The Coronavirus Thread

Discussion in 'Random Thoughts' started by purr1n, Mar 16, 2020.

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  1. Kernel Kurtz

    Kernel Kurtz Friend

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    Comment hammers it home in a very real way. Stay well.
     
  2. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    I'm starting to wonder if only the people of NY adhered to stay-at-home orders. There are signs that California, Washington, and Florida are leveling off and maybe starting to drop. Georgia is still to hard to call (again these are deaths which lag cases - there could be better data in terms of hospital admittances).

    Looking at the data again, is appears that NY could simply have gotten hit first.
    upload_2020-4-25_15-9-13.png
     
  3. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Trying to make sense of the deadliness of the virus would appear to be impossible right now. I thought we may get a sense if we compare cases/deaths to testing frequency to cases / per x population. It's just all over the place right now. Different places have different spreads, different cultures, adherence to rules, etc.

    However, what we do get is that USA testing doesn't totally suck, at least not so much anymore. Some states test more than others, but it would appear that testing priority is being placed on the hardest hit states.

    Cases / death seems on par among Germany, CA and FL.

    upload_2020-4-25_15-48-44.png
     
  4. Zampotech

    Zampotech Friend

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    This is the saddest part. The death of one person led to a change in the line of fate of three people. I hope your neighbor's relatives will come to her aid.
     
  5. YMO

    YMO Chief Fun Officer

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    Can @Zampotech make a Mother Russia Thread and make @purr1n the non-official Kazakhstan leader?

    Also @Boops, that f'ing sucks about someone who you might know is dealing with death.
     
  6. Zampotech

    Zampotech Friend

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    Only the Kazakh can be the leader of Kazakhstan. Kazakhs are big nationalists, they have a tribal system. It is called "Zhuz"
     
  7. Boops

    Boops Friend

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    I hope so too. A neighbor started a GoFundMe to help her with immediate financial expenses. Lots of local small generosity. But the whole thing is tragic and terrible.
     
  8. Boops

    Boops Friend

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    I hope numbers stay low where you are. When you get to NY, Italy, Spain levels, everyone is going to know someone. It sucks.
     
  9. Zampotech

    Zampotech Friend

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    The village where my grandmother lived had a developed community. If trouble come to someone's house, the residents of the entire street immediately came to help. It is a pity that this tradition has become archaic in the modern world.
     
  10. crenca

    crenca Friend

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    Industrialization (so integral to what it means to be "modern") has made us all a little less human. Unless we are fortunate to have a robust and helpful extended family, we are truly on our own...and people are not designed to be alone.
     
  11. Deep Funk

    Deep Funk Deep thoughts - Friend

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    Then explain the hermits and cult that retreat from civilisation and have existed for millennia? We humans are a strange bunch of bi-pedal mammals.

    I mean you are factually right. Strangely enough human history is riddled with oddities that even inspired organisations like the Catholic Church. If in the the modern age, post 1960 peaceful aliens would have landed, this scene would make more sense.



    Time for a drink.
     
  12. crenca

    crenca Friend

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    I don't know if it's the sort of explanation you're looking for, but the exceptional such as the desert hermit (in the context of Catholicism) is not the place to start normatively. It's the normal - the "average" everyday villager and families life and death that "explains" the desert hermit, the cultic, the exceptional (both good and bad). Thinking of @Zampotech example, without everyday mothers/families and their everyday (economic, emotioinal, spiritual, etc.) struggles no one gets to exist and grow up to be exceptional or otherwise.
     
  13. Deep Funk

    Deep Funk Deep thoughts - Friend

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    My dad often talked about this topic. He grew up in NL when it was still rebuilding itself.

    The focus on individualism through the decades has had one big downside. Communities break up, social systems that once existed to help each other out disappeared (with or without church and/or charity mind you). You trust your neighbours less and hope you have a good cash reserve in times of need.

    My generation has to catch this blow right now. So yeah...



    P.S. Finally found the right clip.
     
  14. crenca

    crenca Friend

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    I like both of your clips, but the first might be more relevant when it comes to individualism in that everything starts somewhere outside of the self - the self itself, all knowledge, even all experience, so everything and everyone starts with a sort of blind and total trust in that which came before, so to speak. The individualism of post WWII Europe/NA/etc. is probably only possible when the wealth and technological structure can prop up all its inherent ill effects and fantasies. Will the Wuhan virus be "the" (or a part of) the thing that breaks our current dominate lifestyle(s)? Who knows, I am no prophet.

    Sounds like I would have liked your dad ;)
     
  15. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Nope. We are pretty stubborn and the current systems we have in place have a strong inertia. Give our current system another few hundred years. We'll all forget about our ability to cook more of our own food at home, consume less gas, not make unnecessary trips, not use more toilet paper than necessary to wipe our ass. I do wish that working from home will stay: more work done for the company, more flexibility for the employee, a lot less energy consumed = less pollution = less traffic congestion = more efficient use of energy.

    It's only when people realize that concepts such the 30-year home mortgage are absolutely insane, that our current systems will break. It's frightening to think that people have become so accustomed to things they they think that stuff like the 30-year home mortgage is normal. It most certainly is not. Heck, insurance isn't normal either. I always shudder when people talk about home "ownership". I'm like nope, the bank owns your home. You own it only after when you make the last payment.

    Crazy not-crazy people do live among us. They don't necessarily have to be ascetics, though maybe at one time or another they may have decided to live this way. And they will never let you know because they certainly won't be pastors of mega-churches, temple leaders, priests of worldwide organizations, swamis who claim they can levitate, etc.

    What would the more advanced ancients have done with this virus knowing what we know now about who it affects? They would have quarantined (with appropriate smoke-hut and cleansing ritual for delivery of food and supplies) the elderly and those with co-morbid conditions to keep them safe, and let the rest of the tribe go about their business. Life was harder, at least physically, back then.
     
    Last edited: Apr 26, 2020
  16. Rustin Cohle

    Rustin Cohle FKA jazztherapist

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    In case this hasn’t found its way to you.

    ***

    Here are the official Coronavirus guidelines:

    1. Basically, you can't leave the house for any reason, but if you have to, then you can.

    2. Masks are useless, but maybe you have to wear one, it can save you, it is useless, but maybe it is mandatory as well.

    3. Stores are closed, except those that are open.

    4. You should not go to hospitals unless you have to go there. Same applies to doctors, you should only go there in case of emergency, provided you are not too sick.

    5. This virus is deadly but still not too scary, except that sometimes it actually leads to a global disaster.

    6. Gloves won't help, but they can still help.

    7. Everyone needs to stay HOME, but it's important to GO OUT.

    8. There is no shortage of groceries in the supermarket, but there are many things missing when you go there in the evening, but not in the morning. Sometimes.

    9. The virus has no effect on children except those it affects.

    10. Animals are not affected, but there is still a cat that tested positive in Belgium in February when no one had been tested, plus a few tigers here and there…

    11. You will have many symptoms when you are sick, but you can also get sick without symptoms, have symptoms without being sick, or be contagious without having symptoms. Oh, my..

    12. In order not to get sick, you have to eat well and exercise, but eat whatever you have on hand and it's better not to go out, well, but no…

    13. It's better to get some fresh air, but you get looked at very wrong when you get some fresh air, and most importantly, you don't go to parks or walk. But don’t sit down, except that you can do that now if you are old, but not for too long or if you are pregnant (but not too old).

    14. You can't go to retirement homes, but you have to take care of the elderly and bring food and medication.

    15. If you are sick, you can't go out, but you can go to the pharmacy.

    16. You can get restaurant food delivered to the house, which may have been prepared by people who didn't wear masks or gloves. But you have to have your groceries decontaminated outside for 3 hours. Pizza too?

    17. Every disturbing article or disturbing interview starts with "I don't want to trigger panic, but…"

    18. You can't see your older mother or grandmother, but you can take a taxi and meet an older taxi driver.

    19. You can walk around with a friend but not with your family if they don't live under the same roof.

    20. You are safe if you maintain the appropriate social distance, but you can’t go out with friends or strangers at the safe social distance.

    21. The virus remains active on different surfaces for two hours, no, four, no, six, no, we didn't say hours, maybe days? But it takes a damp environment. Oh no, not necessarily.

    22. The virus stays in the air - well no, or yes, maybe, especially in a closed room, in one hour a sick person can infect ten, so if it falls, all our children were already infected at school before it was closed. But remember, if you stay at the recommended social distance, however in certain circumstances you should maintain a greater distance, which, studies show, the virus can travel further, maybe.

    23. We count the number of deaths but we don't know how many people are infected as we have only tested so far those who were "almost dead" to find out if that's what they will die of…

    24. We have no treatment, except that there may be one that apparently is not dangerous unless you take too much (which is the case with all medications).

    25. We should stay locked up until the virus disappears, but it will only disappear if we achieve collective immunity, so when it circulates… but we must no longer be locked up for that?

    (Copied & Shared)
     
  17. JK47

    JK47 Guest

    Amen BROTHER!!!

    Well said, Thank you. Sums up pretty much everything right there. Mods please lock thread.
     
  18. Rowethren

    Rowethren Acquaintance

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    I am at the point in my life where I want to purchasing my own house, I was planning for this year but I guess that might be on hold now. I couldn't agree more with your statement though! The thought of been indentured for at least 30 years with the people who almost single handedly caused the last financial crisis then subsequently filled their pockets with the result fills me with dread.

    The problem is what are the alternatives in current society. Live at home until your parents die and you inherit their property? Rent until you can afford to purchase a property outright all the while paying off someone else's mortgage for them? Live off the grid with no financial responsibility? Hope you find a rich partner? Be resigned to the fact you will rent indefinitely and be screwed when you hit retirement with no property to act as an asset to pay for care?

    None of these options are practical (some partially satirical) so where do we go? I would love society to move away from mortgages but when pension and large swathes of the financial/economics systems are linked to property I can't see that happening anytime soon, certainly not in my lifetime.
     
  19. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    I was partially wrong about the Gates Foundation, Gates Trust, or whatever piece of Gates whatever being opaque. So how many people here actually pulled the PDF document to take a look at the Trust's assets? Anyone notice the tons of "COLLATERALIZED MORTGAGE OBLIGATION" itemized in the securities list?

    There you go. A modern charity, making money off the backs of hardworking Americans (and probably citizens of other countries too), to maximize their returns on the $40B they are sitting on in assets? Isn't a charity supposed to be distributing their donations as opposed to growing their assets from them?

    Now that is insane.

    But, but, but, Bill Gates needs that kind of money do his good works.

    Perhaps, but's still utterly insane.

    --

    Time to lock thread. Wuhan pneumonia numbers are getting under control now. Most of us will be OK.

    --

    I'll post in my blog my own take what happened during the mortgage crisis of the last decade. Contrary to what people may think, the repeal of Glass-Stegall had nothing to do with the bad mortgages (it did have to do with banks too big to fail). I worked in banking from 2002-2014 as an auditor, IT manager, and compliance officer and got to see up close where the bank regulators (if things were not complex enough, there were four such regulatory organziations) did good and where they utterly failed. To this day, I think there are lot of misconceptions of why it really happened - the reasons are much more complex than "banks are evil."
     
    Last edited: Apr 27, 2020
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