INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
We are handling the first real global crisis since the Cold War with staggering incompetence
People are already dying en masse
We all need to stay home and stay away from one another
If we wait until those who can&t do math see the awful consequences all too visible to those who can, things will get colossally worse
It is already later than you think.
Look at this
Includes smart discussion of @mlipsitch's recent work
It really is later than you think https://t.co/j17jG6wr4h
— Bill Hanage (@BillHanage) March 14, 2020
A few nations&Taiwan, South
Korea&are responding with admirable competence and alacrity
People everywhere else have a lot to be extremely angry at
Especially in America, the theoretically wealthiest and most powerful nation in the world, which, it turns out, is completely incapable of
handling a crisis that is neither military nor financial.
A pandemic is to a society as a month of heavy rain is to a roof
It will find all of your architectural flaws, papered-over cracks, and loose tiles; it will use them to spread and spread; and you only have
The USA is like a palace whose owners chose to spend the last twenty years squandering their money on gaudy decorations and a home theater,
rather than fixing its decrepit roof
Now a storm is hammering down.
Guess what this little spike on the end is? (ILI respiratory symptoms in NYC) https://t.co/hkk9NGdaJg
pic.twitter.com/k3XdyRenYj
— Nathan Grubaugh (@NathanGrubaugh) March 15, 2020
None of this is news
We&ve all been witnessing America ongoing diminishment in real time for some years now
It easy to imagine this crisis marking its official decline into former-hyperpower status, while China assumes the global title of &most
important nation.&
In in the meantime, pay no attention to the reported, so-called confirmed, numbers of Covid-19 cases in America
The real numbers are clearly much larger
We&re in a dark room, surrounded by an unknown number of monsters, unable & and apparently unwilling & to turn on the lights.
A previous
tweet of this quote did not make it adequately clear that it is Trump who did not push for adequate testing, not Secretary of Health and
Here is the whole quote for context
@ddiamond pic.twitter.com/ZZ2aPF53m6
— Fresh Air (@nprfreshair) March 12, 2020
But let be optimistic
Suppose people come to their senses, and stop interacting with — and infecting — one another
Suppose the period during which hospitals are overwhelmed, and grandparents die in parking lots because there are no ICU beds left for them,
Suppose we actually do manage to Flatten The Curve.
What then?
Previous, lesser crises have gone away by themselves
The 2008 financial crisis was, as Bruce Sterling observed at the time, something &we made up&: nothing about the world changed except our
The World Trade Center attacks were only a real crisis for those in Lower Manhattan that morning and their families
This, though, is likely to affect our collective way of life, and our economy, for a long time.
For most people, &the economy& is a giant
treadmill of rent, bills, and paychecks, on which they must keep perpetaully running lest they be flung into an abyss
Social distancing right now is — and will remain, for an unknown period — critically important
But its implication is to say to everyone in travel, hospitality, retail, restaurants, nightlive, events, etc.: &You absolutely must stop
running, right now, but of course we&re not turning that treadmill off for you
Don&t be ridiculous! We can&t even imagine what turning it off would look like.&
Things are better if you&re in tech … but not much better
Does your company count any travel, hospitality, retail, events, etc., companies or people as clients or customers? No? Well, do your
clients and customers count any as their clients or customers? You won&t have to go very far before you realize: we&re all interconnected
Meaning: we&re all screwed
The whole treadmill starts breaking down if enough of us stop running.
So what would turning that treadmill off, or slowing it down, look
like?
In the US, it obviously starts with universal healthcare
But there no reason to stop there
Imagine a six-month rent jubilee, on the grounds that property owners are more able than suddenly self-isolating renters to deal with the
financial repercussions, and also better positioned to negotiate with governments for a subsequent bailout
Imagine giving people cash, whether you want to call it &special unemployment insurance& or &universal basic income.&
Imagine maybe even
rebuilding the whole treadmill from scratch, into an entirely different machine.
An interesting side-effect of our weird capitalism is
that Amazon and eBay can swiftly crack down on hand sanitizer price gouging but we are told there's nothing to be done about $500/month
https://t.co/cibzQArNPF
— Erik Hinton (@erikhinton) March 14, 2020
We built it ourselves, after all; it was not handed down from Mount
Maybe we can fix it so that it encourages scientists and artists and engineers to start up truly new and better things, rather than more
adtech and parasitical financial instruments
Maybe it can reward subway workers and teachers and farmers, rather than the throngs wasting their days in dreary, pointless, but
better-paid &bullshit jobs& in offices everywhere.
But that all in the future
Right now we&re in a crisis
Stay home, cancel on your friends, wash your hands; flatten the curve
We can&t fix the treadmill after the fire is out, and the grim nature of fire is that if we wait to act until we feel ourselves burning, it
will already be too late.
