Coffee and cannabis woo.
I have a weird habit of writing things like this out and then deleting it before I post, but figured id post this one. I wrote it yesterday.
Its also something that all those "authoritative sources" you all keep relying on fail to mention for some reason...
This is something I feel compelled to comment on.
Lies by omission. It's almost as if "authoritative sources" intentionally leave out information (The
other facts) to alter reality. It's almost as if, wait, get this, its all propagandized.
I've read Bernays and others.
Propaganda Public Relations is a very very interesting field, or behavioral psychology in general for that matter. I'm not trying to sound edgy, but after I began to understand what drives all the advertising you see around you and every interaction corporations could possibly have with you through media, it really changed my perception of those we should normally consider the "arbiters of truth". I really dislike being deceived.
I don't think you're wrong, Negligence might well be the correct word for many things aspects regard to the response to this crisis, including the US and UK response to the contagion in the face of clear warnings:
For 11 fateful days in March, the government ignored the best coronavirus advice, says public health professor Helen Ward
www.theguardian.com
The above is just an account for the UK. There are several others for several other countries who have had lackadaisical approaches to this outbreak, just singling my own country out my own country as not to offend anyone else. I'm not trying to defend any one country, but I'm also not trying to blame any one country either. China goofed. So did the UK. So did the USA. So did Italy. So did France. So did Sweden. So did, so did, so did. There are other ongoing, and will be future instances, of goofs in some countries too. The first instance of neglect does not excuse the following instances.
But:
I've said it before in this thread, and I'll say it now - The middle of a pandemic is
not the time to politicize this. Right now it's the reaction to the current crisis within our own countries that takes precedence. No amount of finger pointing is going to pull asses out of this fire all it is going to do is flat-out kill more people.
That is Gross Negligence. That is what the world will look back on in five years time and see, along with the circumstances of the emergence of the issue, it will be one long story. Chinas chapter will be just the beginning, the ending of the tale will be written by those who either fix the issue, or exasperate it.
Again, I don't think you are wrong there are many things many countries should have done differently - but didn't. There will be time to examine that after the threat has passed.
Being neglectful then blaming the first person in the chain who was neglectful doesn't make your own neglect any less negligent, they've gotta change their mindset in the short term or
they will be the direct cause of more deaths and it won't matter a jolly rotating lawn sprinkler what the first case of negligence actually was.
For once, for those who think it is, politics really isn't the most important thing in the world right now.
We can multitask. I understand and respect the absolutely rational idea of doing the right thing and not politicizing any of this and working to fix the problem at hand, unfortunately it seems reality is taking a different road which is presenting more than one unique situation to us simultaneously. With world economies seemingly tanking coupled with china's intention to replace us as the world hegemony, fingers started flying in peoples faces months ago. The actions of the CCP we can talk about some other time, but I do want to add that they absolutely cannot be ignored for fear of adding to the strife in the world. The machine stops for no one man! Anytime the world falls onto hard times, you can guarantee the politicians, generals, businessmen and the "deep-state" bureaucracies will still be playing their game of 4D chess.
An aside:
We are still in the early stages of this crisis all things considered. While yes the curves around the world are looking like they are leveling out, we can't live in social isolation for an extended period of time, due to mental health reasons, the necessity of people needing to work to feed themselves or a multitude of other reasons. I understand it's easy to say we can't let people go back to work because, you know, death. However, we need to remind ourselves millions of people right now are faced with the very real fact that what income they had is now gone and they didn't save any money to help them through tough times. I know some of you have or are living this way. This leads to relying on unemployment and food banks, food banks that I'm already seeing on the news with ridiculously long lines and limited or no supply. I'm seeing the unemployment system get overloaded on both a historical and exponential level, and I'm reading about how businesses don't have the money to sustain being shut down. Now let's ask ourselves, what happens when the moratorium on evictions lifts? As monolithic a country we may seem to be, our foundation that is modern society wasn't built to just completely come to a halt and restart again without any ramifications. We're a giant section in the web of global trade, and if our economy is getting hammered in a way not seen since the great depression, what do you think is going to happen to everyone else in the web as they themselves are also getting hammered.
Every system you might be able think of that could shield our way of life from the dangerous and the unknown has yet to be put into place, it's just not feasible. Now imagine if you knew a
pandemic flood was likely to happen but all you did was buy a couple
ventilators sandbags. Then you hired a guy who has a Ph.D in
pandemics floods who advises you to get more
ventilators sandbags but you definitely do not get more
ventilators sandbags. Why? Because it's not
a pandemic flooding at this very moment and they don't have the money budgeted to spend, or if they do have the money to spend they don't want to spend large amounts of it. Feigning ignorance is cheaper and easier to manage than acknowledging and preparing for some stupid
pandemic flood that's so far beyond their understanding of what
"global pandemic" "massive flood" means, they pretend like it's never coming. That's most of the world right now, that's what kind of systems we have in place when the cost of that system is undesirable to those signing the check to say the least.
Is it likely that the death toll from the virus or the inevitable overload of our healthcare system would be higher than what you would expect with the possibility of socioeconomic turmoil? I'm not certain on that one. At face value I'd say most definitely yes, the virus coupled with the overload of the healthcare system is deadlier, but I assume that's because this is our first time dealing with this specific kind of crisis in a generation, and we are now all feeling it one way or another around the globe. Shutting the economy down and social distancing seems like the decisive move considering we want to prevent a massive loss of life, and right now. It was however a reactionary move, meaning it's possible it wasn't the best move and we have to ask ourselves what that means and we have to ask what the consequences are for making those choices, whether were talking about reopening the economy or the decision to go into lockdown. With all things taken into consideration, I feel it is too soon to give a confident yes answer given all the variables in the equation. Only a Sith deals in absolutes!
