If Silence Is the Cost of Great Ramen, So Be It
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
It was eerie at first but I enjoy the calmness in the city now, e.g. drinking a glass in a rooftop bar of a 60 story building in total quietude is an event.
Dinners in US are irritable to me. I understand why and how it happens, I just wish there was a sign a wrist band or something to signal to waiting staff to leave me alone unless i ask for their help.
In Europe on the other hand, they're usually normal sit down restaurants. You have to go through the normal dance of waiting to be seated, ordering with the server, waiting 10-15 mins for your food then trying to get somebody's attention to pay when you're done.
https://qz.com/quartzy/1588711/ichiran-ramen-shop-offers-ser...
Momofuku and Milkbar are given so much love, you'd think they invented flight or something.
Netflix will go full Terrance Mallick mode backed by a symphony, while they pan the camera to someone making a cookie. It is utterly absurd.
It's becoming harder and harder to claim what's happening is all about "health".
I’m vaccinated. I’ve done my part. It seems like new restrictions and rules are forever escalating, and will continue to do so past any reasonable point.
To me, getting vaccinated feels like table stakes for participating in society, but it’s necessary, not sufficient.
It’s increasingly obvious vaccination doesn’t prevent the spread. If a restaurant wants to encourage people to visit by discouraging them from spreading the virus while they’re visiting, more power to them. Winter is coming, and eating outside is increasingly challenging in most of the northern hemisphere.
To many people believe "freedom" means "people need to do, and accept what I want"... That is not freedom
the business is free to say "no talking" and I am free to say "no shopping there"....
That is the market at work. The problem is when government attempts to impose requirements on either the business or the customer.
Let the market work, we do not need government mandating in either direction
Political actions like forbidding hospital access to unvaccinated people in France showed long time ago that the purpose of vaccine mandates is not health related.
Saying that there's no need for it because it's not a complete solution is like selling your car because you still have to walk to get from your couch to your car.
I mean they would not fire nurses and doctors if they were critically needed would they?...
Sarcasm aside... from most reports I see in the US, the hospitals are filling up with non-covid people that delayed treatments to mass fear around covid, now all of the other every day illness is catching up to people. good job we did there with the fear propaganda
Current vaccination levels are inadequate to stop the spread, but they do significantly reduce it.
The idea that spread is something that should be stopped at ANY cost is false. Now, what is the price we are willing to pay to stop it? We've already used a novel vaccine. What next? The highest price acceptable by me has been paid.
The amount of draconian authoritarianism people are willing to accept here is insanity to me. I often read Sci-Fi dystopian novels thinking "How could a future like that happen really" Now I know... people are willing to trade every ounce of freedom they have for the perception of safety. Very sad
Eating ramen is highly individualized and tends to not include miscellaneous side dishes.
That's fair enough. Personally, I think I'd actually appreciate this kind of quiet and serenity for a bit, completely separate from COVID. A moment of peace, silence, and reflection. I think we could all do with a bit more of that instead of the constant distractions of music, chatter, etc.
The new King County policy _explicitly_ disallows asking for ID to verify the name on the vaccination card matches the person holding it (something about being unequitable for those who don't have an ID).
It's all a power trip, meant to look like leadership is taking decisive action. But they have no idea what they're doing.
Probably because the statistics don't say that at all.
Unless you're [most people in the United States]
Those probably cover like 60% of the US population (mostly due to prevalent obesity and an aging population)
It's one of the aspects of the current lockdown measures that I'm growing weary of. There's no specificity w/r/t who are actually the most vulnerable.
It's quite convenient to think only of oneself when one is at low risk. If we can't successfully appeal to community and altruism, then simply imagine what it would be like to be diagnosed with a condition that no longer gives you the luxury of holding personal freedom above all else.
US at statistical level has roughly 50% of population double dosed. That leaves other 50% none protected (we are speaking roughly no need to split hairs on this one).
You can spread covid even when vaccinated, so you can infect and potentially kill due to your choices.
You can easily make a case, wanting regular life back is a morally vague at best if not outright immoral.
But there is that little ego man inside me that whispers: those 30-50% are people who didn't isolated at the start, who fanned the fire of covid in the first place, who clamied/claim its all a hoax. And now I have to suffer more restrictions for their sake, due to their own choices? If they want their freedom so much, let me have my life back too at their cost.
In most countries, that would be a huge reduction in restrictions.
They do? King County 7-day average new infections are ~400/day, which is higher than the rolling average since the outbreak began. It's higher than all but the 2020/21 winter spike and the surge that started in late summer 2021.
Denver is a very liberal place and while that shouldn't make an impact, I expected it to be much stricter than where I came from (GA) but it's about the same.
Edit:wording and clarification
Appealing to COVID to enforce silence especially in settings where a good portion of communication takes place is a great social harm. The isolation of the pandemic was bad enough in this regard. We've lost our minds where COVID is concerned. We've made rituals of real or imaginary effectiveness the highest standard of conduct.
COVID is not synonymous with death, as if by voiding COVID you or others will avoid death. The extremist, fallacious, and obsessive thinking surrounding COVID very much qualifies as a phobia and one which leads to imprudent and irrational fears unmoored from the reality and risks of everyday life.
You will die eventually. Everyone will. Get used to it. And it probably won't be because you got COVID.