From: ichudov@Algebra.COM (Igor Chudov @ home)
Date: Sat, 5 Dec 1998 05:31:23 +0800
To: petro@playboy.com (Petro)
Subject: Re: y2k/gary north delusions
In-Reply-To: <v04011706b2889eb2b6a8@[206.189.103.230]>
Message-ID: <199812042048.OAA15267@manifold.algebra.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text



Petro wrote:
> Looks like this one didn't make it out the first time around.
> It's a little late. Sorry.
> 
> At 10:04 PM -0500 11/28/98, Vladimir Z. Nuri wrote:
> >anyway I hate to say that I think he is really losing his
> >mind lately.. no there are going to be some serious y2k problems,
> >but imho the bottom approaches "garbage".. any talk of riots,
> >mobs, martial law, stockpiling weaponry, roving bandits
> >etc. seems to me to be really way off base to say the least.
> >now people have been talking about this, but I've never seen
> >gary north go quite that crazy.
> 
> 	Not just crazy, flat out _wrong_ in at least one case:
> 
> >     Let's start with the basics: water.  An urban adult
> >uses 75 to 100 gallons of water a day.  This doesn't count
> 
> 	Like hell. Your average adult drinks at MOST 1 gallon a day,
> including coffees sodas etc. It is _real_ difficult to drink over 1 gallon,
> and you can seriously fuck your system up (mineral balances) if you drink
> too much.
> 
> 	I drink a LOT of (non-alcohol) fluid (as opposed to drinking
> solids) a day, and I usually top out at 3 quarts, unless I am doing a long
> distance ride.
> 
> 	Let's round it up and call it one gallon for drinking.
> 
> 	Showers: If you need more than 10-15 gallons, you are taking too long.

Come on people. We are talking SURVIVAL here. Can you ski your showers
if you do not have enough water?

The true answer is, if shit hits the fan and there is no water in the
faucet, almost all activity except drinking and washing hands and dishes
can be curtailed.

Even flushing toilets is not necessary as anyone can shit outside.

I am speaking out of personal experiences, living with water outages
while we were in the Russian countryside. It was no big deal, period.


> 	Cooking: another gallon.

It is included.

> 	Washing hands & dental hygene: 0ne more.
> 
> 	Flushing toilets: 2-5 gallons per flush. Drinking one gallon of
> water a day gets you flushing a _lot_, about 10 flushes a day (we are going
> outer limits
> on this one) that is 20 to 50 gallons a day.
> 
> 	Washing dishes shouldn't take more than 3 for pots & pans, and one
> for each persons utensils.

Much less. 

> 	Total: 40-75 (rounded up).

Total: 2-3.

> 	Ok, so let's cut that back to what we _need_. First off, we don't
> dump our dish water down the drain, it gets "recycled" to flush the
> toilets.

get them to shit outside.
 
> >     What if the municipal water authority shuts down?
> >It's goodbye showers.  Goodbye flushing toilets.  Hello sponge
> 
> 	Only if you're a fucking idiot. You don't need potable water to
> shower with, and you sure as hell don't need it to flush a toilet.

Correct.

Gary North is not stupid. he realizes all this, as it is not
rocket science.

Then why he keeps telling all this?

The answer is, to peddle his wares.

I am not suggesting that Y2K is going to be a cakewalk. Quite possibly
not. But Gary North is not worth listening to because he is biased and
has a conflict of interests.

> >     Let's assume that for the first three months in 2000,
> >you will not get paid.  The banks will be down.  You will
> >not be able to write a check or use a credit card.  What
> >will you do?
> 
> 	Live off those who planned ahead, stocked up spent thousands of
> dollars on Food, Generators, guns & etc. but didn't spend 10 minutes making
> sure their bodies were prepared & died of heart attacks trying to pull
> start their generators to keep their computers running.

> 	(I'm mostly joking about the above)

I think that you had a good point... A long time ago I posted a "Skills
vs. guns" article to misc.survivalism. its point was, that in the long
run having good skills and health was more important than stocking up.

> >     Let me give a simple example.  How will you wash
> >clothes for everyone?  Let's assume that you have water.
> >(Dreamer!)  You can buy a 40-lb. tub of Wind Fresh laundry
> >detergent from Sam's Club for $10.  It will do 160 loads.
> 
> 	Ummm. Gary, how did people wash their clothes before they could buy
> soap at the store?
> 
> 	Why don't you print a recipe for Lye Soap?


You can make semi-good "soap" from animal fat and ash.


> 	Because it's a lot easier being a blowhard.
> 
> 
> >Their clothes will be dirty.  You will be clean.  You will
> >not have lost 30 pounds.  You will be the target of envy on
> >a scale you can barely imagine today.  You will be
> >despised.  Will you be ready for this psychologically?
> 
> 	Been despised all my life. I'm sure you know what that is like.

No biggie.

Besides, if you don't want to be despised, just don't be clean.


	- Igor.