It's actually far, far more complicated than that - and your assumption seems to be that I was referring to visual queues. I am actually talking about verbal queues.

Again, you are more than welcome to your opinion. But as somewhat of an eternal student of my discipline, I am aware of the psychology relating to my industry and how it is frequently and heavily abused. It might be a comforting thought to assume that there is only perhaps "a set group of people" that you suppost just "weren't raised to realize" their actual level of need, is completely inaccurate.

You've also assumed that my particular take and "my target audience" are these people. You've actually completely underestimated the entire practice. YOU are our target audience. YOU the supposedly discerning consumer, who couldn't possible buy a product you don't need or believe in something ultimately wrong for you. Why buy HTC? Why mention the brand? You've just told me that you have had one for a long time that is perfectly functional - you just recommended me a product and you didn't even realise it. Your character profile and your convictions make that recommendations all the more powerful. Don't you think people like me know that...? There's not enough people with enough funds of those your assume are my targets - so where do you think my industry goes next....?

Now, I grant you that I have discussed consumer focused advertising but I actually don't work in consumer focused advertising. I work in public focused advertising. My particular line of work is one of behavioral change. For everyone - and that means you. Just because I'm not trying to sell you a product, doesn't mean that I haven't dirtied my soul manipulating the supposedly 'discerning' public, of things they don't really want, need, believe or understand. In most cases, it's the final point. I don't say that as coldly as it sounds - people get tired and mental fatigue is the number one cause of silly beliefs and purchases. We take on too much in the modern world, and hence can't effectively cognitively process to make better decisions in our current lifestyles.

So, again, to assume advertising is just about trying to make you buy the latest product, is a vast underestimation of the industry. It is also an opinion that is created irrespective of the facts or figures and years of research both in academic circles and industry - from the corporations like Coke-a-Cola who specifically created Coke Zero because Diet Coke was a female orientated product and this was hailed as the 'male equivalent' because market research indicated that a low fat version of the product needed to be more manly to sell, to offices like mine - where we frequently commission market research to see the public awareness of issues we are promoting and targeting demographic and much much more to enlist behaviourial changes, as so desired by those above us.

Why do you trust such things in the hands of those who can and will profit from you despite what you really want?

If you want to learn more about a topic, read up on it (I recommend this as a starter for 10). Don't assume you're above it, or impervious to it, because at the end of the day? That's what we want you to think.

Fuck lyft. Keep more of that money for yourself.

I spent 2 years riding my bike year round in upstate NY. Unless it’s one of those skinny tire road bikes, even a shoddy $100 hybrid or mountain bike from Walmart can ride in the snow reasonably well. A road bike can work as long as plowing is done.

The only time it’s not really possible is right after a major blizzard depositing a foot+ overnight.

thermals can be bought for a single lyft ride.

Getting a waterproof outer layer is key, but to do that cheaply you need to check thrift stores. Waterproofing is more important than warmth, if you get it a little loose you can fit an extra layer, like a sweater, inside for warmth.

Snow goggles are useful when it’s actually snowing, but sunglasses work in a pinch. You get them for around $15 new, which again, is paid for in 1-2 lyft rides.

So if we assume like $40 for the outer layer, it’s roughly $65 for the basics of winter biking gear. If you’re living somewhere with winter I’m already assuming you have gloves, a hat, and a scarf, but you can get all three for anywhere from 15-25 bucks.

$80 is like 8 lyft rides at minimum charge levels. Commuting both ways from work, that’s less than a week. One month of lyft 5 days a week in both directions is like $400.

>There is sauerkraut in the fridge

Heating up sauerkraut kills all bacteria, so if what you have in the fridge was previously canned, pasteurized, or heated past a certain temperature, then it's not going to have the probiotic benefits that you're looking for. I mention this because the vast majority of store bought sauerkraut is sterilized of all probiotic properties. That's why a lot of people have started making their own sauerkraut these days because it's cheaper and healthier than whatever the supermarket is selling.

Anyways, I strongly recommend these two cookbooks (borrow from the library if you need to):

• Fermented Vegetables: Creative Recipes for Fermenting 64 Vegetables & Herbs in Krauts, Kimchis, Brined Pickles, Chutneys, Relishes & Pastes
  
  
• Wild Fermentation
  
  Both cookbooks offer great advice on how to ferment food, add your own flavor twists, and how to incorporate them in your diet. I went on a huge fermentation kick last year and found those two books to be the most helpful. If that's too daunting, though, there are free fermenting tutorials online and on Youtube.
  
  As for how I eat ferments, I just have a little of whatever I'm fermenting at the moment on the side of every meal. I consider it medicine more than sustenance, so I don't go out my way to try to create a meal around it.
  
  Hope that helps.
  

>Still no progress. Am leaving either tomorrow or Thursday for the Carolinas on a documentation trip. Hopefully I can get an interview up there while I'm out. I probably won't. Also, I told off a company for writing me off prematurely.

good luck!

>Pursuant to 1, obviously going nowhere. That said, I've done more travel this year than I have since 2003.

I live with my aunt and uncle. Living at home is pretty much normal for kids our age. Out of my 5 closest friends, only 2 live on their own. One is in Iraq the other is in Med School.

>3 Start paying off my massive debts.

I hear you there. Good luck I hope your father's cancer goes into remission. My dad died of a stroke in 2003. A parent's death is never ever good for mental health/financial stability.

>I'm down to 194.2 naked from a max at 252. I'm also just back from a 6 mile walk, which is what I'm up to now each day.

Keep up the good fucking work. I went from 230-169 over two years. Most of it was not eating so much. The last 20lbs was from dedicated exercise. You can do it if I can. Its all about willpower. I used Sparkpeople.com to track my calories. You really don't need as much food as you think you do. Swimming is the best exercise for sculpting body muscles and losing weight fast.

>5 Learn to cook.
Get On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of Food Its an entertaining read which allows you to understand the foundation of cooking so you can wing your own recipes based on your knowledge of the underlying chemistry.

> Last, all of the money they injected into the economy went to people living in the M3 money supply tier

Just to expand on this and the rest of your extremely lucid post a small minority owns the majority of financial instruments in the U.S. I'm currently re-reading Wealth and Democracy and one table I found striking (in the chapter, "Millennial Plutographics") had the top 10% of income owning ~90% of all business assets, stocks, bonds, and trusts. That may have fluctuated a little with retirement plans since then, but given the trends of increasing gains to the upper percentiles that change would probably be low. So we have a very small class with convergent interests making all the gains we've seen in securities. Remember this when people talk about the Dow Jones or the S&P recovering. For the majority of people this means nothing.

On a related note housing prices are about back to where they were before the crash, remember when there was a housing bubble? But average income hasn't changed since then, in fact it's down. How can housing prices increase while incomes are stagnate, or more importantly how can that trend be sustained?

GDP growth has been steady, but so what? We all know here that wages have been decoupled from productivity for decades so pointing to growth as a healthy economy, let alone a healthy society, is bullshit.

Final point, we're riding the line with deflation, which is a big fucking problem. It's part of what worsened the great depression. So your money is worth more, what's wrong with that? Well when you pay your fixed debts you're giving them progressively more money that you probably need. It also discourages spending because your money increases in value so why spend today when it will be worth even more tomorrow. Finally a growing economy needs a growing money supply, like how a child will need bigger clothes. It's why the fed has a target inflation of ~2% which they've not been consistently hitting, and may be on the low side. Despite this they're trying to tighten monetary policy, which will make things worse.

People think I'm a malcontent, but this is why I'm betting against the U.S. and european economies.

LOL this is a small Midwestern town, but no not San Francisco,I'd be homeless there. But it is like San Francisco, wealthy people from a huge metro city come here with their second vacation homes. Most of the populace is at the six figures level. I can't name where I am at, but think this place has the golf courses, expensive spas, etc etc. Yes many of these are very religious conservative wealthy people. I come out of a more well off family and know for a fact many got jobs via connections. I was the scapegoat so not allowed to share in the "wealth" so to speak. I have a few Baby Boomer friends, they get upset when I talk about generations, I understand, there are exceptions to all generational generalities, but I have to admit when I read this book, I agreed with a lot of it.

https://www.amazon.com/Generation-Sociopaths-Boomers-Betrayed-America/dp/0316395781

Programming is not for everyone. People like to talk about future saturation of programmers but I don't believe it will happen simply because the majority of people will never cut it as programmers and of those that do most will be terrible at it. It's not a sleight on your brain power or intelligence to say you won't be a good programmer, it is simply an observation of the way your brain and mind work and the way you think. Most people just flat out do not think the way a programmer needs to think. It doesn't mean you can't give it a go and it doesn't mean you'll fail but it might mean you'll struggle to understand advanced concepts and may find yourself over your head and slow to adapt.

It's also important to make a distinction between a 'programmer' and a 'designer.' While there is plenty of work in web design, web design is not programming. Neither HTML nor CSS are programming languages. There is such a thing called web application development that involves HTML, CSS, and back end programming but this requires the knowledge of one or many programming languages such as PHP, Ruby, or C#.

For anyone interested in programming I would recommend you read this book before you start trying to learn programming. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0735611319/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 If you find yourself lost or confused and cannot finish, programming is not for you. Again, that doesn't mean you're stupid or less intelligent than anyone else it is simply an observation that you think differently. It is not an observation of inferiority, I can't stress that enough. If you can finish this book you will likely find success learning advanced programming concepts. Pick a language, any language, and start learning.

I am an old linux guy ( since 92-3ish ) and this reminds me of ... me...

If you are still that guy that likes to just know, I ( the unix guy ) would recommend an awesome book for anyone wanting to emulate your / my up bringing and it is actually from microsoft press called Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software

>They're already in a stable life, and we're trying to find stability too. But nobody even bothers to help guide us to this goal.

👏👏👏You should read A Generation of Sociopaths

Cheers! 🍻

hug sent.

And keep the faith. Things will turn around.


belfortandbastion.com
&
http://www.amazon.com/Stranieri-Italys-Tourists-Immigrants-ebook/dp/B008SS74BY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1348542288&sr=8-1&keywords=Tristan+Gans

Here are some links for the product in the above comment for different countries:

Amazon Smile Link: http://smile.amazon.com/Women-Middle-Ages-Joseph-Gies/dp/0060923040/ref=sr_1_1


|Country|Link|
|:-----------|:------------|
|UK|amazon.co.uk|
|Spain|amazon.es|
|France|amazon.fr|
|Germany|amazon.de|
|Japan|amazon.co.jp|
|Canada|amazon.ca|
|Italy|amazon.it|
|China|amazon.cn|




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I don't have to...just read this.