bluemoon

Well I do have YouTube videos set to autoplay at double speed but that's due to time saving rather than attention span. A 20 minute tutorial is very time consuming so if I can slash that time in half, I will.

I can certainly see strategic and polite uses for CCTV. Doorbell cameras are a stupid strategy and very impolite. I was in Currys today and looking over the home security section, reading some of the features of various items. I think the sheep consumers just like their toys, combined with being unhealthily obsessed with safety & authority.

In my view this ties in with the reasons people have doorbell cameras these days or CCTV outside their house as though they're a supermarket. Even road users have cameras including those obnoxious cyclists with stupid GoPros on their head, ready to record and report anyone who pisses them off. All these cameras give the illusion of security but why do they feel they need for security? It's because 1) we're constantly being told to live in fear of the next big threat, and 2) we're indeed turning into a 3rd world country with 3rd world crimes on the rise. The semi-amusing thing is crime is rising in spite of the cameras. Criminals won't stop just because people put up these placebo cameras which their consumerism made them think their new toy will keep them safe. It's the same with digital payments. Hacking of bank or PayPal accounts happens with monotonous regularity. Then of course there is the easy theft of digital payments by the governments either through taxation or inflation. Businesses are still safer off using cash and saving more money that way. P.S. I saw a till worker in Boots wearing a bodycam the other day which I thought was rude, and then there are the self-service machines at Tesco which display your face up close. Surely any thief would walk out of the shop with their loot without coming to the self service machine in the first place? But it's us who actually pay, who get our faces filmed up close. I always cover the cameras with my glove. Wish I could have done that to that mare's bodycam too, but that would have intruded on her personal space. Went off on a tangent towards the end but hey this is the random rant thread! I do want to slap those Go-Pro cyclists though, they're just looking to start trouble!

Any of them not requiring ID from you if buying a couple of Sovs in cash? There are a couple in London like that but don't know about the Hatton Garden ones.

What happened in the end?

Forgive my ignorance but are HGM the same as Bairds or is is just coincidence that Bairds are in Hatton Garden?

I had a similar post all written out last Thursday then decided against posting it because I didn't want to be the miserable git spoiling the party! But now that you've given me cover, we can do a little crossfire... Yes the hype I'm seeing in public is familiar to the last bubble. The optimism on this forum reminds me of the Kitco forums when I was on there after the 2011 bubble burst. There was huge anguish and despair from people who bought at the top and were losing their money. I even remember one thread title on there that was "AAAGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!" - That's how painful it is to lose money after you jumped on the bandwagon. I've seen this sheepy FOMOness not only in silver in 2011 but also twice in Bitcoin's 2 bubbles so far. Lesson here is be sensible, don't celebrate and don't have visions of buying a mansion just yet. Keep making money and putting it into the gold safe haven using cost averaging. I'll get my coat!

Watches, art, jewellery are also assets to keep outside the system. Wine too. Lots of things actually.

Bitcoin rallies even if you happen to fart in it's direction, I'm not sure it's to do with the fiat collapse, the gold rally is definitely more connected. I echo @flyingveepixie's comments RE: the sheep, some are taking notice but just a few official looking press conferences from Downing Street telling them it's all under control will convince them to leave their bank balances where it is.

If the rule of thumb is to go against sentiment, the sentiment is very bullish. YouTube pumpers are mega-hypey right now, talking like the Bitcoin YouTubers from a couple of years ago... even the sheep in public are taking notice. Even though I bought, I woudn't be surprised if the shorters come in soon and leave a bloodbath.

Yes it does look overbought from a technical perspective. I bought today anyway. Even if it dips from here, it still won't be as bad as 12% inflation per year like fiat is doing.

Jokes aside it's a fair point. How easy will it be to sell Britannias on this forum when they're £3,000? I wonder how many people here manage to shift gold 100g bars.

I bought. Even if it goes down, 1) It will be offset by my previous purchases over the years which are well up. 2) Any downturn is always temporary when it comes to gold. The high prices stung, but at least I'm in now and got that cowpat fiat out of the system.

I was going to buy last week just before this spike happened, since then I've been waiting for another dip. At this point I should probably just buy. Today's high prices may be next month's dip, so I may as well just get it and be done. If it dips now then whatever, it will come back up eventually. Not what I normally do though, I don't like being rushed!

It's the banks bailing all of US out, obviously!

Forgive me for being the miserable sod in the room but I don't actually care about new highs, only insofar that it's protecting the purchasing power of what we have. We won't get rich with these ATHs, we can play with bitcoin if we want to do that. That said, I am happy that I'm up on my purchases over the years. Rather bummed that this spike has happened now just as I was preparing to do some more buying. We can't have everything I guess. Will wait a bit.

You could just buy gold with it now? Just a thought.

Hope it's not a long queue for you, that would be scary.

With the sentiment here calling gold to go up, is that not a sign that it will go down?

Or Elon.

flyingveepixie has the right approach. You can also pay those bills at the Post Office in cash.

It's been quite liberating for me since I switched about 4 years ago. I took an existing Android phone like Google Pixel then installed GrapheneOS over it. GrapheneOS is an Android operating system but non-Google. There are others like LineageOS or Brax2. Android is it's own system, people confuse it for being Google itself but it's not. If installing GrapheneOS replacing your Google Android is too technical then you can buy it pre-installed on eBay or get a phone shop to do it. There are YouTube tutorials too. From there it's just choosing the right apps. I don't use Whatsapp because it's tracking your contacts, location, profile picture and running that all through its Facebook ecosystem. I use Signal Messenger which works exactly the same way but is open source so users can know it's fully private and doesn't do any tracking. A VPN is the last main protection. It just makes sure your ISP can't see what apps you're using or what sites you visit. ProtonVPN's free version will do. If you wanted to cut all ties (I don't do this), you can pull out the SIM card and use only Signal Messenger for calls and texts. But I'm not on the run lol.

Well again, the existing infrastructures are the reasons to not want CBDCs, because we see how it is abused (Canada truckers for example). I think your argument is that the existing infrastructure is therefore a gateway to something similar, but that is the slippery slope fallacy. Smartphones can be very private actually, even more private than dumbphones. GrapheneOS with private apps like Signal Messenger. It's only Google Android and iPhones that are bad. People equate them with all smartphones only because they are the 2 mainstream ones. Smartphones do not mean no privacy.

You think we don't want the bank tracking to be reversed too? That's precisely why we don't want CBDCs either.

It sure did in 2008, dropped about 30% I think.