PowerSwitch

This appears to be advice from someone who has experienced the collapse of the Argentine from a 1st-ish world country to a 3rd world country.

A bit scary ... http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic25613.html

Good stuff!

Strangely enough, according to Wikipedia's page on this, one of the immediate effects of the crisis in Argentina was:

Producers of television channels were forced to produce more reality shows than any other type of shows, because these were generally cheap to produce as compared to other programmes. Virtually all education-related TV programmes were cancelled.

That sounds a bit like the telly here in the so-called 1st world, and we haven't even had the meltdown yet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentine_economic_crisis

Vortex wrote:This appears to be advice from someone who has experienced the collapse of the Argentine from a 1st-ish world country to a 3rd world country.

A bit scary ... http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic25613.html

The key message I got from that post is that you can't prepare for this alone. You need to be in a community/very near people you know well who can help you if needs be.

Interesting . . . after reading paragraph after paragraph about the best type of gun to have, right at the bottom we find out that he is one of the few people to actually have a gun user card, although he doesn't have a licence to carry one:

Carrying a gun is not common, at least for descent working people. There are parts were criminals carry their guns openly, sticking out of their joggings and no one does anything about it. No one dares mess with them, these are neighborhoods were police don?t dare to enter.

Carrying a handgun, ready for use (loaded and on your person) is illegal, unless you have a permit that is almost impossible to get. You need to own a large company, and justify carrying the gun because you transport large amounts of money (several thousands of USD on daily basis). Carrying a gun for self defense is not a reason for a carry permit, only the protection of money. It?s ridiculous, isn?t it?

Still, owning handguns is not that complicated, once you get a gun user card, but a ccw permit card is out of the question.

Some gun users still choose to carry guns, even though they don?t have a carry permit. This is not allowed and you might loose your gun user card for this.

Carrying a gun, bought in the black market, and without even having a gun user card, will take you straight to jail.

On the issue of cops and guns, some may understand that you are carrying for self defense, because you are in a very dangerous area, and if you have you gun user card that shows that you bought that gun legally, he MAY be sensitive and let you go, or not.

More than likely, he will ask for a small ?tip?, for his troubles. It?s a matter of luck actually. You have to consider all this, and decide if the risk of getting caught is greater than the risk of getting killed for not being able to defend yourself.

I read his stuff a couple of years ago, but could not make up my mind about the guy. My first impression was that he was an americanized gun-fetishist of some kind. Still cant make up my mind. The fact that a certain US subculture raise him to the skies make me even more suspicious. He give loooong rants about various guns and their features based on info you find at US websites, which indicates that he is a very lonely person, but there might be gems of knowledge between the lines in the stuff he did not intentionally emphasize.

Jury still out.

On first reading this stuff is pretty chilling. Then I was actually kinda heartened.

One thing that struck me is that being in a country that suffers economic collapse is so much worse if the general citizenary has easy access to fire arms.

Here in the UK we are simply not going to have the scale of problems that guns appear to have caused in argentina

mtb wrote:One thing that struck me is that being in a country that suffers economic collapse is so much worse if the general citizenary has easy access to fire arms.

Here in the UK we are simply not going to have the scale of problems that guns appear to have caused in argentina

The street weapon of choice here in the UK seems to be the knife.

A good set of lightweight body armour might go a long way towards providing personal security post-peak.

Andy Hunt wrote:The street weapon of choice here in the UK seems to be the knife.

A good set of lightweight body armour might go a long way towards providing personal security post-peak.

Lightweight? Naaah. The new commuter power suit will look like this:

Nah - that's just a preview of Adam's wedding costume ....
(The Archers, R4)

More seriously, take a look at this YouTube video on the effectiveness of knife combat (don't worry, it's not gruesome ... just a very effective police training video) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BThOSPk6NXk

MacG wrote:I read his stuff a couple of years ago, but could not make up my mind about the guy. My first impression was that he was an americanized gun-fetishist of some kind. Still cant make up my mind. The fact that a certain US subculture raise him to the skies make me even more suspicious. He give loooong rants about various guns and their features based on info you find at US websites, which indicates that he is a very lonely person, but there might be gems of knowledge between the lines in the stuff he did not intentionally emphasize.

Jury still out.

I know what you mean, I couldn't make up my mind about this either. But today I've been speaking at length to someone from Argentina about this post. He described to me the sorts of crimes which have been rife in certain parts of Argentina for a long time, since before the economic crisis. To be honest, it sounds like the economic crisis simply worsened what was already a bad situation. Before 2001 there were already armed gangs and no-go areas in some parts of Buenos Aires, where even the police stayed away, so if you then add to this a huge economic crisis with 5-day blackouts etc. then obviously it's going to be explosive.

On the other hand it seems that most people really pulled together during the economic crisis and there was a real community spirit with people bartering goods, food and services, chipping in to help each other out as best as they could etc.

I imagine that the blogger's account of hard times in Argentina during the crisis is authentic, but it might lack a bit of balance and perspective! I would certainly question it's relevance when it comes to predicting how the structure of society might crumble in other countries following PO.

Well I hope that post is authentic and if it is then it is defo a good read and shocking despite knowing via common sense that yes that is how life would be like. Regarding guns, I don?t like them and never owned anything other than a shot gun for use on the farm. That said I would not be na?ve people! I know and have met plenty of people that keep real nasty guns. Christ the cities are full of guns. Lots of gun crime goes un-reported in this country. I?ve worked in many English cities and have heard of people who have been shot at or had a gun pulled on them. 7 of my best friends (carpenters) are working up in Wembley and they are fed up with hearing gun shots rofl ? but its never on the news the next day. I?ve also had a gun pulled on me in a club in my younger days for simply saying to a guy, hey that?s my drink, he popped out a gun and I said ?you can have it buddy and would you like a short to go with it!? The fact of the matter is that in the UK we including the police and government do not know how many guns are out there ? one thing is for sure in a crisis we will find out and I?m guessing the fastest growing market after a crash will be the gun trade.

Its not gun ho, its not USAism, its not Rambo its life. Being in construction if I talked about different nail guns we/us would not get the same stereotypical feelings. We have all been brought up to rightly dislike the gun ? but if someone is seriously coming to kill you its has to be the second best weapon for you to have ? the first being a community. I?d rather be an active member in a community/gang that looks after all members via certain methods to deter the sorts of crime we are talking about, than have to get involved in crazed shootouts. But if things got bad here people would be looking to get a gun and I for one would like to know what would be the best one to get considering I know sweet fa about them

Plus regarding Argentina having problems before hand, well I look at that this way. Their quality of life was already lower than ours hence some community spirit must have been there for them all to get by. Hence it is less further to fall. We on the other hand could, might or will if PO grips us hard, have much further to fall. The further you fall the more irrational people become and in my views the more likely you are to get crime via both individualistic means and gang/mob culture. If we had to endure this kind of fall I think it would be far worst here!

Plus regarding the Americanisms, one thing I learnt from travelling is that people who speak English as a second language either learn American or UK English and that leads people to assume certain traits because that person did not learn the same English as you ? so we need to bare that in mind before jumping to conclusions. To me the one thing I get out of this is that this person is not gung ho but scared big time which in turn keeps him on his toes and obsessed with caution which in turn is probably keeping him alive. Imagine living in this place ? every face of people you know and strangers could be someone who is going to hurt you or your family, next time your out just count how many times you see a stranger look at you then for every number imagine feeling ?is that person going to kick off? perhaps then you get to feel what these people feel like and I?d bet hard money that you?d soon be obsessed with having your home(castle) secure and protection for when your out on the street.

We can only hope that in time, places like this force people together and communities spring up that provide all the elements for living and coping with PO with the added advantage of less fear ? after all who wants to live in a prison of fear. Plus none of us not even die hard peakniks will treat this as real untill all the supermarkets run out of food in a day and there is no more comming in - then and only then will we all look at ourselves and each other and go F**K its here f**k f**k f**k f**k f**k - and then it will hit home

I couldn't help but think about the "Argentina article" when watching this film over the Christmas period:

City Of God

Damn good film that!