Fucking optimists.
What’s the worst you can imagine? It’ll be at least three times worse than that.
There will be no improvements. The guilty will not be punished. The weak will be blamed. And evil always, always, always wins.
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Considering how much wishful thinking is in the article (what a coincidence! This crisis will make people see things the way I do!), honestly, I find your prediction to be just as likely as any other scenario.
Could be big changes, or just as likely not. In a year I’ll claim my prediction was right.
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Today’s news is all “blame China”. Looks to me like a coordinated campaign.
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I personally love the “New kind of patriotism” that Mark Lawrence Schrad talks about. That’s something that I want to see, where “Proud to be an American” means you’re proud of your country’s accomplishments, its government and its people, in providing aid and help to one another.
Some positive consequences that I’d personally like to see:
-We realize that most people can learn what they need to do for a job without a 4-year degree. A lot of people have lost their jobs and simply won’t get them back. The most demanding fields will still require those years of work at universities for Bachelor’s, Master’s, and PhD’s, but we’ll realize that shorter two-year or one-year certification programs for technical fields, combined with on-the-job training and mentorship is what really gets people back to work.
-Todd N. Tucker has it right about domestic supply chains and supply chain redundancy. With rising tensions around the world, China simply cannot remain the world’s sole supplier of damn-near everything, especially as it’s stuff that’s being made with slave labor. American universities could work on new, innovative ways to safely and cleanly extract and refine rare-earth elements from untapped deposits here in the US. This, combined with funding research into potential breakthroughs in things like additive manufacturing/3D printing for metal parts and components, could bring about a revolution and massive cost reduction in domestic supply chains to the point where Dambisa Moyo’s predicted increased costs to corporations and consumers wouldn’t exist.
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Hutchison said she was talking to a worker at a Tim Hortons in West Virginia this week about how, under a state edict, he now provides an essential service.
“We’ve kept the whole damn country running,” she said of the working poor.
"We’re the ones you rely on. When everything’s falling apart and breaking down, we’re the ones you’re calling essential employees.
“Maybe, this will be a huge wake-up call for people … This is really going to be our moment, to start pushing back.”
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With that kind of an attitude, you’re not going to see any kind of positive change.
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I keep seeing lines like “with most people home” and I wonder if that’s true, or just a bias from people who are home. I don’t know about percentages, but even just looking at food there’s a long chain, and yes, we don’t think about it normally. But there are all kinds of other products, same long chain of supply.
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Hey! Get outta my brain!
(had posted the wikipedia link to Shock Doctrine, not showing in OneBox here, was in response to:)
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It’s looking as if “big(ly) thinkers” is another way of saying “people who like to hear themselves talk”.
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You seem fun. And here I though I was a pessimist.
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Geographical location is still important, because most people do their best work when the sun is out.
I’ve already been working from home for years. Most people in my position are remote as well. They could staff us with all people in India (heck, a good chunk of my colleagues are Indian living in the US), but they don’t.
Also people in my position also periodically need to visit client sites. Meaning, it’s good if they can get there in less than a day.
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Remember: the pessimist will always be disappointed!
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There’s a better option.
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Is that being optimistic?
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I’m not Ari Shaffir, but I laugh hours after listening to his podcasts.
People with Waffle House credentials start selling IgE profiles of healthy people to promote immunity. Worst case, it -works- for tens of thousands of clients and reunifies the Republican (and Baptist) vote under a newly fermented banner.
High school dropouts should be ace at Zoom etc. but really have some peculiar tastes favoring caustic sodas and lyes over salt in their diet and presentation. Dogs with no sense of scent become the main kind.
This particular orchid throws aerial roots out so hard it up and takes off and hybridizes itself with diseased pines, eventually dropping pounds of weird orchid pollen and getting people nasal polyps with attractive blossoms.
Nancy Pelosi ends up with 4 terms hijacked to try and cope with and medium-progressives it, making lawyers re-explain themselves again. No men explain and it’s like…well, that’s the way things are!
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and stuff?
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A lot of these read like “Here is the hobby horse I want to ride, and surely this crisis will make it come true!”
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One victim of COVID-19 will be the old model of limiting voting to polling places where people must gather in close proximity for an extended period of time
Welp, unless it’s Oregon style mail in paper ballots that’s a terrible idea.
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I’m hoping that a lot of people that are anti-vaxxers because they’ve grown up without dealing with widespread and contagious diseases (etc) will grow the fuck up.
…aaaand now I’m ever so slightly pro-C19. Wasn’t expecting that.
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