Hoarding behavior and nCoV

Cognitive dissonance is when people hold conflicting opinions which they cannot resolve.

Cognitive Dissonance explained

The vast majority of the public agrees that panic buying is deplorable behavior --in other people.

I cannot find the video of the experiment where you have 4 people sit around a table. on the table is a basket into which a researcher places a dollar every second. after after 4 seconds, he places 2 dollars each time. after another 4 seconds, it goes up to 3 dollars & etc. The players go around the table, each person allowed to take money out of the basket. If the basket ever gets completely empty, the researcher stops putting money in it.

It's an interesting experiment because, even when not allowed to speak, the players will make an unspoken agreement to share the money. While the stakes are low, all the players will wait until a considerable amount of money is piled up. Then they will switch to everyone taking money in an orderly fashion, but talking less than the researcher is obviously putting in.

But there comes a tipping point, when one player gets a visibly big mess of bills, and the basket is obviously about empty. Then everyone reaches in and grabs, regardless of whose turn it is.

To make a short story long, people are philanthropic when the stakes are low, and switch to selfishness when they fear they will lose out.

This is why lecturing hoarders is such a waste of time; doing so merely increases the cognitive dissonance, and makes them more furtive, and more convinced of the rightness of their cause.

I think hoarding should be treated as an illness, a lack of courage, even; but not vilified. Mocking hoarders only convinces them that they are right.

+++++++

So, I'm saying that modern people are not less moral than the greatest generation was. I'm simply saying that we have replaced the sense of community with a sense of mass culture. People today do not believe that the government or the community will take of them in a crisis, and that they are fundamentally on their own.

from this standpoint, hoarding is simply a loss of trust in the group.

So why hoard toilet paper?

CoViD is not a disease spread by unwiped bottoms.

I believe what happens is, Joe Schmoe walks into the grocery, and knows its too late to do any prepping. What would he buy anyway. Frozen food won't keep, and the freezer is already full of stuff the family doesn't want to eat. milk will only last a few days...

Joe Schmoe wants to BUY something (how we solve all our problems). It needs to not be refrigerated, and not go bad sitting on the shelf..... Not rice or beans, he doesn't know how to cook....

hmm. Toilet paper!

Even if he doesn't really need it, it REPRESENTS him doing something about the crisis. Him not being a victim; not waiting passively for the authorities to tell him what to do. And if he buys a mountain of it, it shows that he is clever and thinking ahead.

Bah, those types wont last long if things get real sporty. Me? I'll be just fine....I hear piracy is making a comeback, I even have the eye patch and wooden leg.

a reply to: Graysen

People wouldn't have to horde crap if they already had the essentials they needed stored at home. People who only keep a week's worth of food at their house are a bit dim in my opinion.

You should always have a couple of months worth of food, toilet paper, etc. on hand in the event of an emergency.

well, if you stock food in your house in rotation to cover multiple events, even stuff like snowstorms blocking roads, that is considered hoarding by some. I guess the people screaming hoarding believe everyone should be equally unprepared when something happens. Just think how quick the shelves would be depleted if nobody stocked food for emergencies. It is those who are totally unprepared that cause the problem with stores being depleted of foods and supplies when something happens, not the people who have their food pantries stocked.

a reply to: Graysen

Doctor: I'm sorry, but you have the corona virus.

Patient: But that's impossible Doctor, I have 300 rolls of toilet paper.

a reply to: rickymouse

Yeah no doubt.

So, If I bought 200 cans of Campbell's chunky soup because Kroger had them on a super sale for 79 cents last year and I stockpiled then so I wouldn't have to pay $1.50 or a $1.99 later, what do they consider that? I call that smart shopping.

I live rural enough that we only get mail about twice a week in winter.

"Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds"

It's the second freaking word!!!!!

They and amazon will not deliver unless there is no snow anywhere near the mailbox out by the road. Amazon won't pull down my driveway unless it AND my front porch are clear of snow. Which means.... June.

Living like this, you HAVE to have multiple freezers in the garage. My house is old, and the only way to heat the basement is the Woodstove. There's a propane central furnace, but only the 2nd floor ever gets warm.

I think both groceries that serve my area, even though they are competing chains, buy from the same supplier. If the strawberries are moldy at one store, they re moldy at all the stores.


So a lot of my neighbors and I have chickens. I only have enough to make eggs for all the kids living with us. But all the neighbors produce like, 12 dozen extra eggs a day. My oldest wanted to sell them out by the highway, figured he'd sell them for 5$ a dozen and keep the dollar profit. All the neighbors told him they weren't selling to the public right now, just to friends on a pre-order basis. Which tells me they fear "the public" knowing where the food is. And they don't need the extra dollars right now...

Everyone is calling is Covid-19, is there a reason you've given it a different name?

a reply to: Graysen

originally posted by: hombero
Everyone is calling is Covid-19, is there a reason you've given it a different name?

a reply to: Graysen

Covid-19 short for Co[rona] Vi[rus] D[isease] -[20]19. Coronavirus is a whole category of viruses. and probably 5 dozen were discovered in 2019. and the "disease" doesn't mean the virus itself---it means the sickness caused by the virus. So you could actually have stringy mucous caused by streptococcus pneumoniae, and it is still "covid" because it is un-wellness ("dis-ease") whose ultimate cause was that Chinese virus...

nCoV just means "novel corona virus" as an acknowledgement that there may be multiple strains of Chinese coronavirus causing people to get sick, without speculating that they are all the same strain. nCoV refers to the virus itself, and not the sickness (disease) it leaves in its wake.

"Covid-19" is the name approved by the communist Chinese government, to remove the stigma of having been the origin point of the disease, while giving their scientists credit for having identified it back in 2019.

This is ats, even I have a few kgs of rice and tomatoes in cans should I need to share.
Think I believe this crap and not prepare for this crap

I am considered as nutty as squirrel poo, yeah, but I have a few nuts put away

Stupid thread on ats, stupid stupid thread.
I pray things are ok but prepared for the worst, family, friends and neighbors

I agree, panic buying , yes
Panic buying is stupid. Being prepared, not so much
I am, reasonably prepared, no panic that’s why it’s called prepared

a reply to: Graysen

So, my wife and I had to go shopping the other day. We tried to buy enough so we wouldn't have to go back for a couple of weeks.

Is that hording? Or is it just trying to obey the shelter in place guidelines

Our next outing will not be for a bit so we will have more feedback on how the shelter in place is working in our area. When we do shop again, I'm sure we will purchase more than usual. Hording? Being safe ?

I don't really know

a reply to: Wildbob77


Looting versus Finding in the wake of Hurricane Katrina

Remember photos like these in the press, following hurricane Katrina. Basically, the photos showed white people "finding" bread and soda. Black people were shown "looting" flooded stores.

I think it's hoarding when progressives see conservatives doing it.

It's prepping conservatives observe it.

It's definitely hoarding when it's stuff I don't want/can't use.

Tampons? Hoarding

condoms? prepping.

See, it's easy.

porn = prepping

pickled beets: hoarding.


now you play it.

The greatest generation had stocks of food and supplies at home because they had people around them that were afraid of another depression.

We have gotten fat and lazy in the land of plenty, dependent on the govt to fix things, they were dependent on the church and each other.

Funny thing is as a prepper I am being called a hoarder ( by default)when my food stocks have not changed much in years and when things started looking sketchy I bought a normal load of stuff and didnt need one ounce more than normal replacement of things my family used.

a reply to: Graysen

Meh. One man's hoarding is another's stocking up.

Now, I agree, 50 48-roll packages of TP might be a bit excessive, but in a end of the world scenario, which is what many of these folks have been told it is...well, TP along with many another item could become as good as gold--maybe even better.

Barter is the key to survival in an end of the world as we know it. A few rolls of TP for a candle or two, or half a dozen eggs, etc...

No, I didn't go out and buy 50 48-roll packages of TP....

a reply to: Irishhaf

Same.

I have about as much stuff as I had a year ago... and the year before that... and the year before that.

I might have some really expired cans down there I may need to get rid of though.

a reply to: Graysen

Excellent point, nCoV.

You're right about Covid-19 and thus who payrolls the WHO.

Excellent article: Why We Hoard When We're Scared

Johnny Carson caused a run on toilet paper in 1973 when he told an opening joke about it during the oil embargo...

As to "greatest generation"

They had strict rationing here in US - My grandparents were farmers so did better than most with higher ration amounts fuel, sugar, meats etc.

Just bought preps? maybe part of the problem.

Had preps prior - good on you for not being the problem.

Hopefully some other than the envious or worse can see the wisdom of some personal responsibility and planning.

a reply to: Phoenix

I've got pictures of grandad in his "Victory Garden", an unused city lot in Chicago in the middle of WW2.

Just changed my avatar to a pic of a series of campaign posters against hoarding, for ration books and for victory gardens from the time period.

My cousins and I found a stack of ration books in grandads attic. I shudder to think that we licked all the stamps and stuck 'em in the books---we thought they were greenstamps!

they'd be worth an absolute fortune, now.

originally posted by: Wildbob77
a reply to: Graysen

So, my wife and I had to go shopping the other day. We tried to buy enough so we wouldn't have to go back for a couple of weeks.

Is that hording? Or is it just trying to obey the shelter in place guidelines

No that is not hoarding. That is what a person should do to avoid as many trips to the store as possible. What you should not do is go every two weeks and by a months supply of food. Hopefully you have been putting a little food and supplies back here and there in the past.

I think the people complaining the most are the ill-prepared.

Our next outing will not be for a bit so we will have more feedback on how the shelter in place is working in our area. When we do shop again, I'm sure we will purchase more than usual. Hording? Being safe ?

I don't really know