Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/03/13/mass-graves-are-being-dug-for.html
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The reality is we are much closer to following the Iranian model for response than the SK or Singapore model. Welcome to the era of mass graves. Won’t be only Iran, unfortunately.
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The cart’s a comin’
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The only positive here is that at least they are disposing of the dead, and let’s not forget that a global pandemic is a great way to hide a deadly purge of those nasty anti gov. dissidents.
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Jesus. 
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Iran following China’s lead.
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This tweet was in reply to a different article, but it also works here:
Iran’s medical resources are limited primarily by the fact that the largest empire in the world has spent the last half-century in a constant effort to collapse their economy. Iran is currently suffering under murderous US sanctions that were reimposed with broad bipartisan support over the objections of most of the world.
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Dear BoingBoing,
I appreciate being kept up-to-date with the coronavirus news and its knock-on effects, I really do. But could we also have more stupid criminal stories, talking animal videos, and unicorn chasers to help soothe some of this anxiety?
[joke]
I’d go get a hug from my wife, but she’s been practicing social distancing on me for a few years now.
[/joke]
Sincerely,
Adrenaline, Cortisol, and Norepinephrine
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This is horrific. My heart goes out to the Iranian people.
I do wonder if this leads to some larger percentage of the working class, rural, and more religious oriented people having more hostile views towards the government… it’s my understand the split on support for the regime breaks down along those lines, with middle and upper class urban Iranians more likely to disapprove of the regime, while people in the rural areas, or people who are working class and more religious approving.
That’s true, and the government could very much turn this to their advantage, as they were able to rally popular support after the assassination of of Suleimani… but if the people decide that the government bears responsibility for the depth of the outbreak (in part because representatives of the government were acting as if it was not a problem, prior to government officials getting sick), they will have a harder time controlling the narrative. Most likely, I think your average Iranian will blame both western imperialism and the government, as I think both bear responsibility for this.
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That’s just a clusterfuck waiting to happen, isn’t it?
Fuck.
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I think all of this is exposing the weaknesses of modern governance, no matter what the flavor. whether we live in a so-called democracy, theocracy, constitutional monarchy, social democracy, or dictatorship, they are all being shown to be failing us now, as human beings. The experiment of mass society under a capitalist economy is just not working, and it’s taking every other system with it, as it fails (all those attempts to provide an alternative modernity, I mean, like Iran).
I think it might be time to ask if modernity, writ large, is a workable solution to our human needs, and what will come after. My hope is that we can possibly live through it, come away with some key lessons about how to structure a society, and build something better, no matter how bad things are getting right now.
This feels very Rick Grimes to say for some reason (from the Walking Dead comic, not necessarily the show). Or very Federationy… 
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I agree. It’s not even essentially capitalism to blame here, as much as the idea of a mass produced lifestyle.
When life becomes a series of boxes, then conformity is what must be rewarded. Self-actualizing is not really on the menu, since self actualized people won’t constantly buy the next new thing.
(Notice how the next new thing is never really an improvement over the last old thing, its like one of those audio illusions where the pitch seems to be rising endlessly)
I believe the only sustainable way forward is to move past the aesthetics of mass production, and aggressively develop a bespoke future. Neal Stephenson’s Diamond Age still holds up as a model for what that could feel like.
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Update: Turns out that most of the ones going onto the mass graves died in toilet paper stampedes.
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This. If an instrument came out tomorrow from one of the primary countries (other than China) that produces biotechnology, it would be illegal to sell it to Iran because of sanctions. If a vaccine was developed next week, it would be illegal to sell it to Iran.
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Sanctions are so much better than violent solutions.
/S
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in other news the president of the united states, who is likely infected because others in his delegation are now testing positive, just shook hands and breathed on the top major retail seos of the entire country
oh and also the entire task force
oh and walmart and walgreens parking lots are now going to be ground zero for millions of infected people going to get tested, have fun shopping
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Company I work for is encouraging work from home across the board. If we need to meet we have slack and webex. You’d think that the US Government would be set up for this sort of thing.
There are huge advantages in just letting people stay home.
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I guess I have to go back to that quote: “democracy is the worst possible system; except every other one we’ve tried.”
What, exactly are you proposing? What system do you have in mind that can scale up to 7+ billion humans? Are you saying we should just die back to 100 million or so, so that we can reject modernity and adopt… what? Global hunter-gatherer society?
Do you think that our current system is working? Because it’s obviously not working by any humane metric. Anyone who is about more than hoarding wealth SHOULD be able to see that. If you can’t then open your eyes to your fellow human being and the suffering they are enduring because of our current system.
And it’s not on ME to have a complete plan of action. Go out and read people who have proposed plans of action, and maybe come up with something of your own to contribute. It’s not up to ONE person to do that and it’s unfair of YOU to expect ME to have all the answers to an incredibly complex GLOBAL problem. Who do you think I am, Jesus Christ?
You have a mind of your own, you can contribute to something new. Don’t depend on others and don’t expect someone to miraculously save us, because that’s not how this works.
BTW, I never said shit about democracy… democracy is NOT capitalism, and has in fact done nothing to promote capitalism, but has hindered it.
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Totally agree - this framing reminds me of the observations of former diplomat and self-descirbed accidental anarchist Carne Ross.
I was in NOLA and rural surrounding parts after the hurricane in '05 and the utter failure of government, (and established orgs like Red Cross) to do anything useful was mind blowing. The only really effective relief work that was happening, (particularly in the early days), was in the form of mutual aid that was primarily self-organized and ad-hoc at the local community level. This situation is certainly very different - less environmentally drastic and concentrated than a flood, but the fact that it’s global and more or less simultaneous could stress our more abstracted systems (supply chains and economic networks) in ways that haven’t really been tested in the current era. When was the last time there were global supply chain disruptions, WWII?
In this sense more rural, less supposedly modernized regions are much better poised to withstand the effects of calamities. I think we’re going to see there’s a crystalline fragility that comes with globalization - where the power amplification and efficiencies have unacknowledged costs and weaknesses.
(eta - some good to hear news of folks organizing in WA)
