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One of the really awesome things about Ukraine is there's a strong libertarian feel to it. If you're not harming anyone else, people tend to let you do what you want with little red tape.

Case in point: two different businesses were able to do rope jumping from this pedestrian bridge in the middle of Kyiv. They're doing it out in the open, no permits, right in front of soldiers in a defensive post guarding the bridge.

Another example is the Urbex tours a few companies run. I'm not sure how much is going on during the full scale war. But just prior I was able to go on one, paid, tour through cold war era bunkers and tunnels all around Kyiv. The guy running it didn't have any formal permits or anything. Though I suspect that one isn't possible anymore, because those bunkers are probably getting used by the military again...

Of course, buying and selling Bitcoin is easy to do here without any AML/KYC. Currency exchange in general is easy to do everywhere, without any AML/KYC or forms to fill.

https://video.nostr.build/79b849c79cffbbdbdbb7540bb30a3052f2c384a9470be17499ce7b1dce889e31.mp4

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Discussion

Peter Todd 1y ago

Unsurprisingly, Ukraine still let's businesses use plastic straws and plastic bags, and no-one cares if you're recycling or not. And the plastic caps on bottles are still removable!

Peter Todd 1y ago

Due to airstrikes on the electricity grid, power outages are relatively common. This has lead to literally every business buying generators.

In other countries, putting a generator on a sidewalk outside your business would have taken months of red tape. Not here.

Tobo⚡ 1y ago

In Vienna, I’m unable to install an air conditioner that hangs out of my window, so I’m forced to endure unbearable temperatures of 30 degrees Celsius in my apartment during the summer months.

Peter Todd 1y ago

Every unit in the apartment building my Airbnb is in has an air conditioner outside. And no-one is stopping you from fixing it by crawling on top of it 10 floors above the ground!

Constantin 1y ago

You must live in an old building. My understanding is that you can't put the external unit on the facade. I live in a new building and we have floor cooling. I didn't expect it to be enough, but it's amazing.

Tobo⚡ 1y ago

Floor cooling systems provide only a limited temperature range adjustment, typically a few degrees, compared to a standard wall-mounted air conditioner.

Vienna is an old city, with many buildings dating back centuries. However, this should not be used as an excuse. AC should come as standard like in the US.

Peter Todd 1y ago

Yup. Floor cooling can't remove humidity, so if you are in a relatively wet climate like Europe if you need to reduce the temperature more than a few degrees you'd end up with wet floors.

Constantin 1y ago

I'm trying to say that in Vienna I found it to be (surprisingly) more than enough.

Constantin 1y ago

Ukraine proved that decentralisation works in energy too.

Peter Todd 1y ago

I wouldn't say that. Those generators are quite expensive to run. Businesses turn them off whenever grid power is available, which at the moment is 100% of the time (in late August and early Sept Russia spent ~$1 billion on missiles and drones attacking energy infrastructure, but Ukraine has managed to mitigate that attack since then; Kyiv hasn't had a power outage for about 2 weeks).

It's also notable that Ukrainians aren't responding to this by installing solar on a large scale. In this climate it's just too expensive for not that much power. There is a bit of solar. But it's pretty minimal. Wind isn't being installed either.

Tobo⚡ 1y ago

They need energy that works, not energy that gets you Wokeness Points.

Nuclear and Hydro(carbons) rule the world.

ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ᴍʟᴇᴋᴜ 1y ago

not to mention stupid politicians trying to reclaim territory for a nation that did not exist until the bolsheviks manufactured it (it's called ukraine because that means "on the edge/border" lol that is not the name of a nation that's a fucking location

i think the history of the region as relates to russia goes back to when the kingdom of russia annexed it and funded the expansion of odessa, tsarina katherine, prior to that it was part of poland and romania and bulgaria and idk what other... probably was turkish at one point and probably austro/hungarian

the entire edifice of the "ukrainian language" is codification of a provincial dialect of russian, and it's not that much different to Russine which is an ethnic group found to the west in romania and serbia, and that's basically an archaic form of russian before the stupid language bullshit of the 18th and 19th century

NATO is just using these people as pawns in their scheme for bringing on armageddon and that's all there is to understand about it IMO

that's why if more of them would just go beg to the asshole countries that are backing this stupid pointless war for legitimate asylum this would be over tomorrow

honestly, we have africa flooding into europe to get free welfare payments and we have legit victims of bullshit over to the east and they aren't flooding in, what's wrong with this picture?

maybe i'm biased about all this because i've lived most of my life as a nomad and moved from one place to the next and i come from two generations of people who did this, because of world war 2, because of the indonesian war of independence, but honestly, the people who stubbornly refuse to gtfo when maniacs show up cheering on murder and destruction idk what to say about you

are you stupid? i think you might be stupid

without these people sticking around there is no war

inpc 1y ago

So the trade of with war is plastic caps on bottles?

Tough choices.

Tacitocu 🤓⚡🌍 1y ago

Is there a single EU regulation, which is not BS?

cavemanf16 1y ago

Also Ukraine: largest origination of online scammers since at least 1998. Yes, yay Libertarianism.

rafael_xmr 1y ago

I can't stop to think about the depressing fact that I live in a country that 1) never under war with anyone, 2) has zero natural disasters, 3) is the richest land on earth,

And I still live a worse, more impoverished, more dangerous, crime filled, heavily polluted and barely breathable, low quality of life, lifestyle than literal warzones

Peter Todd 1y ago

Indeed... I was in South Africa last February for a few weeks. Everywhere I went in South Africa there were daily power outages. And outside of the wealthier white areas, it's a dirty, violent, shithole. I repeatedly had locals warn me that I shouldn't go to certain places because I might get murdered.

Ukraine meanwhile, in the middle of a massive war with daily missile and drone attacks, has been able to keep the power on much more often than that, in a much colder, less sunny climate. And even in poorer parts of Ukraine you feel safe walking around and the streets are pretty clean.

South Africa's GDP/capita is $7000 USD; Ukraine's GDP/capita is $4500 USD.

Sure, Ukraine is getting outside support, including funds and materials to keep the electricity grid going. But still. WTF South Africa.

rafael_xmr 1y ago

yeah, I actually live in a remote area in Brazil so less crime and easier in the pollution but end up having the usual issues of remote countryside areas, bad internet, power outages, too few hospitals, ...

our countries, like South Africa and Brazil, and others like it, have the opposite of a money issue, the problem is no matter if infinite amounts of money come in, the people are not educated enough to know what to do. Not only by electing politicians with zero managements skills but also the people themselves do not know what to do with money, they do not know how to invest, what is entrepreneurship, so nothing progresses, zero prosperity, etc. So live like animals in the end

And your post is a good example that the people in Ukraine are continuing to building businesses even in their current situation, aka the generators or the bungee jumping, adapting and overcoming, the "libertarian feel", which drives progress in the end

zebra 1y ago

regarding bitcoin. recently there are a lot of bank regulation. if I remember clearly recently gov introduced a rule that private person don't allowed to have more than 150k uah transactions from card to card in a month.

just last year I sold 2k usd cache and put them on my card and then I recieved a call from bank and they asked me to go to the bank and explain income source.

Peter Todd 1y ago

Yup. The Ukrainian government is clearly trying to prop up the value of the hryvnia. Certainly not very libertarian of them. But that's understandable during a war that's an existential threat to the country. Currency controls are just another (indirect) form of taxation, and they have damn good reasons to be collecting taxes right now.

Bryan 1y ago

how would you describe the overall safety of Ukraine currently?

I was in Kiev 2021, and would like to go back to visit but have been hesitant due to the ongoing war.

Peter Todd 1y ago

Kyiv, Lviv, Odesa, etc. are relatively safe. There's no chance of those cities getting actually invaded anytime soon, if ever. As for air strikes, just walking around it shows that the actual chance of getting hit is relatively low: the vast majority of buildings don't have any damage from the war. Some do of course. But it's well under 1% in almost three years of full scale invasion, and even if you did happen to be in one of those buildings, more likely than not you'd be fine if you're sensible during air raids. Main thing is get under cover if you actually hear things getting shot down. Though in my experience Ukrainians in those cities almost completely ignore air raids. Eg I was having dinner once in an outdoor restaurant, and something loudly exploded relatively closely to us (~2-3kms?) a few minutes after an air raid started. Literally no-one did anything other than flinching from the loud bang.

Other cities closer to the front line are much more dangerous. Eg in the Kharkiv area, Russian forces are close enough that they're able to hunt down civilians with drones and drop grenades on them. They're straight up bragging about it publicly, and publishing the videos, apparently calling it the "human safari". And from what I hear, a lot more buildings in Kharkiv have been hit; being closer, you get a lot less notice to take cover.

I wouldn't hesitate to visit Kyiv. I'd want an actual reason to visit Kharkiv.