hankypankee

Right, but does having a flashlight with batteries, a bit of cash on hand, and a fully charged power bank, and maybe a few days supply of bottled drinking water, make you a nutter? In my OP I already explained the difference between being one of those nutter preppers and just having the basics on hand I just mentioned above.

00 ----

Why don't you whack a photo of Elon on your bathroom mirror and pull yourself off some more? Plonker.

Imagine that major earthquake that hit Bangkok recently, which took down a high-rise building under construction and cracked hundreds of other completed tower blocks, also took down the fragile power grid in Bangkok for two weeks. How would you deal with it?

I'm really surprised at all the idiotic replies so far. Actually, I'm not that shocked given the lack of basic intelligence around here. I guess trying to fix stupid is far harder than asking somebody to charge up a power bank just in case the power goes out. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/28/spain-portugal-power-outage https://www.theverge.com/news/657017/major-blackout-spain-portugal-france-europe https://www.engadget.com/general/theres-a-massive-power-outage-cross-spain-portugal-and-parts-of-france-183025048.html https://www.wired.com/story/europe-blackout-spain-portugal-power-outage/

Sheeeesh. Do you even have one iota of a clue what’s going on in the real world, or are you just here chasing dopamine squirts from acting smug on the internet? This literally happened in Europe. In April. As in, five minutes ago in adult time. I even said that in the OP. So what is it, you can’t read, or you just can’t comprehend? It’s not a conspiracy theory. Not a tinfoil-hat doomsday fantasy. It was a real-world, documented power outage where people couldn’t charge phones, use cards, or get online. But yeah, let’s slap “paranoia” on anyone with basic situational awareness and carry on pretending everything’s invincible. Absolute genius.

I am not talking about a total collapse or global cyber war where the Russians, Chinese, Iranians, North Koreans or some other bad actor completely takes out the grid in some dystopian plot to bring the world to a halt. I’m only suggesting a temporary outage. Like the power blackout that hit parts of Spain and Portugal at the end of April. Power gone for a day, no internet, no phone charging, no digital payments. Suddenly, modern life grinds to a halt without any explanation. People who rely entirely on their phones found themselves cut off, not just from the nonsense worlds of Instagram and TikTok, but from real information, communication, even the ability to buy food because they couldn’t use digital technology to make payments. In moments like that, it’s not the end of the world, but it can feel like it if you’re not ready, especially if you don’t really know what’s happening or how long it’s going to last. Situations where you can’t charge your phone. No QR codes. No apps. No bank transfers. You can’t even pay with a physical debit or credit card. And unless you’ve got an old-school radio stashed away with batteries in it, you won’t even know what’s actually going on. It’s the kind of situation where real cash is suddenly needed again, and so is having a bit of backup power. I’m not talking about being one of those prepper nutters building fully sustained underground bunkers and hoarding ten years of canned beans. Just about common sense. Do you have a power bank of at least 20,000 milliamp with at least one full charge on it so that it could charge your phone for a few days? Do you have at least a few hundred dollar equivalent in banknotes (preferably in a mix of a few different currencies) stashed somewhere in the house in case the ATM machines stop working for a while? It’s amazing how quickly we’ve gone from “I’ll just tap my phone” to forgetting that without electricity, all of that vanishes. The truth is, most of us assume the lights will always stay on, the signal will always be there, the card machine will always work, and 99% of the time that’s true. But what if it doesn’t, just for a day or two? Can you still function? Can you buy food, get home, check on family, or even just find out TF is going on? It’s a useful reminder that for all our high-tech habits, the basics still matter. A bit of cash. A charged battery pack. A flashlight. Maybe even an old school radio with real buttons. Not because the world’s ending, but because sometimes, sh*t can happen and it’s nice to be able to keep going when it does.

Well, we might be lost, literally. Without digital micro-maps in our pockets, travel would suddenly require more planning. Good, or bad? Personal finance would also slow down. No more instant digital payments or transferring money in seconds. Access to information would feel like going from the Autobahn to a traffic packed soi. We’d need to think, ask, remember, and not know things right away. How novel. And what about the form of our lives? We wouldn’t be glued to curated feeds and algorithmic chosen drivel. Social media would still exist, but only on computers, not a 24-hour drip. The need for some people to perform constantly, feed the machine, to compare, to doom scroll for validation or outrage, that would be gone. Lovely idea. Conversations might return to being natural, unshared, and unfiltered. Friendships could grow again in the absence of likes and shares, measured again by time spent together rather than digital pings. And what about news? The world would still be on fire, but maybe we wouldn’t be forced to watch it burn in real time. The doom cycle, the fear economy of headlines and push notifications, could lose some of its grip. Brilliant! We might read the paper again, watch the news occasionally, and then go about our lives, instead of being caught in an endless scroll of outrage, anxiety, and distraction. Would we feel less informed, or simply less bombarded? And the final question: what would we do with all that free time? Without the quick dopamine squirts and constant mental clutter, would we write more, talk more, think more? We could suddenly meet up with people more often again and maybe we’d get bored enough to become more interesting people ourselves. Yeah, we’d lose a few things. But maybe we’d find a few things too. A different kind of connection to the world. A slower rhythm. A real version of ourselves with a little more space to breathe.

What about personal investment consultant or wealth manager?

A.K.A Begpackers. That's a great grift angle. Infinitely shameless, but so many angles to it. The money needed for a plane ticket home was a popular grift for a while.

They will put absolutely anything in the Wabe for you in Sebb-Benn in Thailand. Not in Jay-Pan though.

Not a bearded walnut?

Lol, absolutely hilarious, grown, middle-aged men foaming at the mouth over whose wife or girlfriend is hotter. This is grammar school playground nonsense, like trading insults over whose mum packs the better lunch. You genuinely couldn’t script this level of pathetic. It’s like watching a group of toddlers in suits slap-fighting over who’s got the shinier toy. Embarrassing doesn’t even begin to cover it.

Thai people smile at me all day long. Nonstop smiling. So much smiling. Smiling, the likes of which the world has never seen before. There is so much smiling I'm even getting tired of all the smiling. I've never seem so much smiling before. Everyone tells me that Thais are great smilers and that they smile a lot. Even the best people say they are terrific smilers. Too much smiling. What is wrong with you? Smile a little, please.

Thai women always want to sit on my face. Maybe it's because you are "The Ugly"?

Not all of your posts are that way. Only 99.9999999%.

And still mopping floors and cleaning public toilets? God bless you!

Many of these guys who believe it's something wonderful probably never had the opportunity to experience it back in the 80s or 90s when it really was something fun. Now it's just a mockery of what it used to be. Guards and security gates at the entrance. The whole place is now just a rip-off and a joke.

Best way to clear a street in Thailand, organize a book drop. 😆

Sure, no limits. Just a question of preferences.

Who? Is that you Vlad?

Weed or booze? Women or ladyboys? Thai food, Western food or healthy eating? Fresh markets or supermarkets? City life or rural living? Traditional massage, happy endings, or none? Street food, restaurants or eat at home? Public transport, taxis, or your own transport? Malls or online shopping? Me: Weed, women, healthy eating, supermarkets, city life, no massages, eat at home, my own transport, online shopping. Go!

Still a very weak hypothetical. You’re basically just describing a system malfunction, and malfunctions happen all the time with all kinds of equipment. By your logic, nuclear missiles could randomly fire themselves, or a radar glitch could simulate incoming warheads and trigger an automated retaliatory strike based on a false positive. Yes, these scenarios are technically possible, but they don’t require AI. Those risks already exist and have for decades. But here’s the key point, catastrophic outcomes like that don’t happen from a single failure. They require a sequence of malfunctions and breakdowns across multiple systems. That’s why these systems are built with multiple layers of checks and safeguards. Your doomsday scenario hinges on the assumption that AI would be granted total, unchecked control over some form of high-stakes systems, and that’s a massive leap. I don’t see that happening. Even if AI were involved, any serious action would still require multiple steps and redundancies. It wouldn’t be left up to a single system acting on its own. Honestly, you come across more like someone drawn to worst-case fantasies than someone grounded in logic or real-world understanding.

There’s no actual basis for your ominous fear-mongering. If you want to change anyone’s opinion, you need to offer something substantive, not just your own paranoia dressed up as prophecy. But I realize you can’t. Not because I’m dismissing your opinion out of hand, but because there’s simply nothing factual to support these grandiose, Mad Max-style dystopian fantasies you keep pushing. As I’ve already explained, you’re looking in the wrong place. The computer sitting on your desk isn’t going to end the world. The real threat isn’t AI, it’s Mother Nature and the very real weapons of mass destruction controlled by unhinged world leaders. Those are the tangibles, the actual risks. But instead, you’re fixated on the intangible. Maybe because dystopian fantasies are more exciting, but let’s be honest, they’re also far less realistic. So if you want to be taken seriously with your tropes like ‘before it’s too late’ and ‘I see further now,’ then drop the theatrics and start backing it up with something real. Put some actual meat on the bone.

What topic? Your childish, cackling emojis? You're boring. Bye.