After the lockdown ...

luka

Well-known member
I'm not obsessed with gravedigging! It's just when you learn about the kind of provisions the governments of the world have put in place for the corpse pile it makes you wonder a bit... Hopefully it's worst case scenario stuff obviously
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
Like us, they had explanations which seemed satisfactory to them
it's not about satisfaction, it's about the nature of the explanations

anyone now can relatively easily understand the basics of how COVID-19 arose, how it works, how it is/will be combated

we can understand what's happening purely in terms of the physical world

this was not the case with the Black Death, Justinian's plague, etc

there's a time barrier, as you've talked about in relation to culture
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
there was no science [] so there was more mystery to life?
it's more complex than that, but in a way

religious belief exists in the realm of the unknowable. true faith is by definition something you believe, rather than something you can know.

science diminishes the unknown. not merely science, but rationalization of life, time, economy.

it seems like you're big into Weber? he wrote pretty extensively on this - the transition to a rational mindset that predates modernity

so yes, I would say there was definitely more mystery to life in the 1300s

tho science is more a byproduct of rationalization than the other way around

I'm talking about science specifically here because we're talking about something that is specifically related to biology, medicine, etc
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
as far as the ability to cope, see people across the U.S. and Europe freaking out toilet paper

humans got on without toilet paper for tens of thousands of years. a significant portion of the world still does.

if we ran out, we'd do what people used to do/still do elsewhere, develop some method of cleaning with water.

people will toughen up in those regards. do their laundry in the sink. get used to not having certain amenities.

what I'd be much more worried about - in the longer-term - is severe economic dislocation for very large numbers of people.

Great Depression-level unemployment and resulting social upheaval.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
@version, Again, it's at the point of, why are you giving people a choice to do this, why are you making it their responsibility to be 'good citizens'? We know it won't work. I think it's utter madness for beaches to be full as the wave is about to hit, but that it's a consequence of utterly confusing messaging from government and media which has resulted in people not knowing what to think, and has encouraged many people not to give a shit by treating them as utterly disposable (or possibly disposable - are we gonna let old people die en masse or not? Maybe we will, maybe we won't), after a decade of Tory rule in which many, many people have been treated as such.

Mother's Day tomorrow.
 
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baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
I don't agree with this at all

human society has coped with global-level catastrophes that killed a significantly higher % of population than this is likely too

the large majority of people in 1st-world countries haven't dealt with a catastrophe of this level in their lifetime

they will adjust

definitely. as said somewhere else, for example 14,000 in the UK and 118,000 in the US died due to Asian flu in 1957-8, and I'd never heard of that outbreak til my mum told me about it the other day. Human beings' most valuable asset and most fatal flaw is that they can adjust to the very worst things happening, and go on.

i think what's happening at the moment partly is the penny dropping that this can even happen in the 21st century - somehow people thought the interconnected world and technological advances would magically overcome health service neglect and catastrophic political choices and denial. Also there's something about Asia being more equipped in many ways to deal with this than Europe, that symbolically underlines the shift in global power that the West is in denial about, and which will be the biggest story of the next 20 years or so (although who knows what effect the mistrust in supply chains will have upon China's growth, so I guess it's more complex)
 
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padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
symbolically underlines the shift in global power that the West is in denial about
well, Asia - and specifically East Asia - had a huge head start because governments there, unlike the West, were super freaked out (rightly so) by SARS

so had protocols in place to deal with, took it dead seriously right from the beginning, etc

not that there's not something to what you said, especially symbolically

just that it's not as easy as saying their societal model is better equipped, although that may be true to some extent

as we went over in another thread, there is are potential costs to a freer society; alternately there are also benefits
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
and ironically in re: China, a large part of the reason Taiwan/HK/SK/etc took it so seriously right away is none of them remotely trust the Chinese govt

which shouldn't be surprising, given that most of East Asia has a long history of fighting the Chinese and/or currently lives under existential threat from China

not that Western govts, especially the U.S., do trust the Chinese govt, but the rest of Asia has shown us that our level of mistrust of was not nearly high enough

as others have mentioned, it's a massive opportunity for the CPC, assuming they have gotten it and can keep it under control while the West implodes
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
it will also depend how bad this gets in Russia, as well as India, Brazil, major OPEC countries, etc

we're only at the beginning of the ugly part of the global curve. 30k+ new cases the last 2 days, 1.3k deaths yesterday, 1.6k today.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
our level of mistrust of was not nearly high enough
just tbc as I'm specifically and only referring to the Chinese govt's attempt to initially play down/cover up the extent of the pandemic

and how that may have delayed the response of Western as opposed to East Asian governments who were like fuck this right off

of course even accounting for that the European/American response was all varying degrees of abysmal

just that if we'd been as paranoid as Taiwan we'd probably be in a better place

not as a good as Taiwan b/c we don't have their other advantages (better health care system, decisive immediate action, etc) just better than where we are
 
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