General Talk!!

[Shadow.97]

Only thing left for me to say i think is good luck, and i hope it turns out well/somewhat well. Also i am not afraid of not being able to get food if something like this happens, maybe if it happens on a winter because it is too hard to prepare (roads blocked with snow etc, i think we would move to our summer house because there are massive farm lands there which is being used and if something happens i am sure they would let us use some of it. If it happens were i live now i see a slim chance of survival.)

[humbert]

I said once the end of hunger is in plain sight. It's eating edible insects. I am not kidding! The class Insecta comprises about 75% of all animals on this planet. Insects are resilient, can be easily raised for food and reproduce like wildfire. They are packed with proteins plus all kinds of beneficial ingredients. And believe or not, they are tasty!

Once on a business trip to the city of Bucaramanga near the Colombia-Venezuela border (see map), I found out that people eat a specie of ant that lives there. They raise the ants in farms, fry them, add some salt and bag them for sale. In a reunion with friends and after drinking about 3 beers, they asked me to taste the ants. Not only was I a little drunk, I also believed they were kidding, so I did exactly that. The ants were so delicious that I also ate another full bag they had! I wish I had a bag right now as I type this. Oh, and no indigestion, diarrhea nor any other health problems.

When I brought them back to Miami, you cannot begin to believe how hard it was to so much as get anyone to even taste them! I told one guy they were pretzels and everything was OK, he ate them perfectly. When I told him the truth, he almost vomited!! If this is bad with the guys, with the women it's infinitely worse! I approached the secretary and asked her to taste some 'peanuts'. She immediately responded, "oh no! I'm not eating those cockroaches you like". Only one guy who thinks a little like me said "get me a bag". When I did, he loved them!

When will people get over all this and decide to end hunger once and for all?

[Daniil]

@humbert
Are you watch alot of Discovery channel and follow Bear Grills?  BTW, ants really can be tasty i think. All of us had eat shrimps, ants isn't far from them.

As for food - well, there isn't in fact a hunger problem - only a problem of incorrect distribution and bad managing of nature resources. IMHO. Planet can give food for twice more peoples than now presents, even without eating insects.

As for eat insects in a wild nature - I think that it's ineffective way for earning food. In a wild nature you'll tired to harvest ants - they're little but they're fast! But in a middle-climate forests and a taiga like here around St.Petersburg if you knows just a little, you'll never be hunger. At summer it's a lot of mushrooms and berries, you're always can find a pines and make a milk from them, at winter you can hunt a birds (big animals is difficult to hunt), it's many berries and nuts under snow, it's a lot of other ways to find food for clever man.

Also I can say that comrade scarface isn't fully wrong. It's wisely to have a "backup base" somewhere at countryside, if - IF! - a country is in danger of civil war or an enemy invasion. Here in Russia is a lot of a books about how to hide, IF...
But there is some impotant things to know (IMHO).
1) Such hiding place must be prepared BEFORE troubles. When troubles comes "it's late to drink Borjomi"...
2) That hiding place must be exactly "backup base", not a "house for wait till bad times ends". Bad times will not end, don't think that all is such easy! 
3) Practical experience shows, that:
--a) When you alone you have no chances. And if you try to hide alone, you'll loose. Join the resistance, form a guerilla, f**k the badasses. (Damn, that's a russian trouble - we almost lost our ability to join in front of a problems... )
--b) Money and knowledges is the best defence and weapon.

In the other cases all words about "A-a-aw! We're all die! Hide fast, dig into a country hill, duck and cover!" is just an empty, foolish panic. Also, all of us will die sooner or later, so it's fool to fear a death.

[scarface]

check this video with the world expert Mosaddeq Ahmed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkrEzD2nmNE
He's speaking of crisis of civilization. But I think he doesnt insist enough on the demographic problem that is essential for me. And for those who speak french, a video with perhaps the best french expert, michel drac: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvDQY8QdDo8
He explains there are multiple crisis: crisis of meaning and ecological crisis. The consequence is there will be no choice possible, there will be a dictature. The only hope is war is not certain, but he personnaly has few illusion.

[Daniil]

For me, dear comrade, they aren't experts. I don't load my mind by a questions of a world-scale - this prevents me from working for my main targets. Yes ofcourse, we must remember that there's some crisises in a world, but thinking about it all the time isn't wisely. Joseph Stalin often said: "Begin to deal with a problem only when problem comes really in front of you."

So, don't panic. We'll break trough.

[humbert]

@Daniil - you are certainly correct in saying that shrimp aren't too different from innsects. What boggles the mind is why they're considered delicacies and yet their land cousins are hated by so many people. You're also correct when you refer to bad distribution of food. One thing that makes me sick is to watch on the news people starving due either to a famine or a natural disaster while in that same place there are tons of food sent by countries who want to help, just sitting there and rotting in the heat. Another thing that happens is that the guards steal that donated food and try to sell it.

You gotta keep in mind that eating insects isn't just going to a tropical jungle and munching on anything that moves. Not all species of insects are edible, and many are toxic. Also, you don't eat them raw any more than you eat raw shrimp. They have to be prepared, cooked and spiced first. Also, they're every easy to raise due to the fact that they're very tough, will eat just about anything and reproduce like fire.

I haven't viewed the video Scarface mentioned because it's a little too long and it's in French. I do know that, if you look at your history, you'll see the 21st century has so far been the best of times. Certainly not perfect, but far better than at least 5 milenia that came before. As for Stalin's logic, I ask myself if this was the reason Russia was totally unprepared for Operation Barbarossa. Didn't he totally ignore warnings from the NKVD that an invasion would happen on June 21, 1941 as 02:00?

[Daniil]

Our dear scarface is just frightened a bit. That's can be sometimes with peoples who have a troubles in their live. Don't be afraid all will be fine.

@humbert
Yes, you are correct. As for food distribution, I means just the same that you said.
Very important thing of using insects as food is that, as you correctly said, they can eat any crap and reproduced with enormus speed. It would be interesting to calculate an economical parameters of growing an ants for food.

As for Stalin logic - no, I don't think so. Stalin had preparing for war, but for advance, for fast war from Poland to Atlantic. Maybe he didn't know exact date of hit, maybe something else. Maybe in intelligence service information was stuck... Maybe not but... When large army (and it was largest ever - I means EVER, it was about 7 millions!) is ready for attack, you can't do anything when you get info about counterattack on 3-4 hours before it starts... Anyway, it's dark matter, I think we'll never know the truth.
Also, our NKVD mostly not worked with intellegence, it's internal force, like FBI. With intellegence works GRU (it's like CIA).

[humbert]

Daniil - as for insects eating crap, you gotta remember that anything that can be metabolized and used is not crap. Also, these guys know perfectly what they can and cannot eat. For example, I read once that cockroaches will eat just about anything, but not cucumbers! They'd rather starve than eat it.

Any plant or animal that can be easily fed, housed and reproduce like fire will make an awesome food source.

I heard a lot about the NKVD but I've never heard of the GRU. What do the initials stand for? Was the KGB also an internal police force or was it involved in espionage too?

Unless the History Channel's facts are in error, Stalin knew well in advance about Operation Barbarossa. It even says the GRU had spies inside the German embassy in Tokyo who found out and told Stalin, but Stalin chose not to believe them. The TV even showed a memo delivered to Stalin with the information and all he did was take his pen and write all kinds of garbage over it.

I also didn't know Stalin had been planning some sort of war to go all the way to the English Channel. I heard he was still in the process of rebuilding the army after the disastrous purges of the 1930's. Look at how badly they did against Finland in 1939.

And yes, an massive attack with a few hours warning is no different than a complete surprise attack. This is what Israel experienced in 1973.

[scarface]

I only posted one video in french. the video of mosaddeq ahmed is in english. To Daniil, I dont think I'm crazy and problems in my life are not interfering with what I think. We are too many and problems are looming, We just have to read the news to see them. In Egypt Ive just read there are riots and some killed. Well ok, then its a normal situation. The viking of the groenland probably thought things would go well, but they are dead like many civilisations, so saying everything will be smooth is just a way to deny the problems.

[humbert]

I forgot to ask you last time - if you don't mind telling us, what kind of problem do you have personally that could possibly result in you not being here a few months down the road? Did you say it was economic?

For whatever it's worth, I too am looking at a major economic problem some 6 months from now which I still have no clue as to how to begin to address it. Oh well, I guess worrying won't help. Let's see what transpires in the next few months.