Decision-making over social distancing is taking a toll on our mental health
rollingstone.com
rollingstone.com
It's like, finally the rest of society has to abide to how I want things to be, I'm glad that I don't have to say "sorry, got a cold so not shaking hands" anymore, because now we just don't do that, it was gross to begin with, why would I want to touch some strangers hands?
The economy breaking down from this, well, that's not only a bad thing, the economy was broken to begin with, in the best case, this forces us to rethink the systems.
Personally, I'm like you. This is my heaven, three weeks "alone", being able to pick my interaction method and being in control of my surroundings means my senses don't get assaulted. Truly it's paradise. (if, a little bit more extreme than I'd like).
However, not everyone is me. I would like people to allow me to exist in this way and for society to accept that I'm not just a recluse or unable to work this way.
But at the same time, I feel for all those who are truly people's people. That feed on social interaction, not just in the office. I used to somewhat envy them, society is basically built for them. But now I'm actually very worried for them.
I am in the category where my spouse and I retained our jobs, but lost childcare. These weeks are a nightmare, but I am fortunate.
More urban co-workers of mine do not have the option of outdoors. I am time-crunched and frustrated, but have plenty of sunshine.
Neighbors of mine in health care have to do intense shift work with COVID patients. Some retained child care options, but some didn't, and if they did, anxiety about it exists.
Many many more people out there have the terrible misfortune of too much time and unsteady finances. I feel the most sorry for these people.
Childcare, if the fact that well educated people with good jobs and (assuming) reasonable income is in need of childcare, is not a demonstration of how wrong a society we've constructed.. Sure, in prehistory, some had to stay back when them while others hunted, but we didn't need to keep that structure in place as we progressed.
How is it not crazy that we have constructed society in such a way that one has to offload them to someone else to be considered "a productive member of society".
How is is not entirely broken that, despite the enormous amount of wealth generated in the world, people still starve, and there's pretty much no help for them if they lose their jobs?
Community does not have to mean that we physically come together, it can mean that we pull the load we can, we contribute and share, we treat each other well and respect each other.
I say, We do need in-person interactions. And share our thoughts with others, I work in technology and often try to do this instead of virtual emoji handshake, because it gives me different perspective about life and how others are dealing with their problems. And more than all, to develop some empathy otherwise, life is just mundane.
People are different and they have different needs even in social interactions.
Just because something good came out of this on a personal level does not 'negate' the negative in any way.
Bad things can have some good consequences, however minor.
(See: technological advancement in times of war. Or illegal human experiments impact on science).
You're saying nothing by trying to imply a negative thing is the cause, we are aware.
As I read your question again, I think you may have misunderstood what I meant in my previous post. I do not think the actual virus is a good thing, I wish for that to be over as soon as possible, but the isolation part, more of that please.
But your words feel like they don't truly understand the ramifications of the life and death struggles going on in hospitals, or that the vast majority of human beings that are not you, evolved to need a good amount of social interaction.
This is not normal and should never ever considered being any type of normal. We can deal with the fatalities, and it is tragic, but the long term effects on society and the erosion of our rights and civil liberties will take decades to recover from.
This is not a time of honor.
But that social need that some have developed, is what's going to cost those lives and cause that struggle, so how I could be the one not understanding the ramifications, I fail to see entirely.
I'm basically saying "staying at home is nice, and is doing good for my mental health" and the response I get is "People are dying! Don't you understand that!" I don't see the connection. The underlying cause of WHY people has to stay at home is terrible, but the fact that they do have to stay at home, is what I commented on.
I hate that people are dying, I hate that my parents and wife are at risk, I hate that the healthcare systems around the world are breaking down, and I that people can't just stay home so that those I care about can be safe.
Me enjoying the isolation has no bearing on whether the COVID pandemic will continue for shorter or longer, me not hating to be alone and isolated does not change the course whats happening, and even if it did, it would be in a positive way, because I'm not out there, spreading the virus.
What? Should I feel guilty because something terrible is happening, and it just so happens that a side-effect of that is something I like?
Does that somehow imply that I wish the pandemic to continue or people to die?
I don't know what honor has to do with it.
Is this comment a satire reacting to that or is it real?
I honestly can't tell.
Do we want our children to grow up with the education and employment opportunities that they had six months ago, or do we want to completely minimize the loss of life?
The people most at risk are people with compromised cardiovascular systems and compromised respiratory systems. I also understand that obese people are at high risk. You can conclude that the way these people became compromised is through lifestyle choices. They chose to smoke, drink, and over indulge in food for many years. I'm sorry the bill has become due. But I don't think my children should have to pay the price for their choices.
I know a lot of readers are going to be saying that the greatest at risk group are people over 65. I'm in this group. It is my personal opinion that I would rather my grandchildren grow up with high potential than to prolong my life another few years. In reality I'm not truly concerned because I'm relatively healthy for my age group because of the choices I have made.
-- edited to remove an uncharitable reading and response --
I was not arguing to be allowed to wonder the streets. I was arguing that there are consequences to every direction we turn and that we need to consider what kind of future we want in the following decades. This will eventually end. What do we want life to look like when it ends?
Just for your info, I live a fairly isolated life on a working ranch. My wife and I can go as long as a month without seeing another human being. My lifestyle has not changed all that much other than the fact that at the base level of the food supply, I can see that shortages are coming. Most living Americans have not lived through food shortages. The big political question of the coming years may not be how do we distribute the wealth, but how do we ease the hunger!
Of those, some people over 65 will simply die, and in that case the “high potential” their children have is going to be stifled by grief, high medical bills, and total loss of parental support.
If we are making a decision for the whole community, I always feel it best to lean towards a conservative approach, but allow risk takers to have an opt out.
Regardless of the validity of systems such as the Myers Briggs personality types I am very interested in how the various corners are handling the situation. Particularly INTP/INTJ's (assumedly a lot of HN...).
There's plenty of bored single people in the same boat as far as I can tell.
Edit: fellow salesmen still thrive during pandemic on the phone. Looks like their luxury cars and weekly meetings at the client’s location are not needed at the end. These were extreme extroverts talking without a break.
Congratulations on your success. There is a significant part of the world population that refuse to learn how to look at the world as appreciatively as we do. The struggles my wife and I have faced throughout our lives give us the foundation for the joy and inner peace we feel in our lives.
I know there will be a lot of people that are suffering during this through no fault of their own, and I hope they persevere and that they reach out to their communities for caring help, and that they receive it.
But a significant percent of us in the wealthier countries of the world are simply having to adjust to not being able to trod all over the world giving fuck-all about anyone else. I say it's well and truly time for them to appreciate their grocery clerks and hospital orderlies and realize that all people are valuable and that the more they struggle in life, the more we should help.
Personally, I'm very happy with the improvement in air quality from the reduction in society's busyness. Endless growth of GDP was always setting us up for disaster; this seems like a kindof gentle way (if brutally abrupt) to slow down our economies, but we'll see how/if/when we come out of the other side.
Too much mental health concern and sympathy bothers me a bit because it can be a social license to behave terribly, and the self-care narrative can seem like an enabler instead of a mitigation for a crisis. I'm advising friends to remember how abnormal this is. Their normal might not come back, but being just a bit more charitable with each other as they adapt can turn a relationship breaker into a deeper level of trust. Marriages and family are wealth, and right now they aren't earning interest or returns from the outside. Some people are starting to spend and draw down their emotional capital by being needy or subconsciously giving in to conflict for the excitement. If you lacked personal boundaries going into this, it's going to be hard when they necessarily build up just to stay sane in confinement, so being charitable about that mental space is key.
All I can say is the best way through this will be to exercise, read the stoics, and work on mastering something. This too shall pass.
This is a really good article.
I'm more a fan on the real title "The Reason You’re Exhausted Is ‘Moral Fatigue’"
Handling ‘Moral Fatigue’ effects R0. If it becomes to much people will give up, which ends lockdowns early and it reduces productivity and short term happiness.
With the Moral Fatigue comes adventure though, it's like a foreign holiday, stressful, but we understand the reward.
The real "toll on our mental health" will be the joblessness and health budget cuts for the coming years, not Moral Fatigue.
The second is the disease where society, in an attempt to fight the disease, could end up deeply hurting itself:
https://battlepenguin.com/philosophy/covid-19-is-two-disease...
52% of people under the age of 45 have been laid off, put on leave, or had hours reduced. Putting the people with young families, or who would have been looking to start families in dire straits is a great recipe for high crime and social unrest.
We have the ability to keep essential workers safe with proper protective gear and guarantee both food and shelter to all for the duration—we just have to decide that we value human life and dignity more than money.
That said, my point is mainly that if the government were responding effectively, we could have had production shifting to ensure proper supplies in January. That could have included toilet paper, too, though I suppose it's possible that even an effective government wouldn't have foreseen that particular oddity of the crisis.
As it stands, our government is hamstrung by the fact that its chief executive cares exactly zero for the wellbeing of the country except inasmuch as it makes him feel like he'll have better chances of winning re-election.
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen any part of the government respond effectively to anything, to the point of it being an oxymoron. I also fail to believe that the president has much power over anything related. In a state of emergency, the president can get more powers. I am unaware of any that would help. He can imprison, disable services, turn off the Internet, sanction, all sticks and no carrots. I think our president is an ass, but I think it is silly to think “if but for him, our government wouldn’t be hamstrung.”
Edit: clarification on my first post: I was not claiming toilet paper as protective or emergency supplies, but as an example that even trifling things can’t be secured. Let alone things that are actually important such as masks or food.
As far as specific powers the President has, there's one that's already been talked about quite a bit—the Defense Production Act. As I understand it, this grants the power to compel manufacturing companies to retool to produce what's needed in a time of crisis, and to take control of logistics to see them routed in an efficient manner to where they are most needed. As a matter of fact, Trump has already used this to order GM to produce ventilators (I think? maybe it was masks?).
As far as the logistics side goes, though, he's been using it solely to punish states whose governors don't lick his boots and reward those who do (eg, seizing shipments of protective equipment arriving at the port in NYC, sending them to FL instead).
If we can provide enough PPE for essential workers for 6 months, I don't see any good reason why we couldn't provide enough for any arbitrary length of time. (This is assuming that those 6 months are going to be too long for existing stockpiles to supply to begin with, so we'll need to ramp up production.) Given that we can keep essential workers safe, and essential workers can keep producing what we need to keep the country running and people fed and safe, I'm certain there is a limit to how long we could continue to operate under social distancing, but I doubt that said limit is imposed by simple economics. It's much more likely to be related to infrastructure deterioration (unless we designate construction workers as "essential" and make sure they have appropriate PPE, which might require different standards)...and, of course, the original subject of this thread, the psychological toll the situation takes on everyone.
Because, again, our choices are not between "destroy the economy" and "people get kinda sick."
The real choices are between "change the economy" and "millions of people die." And, um, if millions of people die in the space of a few months, that's not exactly going to leave the economy feeling healthy. Not to mention the psychological toll that would take on everyone.
Also consider that social distancing orders are simply unenforceable as a practical matter. I've noticed a lot of people disobeying already, and compliance will obviously decline as time passes.
The reality is that most of us will be infected before a safe and effective vaccine is available. Focus on what is achievable in the real world, not some idealized fantasy.
People do not know what is going to happen, our leaders are not doing anywhere nearly enough to address potential famine and no world leader I have heard to far is even beginning to talk about reconstruction. It's just more endless lockdown without clear metrics for what would even end it.
Democratic leaders must use ideas are currency, and right now, they're not offering people any hope at all.
Do you have a source for this? I'm not finding it with a quick google search
From: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/04/millennial...
Report cited in quote: http://filesforprogress.org/memos/the-staggering-economic-im... (I haven't read this.)
In Ecuador, families have had to keep their dead for over a week while waiting for burial. Some have resorted to dumping them on the street. https://youtu.be/XHsfjnRB-uA
You will get sick. Ultimately, unless there is a vaccine (or herd immunity), you will get sick no matter what. The difference is whether you get sick now, and become a number in the statistics of people who die alone in their house because there was no room in the hospital, or you get sick a few months from now once all the equipment and tools are in place, and there is a good triage system in the medical centers.
I think if there's a riot, then the medical system will need to take care of the rioters who end up getting sick all at once (and yes, some of the rioters will die because of lack of care).
So go riot, and take the chance that you will die.
Are you positing that the same people would have better survival rates at home?
At the hospital, they have additional equipment: the ability to isolate you so you don't infect anyone else, provide oxygen at a higher purity and rate, various drugs and techniques to facilitate your body to heal itself (for ex. medically induced coma), and the ventilator and ecmo's which take over certain body functions so your damaged organs don't have to (ie mechanical lung, mechanical kidney (dialysis), mechanical heart, etc).
None of those items are cures. Novel coronavirus means New to human biology - no body, including evolution, has seen this before and no, we don't have a cure.
Going to the hospital means there are no other options other than to put you on extraordinary measures - of course it means that you might not recover.
Again, there is no cure at the moment, no pill you can take to get better. [edit: the exception is if you get into one of those drug trials at a hospital that is offering experimental treatments - it could be worth it - since you'd be offering your body to science to fight this virus. Pasteur had to infect himself in order to test his vaccines, many of those on experimental trials are just like him - bravely trying things out to see if they work.]
Stay at home everyone, so we can properly investigate.
In IT outage terms, this is the time when all systems are down, and the incident commander is going "I know that all the database servers are down," "no I don't know why," and "could you please stop issuing extraneous replication requests to the master server?? issuing replication right now is no use because the master server is just not there."
Stay home. keep healthy until there is a vaccine or a better standard of care.
If you want to riot, wait until there's a better thing than just going on the ventilator at the hospital and dying. Unless you want to martyr in protest which is also a valid way to go.