Imagine you are engaged in a fight against the alien battle cruiser Briggs, off the Cochran nebula, and you are informed of a civilian vessel in the area. It is in distress and unless something is done to rescue the passengers, they will all die. If you disengage from the battle to save the people on the passenger ship Steve Sailer, you will most certainly be destroyed or captured by the Briggs. If you remain in combat with the Briggs, you will win, but the Steve Sailer will be lost.
Clearly, the intent of the problem is not to test the ability of the captain to solve a problem of fact, but rather one of morality. The choice is to sacrifice yourself, your crew and your ship, the John Derbyshire, in order to save a passenger ship full of people. Or, you let those people die and continue on to defeat the alien enemy. There’s no puzzle to be solved or information to be discovered. The challenge is to arrive at the correct moral decision given the described parameters.
The moral answer is obvious. You and the Briggs are moral actors. Presumably, you are a positive actor and the Briggs is a negative actor. Otherwise, what would be the point of engaging in battle with the Briggs? The Sailer is morally neutral. It could be full of future Hitlers for all you know. You have no way to evaluate fully its moral position, so it does not have one. The only logical answer is to continue to engage the Briggs and let the Sailer perish. It is the only way to ensure a morally positive outcome.
That familiar, but fictional, scenario is useful in thinking about what our rulers should be doing in the current crisis. The coronavirus epidemic has created a scenario for the rulers that has no right answer. There’s no heroic 30-something women in a lab about to formulate a vaccine for the Chinese Flu. There’s no handsome germ detective hunting down the mad scientist that created it. The choice is either bring civilization to a halt for as long as it takes or let the virus run its course.
Now, the “flatten the curve” people will claim there is a third choice, which allows for the virus to run its course more slowly, giving health services more time and resources to treat the sick. This will also buy time for a potential vaccine. There are variations on this, but that is the general idea. We can only evaluate this option, however, once the initial options are fully evaluated. To assume both are unacceptable is to violate the parameters of the problem, so we will evaluate this option last.
The first choice is to do nothing and let the virus run its course. It’s not exactly doing nothing, but public awareness assumes people will assess their risk tolerance and take whatever measures they think make sense. In this scenario, the rulers simply inform the public about the basic ways in which to avoid the contagion and perhaps put resources into the healthcare system. The underlying assumption, however, is that everyone that could get the virus will get the virus over the next year.
What does that mean, as a practical matter? Some experts are saying 50-70% of people will get the virus and up to 5% will die. This is not based in much, other than wild speculation. We have no examples that are similar or facts on the ground to suggest these numbers are probable. Every year the influenza virus infects about 10% of the public, using no precautions against it. Many more people get the common cold each year, but the number that actually get it is unknown.
The fact is, we don’t have an example of a serious contagion, one that kills with any significance, that infects 70% of the public. The Black Plague probably infected 40% of the people of Europe. The Spanish Flu is the best comparison to the Chinese Flu and it infected about 20% of the public. Swine Flu infected about 10% of the people. It is a really good comparison with the Spanish Flu, as both were H1N1 and both killed younger people, which is always a more serious concern.
We actually have a good test of the infectiousness of this particular virus. The Diamond Princess cruise ship was infected and remained in lock-down for two weeks. The people on the ship were allowed to mingle and party while they waited to be set free. The final numbers were 700 infected out of 3,500. That’s 20%. That figure seems to turn up a lot when examining the infection numbers of deadly viruses. Again, the Spanish Flu seemed to hit about 20% of people world-wide and in the US.
Now, we have some parameters to evaluate the first option. The infection rate is probably going to be about 20%, like similar viruses, but it could be the first universally infectious virus in the history of the planet. Everyone gets it. The death rate, based on current data, could be as low as one percent or as high as 3.4 percent. Those experts say the ensuing collapse of the health care system will lift the number to 5%, even though we have no evidence to support that claim.
There you are. The first answer for the ruler in this position is that somewhere between 20% and 100% of his people get the virus and between one percent and five percent will die from it. In the United States, it means between 600,000 deaths over the course of a year to a high of 16.5 million deaths over the course of the year. Here you see why the rulers are panicking about what to do. No one wants to allow millions to die from a virus, no matter what the cost of saving them.
Now, it must be emphasized that all of our experience with this virus and similar virus outbreaks points to the low-end estimate being the worst-case scenario. Other than the Black Death in the Middle Ages, we have nothing worse than those low-end estimates of infection and death. A lot of people really want to believe the high end is plausible, but that’s what it is, a desire to believe. In reality, the worst-case scenario from this virus for the United States is a million additional deaths.
Now, what about the other option? We can quarantine the nation in an effort to slow or even stop the spread of the virus. It means closing down most business, forcing people to stay home and preventing gatherings of people. Whether this is even feasible is a good question on its own. Getting people to stay off the roads in a snow storm is impossible, so this option looks like a fantasy, more than reality. On the other hand, this is more serious. Maybe enough cooperate to make it work.
What does that mean, as a practical matter? First off, it means the economy plunges into an unprecedented depression. We have no examples of what happens when you simply stop almost all economic activity. The stock market will be closed, financial systems will be closed. The use of money could very well cease. Either people hoard cash like they hoard food or it simply becomes worthless in a world where no one is working and all commerce has come to a halt.
In such a scenario, there are two ways forward. One is civil unrest that topples over local authority and perhaps the national government. The other is the imposition of martial law and a takeover of the essential services by the state. Your food market becomes a food distribution center where you get your allotted supplies. That sounds absurd, but how else can you feed 300 million people when the economy has been shut down by a quarantine? There is no other option.
Let’s pretend there is some magical version of this shutdown that both halts the spread and keeps portions of the economy up and running, such that food and essentials are distributed, but we enter a depression. The last depression was a 10% contraction of the economy over a year and 30% over three years. We still talk about that even today as it led to the second industrial war of the century. What happens when the economy contract 50% in a year? No one has any idea.
There are real consequences to an economic collapse. Essential medicines stop being produced and essential services cease to exist. A shortage of insulin would threaten millions in a month. The collapse would take the health care system with it, so millions would be at risk right away. The risk of civil unrest would threaten untold millions, mostly from local police. We simply have no idea what such a collapse would do in terms of death and destruction, because it is unimaginably horrible.
There you have the parameters of the problem. Now, the flatten the curve folks would have you believe that a long vacation of playing video games and watching Netflix will allow us to avoid the stark choices in front of us. Sure, the economy will take a hit, but it will come back just as soon as the virus is slowed down and the miracle cure is ready for human use in a year or two. In reality, they are just wishing away the problem in the hope of violating the parameters of the problem.
That’s why the talk of flattening the curve is actually more dangerous than facing the reality of the situation. The end result will be worse than picking one option or the other, because you end up getting both. No quarantine can last more than a couple of weeks, because people will never obey it, the state can’t enforce it and the society could never afford it. That means we get the full brunt of the bug, plus the full brunt of the effort to shutter civil life for an extended period.
Getting back to the fictional space battle, the right decision is ultimately the one to have the most certain morally positive outcome. The captain of the Derbyshire defeats the alien ship and goes on to be a positive force in the universe. In this case, putting all efforts into maintaining the civil life of the people has a clear set of costs. We can plan for a million deaths. We cannot plan for the unknown economic cost of collapse.
The great Russian leader Joseph Stalin allegedly said “a single death is a tragedy, but a million deaths are a statistic.” Whether he said it or not is hard to know, but it is both true and something Stalin likely would have grasped. When a ruler is faced with this sort of problem, it is not about saving one life. It is about preserving a people and what makes them a people. A million deaths from the Chinese Flu is terrible, but it pales in comparison to the costs of preventing it.
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Funny that Z mentions Stalin – the panicky idiots could create a man-made famine not seen since his time.
If there is a famine I expect the fragility of our current social order to become very apparent. With how soft and deracinated our polity has become such a situation could very quickly spiral into something very bad. I’m just glad my area is less than 2% african. They are really only dangerous in groups, by themselves they are quite cowardly. Good luck out there if there actually is a famine, no idea if that will happen but I’m not really sure what to expect. I hope you all are armed, I’d bet most of you are.
The problem being as long as the trillions flow from heaven its anything but unstable.
Hell, Stalin is the kind of guy who would have unleashed a bioweapon, human cost be damned. His only rationality would have been “who, whom”?
Frankly, this is madness. I think most people know it is madness too. I stopped by my dentist office to get my refill. The receptionists were incredulous over the great lock down. This morning I have chatted with a dozen people, all of whom are in stunned at what they are seeing from the ruling class.
It turns out that true accelerationist are the people in charge.
Ohio schools are closed for 3 weeks. My friend who teaches in Akron system is happy, but then she’s grown to hate her job.
Logistics for working parents aside, it’s a little shocking how much parents hate being around their own children.
This is true of most parents around the world, to be honest. The ideal of ‘loving parent that makes the kid the center of their world’ is really a European thing. Kevin MacDonald talks about this a bit in his Individualism and the Western Liberal Tradition.
In a older era, once kids reached a certain age they were put to work on the family farm with various chores and learning new skills. And the boys got into the teenage years they were apprenticed to some tradesman or local shop.
Childhood ended at 15-16 and you were considered a young adult.
In Pre WWII Europe it was the same.
Modernity fucked up a natural system that had been in place for 2000 years plus.
Agreed, but I’d argue that childhood ended more around 10-12. Adolescence is a modern term that doesn’t really ‘to grow up’ or ‘become a man’ anymore, it’s a period of life for (now) about 10-15 years!.
There’s a lot of truth to that. The entertainment mentality and the ensuing uselessness of modern kids is insane. I do some play time, wrestling, games, etc. with the kids, but my main focus is always to spend the majority of my time with them teaching tangible skills.
The idea of a teenager dates from the early 1940s. At the time, the majority of people didn’t graduate from high school.
NJ schools shut and restaurants closed except for takeout. I guess that Door Dash will do a land office business.
Interestingly enough, in the 1840s, girls hit puberty at 16 and boys a year or two later. In the 1970s it was 12 for a girl. Now, I think it’s 11. Blacks typically mature earlier than Whites and Asians.
Lot of the fellows marching up Cemetary Ridge or defending it weren’t shaving yet.
Mental adulthood nowadays seems to be 30.
Former child slave here. Thank God for evil parents. One of the best things that ever happened to me was being put to work!
Parents put two-month old babies in daycare. My Greatest Generation mother once remarked “Why have them if you don’t raise them?” That was the attitude of her generation.
I am reminded by your post of SJW lawyers who will refer to 17 or 18yo murderers as children who have no concept of what it means to either take a life or that they will spend life in prison. These same damn people will say 6yos have the right to chose their gender. MADNESS!
Small quibble – could’ve used more excalmation points at the end
You have never been in an Indian household then
With machines you don’t need as much labor. From what I am told say a paper goods factory assembly line is like 6 guys who program PLC’s and that aren’t even well paid since we could get Indian labor to do that job. Watch “How its Made” or any of the other shows about manufacturing and see how few workers are needed to do anything. This leaves a lot of jobs as “do you want fries with that” and I see tons of adults doing that for low wage jobs or having to compete with the 3rd worlds for scraps… Read more »
Social expectations were that people have children. They still are to a a degree though this is becoming somewhat optional.
Society still complains when the fertility rate reaches an all time low though. Having a society where people “nope” a future isn’t much fun to run I guess.
The Daughter or the Son? And even then, there’s a difference between loving a kid and ensuring that the clan expand.
There is something to be said for the two income trap.
I think Z did a post on this a bit ago… essentially the biggest consumption items for a family (house, vehicles, etc), are now at 105% of a man’s income, where in the 70’s it was at 60-70%.
Plus, all those women have to pay off their student loans somehow…
Lol! Touché.
I worked in a North African country where most middle and lower class people lived in multi-generation households.
The comments I got from people I asked indicated that there is little to no privacy in such households. There is also no peace and quiet because two or more people are constantly arguing.
So, there may be advantages to multi-gen households, but there are many disadvantages as well.
That’s why I say socialism is the terminal stage of capitalism, not the opposition. It all leads to hell.
It must not be too much of European thing anymore if they’re only raising them up to serve, and service, the Moslems.
Nicely said.
Ris–Yes indeed. My youngest 2 were being taken care of by a “house nanny.” While not the main issue there was this. When my wife and I got home from work and I would turn on the TV the nanny always had tuned into porn channels while watching the kids. The reason I went back into teaching was I asked the same question. “Why did we have them if we are not raising them?” At the time I was working for a law firm in Century City putting in 70 hours a week. Seeing what a joke of a work… Read more »
that does happen depending on the level of nosiness. obviously north african muslim culture is nosier (and more violent) than any christian one. they also pick up even more relatives (not just first degree cousins), while their countries tend to be crappy enough where land is unaffordable and/or held by the corrupt elites. also, some Muslims do allow divorce and polygamy, so I bet some men probably had lots of wives and/or children, grandmas, uncles, aunts, etc. do agree a bit about the lack of privacy. in latin america there’s an adult motel cottage industry in every town that feeds… Read more »
I was talking with some neighbors. They have friends who are teachers in the local schools who all are home. Those teachers are out, literally, partying, even though they were supposed to be off of work (paid, still) for ‘social distancing’. Rediculious…
Some of the biggest drunks, druggies and hedonists I’ve ever known have been teachers. Can’t say I blame them.
Government paycheck. Must be nice.
What’s that line about tenured college professors?
Work 24/7.
24 hours a week, 7 months a year.
Never heard that one. Amazing.
Nice try but I am a tenured Professor. It is more like 7 hours a week, 7 months a year.
When I was there, the typical faculty workload was—get this—less than one class per semester! Now that wasn’t all faculty across all colleges. Just in the College of Science, where we did a lot of grantsmanship. We once got a new dept head who came in and even he was astonished, but was never able to push the teaching load to 1 class per semester.
All AZ schools closed as well.
Florida schools also.
Wait til people start losing jobs over this or pension funds start talking about cutting benefits due to portfolio losses.
I think the ‘old folks (boomers) want this’ line of thinking will quickly turn around when they realize that it is impacting their ability to buy that second Arizona home.
edit: And when Country Kitchen Buffet is closed… 😉
I think so too but I’ll willingly admit it if I’m wrong. Bad habit of overestimating people.
As I said the other day, it is our version of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nongqawuse
No, not unless the prophet child got billion dollar bonus.
She didn’t.
Hold my beer, they say.
No one in charge wants to be seen as under-reacting, so they are over-reacting en masse. The madness of crowds in the bubble of government.
There’s also a sort of domino-effect. If one government does something drastic, other governments feel compelled to follow suit for fear of being seen as “not doing enough”.
They’re also afraid of being sued. That’s why schools will close even after a light snowfall. Liability.
We Baby Boomers remember trudging to school when the snow was up to our necks, or so the kids are told. LOL!
Ris;
You forgot about the wolves…
Just spitballin’ here, but what if we suspend the law license of every tort lawyer for the next 10 years. Untold billions of dollars would be unleashed…
You’re right! LOL! Wolving howling in the forest hunting for dinner.
Not a Boomer but actually did hike up hills in subzero weather, depending on the route, sometimes both ways.
We also had packs of wild dogs so I guess that will sub for wolves.
But the wolves fed us chunks of regurgitated meat, thereby saving our lives after we escaped from the camps and the masturbation machines of death. Sad world where wolves show greater kindness than our fellow man.
[not-a-bot code is “34yJQ” — hahahaha!]
Loser pays will bend the curve. Cap pain and suffering, or require punitive damages be paid to the State will help as well.
The will be no shuttering of all businesses, no end of all commercial activity. A few people will do self-quarantine, everyone will wash their hands more, and big events will be cancelled – no great loss. This actually will flatten the curve somewhat.
Everything is roughly normal where I am, even as the hysterics in government are running around like headless chickens. I’m enjoying breakfast at a local place. The owner tells me he’s going through a rough patch but getting along. Once all the toilet paper hoarding and Netflix binging are over, people will realize everything’s gonna be okay.
The reduced traffic has also been nice.
Z-
It’s insanity. In the space of one week the US has voluntarily euthanized its entire economy with almost no protest from any quarter.
Somehow, after the opening halt, the markets are pretending things are just another trading day.
I don’t think there is any precedent for this in recorded history.
It turns out that true accelerationist are the people in charge.
I admit, I did not see this coming. This is why I am uncomfortable with authoritarianism. I hate my future being in the hands of morons.
They see the $500 billion in REPO?
They see the $700 billion in QE?
And we’re just getting started.
Explain that to these insightful receptionists.
Zman, in smaller, cities, towns, and rural areas in Flyover Country USA, there isn’t much Kung Flu happening.
Kung Flu is happening in crowded cities where there is a lot of people in contact with recent travelers from China, which leaves out much of flyover country. Kung Flu is largely a Blue State problem.
Kung Flu is going to accelerate Red Pill trends and tendencies and the Red State — Blue State split.
The biggest red pill is how everyone is beholden to said blue states… The whole economy revolves around their spending and labor. Never is it more evident how little fly over country matters in National importance. If New York, California and Chicago shut down so does the country.
The Trump government has been panicked into this ‘social distancing’ strategy by the corporate press. If it goes on too long, it might be a good idea to go full authoritarian on the press and its corporate ownership. Freedom of the press does not mean suiciding the social order. I would rather see the press and its owners shut down and locked up (for their own safety of course) then small business owners and employees lose their economic well being.
The only thing I expect is that our rulers will act with the utmost incompetence. Option A is possible in china but certainly not here. Of course that doesn’t mean they won’t try it. Whatever comes, I hope this ends with as little loss of life as possible, but I also sorely hope that this will wake some people up to the perils of globalism and provide some much needed support to the adage “good walls make good neighbors”.
Our delusions about race and racism played a major part in not shutting down international travel in January (especially from China) which would likely have prevented the worldwide spread. There is a reason all of those ‘racism is worse than the flu’ articles started appearing back then.
Looks to me like Captain Chaos is in charge of events right now. When a city mayor thinks she should ban sales of guns and alcohol because Coronavirus, anything can happen, and it’s unlikely to be good.
as they say, don’t let a good crisis go to waste.
This whole Covid-19 parallels the Orson Wells “War of the Worlds” broadcast. We hear accounts of events in Grover’s Mill, yet nobody actually bothers to check if the place and events are real. It’s on the radio, so you know it’s true. During my breakfast in AK, for 30 minutes solid all the programming was Covid-19. Not once was there a shot of “Actual Victims”. There was a vacuous segment about Tom Hanks and his wife Rita.. the only photo was a stuffed kangaroo and vega-mite toast. Sorry, but the hype is over-subscribed worse than all the names winter storms… Read more »
In response to the attack of Martians on Grovers Mill, NJ President FDR has given $1.2 Trillion dollars to the banks, $50 Billion in aid under the Stafford Act and asked Congress for a payroll tax holiday. Rep Lauro, D- MI passed a bill making small (and only small) businesses pay sick leave for workers socially distancing themselves from the Martian Death Machines.
I am reminded of a science fiction story, The Cold Equations
http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-cold-equations/
Great Story. Forgotten about it. Thanks for bringing it up.
Just watched a different version of that on youtube. Classic sci-fi short story.
Terry Pratchett in Hogfather: YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES. “So we can believe the big ones?” YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING. “They’re not the same at all!” YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME…SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE… Read more »
I have a real-life version of this. About forty years ago a teenaged girl, 14 or 15, came into the hospital because she was vomiting blood. She had taken a bottle of Tylenol about a month previously when her father told her she couldn’t see her boyfriend any more. The next day she woke up and since then she’d found out more about the guy and seen the wisdom of her father’s actions. She had felt a little tired, and sharp-eyed friends had noticed her yellow sclerae, but until the blood came up she had no idea what she’d done:… Read more »
“Things once said, can not be unsaid, and some things, once done, cannot be undone.” Similar story, when I was a medical resident our team had (as a patient) a 16-year old girl who took a bottle of Tylenol over a cheating boyfriend. I recall she was a bright, pretty girl from a comfortably well-off family that seemed very supportive. In short, someone who had been blessed in so many ways. But perspective is a rare thing, especially at that age. The liver specialist told us he had seen a number of such cases, all involving some lout of a… Read more »
If we allow this thing to run it’s course who’s actually at greater risk? Old vs Young? Urbanite vs atomized suburbanite? That first group is skewed white. How about that second one…yes fewer than the first but what sort of whites are we taking about? Not to mention who else tend to live cheek by jowl there.
Looks to me like the stars are aligned on this one. Paint a target on the Briggs.
For our society supposedly being so data driven the stats from this thing seem to be made of swiss cheese. Since our “betters” have nothing but intentionally bad data to work from I’d have to guess that they’re likely to make bad decisions.
Maybe three people will get this reference, but I’ll make it anyway:
Coronavirus is the real-life Octopus from “Watchmen”
I’d say it’s the opposite when it comes to China. Nobody will ever trust those lying motherfuckers again – even after the rest of us resume shaking hands.
Yeah I don’t get the people saying China is in on it. They’re toast. Cut your nose off to spite your face? Doubtful.
Problem is not whether we believe those lying SOB’s in China, it’s whether the elites again ignore the interests of the dirt people and continue to do business with them, or their surrogates; Vietnam, Cambodia, etc.
Glad they took it out of the movie. Dr. Manhattan made a better fake foil imo.
The inevitable claims that the Orange man is incapable of dealing with the situation are legion, and they may well be correct. I’m just glad we’ve got the steady hand and sharp mind of Joe Biden waiting in the wings to take charge!
On the plus side, it will be their fault next time.
What we have now is Trump, the “avatar of whiteness” being blamed for a Globalist failure.
It’s never their fault. Obama in his second term was still blaming bad events on Bush, and was last seen trying to take credit for the Trump economy after being out of office for 3 years.
I’m just real glad we have an Affirmative Action surgeon general leading us in this time of crisis. Also an obviously adept WHO director. Thank god we live in a meritocratic system and not a clownworld.
I think history will judge Joementum as the worst possible candidate for the worst possible time. Trump’s going to win, simply because he seems more alive.
….and the woman Veep he’s committed to (think Liz, AOC, and the like) who will take charge of the situation. Yay!
AOC is not eligible to run as VP. But you are all correct. If it’s Joe, consider his running mate as Joe most likely will not complete his first term.
The woman VP pledge was a suicide note.
The woman will be Clinton.
Yup.
or Kamala Harris.
isn’t Bernadine Dorhn still available?
If I were feeling conspiratorial, I’d say boomers are meeting their timely end and they want the world to freak out over there viral mortality.
But regardless of all, I’m confident that the panic is Boomer fueled for Boomer benefit. Protect the old people at all costs.
No one Boomer bashes like me, but I just don’t see it here.
The oldest Boomers are 74; the surviving members of the Silent Generation are the ones at risk.
“Boomer Remover” is a funny meme, but it doesn’t fit the reality on the ground.
For most idiots, Boomer just means anyone decade or so older than them. Clint Eastwood? Boomer.
And Boomer Remover is not a funny meme unless Jackass is high art to you.
Still have a few members of the Greatest Generation around.
I know there’s an ongoing set of mixed feelings here about Vox Day (including my own), but he has been on-point on the boomer issue lately, as regards the Kung Flu:
http://voxday.blogspot.com/2020/03/mailvox-deal-with-it-boomer.html
Interesting how you lot manage to turn everything into your jealousy of and resentment of the Babyboom generation. I feel truly sorry that your life is so sad.
Ok, boomer
Western Civ, when it was still a high civilization, had a complex hierarchical web that cut across every aspect of the civilization’s structure. Estates/Castes/Guilds developed symbiotically. They were much more cooperative than they were combative. They were also fluid and adapted to the needs and desires of different ages. This symbiosis also included a communal life that assigned duties and rights for different age groups. No one can build a high civilization in which groups are continually combative and rarely cooperative. Symbiosis is an integral part of the structure of civilization; we all have a role; much of this having… Read more »
Then we overcame scarcity and became selfish slobs. *rimshot*
@Stina
I see you’re getting downvoted, but I agree to a certain extent. Specifically, how much of the Fed government’s freakout might be due to the fact that most of the leaders are in the age cohort that is most at risk from Covid- 19? Pelosi, McConnell, Bernie, Biden, Trump, they’re all old as dirt.
Coronavirus vaccine trial starts Monday. I’m curious to see how fast this happens with the FDA muzzled.
https://www.wavy.com/news/politics/government-official-coronavirus-vaccine-trial-starts-monday/
It still takes over a year. Lots of testing that cannot be gotten around.
TV makes it look easy and fast, it isn’t in real life.
Perhaps not, but with the original Swine Flu scare under Carter, the vaccine companies got Congress to pass legislation to make them immune to lawsuits and set up a separate fund to pay claims resulting from this new and hurried inoculation program. Luckily, the swine flu did not appear and the vaccine was tossed the next season. I suspect exactly the same thing will again occur. No company will rush through trials, unless in some way indemnified by Congress—who will have great incentive to do such—at public expense.
One of those situations where a litigious risk-adverse women-run society isn’t very good at accepting the right level of risk.
I believe that the Swine Flu fiasco occurred during the administration of Gerald Ford.
And if all turns out well for the pharmaceuticals, vaccines will be mandated to avoid any more toilet paper shortages.
What will tomorrow bring, Martial Law?
Next the market is underwhelmed by ZIRP and QE4 because bin dare dun dat. So Trump goes on TV and says to the Nation, “Ya remember that trillion $ infrastructure plan I wanted but the democrats and the GOPe sissied out? Well we’re doin it!”
I think we may be assuming we’re going to be led by the same morons in Times of Crisis as we were in the Fake and Gay Times. Times like this tend to bring out the Alphas.
Z: first time, long time. We hit the bend point in the last 24 hours where now the cure is worse than the disease. I’m only surprised that I am surprised at how callow and feckless our “leaders” are (esp the Fed). But a polis will produce the leaders it deserves: history and literature have made this point time and again.
Really appreciate the level-headed commentary – it’s becoming more rare by the hour.
“If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs” etc
“If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs” etc
Thank God for the protective power of sand
I can’t believe that I’m witnessing the conscious making of a recession – possibly a depression. This is yet another example of feminization of our government and society. Our leaders are unable or unwilling to look at the long-term costs of a strategy. They’re just doing what “feels” right. Flash a few pictures of crowded hospitals in Italy and they’re willing to tank the economy.
When was the last time we had a leader who anyone would trust to lead us through something significant like this? Maybe Reagan but his legacy seems less sterling as the years go by.
Even the Wall Street Journal seems to be on board with the madness.
Not surprised. The main sections are liberal and the editorial section is libertarian. Nothing conservative about it.
The Wall Street Journal has been promoting every facet of the madness for years. Take illegal immigration. Please.
At the end of the day, their top supporters will make out like bandits. When WSJ is behind something, you know who really benefits most!
All governments are now locked in a spiral of who can “do” the most. They dare not be seen to not be doing enough. We now have 4 or 5 generations who have been brought up with the assumption that “da gubbament” will do everything for them right up and including wiping their butts for them. Woe betide the politician who tells them to man up and just get on with things.
The problem is not government per se but a world full of whiny, spoiled, petulant, dependent toddlers.
Attention, all editorial directors:
Need stock photos of crying brown kids, stat
It doesn’t have to be: do nothing, or quarantine everyone. Just let the retirees quarantine themselves, as they see fit or not. Young people are at little risk, let them work or not – as they see fit. When the fall recurrence comes, many people will have gained immunity and the recurrence will be less likely to be as bad. Herd immunity, it’s called – the old folks most at risk of dying will be less at risk, because fewer youngsters will be infectious. A big difference, fatality wise, is that a normal flu is not likely to overwhelm the… Read more »
Maybe it’s just that I’VE SPENT MORE TIME WITH SANDPAPER, SPRAY- PAINT AND DUST MASKS THEN MOST. – NASTY SHIT FLOATING IN THE AIR? YOU FIND OUT WHAT THE APPROPRIATE PROTECTION IS AND YOU WEAR THAT MOTHERFUCKER !! Don’t have to wear it all the time, old folks, just when you go out into a crowd. My recommendation: ‘ebay 3m 6000 series’ REUSABLE respirator – the p100 filters (NOT INCLUDED) filter ~99.3% , better than the 94.3% the famous ‘n95’ does. The p means ~permanent, / the n means ~not. 6100 is a small mask, 6300 is a large…. The… Read more »
just found this site, expresses the idea well : https://wearafuckingmask.com/
Lots of good reasoning here. Could any U.S. office-seeker, low to high, address his constituency, explain this reasoning, and hope to win an election? This isn’t the wartime Soviet Union we’re living in here.
Democracy Dies in Disease
The ruling class is in full panic mode. As Zman says, the “flatten the curve” people will destroy the economy and that will lead to deaths and suffering of proportions never seen before. Every action or inaction comes with a cost. So what should they do? Tell everyone to “be careful” and stay out of the way. At the same time open several hundred emergency hospitals based on what they did back in 1918 when Americans were not a bunch of whiny pussies. Turn major hotels into hospitals just for those with the flu/cronovirus. Bring the military home from “protecting… Read more »
Mark;
You forgot about AIDS being the first political virus. It was given protected minority status in CA and elsewhere in the early ’80s. Go to the Doc with the Clap, he/she’s required to tell your wife, but with AIDS, Doc’s were *forbidden* from telling her_! Or from doing contact tracing, IIRC.
Right then I had a bad feeling about who was really in charge in CA, where this was going, and when it would become nationwide. Clinton did not disappoint.
The problem is that serious cases require tools we don’t have. The US health care system is the worst in the developed world, drastically expensive and gives piss poor results. We don’t have doctors, nurses or anyone to staff them if you could find anyone willing. Now I’m middle aged with a good immune system , maybe a 1% chance of death if infected, max. There is a zero chance I’d volunteer or work in such a place as I’d have no supplies (all made in China) no safety gear, inadequate training and no sense of connection to the community… Read more »
The panic is the greater danger.
It is now. They could have balanced the health and economic dangers, but, instead, they acted like a bunch of scared teenage girls with no concept of trade-offs.
Herd mentality. The stampede is on. No wonder they manage us like animals.
One small bit of good news for today then is all that bleating I keep hearing is not just my inagination.
“You might have to die at 80 instead of 85”
Basically it makes total sense but there’s no way in hell a western politician would say that.
Prioritize young people, and old people who don’t smoke, aren’t obese, etc. Practice all the safety precautions: masks, hand washing, social distancing.
We in the West have been going through a very long period of comfort & plenty. Our leadership is reacting against possible discomfort (even sadness) not actually battling the virus or the perception of it. The current panic is a just the fear of discomfort. The quicker the people get used to discomfort, the better off we’ll be.
This is of course assuming that a 1918 style pandemic would not shut the economy down as effectively, or more effectively, than would a two or three week quarantine, which I do not believe to be the case. Also, we do indeed have an example of a collapsing health care system raising the death rate, that is exactly what is happening in Italy. Also, the assumption that this virus will only affect 20% of the population is in exactly the same category as the “blackpill” of 70% – it’s pure assertion, no one really knows anything about this virus. As… Read more »
The 20% figure has the benefit of having precedent. There is no precedent for 70%. Basically, you are moving all chips onto the once-in-never-happened option.
The anecdote about the husband-wife on the cruise ship in the same quarters for 2 weeks, and 1 got the virus and the other did not made me pause and question the infection rate.
“But that is 1 anecdote.”
True, but it is as valid as the other “data” I have received, and a 20% – 25% infection rate has the benefit of being historically accurate.
Either history sort of repeats itself, or this is the mother of all pandemics. Place your bets.
Except that a 20- 25% infection rate still means 66 million- 82.5 million Americans get it. A 3% fatality rate (which seems to be the most common estimate so far) among the infected means 1.9 million to 2.5 million dead.
That’s a lot of extra dead folks when the usual death rate in the US for all causes from cancer to car wrecks is around 2.5 million a year.
Leftists do love a famine. Empty the stores, close the restaurants. I have been expecting the collapse of civilization for a long time, but I REALLY didn’t think it would come out of dealing with a cold virus. As they say – this timeline!
That’s a good point. To liberals, the industrial revolution was our “original sin”, and they have been trying to contract technological advancement ever since. The population bomb, the pesticide silent spring, endangered species, global warming then cooling then warming again. Every liberal generation has a new apocalypse prediction.
Political leaders across the nation are now competing to see who can take the most panic-stricken measures in the name of Coronavirus.
Thanks Z Man. You and Heather McDonald seem to be the only sane voices now in the public sphere. Your well earned check will be in mail.
Robustness is trait of all extant species. It cannot be any other way. Conversely, declining robustness is the road to extinction. And guess what? Our species has been declining in robustness for a long time now. Why? Because affluence has bastardized natural fitness selection into an artificial variant in which we now reward whining, conformity, and parasitism. And in the coming purge, parasites need Jackboot protection in order to survive.
We’re just overly spoiled and indulged by 70 years of affluence Most of our parents or grand parents – depending on how old you are, grew up in the Great Depression and lived on a small subsistence farm Those who worked in the factories had it just as hard but in different ways. The only folks I see who have bred out their genetic resilience are the higher IQ white upper classes but this has been going on ever since the upper classes separated from the lower in this country the way they did in Britain. You can see it… Read more »
But so far, the stat’s don’t show this. High IQ is associated with better health and longevity. At a more basic level, similar results are shown in Sportsball. Dumb jock is a poor stereotype.
You’ve got it backwards. IQ is a genetic trait with ancient roots. In our modern era, high IQ people earn more than average and therefore have access to better food, healthcare, etc.; which leads to longer life expectancy.
Not really, but there is some of that. Proper IQ studies are alway controlled statistically for such external variables such as SES. Longer life expectancy is associated with higher IQ “controlling” for SES, otherwise this would be a nature/nurture question—which it isn’t. My suspicion is that a well structured mind (high IQ) is also indicative of a well structured body (less mutations and such).
It is only Monday. Look ahead to next weekend as the lockdown expands and people eat up their pantry and freezer foods and can’t get more. Plus add in a week of millions of feral teens in Chicago, Detroit and NYC running wild for a week with the schools closed. I fear that we haven’t even scene the tip of the panic iceberg yet.
I dunno, I’m kind of hoping for ‘Z’s theory that we get a week out and people are like ‘WTF’? For instance, I’m hoping my favorite watering holes reopen as “clubs” so that I can stick it to the man by eating out, I doubt I’m the only one.
Like the “Climate Change” folk, the pandemic people have set a time limit for proof of their concern—two to three weeks. At which point, we need to see this pandemic follow the exponential curve of infection predicted. If not, people—as Z-man noted—will stop sheltering in place and begin normality. At that point, only the government can screw things up with a doubling down on quarantine.
The panic iceberg will usher in martial law, the ultimate goal. All because of a few pictures from China. Bin Laden took away our freedoms. Now the Chinese have sabotaged our economy, thanks to the neuroses that has gripped our country for so long.
Vikings, I hear ya, but I need to take a harsh position. Bin Laden took no freedoms away, we voluntarily surrendered our freedoms in the ensuing panic his attack caused. And to this day, with all we know about the abuse of these powers we ceded to our government, our elected representatives continue to renew the act which took those powers away. We are our own worse enemy.
Well you called it – N.J. shuttering casinos, movie theaters and gyms because of coronavirus. https://www.nj.com/coronavirus/2020/03/nj-shuttering-casinos-movie-theaters-and-gyms-because-of-coronavirus.html
Is he going to pay rent, taxes, utilities, and payroll for the people he just put out of business?
Casinos, I kind of understand. They must be vectors of disease. They’re usually filled with a combination of Asians and old folks. There are buses that take you from Chinatown in Boston to Chinatown in NYC that are so inexpensive they’re practically free. They’re also filthy and so poorly maintained that the joke used to be “Fung Wah” was Chinese for “bus on fire.”
The government is basically going to have to force waive the costs I suspect. They also won’t have much revenue next year nor much of anyone with the means to pay it. Likely the Feds will step in but the Federal Reserve is hoping more borrowing at lower rates will fix the issue, It won’t. If this goes on for while, the options will be massive redistribution of wealth or a massive depression but the system is set to funnel money to the top 1% and trickle a bit on the next 10% If they don’t fix that, all bets… Read more »
We’re almost in a death spiral, events stack on each other until you can pull out. The system becomes overwhelmed. That the crazy thing about it. It has to be all or nothing with this-either people die, or we gut the economy to save a few.
“It has to be all or nothing with this-either people die, or we gut the economy to save a few.”
And many of the few don’t even want to be saved. I am in the risk group and am ready to meet God. I would be perfectly happy for the rest of you to go about your business and let me live or die in peace.
Please stop helping!
Nothing much has actually happened regarding the proliferation of spread of the disease. They are using computer modeling to project death and destruction. Probably a case of GIGO. Much like anthropogenic planet warming. All a function of a progressive fever. Let us hope we change course in 2 weeks to save the economy.
The quarantined cruise ships showed a 20% infection rate after two weeks of close mingling. That’s about what the Swine Flu did a decade ago. Yet, in order to reduce the peak rate of infections, which will not reduce either the total number of infections nor the total number of death, we have artificially collapsed the economy, creating a Second Great Depression. Every single individual has seen his pension fund bankrupted. Tens of millions of low income workers in the service sector have had their wages stopped. That is the current situation, the now, not some hypothetical future. This is… Read more »
I’m not sold yet on this being Sanders victory. But it very well might if he plays it right – “look at wall street and the bankers, they all got rich while your 401k tanked”
I doubt that will help him. I doubt anyone with a 401K, in the market, is a true believer of his socialism utopia. He would seem to attract IMO those who are left out of the economic boom—which are the majority I admit. If large unemployment occurs—even temporarily—he might pick up those folk.
Hey, spoiler tags please! Not everybody’s seen the script!
Well, reducing the peak is predicted to reduce the total number of deaths as those needed extreme supportive care will be able to get it.
First off the flattening people are dead wrong about the virus they know damn well it’s not dangerous at all to about 90% of the population. And the panic they were worried about, they created it by making it virus look much more dangerous than it is. This aspect should have been made clear as day to the people. Instead the MSM and the ruling class caused mass panics where grocery stores are being cleaned out here in Los Angeles county. My brother in Utah says the same thing is happening there. It’s really bad, if you need food you… Read more »
Well… It is dangerous if everyone gets it at once, even if you don’t become seriously ill. People are still going to have car accidents, heart attacks, strokes, cancer, and all the other crap people go to the hospital for. If you get there and the place is absolutely overrun with cornona patients, you are screwed.
Amen, Drake. Avoid ER’s, Clinics and Doctors’ offices if you can possibly kick it down the road for a while.
The supply chains will work. America feeds itself just fine. These kinds of shocks are planned for in most retail supply chains (mostly around snowstorms and hurricanes). Retailers in areas that don’t have those might take a bit longer, but we will get through this.
The damage to small businesses and the working class from this is far worse.
It’s the drug supply chains that matter. If we didn’t address that after the baby-food poisoning, the toxic toys, and the pet-food poisoning scandals, It’s unlikely that will happen. India and China will leverage this for even more VISAs.
I think there will be hiccups, but I also think I agree the US will be able to feed itself.
Yes, almost every supply chain has gone, “Just In Time.” However, there is a companion concept that goes along with JIT that is called, “Agile.”
Agile means what it says. There are folks in the food industry working overtime now figuring out how to reorient their supply chains to find second sources, third sources, viable substitutes, etc. Those supply chain folks are pretty good at what they do.
The TDS has been driving people to totally destroy their economy and society, if that’s what it takes to get back at Orange Man. Madness…
Nobody “knows” anything because we don’t have reliable data because testing has been a fuster-cluck.
I remember this… Wrath of Khan, best of the Star Trek films by a large margin. Similar but not the same situation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobayashi_Maru
Yep. I was wondering if anyone would notice.
Now the question is, can we pull a ‘based James T Kirk’ move and edit/hack Covid-19 so it only kills radical leftists and ‘the other’ and not needing to even break the treaty w/ the Klingons. 🙂 Thereby bringing the reference fully into reality. (We can dream at least…)
A good summation of Z’s article today could be: the good of the many outweighs the good of the one…million.
Mario, maybe. But I also say, both can be done. Focus the resources at the most vulnerable and leave the rest of those in the population to continue with their lives.
Until the present insanity, I remember public service announcements during flu season that even focused on oldsters and sick folks and promoted vaccine, hygiene, and in essence “self quarantine”.
I can still remember that stupid jingle on “washing” your hands.
One million old and sick vs millions losing their jobs, businesses, and retirement savings, and still having enough life left to have to clean up the mess and rebuild. Yeah, Z is exactly right.
Stalin was high T chad groyper. Of course he wouldn’t let the chink flu shut life down. My ruddy skinned Georgian niggah had sugar beets to harvest. He knows better than to be bossed around by a chingalingadingdong virus.
Another winner. Thank you yet again for being a voice of reason amidst the storm of emotion. The whole concept of moral trade offs or rationing of any sort makes most people profoundly uneasy. Assigning such “what if” judgments to teenagers (I got the lifeboat or cave one back in middle school as I presume many others did) is foolish. Ignoring such decisions in real life when the consequences to millions could be dire is inexcusable. The shut downs are ridiculous and this panic is obscene.
Ha, in 1970s middle school I got the one about a baby stroller rolling in front of a bus. Does the bus driver kill the baby or crash the bus? My teacher was in the kill the baby camp. Teachers today are more feminized.
Is the bus full of boomers?
…
I’ll show myself out.
Wait! Is anybody on the bus a citizen? Are you sure there are no illegal substances being transported in the alleged baby stroller?
As Z-man has noted, we once had a repository of “leadership” to draw upon to express just that sort of choice to the public, and lead us in the direction of balance. But that was long ago.
Tell that to the doctors in Italy who are deciding who gets on the ventilator and who is left to die.
Ben, If the problem you decry is that there is not enough equipment/personnel to save every person who requires such, i.e., placing a monetary value on human life—that is done everyday and everywhere and always has been. The medical field is no exception and the present pandemic nothing special. Here’s a recent example, you can research it if interested. When automobile airbags were in their infancy, the NHTSA folk decided to mandate them, initially in front seats, driver and passenger. However, these initial designs were fairly crude and there were injuries, even fatalities when they went off if you were… Read more »
correct me if i’m wrong, but if susceptibility to C19 and ‘age-adjusted probability of death’ are correlated, and if they vary through the population, it is likely that any early estimate of R0 and CFR, even with *perfect* testing, will be high: the virus is more likely to travel through the subsets of the population nearest to Patient Zero that are most susceptible and likely to die. it would be very difficult to estimate what r0 and CFR will be without knowing the variance of susceptibility throughout the population. but what makes the ‘sampling’ worse is that we do not… Read more »
All this is correct and should be considered. Problem is this type of thoughtful analysis often comes after the initial “crisis” has passed. To an extent, this is what Z-man was getting at. Using past to model the future. The past pandemics have been studied and modeled. But calm deliberation seems no to be in vogue today. I’m seeing this even within the medical community. Don’t forget, most all of the mandates/madness coming down from on high are because of an MD whispering in the ear of a politician.
“in any case, there are reallygood reasons to think we’re extrapolating from biased and unrepresentative samples and taking astronomically costly precautionary measures on the basis of shaky modelling.”
We marvel that Ceasar, Alexander and other ancient leaders went to the Delphic oracle and prayed. No different now, except it’s an Excel model (or an Oracle database) they are praying to.
There is also a tinge of political correctness that prevents people from asking for and even receiving the raw data. It is impossible to formulate a R0 without adequate knowing population density, living conditions, work conditions, and having testing supplies and a way to test all people in a region. Calculating a believable CFR is even more difficult without knowing age, gender, ethnicity, other health issues, smoker/non-smoker, etc. Either the data exists and we cannot have access to it, or it does not exist. Given the size, scope, and scale of the competing governments, bureaucracies, and non-profits involved, either answer… Read more »
I must commend you Z, for following Kipling in this.
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
Trump is going to lose in a landslide in 2020. He should announce now that he won’t accept the nomination and give the Republican party time to field a different candidate who might have a chance. Failure to do so will result in President Biden.
Utterly inexplicable that Trump sealed off Europe but has left the southern border open.
Lose to Democrats who desperately wanted all the borders to remain open – and anyone who makes it across the border get free treatment?
*fart* Borders are still effectively open and practically anyone gets free treatment anyway, under Trump, so what’s your point? The great shock and awe that was Trump even becoming president could just as well be countered with the soft whimper and nasty caress of a limp Democrat nominee winning.
Trump is losing in the polls in Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Arizona, and he needs 4 of those 5 states to win. The stock market has collapsed, grocery stores shelves are empty, schools and businesses are closed, and the country is moving toward a complete lock down. GDP is going to collapse in Q1 and Q2. You’re delusional if you believe Trump’s poll numbers are going up in 2020. None of this is Trump’s fault, but he’s going to pay the electoral price in November. I would have called this election a landslide victory for Trump two months ago,… Read more »
Ah yes, the infallible polls
Whose polls? Polls are all BS. We should have learned that in 2016. To cite them is not to your credit—and for that matter, as a troll, you really have not cited any, have you. It’s not that polling is simply an inaccurate science. There are better and worse polls. (The better ones are usually for internal use only, for obvious reasons.) It’s that polls are a commodity sold to/commissioned by folks who have a vested interest in certain results which aid them in their particular endeavors. Dem’s want polls for public consumption that show their candidate ahead and the… Read more »
None of this is Trump’s fault,
–Interestingly I thought you were being serious until I read this. Some of this certainly is Trump’s fault, but that doesn’t mean that he loses.
Thanks, Chicken Little but I somehow doubt President Trump will take your “advice”. Tell me, how do you go through life being such a pussy? Assuming your concern is actually genuine, that is.
It remains to be seen who people will blame when the dust settles. Trump or the media? It’s definitely possible people will punish the guy who tried to keep them calm, out of embarrassment.
Some history of media panics:
https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/mountains-out-of-molehills/
So in your script, there’s still an election? I might have missed a revision.
Guest. Good troll, next?
C’mon, dude. As fast and as crazy as this year’s been so far, who can guess what craziness will be going on when people go to actually vote in November?
Besides, Trump is totally lucky in his enemies. Biden got dementia, for cripes sakes.
As you may (or may not) have heard Germany shut it’s borders to Switzerland this morning at 08.00. Evidently none of the border guards were aware of this as I drove across to do some last minute shopping (you can never have enough toilet paper). But really, it was just to see what would happen and if it was really being inforced. As I expected, no one was at the border controlling anything. And I had no problem in the stores. But did notice people were getting a little panicky as hand-sanitizers and cleaning products (disinfectants) were all gone. But… Read more »
Here in the states, anyone not assuming we will have the same numbers as Italy is treated like a leper. If you point out that Germany is not having the same problems, you are ignored. The fact is, our society is a helluva lot closer to Germany than Italy. The fact is, Italy is Europe’s Puerto Rico.
Italy is not really a nation, much like Spain. A loose collection of disgruntled tribes that hate each other.
Also, look at Russia. 90 cases?
I thought Greece was Europe’s Puerto Rico. If not, they’re definitely a close second!
Have you followed this from Yanis Varoufakis. Euroleaks! This should be very interesting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDah_g3IzyM
Maybe in St. Louis, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, and Cincinnati, the society is closer to Germany.
I thought Germans loved being overrun by unaccompanied foreign men? Maybe you aren’t swarthy enough to get their love?
That is a very well argued case for a, not ‘the’, view I have not taken here. It would be tempting of course to now search mind and internet for counterarguments out of intellectual vanity. But that would also be BS b/c I’m more interested in what is factually or, here, which is the lesser evil course of action. But I have heard pretty harrowing stories from out of Italy, ppl are dying not just from Covid-19 but from many other cases as well, b/c the health care system is overwhelmed. I’m not sure flattening the curve really requires a… Read more »
I appreciate that you put the search for the truth above your feelings. I say this as someone who has no firm opinions on what to do right now.
IMO one outcome will be that the “work from home” thing will be much more popular in the future, when industry finds they can get similar productivity and results without all the costly office infrastructure.
“There’s no heroic 30-something women in a lab about to formulate a vaccine for the Chinese Flu.” One downside of living through screens is that the line between narrative and reality blurs. We start imposing narrative expectations on actual events. We really can be “programmed.” For really mind-bending Clownishness, the conditioning is unstable and requires constant reinforcement but “nudging” is pretty effective until Noticed. Too much narrative can make you go blind to how “unscripted” reality is*. The more people are conditioned from their earliest ages to process life through narrative filters, the fuzzier reality becomes to us on an… Read more »
As a teacher, it’s foolhardy to digress from The Narrative — unless you really trust your class.
Narrative is necessary for our sanity – it’s why it’s so powerful, but the trick is getting the map to usefully correspond to the territory.
Z….your brain is on fire ad infinitum. Great thanks for your common sense, which isn’t common anymore, and for keeping our gyroscopes up and spinning. What the hell has happened to Mormon self reliance?! The stores here are just as bare as Compton. And A**hole Romney is jumping on his chair squeaking about handing out gibs to everyone. Disgusting! Mormons don’t know what “culture” is anymore. Half of them would sell their grandmother for $1…well..$2, while hiring their idiot cousin to build the next subdivision. What that tells you about Utah is: _A lot more Lefties from other states have… Read more »
You were spot on in your podcast about women in politics. At the risk of being hurled into the void, we’re now seeing Dominant women in politics and the University feedlot system paralyzed with self absorbed anger and frozen in fear of making the big crucial decisions under fire.
Tell me about it. We moved into our retirement home 5 years ago—sans kitchen table. Still no table. Wife said, “I can’t decide what I like.” I said, “Buy any damn thing, when you make up your mind, we can toss it.” That was four years ago. 🙁
Spit my coffee out with that one!
I thought the church suggested that you keep a stock of food in your house!? Do Mormons not do that anymore?
https://providentliving.churchofjesuschrist.org/self-reliance/home-storage-centers?lang=eng
That practice is fading. Young Mormons stateside haven’t paid much attention to self reliance. The trend is growing: Young women stomping that they want priesthood authority, lefty LDS demanding a rainbow of color, and all in on blackity-black-black-black. Embarrassed of past church policy to the point of denial. Being in debt for stuff like most snowflakes. Never seen a downturn. Mormons around the world reflect their own culture. Prepping up is not their culture. Especially African Mormons! That side of the account ledger is always in debt. The church takes stateside Mormon money and throws it at African LDS church… Read more »
It’s a shame. All my experiences with the LDS folk here in the West has been positive. We had a family that took in our youngest in a home daycare center. They had a year’s supply of food stored in just about every nook and cranny of their smallish home. 6 children. 20 years later I got a call from the oldest daughter there who was close to our son as a child. She was really getting into her religion and the understanding of it, perhaps because of her own marriage and children. She called to ask my forgiveness (basically… Read more »
Flattening the curve is right up there with the perfectibility of humanity. It’s not going to happen. Prudent national planning dictates that a certain number of people will die (pick a percentage) and that you preserve the core functionality of your society. Prudence? From this crowd of clowns? That’s not going to happen either.
This disease will have it’s way with us, and the only thing that remains is to see how bad it gets. As an afterthought no one will learn a damn thing from this.
Wise and true leadership would recognize what you say, but would know how to mask your bluntness to sell the masses on it. What I would have done myself, is not shut down the economy as crudely as has been done, but rather direct resources and emphasis to quarantine and treat oldsters—while talking up the limited danger of virus to the productive sector. Done properly, people would understand this. Of course, with a Congress as divided as ours with only power as their objective, no rationale course of action is possible. That is to say, there is no “middle way”.… Read more »
Thank you Z for being the voice of sanity in a sea of hysteria. Read a book once on the Attack of Pearl Harbor. After the attack soldiers could hear trapped sailors pounding on the hulls of overturned battleships.
They rescued those they could, but then stopped cutting holes in the ships They needed to right them and send them into battle against the Japanese.
Essentially they let those men die. We lack the steely-eyed determination of our grandfather’s and are now paying the price.
May God help us all.
As news reports promote scare headlines like “…Report: U.K. Outbreak Could Last a Year, Infect 80% of Population…” I would like to give one that will top the worse of them:
“Alien Invasion Could begin This Year if we all do not hide under our Beds!!! For the children: HIDE NOW”
For the Love of God, get under that Bed.
I don’t know why, but I’m feeling rather sanguine about how this will shake out once we burn through this initial panic. There will be a good deal of noticing going on. Whether or not the lessons learned will prove transient is another matter, but at worst there will be a brief shining moment where the general populace will recollect the events of this week with a furrowed brow.
Opportunities, great opportunities, exist here and now.
The problem is how quickly the economy can restart. Tools to boost the public confidence are petering out in the face of too many restarts. Companies that make stuff may be able to count on pent up demand. Entertainment industries, hospitality, travel conveyance, etc. may have simply lost out, never to recover that lost revenue.
The rational thing to do is to act on your own best interests, given that even though it makes no sense, madness is prevailing. Don’t be Kevin Bacon in Animal House, saying “everything is under control” when it is not. Stay away from crowds, look out for your own and your communities, and make decisions early rather than late. The same action, made early, can work a lot better than one taken later. Our culture is like a bunch of rats in a cage, unfortunately. The madness has to burn itself out.
In this time of great crisis, I propose a negro abatement program. Clearly this demographic will be front and center in the turmoil to come. Piracy of the communities that surround them is assured in this environment.
I love how cavalier these governors are in closing down bars and restaurants. Do they think these people are swimming in gold bullion at home like Scrooge McDuck? Do they not understand the size of the industry and how precarious it can be? Do they not understand all the small business loans tied together? That the payment for the new hot bar is coming due? That rent keeps clicking away? This is absolutely devastating for a massive service industry. You know, that industry that all the “economists” have touted would save us since 1983 and we outsourced our ventilator and… Read more »
The can-you-top-this push by many governors to inflate the minimum wage should tell you that their knowledge of small business is non-existent.
The chains will survive but even some of the big franchisees of major brands are going to struggle. I feel bad for the family with only a single Chick-Fil-A, McDonalds, or non-chain sports bar, restaurant, etc.
Maybe a way to fight this is ‘think of the poor families owning ethnic food restaurants that are operating on a shoestring budget, closing things down would hurt diversity’
As they try to pay their bills and recover in the aftermath, I hope they refuse to pay their taxes and sue the states for loss of business / violating their basic rights of association.
Drake,
They have paid all sorts of extortion to the national, state, and local governments in the form of permits and so on. They have paid IN ADVANCE for the right to open their business. The State is reneging on the agreement. This should be lawsuit material.
Shutting down private enterprise is a feature, not a bug, as far as many politicos are concerned. Opportunity is knocking for them to up their own personal skimming of the system in a big way. The joke is that these politicians say they “care about people” so much. That’s a bunch of BS, and has been for a long time.
Can somebody explain why there is this mad rush for toilet paper? It’s probably the least important thing. I usually take a shit before I shower, then wash my ass there. Is that gross?? IDK, I’m not worried about an itchy ass in the case of a societal collapse. Water? I have some. Beans, rice, frozen meats, canned tuna – I have some. Guns and ammo? Check. warm clothes I have. I should buy a flashlight though. I have enough to scrape by and if there is a catastrophic collapse I doubt being a hardcore prepper would make a difference.… Read more »
Hon……women use 10X more TP than guys! When you’re in keto with no carb intake, like an inline water treatment plant…..water in and water out pronto. Basic Husband provides well for his lady.
It’s also produced in the U.S. If truckers get sick, we’ll have a problem. Until then, they’re probably happy for the work.
Z Man; My forecast, FWIW, is a jump from Plan A (full Commie lockdown) to Plan C (watchful waiting/benign indifference) in about 2 – 3 weeks for just the economic reasons you posit. Might well include a renewed infrastructure push as someone presciently mentioned above. One thing we know about P Trump is that he is a pretty good broken field political runner: And that he usually fakes left (Plan A) and then runs right (hidden Plan C). People seem to think that Plan B (long term curve flattening) would last for months on end. If it did, you’d be… Read more »
Imma go out on a limb and make a prediction as well. The US will not get that bad, except for a few hot spots here and there. People will start realizing that we are enduring major disruptions over a mere 35 deaths in a given state. Maybe even 135 deaths is not enough. The overreaction will become apparent in 2 weeks, and people will get bored and move on.
I hope your right. But there is little sign now of common sense.
Kids at home from school? How do they eat?
In many cities the schools give the kids the only decent meals they get.
We got lots of food in this nation but a bunch of the population depends on government to be fed daily,
The Great Society repercussions.
Wonder if the “experts” on this thing thought of any side effects like this?
Despite the near constant push for ‘donations’ to ‘feed the hungry’ at grocery checkouts, I have yet to see anyone around who looks genuinely malnourished. Get back to me when people are truly needy and the ones with their hands out don’t have fresh manicures and culturally-misappropriated hair extensions. Until then, I’m all out of compassion.
A telltale sign of poverty is obesity.
Wholefoods ain’t cheap.
In our city (average home price just under $500K) they’re delivering meals to the kiddies, who otherwise would starve. /s
Indeed, here schools are “closed” except to hand out free breakfast and lunch. Which interestingly reveal their true nature as basically welfare distribution centers, rather than institutions of learning.
You’ve forgotten their custodial duties.
Experts and leaders are wary of being blamed for doing too little to prevent a crisis. And they get massive virtue points for espousing the most egalitarian-sounding opinions they can muster. The latter is especially true for academics and esteemed pundits. Elected leaders and local officials remember well what happened to Bush’s reputation with Hurricane Katrina. No governor wants to end up the butt of a joke like FEMA head Michael “You’re doing a helluva job Brownie” Brown. Politically ambitious people note it every season in sports. The marring of a great coach’s reputation over a single game. Or even… Read more »
Nobody in government, their handlers/donors ever pay any meaningful price for what they’ve done to this country.
Re: the clip you linked
Pats coach: “Three Corners! Three! Malcolm, go!”
Pete Carroll: “Oh noooo.”
Somewhat off topic: A globalist sadly and bitterly gives up on globalism:
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-03-16/coronavirus-globalists-may-soon-become-an-extinct-species
It’s a clique to say it, but I’m drinking his sweet tears.
The word is cliche dude. heheh
Hey Frip. Hope you’ve been well while you were away.
Good to see you back.
Thanks you guys. Corona, the great uniter.
Group hug!
If we’re going to be picky, it’s “cliché” (Glad to see you around these parts again, Frip.) 🙂
Judging from the comments, maybe it really IS “a clique to say it.” 🙂
Just returned from a trip to Petsmart to buy a big bag of catfood. The cat will eat, even if I must live off of my spare fat. Well, I wanted to lose 10 pounds anyway.
The local supermarkets are packed, of course.
All those folks are busy distancing themselves from each other by congregating in the store!
Sunday morning at 7:30 I spent 50 minutes in line at huge grocery store Albertsons in SoCal. They’ve done a good job keeping stocked. Only things unavailable were canned soup, fresh meat, eggs and t-paper. They said they’ll be fully re-stocked on Monday morning. Went to bar for dinner last night and it was full of balloons. I asked why and they said they’ll be closed on St. Patrick’s day so celebrating now. I’d kind of understand if bars were forced to close for a few weeks. Bars are full of people talking and laughing LOUD at each other. Only… Read more »
My boy cat fusses over his food and sasses back. “Stew Pot…uppity little shit bird!” Herding cats is useless.
Back in the day when I was young and would read my friend’s Mother Earth News, I used cotton cloth diapers for kidlet. Rinsed in toilet and dumped in a bucket full of Pinesol water. Once a week trundled them to the laundromat as many of us didn’t yet have washers.
Here’s a link from Rural Revolution how to survive and what to do when you have used up your toilet paper.
And how to make your own hand sanitizer!
http://www.rural-revolution.com/2020/03/and-madness-continues.html