What's Our End Game Strategy for COVID-19?

[sothereiwas]

22 minutes ago, BC1980 said:

I can see your point, but I would add that car accidents are much more common than airline crashes. Death from a plane crash is extremely rare. But I think that's why we've normalized car accidents. It's very possible that COVID-19 could become like the flu and be normalized.

A few other factors probably have an effect. In a car we have the illusion of control, in an airplane, unless we're crew, not so much. Disease and poison are things we instinctively dread as a survival instinct. We even make using poison in war 'illegal' because we instinctively dread this sort of killing. Also, there is the media, who selectively report some deaths and not others. If we had a running daily tally of auto deaths in the news, we might be more motivated to reduce the carnage, no pun intended. 

[Ruby Slippers]

Fantastic article by Douglas Rushkoff. Exactly.

When people say they want to "get back to normal," I think, "Anything but that." 

Excerpts:

Quote

I understand why environmentalists have concluded that Covid-19 is nature’s way of repelling human activity. If we’re going to keep mucking around with Earth’s biodiversity, climate, topsoil, oceans, and air, eventually nature’s going to respond. In this view, the virus is nature’s own antibodies, repelling human invasion.

I sympathize with the systemic style of this perspective, but I think they’re looking at it the wrong way. No, we are not being attacked by nature for our sins — but this is a shared, collective illness. Covid-19 is an opportunistic infection, attacking the human organism as a whole.

I don’t look at it as a good thing — not at all — but it reminds me of how we get sick as individuals in real life...

I’ve begun seeing the Covid-19 virus this way. It’s not a pretty thought, but what if this virus is our last-gasp resistance to the ravages of techno-capitalism? It’s not a good thing in itself — no. But it is addressing a real problem. Think of the virus as more like the President Trump phenomenon — an illness that reveals much bigger systemic woes and forces us to confront them. Only in this case, the virus is a weapon generated by life itself against the repression and exploitation of humanity by the market, technology, and other unchecked forces of death and destruction.

We were like a person working so hard and for so little nourishment in return that we had to take steroids to keep going. The market demanded growth from us collectively—more growth so that shareholders could passively extract more value from us. But they were taking our jobs and social safety nets away at the same time. We need to work more while earning less, patching together an income from three or four different gig jobs, each one with less support and security than the last.

This growth mandate — the one we’re supporting — has nothing to do with our survival or meeting human needs. The only ones who need the economy to keep growing—and for us to keep accelerating — are the bankers and shareholders passively extracting value from our labor, the people who are not on the ground working or creating value. But those of us on the ground have no way to push back. We have no way to slow the economy or to challenge its acceleration. China’s slaves keep making more cheap tech for America to keep deploying more surveillance and disaster capitalism.

The only way we humans could slow down the economy was to get sick. Just like the person whose body can’t take any more stress. It says “no more.” That’s what our collective body is doing. We couldn’t crash the market back in 2007, so now we are crashing ourselves...

Remember when you’d get sick, and your parent or your partner would say, “You’ve been working too hard. I told you to take better care of yourself.” That’s your body revolting, saying “enough” — even if it does so in a self-destructive way. Well, in that sense, Covid-19 is our collective body saying “enough” and trying to do for us what our activism and politics and community organizing have failed to. Yes, some of us will die. That’s how desperate we’ve become. It’s a kamikaze attack of human biology against systems that threaten our very survival.

This is the intervention.

 

[sothereiwas]

23 minutes ago, Ruby Slippers said:

.... by Douglas Rushkoff. Exactly.

 

It's the most infantile dreck I've seen in some time. 

[CaliforniaGirl]

I get the idea of allowing nature to take its course...I just don't get simultaneously living in enviornmentally controlled homes (which literally we all do), influencing our own health both medically and nutritionally (which literally we all do), enforcing life where death would almost certainly occured (which many, many of us have already done, or have had done for us, with, for example, prenantal intervention or C-sections) and so on.

We'll never know where to draw that line so it will always be a debate. It's never going to be reasonably resolved and really, it can't be. We have science at our fingertips, we literally are using that right now (with our fingertips)...this argument can never be settled to one direct side or the other unless logic and reason is tossed aside either way.

 

[Wave Rider]

1 hour ago, Ruby Slippers said:

When people say they want to "get back to normal," I think, "Anything but that." 

I've wondered this myself.  Do I really want things to go back to normal?  Do I want to go back to a world where most people express that they are actually unhappy?  Do I really want to step back into a hypercompetitive world where the only source of existential meaning is to acquire more money and status than the person next to you?  Do I want to go back to a world where people work more hours for less money, where benefits disappear and where it takes 4-5 months on average to find a new job?  And in relationships, do I want to go back to the normal dating scene, which is in fact extremely dysfunctional?

I have thought about this: Our lifestyle six months ago was not sustainable.  Working 60 hour weeks while swiping through endless online dating profiles and considering our lives to be failures if we don't become the next Steve Jobs - this lifestyle is not sustainable.  I've wondered if maybe the virus is doing us a favor in this regard.  If this virus leads us to build a society with 35 hour works weeks, 2 months paid vacation, universal health care, and a semblance of belonging to a supportive world community instead of a living in a cutthroat competition for money and status - then I would welcome the virus.  

 

Edited May 19, 2020 by Wave Rider

[sothereiwas]

41 minutes ago, CaliforniaGirl said:

We'll never know where to draw that line so it will always be a debate.

Nature is an evil *****. We intervene early and often, and I have no issue with that. 

The issue I have with the above cited article is that it's a childish tapestry woven of so many trite falsehoods it's barely worth time perusing, let alone analysing. From the anti-capitalist rant that either comes from a person who doesn't understand capitalism or hopes the reader does not to the confused gaia-esque mutterings, and onward, it's just someone hoping to get enough eyeshare to accomplish whatever the goal is. I don't know this writer, but it could be as mundane as making rent or as troubling as simple selling out for attention, or many other reasons I suppose.

 

[CaliforniaGirl]

3 minutes ago, sothereiwas said:

Nature is an evil *****. We intervene early and often, and I have no issue with that. 

The issue I have with the above cited article is that it's a childish tapestry woven of so many trite falsehoods it's barely worth time perusing, let alone analysing. From the anti-capitalist rant that either comes from a person who doesn't understand capitalism or hopes the reader does not to the confused gaia-esque mutterings, and onward, it's just someone hoping to get enough eyeshare to accomplish whatever the goal is. I don't know this writer, but it could be as mundane as making rent or as troubling as simple selling out for attention, or many other reasons I suppose.

 

Well, I tend to take extremes either way as: probably a lot of inward stuff, turned outward with the pen (or really, the computer). But the point of all this "but people die anyway, nature take its course" being kind of weird considering how often we *don't* say that, and how selectively we do, *is* a real point. 

While people go off the rails in general from any side of this equation, including "we're completely locked down! We're prisoners! How is this different from being in a work camp in Poland?", I do read the occasional rant and don't always take the easy way out of, "Well, if I can find something here I think is ridiculous, or even just sociopolitically incorrect, I can discount the entire thing, hence securing my own stance, generally politically motivated, as correct." I never cop out that way.

This one, yeah, was over the top. I am seeing over the top all over the place lately. I think people have cabin fever to the max. There are those articles that can pretty much be tossed as: wow. Was this written from an RV in the woods that the writer covered entirely in aluminum foil so 'they' couldn't track the writer with 'their' devices? So I get that. Yes, there was a lot wrong with this one, too much wrong to take this particular article seriously, I hear you there.

[sothereiwas]

7 minutes ago, CaliforniaGirl said:

How is this different from being in a work camp in Poland?"

I'm a fan of freedom and responsibility. When freedoms are infringed or responsibilities are shirked, I tend to get very prickly pretty fast. In the case of a large urban center in the process of spreading a rapidly expanding pandemic, sheltering in place and making sure those so situated have the necessities makes sense. For those in tiny little communities untouched or lightly touched, I don't think the same one size fits at all, and trying to impose it is a serious and unwarranted infringement of basic human rights.   

 

[CaliforniaGirl]

Just now, sothereiwas said:

I'm a fan of freedom and responsibility. When freedoms are infringed or responsibilities are shirked, I tend to get very prickly pretty fast. In the case of a large urban center in the process of spreading a rapidly expanding pandemic, sheltering in place and making sure those so situated have the necessities makes sense. For those in tiny little communities untouched or lightly touched, I don't think the same one size fits at all, and trying to impose it is a serious and unwarranted infringement of basic human rights.   

 

Yes. But the "untouched" might touch MY freedoms. Where does one end and the other begin, has been the problem here.w

Luckily we were never actually "locked down" to our homes or even to our neighborhoods or our towns of even our states or really most places, except maybe to ventilators in a coma. Ever. Not one of us. Not even literally those verified as having 19 (but not attached to a ventilator, obviously).

[sothereiwas]

1 minute ago, CaliforniaGirl said:

Luckily we were never actually "locked down" to our homes or even to our neighborhoods or our towns of even our states

I can't speak for other locales, but here "non-essential" travel was absolutely prohibited. Also, it wasn't enforceable, which is a dangerous ranty edge it's probably best to keep me away from. 

[CaliforniaGirl]

3 minutes ago, sothereiwas said:

I can't speak for other locales, but here "non-essential" travel was absolutely prohibited. Also, it wasn't enforceable, which is a dangerous ranty edge it's probably best to keep me away from. 

How was it "prohibited" if it was not enforceable?

You were still actually able to travel, is that correct?

Were you locked down? Unable to go anywhere? Unable to travel? Were you imprisoned? Your right to leave a certain sphere denied?

[Weezy1973]

The end game is to minimize risk and deaths. One of the main problems is there is so much unknown about the virus. For example at first it seemed like children weren’t impacted, and now it seems like they are. It presented as just a respiratory disease, but now it seems to affect all sorts of different systems. And it’s highly infectious.
 

We try to minimize risks with cars too. Seat belts, airbags, speed limits, blind spot monitoring, etc. and the technology keeps getting safer. 
 

Yes pretty much everything in life carries some risk, but it’s human nature to try to minimize that risk. 

[sothereiwas]

48 minutes ago, CaliforniaGirl said:

How was it "prohibited" if it was not enforceable?

It was illegal. That's what prohibited means. Driving over the speed limit is also prohibited. People do it more often than they obey the limit. It's prohibited, but not enforceable. 

Edited May 19, 2020 by sothereiwas

[CaliforniaGirl]

5 minutes ago, sothereiwas said:

It was illegal. That's what prohibited means. Driving over the speed limit is also prohibited. People do it more often than they obey the limit. It's prohibited, but not enforceable. 

Was it illegal? What was the consequence? Imprisonment, fine, or both? Were people physically turned away for crossing borders? Surely some, probably many people were known to be leaving counties or states. If it were illegal for non-essentials to cross would there not have been blocks with verified workers passed through?

[sothereiwas]

4 minutes ago, CaliforniaGirl said:

Was it illegal?

Yes, it was an EO.

A law doesn't have to be enforced to make something illegal. Practically speaking we have a ton of laws that are either unenforceable or simply not enforced, but now we're getting to a place where I don't want to go. I'll get even more rant-ish than usual. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make, but it's not working. 

[CaliforniaGirl]

1 minute ago, sothereiwas said:

Yes, it was an EO.

A law doesn't have to be enforced to make something illegal. Practically speaking we have a ton of laws that are either unenforceable or simply not enforced, but now we're getting to a place where I don't want to go. I'll get even more rant-ish than usual. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make, but it's not working. 

Oh, I understand. And so "your rights" were taken away, as was the take-home of this entire discussion? As a non-punishable, unenforcable EO your right to drive to places outside of your neighborhood, town, state and so on was denied you? Your rights were taken away? You were locked down? 

You could not drive?

[sothereiwas]

1 minute ago, CaliforniaGirl said:

You could not drive?

Not legally. 

[CaliforniaGirl]

Just now, sothereiwas said:

Not legally. 

So this is equal to being in prison? Or just loosely, locked up?

In prison, you can't legally leave the prison but if you do nobody can do anything? You just go?

All this foot-stomping about rights. That's the bottom line. We are SO soft. We're so soft and spoiled that just hearing WORDS (but it's illegal! Even though, well, I can go do it literally any time and nothing happens...full stop) is still something we can rage about, and will rage about. 

When I compare this to people who really are restrained, people who really do lack freedoms, people who really are controlled, literally controlled as to even where the can go, what they can do...buy...anything, it feels like I'm ashamed of...us.

We are spoiled...I think there are so many lessons in this, for all of us...there are so many layers. I wish this never happened but it has opened my eyes in so many ways.

[sothereiwas]

3 minutes ago, CaliforniaGirl said:

So this is equal to being in prison? Or just loosely, locked up?

I don't believe I ever said so. 

[CaliforniaGirl]

Just now, sothereiwas said:

I don't believe I ever said so. 

This was the whole point to our discussion...from the beginning...I never said *you* said so...literally...we were discussing articles, and extremes on the two sides...I am not sure what you're at, here...I'm not sure you're sure, LOL, so...I'll just leave this here because I feel as if we're going in circles.

[basil67]

1 hour ago, sothereiwas said:

I can't speak for other locales, but here "non-essential" travel was absolutely prohibited. Also, it wasn't enforceable, which is a dangerous ranty edge it's probably best to keep me away from. 

You've spoken about how where you live is free from COVID.  It makes more sense to me to allow you travel within your area, but prohibit non essential travel into and out of your safe area.

Edited May 19, 2020 by basil67

[sothereiwas]

1 minute ago, basil67 said:

You've spoken about how where you live is free from COVID.  It makes more sense to me to allow you travel within your area, but prohibit non essential travel into your area.  

Or maybe just prohibit frivolous travel FROM hot zones?

 

1 minute ago, CaliforniaGirl said:

This was the whole point to our discussion.

OK? I mean it is a class C misdemeanor punishable by 30 days in jail and/or up to a $1250 fine, but I don't see why that matters honestly. Illegal is illegal. 

[basil67]

2 minutes ago, sothereiwas said:

Or maybe just prohibit frivolous travel FROM hot zones?

No, because if your residents visit hot zones, they could bring it back to you.  I'm talking defense here.

[sothereiwas]

3 minutes ago, basil67 said:

No, because if your residents visit hot zones, they could bring it back to you.  I'm talking defense here.

Well obviously prohibit recreational travel to OR from hot zones.There's no reason someone from one of the other extremely rural counties couldn't come across an imaginary line to go fishing. Fence in the cities until they get their situation under control. Kurt knows what I'm talking about. 

Edited May 19, 2020 by sothereiwas

[mark clemson]

Is it me or has this thread gone from original topic to "culture wars" ?

I would say that the end game is return to normalcy as far as travel, recreation, and the vast majority of "personal freedoms" go, although I suspect there will be some folks who are afraid to get on a plane, train, or bus for quite a while (except in extenuating circumstances). These things are important for a healthy economy.