How to explain the events of 2019/2020 to the next generation – a handy guide
fourlightyears.blogspot.com
fourlightyears.blogspot.com
Another way to tell the story is that Mother Nature got tired of the greed and people that did not care for the environment and wanted to get as much as they could at the detriment of others. So, Mother Nature created a new disease which ravaged the earth. It meant the shutdown of all international travel. The economy ground to a halt, and people started to realize they didn't need all these things they were buying. They started living within their means, taking care of each other and enjoying the simpler things in life. A few of the very rich, donated their money to help cure the disease. We opened our eyes to find that not only did we not need as much, but the world was a better place when we started to look at each other and understand what was really important. The new car, bigger house, nicer clothers, wasn't as nice to have as good old health and peace of mind.
That's just a really weird idea because the reason for the governments doing all those things is completely unrelated to the environmental protest. AND there was no hope in hell of the world doing all those things "for the environment".
The blog post deliberately tries to illustrate that point by presenting the story as though there were no virus, only environmental protest plus government action.
And instead of governments being slow and begrudging and endlessly politicking, it has all happened within a matter of weeks.
Illustrating the story in this way also goes some way to dispel many of the reasons that governments give for government inaction, usually they protest that it's not possible for humanity to respond in such radical ways - but clearly we can, given sufficient urgency/motivation/imperative.
With the irony being that both the environment and the virus represent a threat to humanity, but the virus operates in a much faster timeline than the environment.
If the environment was collapsing as fast as the virus is playing out then the world would act in the needed radical manner. Conversely, if the virus played out as slowly as the environmental disaster then it would not get much of a response from anyone.
Absolutely true, but look what country is about to "win."
Not speaking about that is a disservice to intellectual integrity.
While I owe the most of my money to trade with China, I fully understand that if the West will get a great downward dip, the current establishment in China will with 100% certainty exploit the situation
The CPC has always been a very opportunistic political force, and with the current people at the helm, they will certainly be even more so.
The West needs to think how they will be dealing with China after the crisis.
You already hear some whispers in the CPC suggesting that a conflict with Taiwan could be a quick and dirty way to distract the nation from the current crisis.
A conflict with Taiwan will mean the world looses 70-80% of its semiconductor supply, which can be a game over for the developed economies.
We just have to keep the mentality going and spreading. This is actually an opportunity to show them what can be done in a short period of time with the right inputs.
With the appearance of a new type of virus, mostly harmless to the majority of the population, but lethal to those at the medical fringes (eg. 99% of fatal cases in Italy have existing health problems, average age 79), we overreacted and in the process destroyed our economy and society, unwilling to face our own mortality.
The most common existing health problems from the study[0]:
* Diabetes - 29% of the US population affected
* Hypertension - 45% of the US population affected
Hardly "fringe".
[0] https://www.epicentro.iss.it/coronavirus/bollettino/Report-C...
Definitely no, unless you define the "cases" as "whatever my wish is to name the case to prove my own point now" and even then also fake the numbers.
Both the doctors on any location on Earth, including China, as well as World Health Organization define the cases differently and count completely other values: the "cases" are the actual big numbers we see in the news, and around 20% of people counted so actually are so bad that need to be in the hospital, in order to get the intervention if their sickness gets worse!
From all the cases recognized, many can't breathe, needing the intensive care units, and many die.
So even if not every country makes the same number of tests per capita, the speed of the growth of the cases of deaths can be compared.
Just an example of one country, the speed is everywhere consistent: The current count in Italy is 47021 cases, 4032 dead. The time the cases and dead double at the moment is still around every 3 days. Just 10 days ago Italy had 631 deaths, total (2020-03-10). Try yourself: 600 x 2 (that is, in 3 days) = 1200 ; 1200 x 2 (in next 3 days) = 2400.
Compare with the reported total numbers of deaths in Italy:
2020-03-09 463
2020-03-10 631
2020-03-13 (3 days later) 1266
2020-03-16 (3 days later) 2158
2020-03-19 (3 days later) 3405
2020-03-20 4032
The government of Netherlands doesn't believe it should do much, in order not to hurt its economy. The speed of growth of deaths in the Netherlands is nevertheless comparable:
2020-03-14 12
2020-03-17 (3 days later) 43
2020-03-20 (3 days later) 106
That's how exponential growth behaves, and there is not any other known method to decrease the speed of the growth than trying to limit the transmission from person to person.
And not, it's not comparable to flu, here's a graph from Italy of deaths per week, already many days old (violet: dead per week from flu, red: dead per week from COVID-19):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Is_COVID-19_like_a_flu%3F...
The problem with not doing enough measures is that when that is held the result isn't anymore "just" the currently observed percents of deaths, and that starts to happen around the time the hospital capacities are overflown.
And we don't need allegories about "mother nature" or whatever -- the above is a real problem to which the world reacts.
In terms of Keynesian economics, it has nothing to do with need, rather that allowing investors to "keep" and reinvest produces more overall growth and thus tax revenue as other taxation schemes. Sad and difficult, but according to Keynesian interpretation, these donations during trying times are likely an economic detriment in the long term.
Never let a good crisis go to waste. Load up on shorts and puts and enjoy the yacht you'll be riding on when this is all over
I guess objective truths really are just a detail for the strongly ideological
Noone will believe this though because once corona is over, it'll be business as usual: we'll go back to polluting the planet for our kids, consuming as much as before, ignoring the warning of scientists, and blaming immigrants for our problems.