kmo

Corona Virus Panic

Feb 29, 2020 10:06


The following is clipped from a private email correspondence. There's nothing particularly private in this bit other than my personal framing of the current hysteria propagated by the corporate news media and professional hucksters, catastrophists, and fear-mongers.

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Personally, I don't think everything is falling apart. I think that this corona virus panic is just that, a panic with very little basis in objective reality. If the worst case scenario plays out, and a full 2% of the global population dies off in the next year, it will be a minor blip in the story of technological civilization. Complex adaptive systems typically benefit from minor perturbations. It would suck to lose a loved one to a communicable disease, but it's also a fixture of the human condition. A much greater challenge to our civilization takes the form of demographic unbalance. Old people linger for much longer after the end of the working lives than they used to, and younger people have forgotten how to make babies. Covid19 is like an unexpected expense that screws up your monthly budget. Our demographic malformation is like a crushing debt load that you carry for decades and which shapes the course of your life.



I could even see this panic doing some good if it prompts the US to cast a critical eye at how dependent we have become on global trade, particularly trade with China. Also, it has employers looking for ways to let workers stay at home and still get paid. I'm of the opinion that most of the "work" that the vast majority of people do these days is useless and would be better left undone and that the energy we expend moving people from their homes to their places of employment every day could be put to much better use, but as a culture we're stuck in the grip of a maladaptive belief that people don't deserve food, shelter, clothing and medical attention unless they're toiling in the service of further enriching the oligarch class.

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