6 Comments
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Hannes Jandl's avatar

One lesson I learned from the Soviet collapse is "own a dacha", and then spend as much time there with friends hiding away from the world as you can. Plus you can grow some food. Unfortunately the other lesson I learned from my Soviet-era friends is "emigrate to London, Munich or Dubai as soon as you can afford to". I'm not sure that lesson is going to help Americans. When the US collapses Europe will follow down the drain, and places like Dubai may decide Americans are surplus to requirement. Of course, Peter Thiel just ran off to Argentina, and I know some Russians who are quite happy there. Maybe that's the next place for the locusts to swarm.

But your serious point is completely correct. I have observed over the past 35 years that my Soviet friends all seem to take their mutual bonds as life long friends and university classmates far more seriously than Americans do. When someone gets in trouble, whether legal, financial or personal, everyone is ready to pitch in to help.

H. Alexander Ivey's avatar

I appreciated your bit on the consequence of staying vs leaving a collapsing country. It gave me some enlightenment on the present situation in Sri Lanka, a country on an upward growth path before a government engineered currency crisis sharply reversed it and the middle class economic class started to leave, for America of all places!

Sorry I can't attend the NYC meet-up. But I'm interested in the manual...

Keep up the good work.

Biff Thuringer's avatar

You two are so fucking nice. I can’t compete.

Yasha Levine's avatar

No need to compete!

Biff Thuringer's avatar

I know. I’m prone to hyperbole. Still, I’m nowhere near as nice, nor as helpful … in a societal way. I help people one on one, in real life, in real time. I fail to perform at all when trapped in a room full of headstrong, opinionated humans. I leave. I might then be a sociopath…

Áine's avatar

Is there anyway to purchase the manual?