Post pandemic world

[Toni]

So, I've been reading online about people who are worried about things like: how to explain to their 4 year old that the world has changed and will never go back the way it was???????
Which, to a 4 year old, the world is changing every day and they really won't know much different unless household situations/compositions change or suddenly there is no more food, etc.

But it still brings up a point:

How much do we think the world will be changed post-pandemic?
Will we learn any lessons from the clearing of air as people are forced to stay the fuck at home?
Will families learn to actually...cook dinner at home and spend time together, possibly in the same room?
Will more people work from home?
Will we recognize with appropriate pay essential workers such as medical staff of all kinds, grocery store workers, restaurant workers, retail workers?
Will enough of us recognize that it is good to have environmental protections in place and push to go beyond what Bush is removing now (sorry for the US centric question--same thing as appropriate in your neck of the planet)?
Will we do school differently?
Will schools have sports again? Dances? Extracurricular activities?
Will we recognize how vital teachers are to our present day economy and not just to our kids future (which I'm convinced a lot of people give fuck all about anyway)?
Will we recognize that maybe our kids' difficulties with behavior, attention span, discipline, getting along well with others, etc. are perhaps not the teacher's fault?
Will we become less reliant on our cars, on going wherever we wish at a second's notice?
Will we have jobs?
Will there ever be new movies or television shows or are we stuck with endless repeats forever and ever?
Will we be forced to...read a book for entertainment? Play board games? Take up knitting?
Will quilting have a revival?
Will we have weddings again? Funerals?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Toni, corporations are trying to get liability waivers to get their workers back to work. We've got people whining about how unfair life is because they have to stay indoors, wanting to go out because 'fuck the weak'. We are smack in the middle right now and we are seeing how weak and ugly we are.

How will it be in the end? Well, we have to get there first. If we can do it the first time, I think little will have changed. If it takes a second shutdown because of the stupid assholes... who knows what will be left.

 

[Keith&Co.]

How much do we think the world will be changed post-pandemic?

Beauty contests will return to Best Eyes category.

 

[bigfield]

There are signs in Australia that we will change very little, because our political elites have managed the politics of the crisis relatively well.

The crisis caused a large number of people to lose their jobs, and forced them to live on the dole. In Australia, the dole is usually only $274 a week. Most newly-unemployed Australians would find it unsustainable and intolerable as they are accustomed to spending at least twice that amount per week just to pay for food, rent/mortgage and utilities. On top of that, the government department responsible for distributing the dole is an absolute nightmare to deal with. The unemployed are forced to deal with a bureaucracy and a set of obligations designed to perpetually torment dole recipients. When the crisis hit, it seemed that many more Australians were about to come to the realisation that Australia's unemployment system is completely fucked, and this would put pressure on the Government to actually fix it by raising the payment and removing the deliberately cruel obstacle course that the unemployed are expected to run. The disadvantaged might get a bit of justice for once.

The government came up with a solution. They removed almost all of the obligations, waiting times and means tests that are usually imposed on the unemployed, and legislated a "coronavirus supplement" payment which effectively doubles the dole, but these changes only last for six months. So right now, being unemployed is tough--it's still far less money than many are accustomed to getting--but it actually pays the bills, and the unemployed aren't treated like scum. The government has fixed the welfare system only for as long as it takes to avoid making a lot of people angry. After businesses reopen and people rejoin the workforce, the dole will revert back to its previously inadequate levels, and the bureaucracy will revert to its traditional form. Many Australians, who found themselves, or someone they know, on the dole for the first time, will never realise how hard it normally is for people to climb up out of the hole of unemployment, because the government was clever enough to put a safety net over that hole for a few months.

This is just one part of a larger pattern:

People will not love the clean air so much that they will push for action to keep it clean; they will go back to the old battle lines where electric cars and clean energy are just for virtue-signalling greenies. Action on environment protection will be cast as the enemy of economic recovery.

Employers still won't pay people to stay home when they're sick, and many people still won't be able to afford to take sick leave without pay, so people will still go to work while they've got the flu.

Retail workers will still be treated like cheap, replaceable automata. (That hasn't even stopped during the crisis.)

People will be relieved to be rid of their kids as soon as school returns to normal. They'll resent schools and teachers for the burden of having to look after children at home.

Nothing will change to the detriment of corporations.

 

[Toni]

I was kind of hoping for more hopeful responses, which was perhaps...naive of me.

Here’s what I hope we learn:

1. Good, strong, intelligent, well informed and highly competent leaders who are servant leaders, not demagogues are important.

2. Good science is important and needs to be supported and believed.

3. Relationships, family are more important than things.

4. We need each other.

5. How to cook at home

6. How to do basic home projects

7. Teachers do important, difficult work.

8. Health care workers, including doctors, nurses, CNAs, PAs, lab workers, phlebotomists, cleaners, intake workers and much more are all vital workers who deserve our support and respect—and decent wages and compensation.

9. So do grocery store staff, restaurant staff, retail staff

10. So do truckers and others involved in getting food and supplies to us.

11. Farmers are important!

12. So are the workers who make good we need every day

13. So are entertainers! And Writers! And creators of all kinds

14. Family is important. We need to form and maintain strong relationships with our partners and children and extenddd family. We need to work together fir common good—and we need to support and live one another.

 

[rousseau]

I'm not confident that much will change, besides maybe demographics given the type of people that the virus targets. The world won't be a fundamentally different place because of this. We might get a small amount of pressure on corporations to pay minimum wage workers more, but even then I'd expect this to die back down to normal supply and demand eventually. Other than that there might be more preparedness for future pandemics.

 

[TV and credit cards]

The only possible change I see is more working from home made available. My understanding has been from past readings is companies shy away from it because people have a hard time focusing on their work. But really, a company saves on office space, the employee wins by being at home, and the environment and society win by not having these commuters. So much winning.

Losers? Downtown lunch/drink establishments. Collaboration/ideas may suffer via video versus people being in the same room. Some employees may lose, those who are not disciplined enough to perform their work without supervision.

 

[ruby sparks]

I'm neither hopeful or despondent. I reckon some good things will come out of it (along the lines of many of the things suggested optimistically here) but I wouldn't put a lot of money as a bet that it will be anything close to radical change, although to some extent that will depend on how long the adverse effects of the virus linger for and to what extent (for example it may be quite a long time before international air travel, either for business or tourism, becomes anywhere near as routine as it was up until last year).

I think about previous times in history (world wars, diseases, other crises). I'm sure they are not equivalent. Some resulted in more change than others.

What I do think is that in at least some ways, the coronavirus crisis is a rehearsal for a climate change crisis, and as it seems fairly obvious that (a) that is coming and (b) will affect the whole world (so almost everyone has a vested interest), my guess is that at some point, whenever, more and more humans (individuals and governments) are going to realise that they just going have to significantly, possibly radically, change their ways. So I don't see climate change activism staying on the periphery for all that much longer, even if we don't emerge from this crisis fully taking it on board. We will soon have to. If there's one general lesson here, it's think ahead, think long term, and don't take anything that is currently benign for granted, just because it's been the way things have been. Anticipate change. You have a vested interest. Most, especially in the 'west' are currently in the same sort of mind-space as they were when the coronavirus started out, when it was 'over there, mostly someone else's problem, not at my own doorstep'. That's not going to last. I think the younger generation especially know it well, for obvious reasons.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Hopefully a sizable percentage of Republicans will kill each other off in their zeal to show fealty to Trump. Short of that happening, however, few things will change on the global level, but I’m sure some things will change on the personal, individual level.

My guess is, though, it will be more like a mad rush to do all of the “old” things until that results in a second wave that kills even more people and then by the third wave a more fundamental change may occur.

But then, if history is a guide, nothing much changed long term from any of the many other such pandemics.

We like to forget.

 

[Toni]

Hopefully a sizable percentage of Republicans will kill each other off in their zeal to show fealty to Trump. Short of that happening, however, few things will change on the global level, but I’m sure some things will change on the personal, individual level.

My guess is, though, it will be more like a mad rush to do all of the “old” things until that results in a second wave that kills even more people and then by the third wave a more fundamental change may occur.

But then, if history is a guide, nothing much changed long term from any of the many other such pandemics.

We like to forget.

I think a second wave and additional ripples (at the minimum) are inevitable. We cannot function with all children being kept at home indefinitely. There are already far too many losers in our current setup. Setting it up so that parents are responsible for their kids' education will further exacerbate this inequality worse than the whole wage inequality already does. And some classes--elementary, high school, university, require in person instruction. Humans are social and are tactile.

I'm not certain if 'nothing much changed' as a result of previous pandemics or if we just aren't aware of the changes.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

I'm not certain if 'nothing much changed' as a result of previous pandemics or if we just aren't aware of the changes.

I'd be hard pressed to come up with just one long-term change that happened as a result of any past pandemic. Even Obama's prescience and deliberate steps to prepare for one--which by all accounts would have seriously mitigated the worst of what we're seeing--was idiotically cast aside by a total fucking moron that even worse morons impossibly voted for.

If we could just kill all the Republicans, we'd have utopia.

 

[TV and credit cards]

What A Wonderful World It Could Be

A Cultural Shift

This partial shutdown has wiped out as much as five trillion of a twenty-two trillion dollar economy. Can these just be growing pains? The article claims as many as 37% of US jobs can be performed from home. Consider the ramifications of that statement if we actually moved toward that as a goal. A reduction of 37% of commercial office space required by business. Relief on the infrastructure needs of downtown areas throughout the country with substantially less increase in residential upgrades.
We've seen the reports of people suddenly experiencing clean air. Granted, much of this pollution will come back with the manufacturing sector that cannot work from home but imagine a third fewer privately owner vehicles on the road during the work week. A marked reduction in the commercial building sector. An easing on our repair needs of roads and bridges. And the grand prize, we would buy ourselves some time on our climate death spiral. Perhaps just enough for the Elon Musks of the world to save us from ourselves.
Now, my first thought is, none of this happens with the current administration or a similar one a year from now. They are a people driven by greed: money and consumption. But I've noticed the one way, likely the only way to get through to these people is to actually have them experience the progressive good for themselves in order to change minds. This virus could be the catalyst for that change, that forces change upon us.
The article mentions a faster way of getting goods to the shelves with technology, leaving the store employee with the clipboard behind. This can also be an opportunity to push for drone delivery. To automate so much of our lives with the technology that is close or already exists but we have not implemented or many of us have not embraced. It will mean more growing pains but with it we can force government to recognize the need for basic income or at least a restructuring of our unemployment system that recognizes a retiring of these jobs that technology can replace and the percentage of the population that perform these jobs and do not possess the ability to work in advanced fields.

This virus is showing business just how inefficient our world is. We do not necessarily need government to change. Business can do it on their own by forcing employees to work from home. It would be great to have government driving this change but no Republican government is going to make it happen. No Biden government is going to make it happen. No geriatric government is going to make it happen.
Imagine Yang and Buttigieg running this show.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

What worldwide infestation of shafts sticking out of the ground are you talking about?

 

[Treedbear]

Robots.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Hopefully a sizable percentage of Republicans will kill each other off in their zeal to show fealty to Trump. Short of that happening, however, few things will change on the global level, but I’m sure some things will change on the personal, individual level.

My guess is, though, it will be more like a mad rush to do all of the “old” things until that results in a second wave that kills even more people and then by the third wave a more fundamental change may occur.

But then, if history is a guide, nothing much changed long term from any of the many other such pandemics.

We like to forget.

I think a second wave and additional ripples (at the minimum) are inevitable.

I fear for every urban dweller if the country mice get their way. I can't imagine being stuck in an apartment, in the summer, with two other groups of people (because you need them to help pay rent for the tiny apartment). All of these fucking country mice, with acres of space to move upon have no damn clue what they are talking about when it comes to a shutdown and sacrifices.

We cannot function with all children being kept at home indefinitely. There are already far too many losers in our current setup. Setting it up so that parents are responsible for their kids' education will further exacerbate this inequality worse than the whole wage inequality already does. And some classes--elementary, high school, university, require in person instruction. Humans are social and are tactile.

No kidding! 1st grade requires involvement. I'm trying to work, and I'm helping my daughter with her work because some of the stuff they are teaching is really making the gears move and I need to help her see some of it.

I'm really hoping we'll all see after this is done is that teachers will be worshiped again and people will stop complaining that they get "paid all year for 9 months of work".

 

[Toni]

Here's what I was trying to get at:

 

[southernhybrid]

There are a few tihings that might happen. People might realize that it's healthier and cheaper to eat most of their meals at home. While not everyone will avoid crowds, I tend to think that a certain percentage of the population might not want to attend crowded entertainment venues anymore. I've read that in some pandemics in centuries past, the lower class workers became a lot more appreciated and demanded more respect and higher wages. Things like that never last forever, but I think there's a good chance that this might happen as a result of this pandemic.

I do wonder if fewer people will want to enter the medical fields, especially nursing, after seeing first hand what these people face on a daily basis. The pandemic has made these jobs much more stressful, but nursing was already a high stress job that was always undervalued.

Air travel might not be as popular, at least to those who are seeing how much cleaner the environment is since we are traveling a lot less by plane and car. I also think that at least when it comes to college, online learning will be the wave of the future. We were already heading that way, and I think this will speed that transition up.

There were already a lot of people who worked from home. My 69 year old sister and my 49 year old son were already working from home at least half of the time. Hopefully, they will be allowed to do this full time, or at least most of the time. But, most jobs can't be done at home. It's mostly certain professions that require college degrees that have the benefit of being able to work at home.


I think virtual doctor and nurses visits will become more popular.

Again, we were starting to head in that direction, but during the pandemic, this is becoming increasingly more common. I love that. There has already been a movement to keep patients in their homes instead of in a hospital, after the initial stabilization of symptoms. This was already working out well on a small scale. It's much cheaper nd people tend to be much happier being treated at home, so hopefully, the pandemic will inspire more of that. Let me try and think of some other possibilities.

 

[Toni]

There are a few tihings that might happen. People might realize that it's healthier and cheaper to eat most of their meals at home. While not everyone will avoid crowds, I tend to think that a certain percentage of the population might not want to attend crowded entertainment venues anymore. I've read that in some pandemics in centuries past, the lower class workers became a lot more appreciated and demanded more respect and higher wages. Things like that never last forever, but I think there's a good chance that this might happen as a result of this pandemic.

I do wonder if fewer people will want to enter the medical fields, especially nursing, after seeing first hand what these people face on a daily basis. The pandemic has made these jobs much more stressful, but nursing was already a high stress job that was always undervalued.

Air travel might not be as popular, at least to those who are seeing how much cleaner the environment is since we are traveling a lot less by plane and car. I also think that at least when it comes to college, online learning will be the wave of the future. We were already heading that way, and I think this will speed that transition up.

There were already a lot of people who worked from home. My 69 year old sister and my 49 year old son were already working from home at least half of the time. Hopefully, they will be allowed to do this full time, or at least most of the time. But, most jobs can't be done at home. It's mostly certain professions that require college degrees that have the benefit of being able to work at home.


I think virtual doctor and nurses visits will become more popular.

Again, we were starting to head in that direction, but during the pandemic, this is becoming increasingly more common. I love that. There has already been a movement to keep patients in their homes instead of in a hospital, after the initial stabilization of symptoms. This was already working out well on a small scale. It's much cheaper nd people tend to be much happier being treated at home, so hopefully, the pandemic will inspire more of that. Let me try and think of some other possibilities.

Have you ever seen the PBS/BBC show: Call the Midwife? One of the things that I would really like to see come back is home visits from health care professionals who can see first hand living conditions. Of course, the nurses and doctor lived in the community they were serving. The series is fictionalized but based upon the memoir of one of the nurses (first few seasons) who worked there. The series has gone far beyond the memoir timewise at this point but points are the same. Obviously there are limitations and risks to such community based care but there are also benefits. I'd love to see more people who have chronic illnesses and disabilities as well as pregnant women have the opportunity to have in home visits for maintenance care and routine care. The in home health aide hired for my father in law was wonderful. It helped him stay in his own apartment until just about 10 days before he passed away.

As you said, I'm certain that virtual visits will become more popular and I can see advantages. But for people who are more isolated because of age and/or infirmity, touch and in person contact is not a complete substitute. I'd like to think that we'd see the limitations as we are all limited to zoom for our family and friends gatherings.....

 

[southernhybrid]

I've never seen that show, but you might know that I was a home health nurse for over ten years, so I am well away of how people live. I've visited people who had no running water, no source of heat, etc. I once visited a women who lived in a school bus and a man who lived in what was a former gas station. I've been in run down housing projects and rural shacks. I've also visited wealthy people in their homes too. I've seen homes that are neat as a pin and I've seen homes that were so messy and filthy that you could barely find a place to sit down. I once tried to use the phone to report something to a doctor and baby cock roaches came out from the tiny holes in the phone. Of course that was decades before cell phones. It became too stressful when home health all went profit, but I do consider those experiences a valuable part of my life.

I once took a young medical student out with me for the day. I didn't even take him anywhere that I considered "bad". At the end of the day, he told me that my work was like missionary work. Yes. It would be good to have a few doctors who have never been exposed to how some people live, visit the homes of these folks. My favorite doctor walked three blocks with me in a poor section of Raleigh, NC to visit one of our mutual patients. She acted as if Jesus had come to her home. All doctors should be so caring.

I do hope that nurses and aides are never replaced by robots. It's really the wonderful nurse's aides who do the most touching and provide the most important basic functions like bathing, and helping with the chores that many of never think we may not be able to do one day.

I doubt it will happen, but I'm hoping that at least some people will become more compassionate due to the widespread suffering brought on by this pandemic.

 

[ideologyhunter]

Temporarily gone & not missed, by me:
> about 6% off Trump's approval rating (on the news today, 5/5/20). Surely we can do more of that.
> sports news
> Bike Week (a local occurrence in a town close to me)
> the need, by me, to straighten the house at least reasonably on the chance someone will call
> elevated stats on societal ills like burglary, public drunkenness, auto collisions
> funeral corteges tying up traffic
> cleaner air