Oil consumption "just fell off a cliff"

[timrowledge]

Related -

The real life-threatening pandemic — and it's not coronavirus | Electrek

[lizard-of-oz]

@anon21100188

Here’s the thing, though–that economy cares a lot about you. It determines your wages, if you have a job, how much it costs for you eat & buy stuff for your kid, how much your house costs, how (or if) you’ll retire…turns out quite a bit.

We made the economy so it does that, but it doesn’t have to be that way. And its even possible in that economy to get together and carve out a pocket that works differently.

@anon21100188

Thank goodness we’ve got a definitive answer! Whew!

Last time I looked the infection fatality rate was estimated at 0.3% to 1%. People are always talking about case fatality rate, which is higher, but also not helpful for assessing personal risk.

[brant]

No, I consider reduced oil usage and therefore reduced CO2 emissions to be valuable regardless of the reason.

[lizard-of-oz]

@NashRambler

And I had the horrible, horrible thought: what if the deaths from the virus are far less than the deaths from air pollution?

It appears that quite a few people die from polluted air.

Polluted air causes 5.5 million deaths a year new research says

[Taniwha]

This is playing in heavy rotation on TV here in New Zealand at the moment, it’s an ad for an electricity company:

[anon21100188]

@lizard-of-oz

but it doesn’t have to be that way

Ummm, it kind of…does? An economy is like an environment–there can be all kinds of variations, (desert, marine, prairie, etc), but it’s still an environment. Just like it can be a command or market or mixed or traditional (or any other variation), but it’s still going to a kind of economy.

And the health of that economy play an enormous part in determining how much stuff costs, how much stuff there is, and it’s availability. So, it’s kind of worth it to at least care a little about the economy one happens to find oneself in.

[gab]

According to the WHO, the mortality rate has been updated to 3.4%

Coronavirus More Deadly Than Flu but Containable: WHO’s Tedros

[alahmnat]

@anon21100188

that economy cares a lot about you. It determines your wages, if you have a job, how much it costs for you eat & buy stuff for your kid, how much your house costs, how (or if) you’ll retire

None of these strike me as things that imply the economy cares about me, tbh. They certainly do describe the ways in which the economy controls (and, to use @lizard-of-oz’s term, exploits) me, though. The economy doesn’t give a rat’s ass about me. If it could optimize me out of existence, it would do so happily.

[lizard-of-oz]

I mean the economy doesn’t have to be the way it is. In another kind of economy, we might not have wages, or prices.

[longtimelurker]

@robertmckenna

I’m surprised in general that so many people travel for work. I don’t think it’s necessary.

…if you’re in the tech sector.

[anon62122146]

@DukeTrout

@DukeTrout

Leaving that to the individual employee is a disaster waiting to happen.

Most tec I got from corporations was a disaster waiting to happen, too

That’s the stuff they give to consumers. They care a lot more about their security than yours. That’s not even the biggest one, though. A lot of companies have access to very sensitive data from other companies that are their customers, and having a data breach leak one of your corporate customers’ super secret IP could easily lose you a whole lot of money.

[anon21100188]

I was intending to echo the Pericles quote “Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you.”

(who knows if it was actually Pericles or not)

@lizard-of-oz

In another kind of economy, we might not have wages, or prices.

Sure, but it’s still going to have a huge effect on your quality of life, and therefore worth caring about.

In any event, that’s not the economy we live in, and that economy most definitely does matter a lot to you, whether you “care” about it or not.

[LDoBe]

I saw a study going around on Reddit last week saying poor air quality has been underestimated as a major cause of death and reduced quality life years.

I believe it. I remember spending a week in LA as a teen and having asthma attacks after living all my life in a small town. I could always taste the smog.

[lizard-of-oz]

@anon62122146

That’s the stuff they give to consumers.

No, I’m talking about hardware I got when they hired me as a tech consultant.

[lizard-of-oz]

That’s the case fatality rate, not the infection fatality rate.

Case fatality rate: % of confirmed cases (i.e. people that tested positively). Infection fatality rate: % of people infected (including people who are asymptomatic, or simply weren’t tested).

@Pensketch

Yep. Tip of the iceberg at the moment. I wonder if it could mean the death of Capitalism as we know it? We are in for more interesting times ahead, even if the virus vanished tomorrow. Which it won’t. And the costs and consequences will keep snowballing.

My bet is that Capitalism is going to need to adapt or perish.

I don’t think the virus is going to do much to capitalism, it’s simply not deadly enough for that. There’s currently a crisis waiting to happen, and it might be triggered by people being afraid of the virus. That crisis is going to be worse than the last one, and the economy will take even longer to recover than last time. But capitalism won’t go away until we actively and collectively make it so.

@anon21100188

Sure, but it’s still going to have a huge effect on your quality of life, and therefore worth caring about.

I definitely would care about that kind of economy. But the current economy is something that needs to die.

[docosc]

I have to wonder if there won’t be a push to allocate a large chunk of the $8.5 billion package passed in Congress for covid-19 aid to support the “heavily impacted” energy sector.

[Mindysan33]

Probably… because profits before people…

Sigh…

[docosc]

If the latest estimates from WHO are anywhere near correct, 3.4% mortality on 40-70% of the world’s population is pushing that other “not that deadly” pandemic from 1918. Yeah, it’s an estimate based on partial data, but it should get your attention.

[Mindysan33]

3.4%! That’s a tiny fraction of people… who cares! /s

[Brian_Blank1]

So… I’m sure that gas stations will be deeply cutting their prices now (just like they increase prices when demand is high) right?!