Pretty much the world is going to hell with this whole Corona Virus nonsense. It reminds me of AIDS when it first started to make headlines. The primary difference between then and now is the sheer access and volume of information at our disposal in an instant. However, in many ways I think this is a great thing.
Call me crazy but as your home body, tech worker living in LA, I think this epidemic is great. I’m the type of person who hates leaving his place in general and hates crowds. So if the state gets a general quarantine, it doesn’t really change my life style much.
The other thing is that the traffic has improved drastically. All the right people are forced to stay at home, meaning kids and old people. Some of these people create the worst traffic hazards with either the soccer yuppy moms bringing their brats everywhere or some old fart driving at 2 mph in the fast lane on the 405 south clogging up the road.
The irony of all this is that I have a major project with a nasty deadline that had already passed but extended by two weeks because the MLB has been suspended. How cool is that? I didn’t even have to lift a finger to get that! That’s impressive!
Also, airports are pretty much getting it in the ass. LAX is one of those that will feel terrible effects impacting its customer base. But that implies for someone like me trying to bypass that monstrosity, the general area should be cleared up since most people will be demotivated or prevented from flying.
I’m fully expecting California to shut down in general this coming week. Already, they’re imposing bans on large gathering areas. How soon will it be that all public zones get shut down?
The thing is that they’re in a wait-and-see mode where people are giving this whole deal at least two weeks. And it’s really a stupid thought process because my guess is that the government and all the doctors probably believe that the start of April will bring this new ray of sunshine that will magically destroy the virus because it’s sunshine.
I think in reality things are going to get worse. People aren’t used to being locked in and people get stir crazy. More than that though, people aren’t easily controllable and are stupid by nature. So even if the government rightfully is attempting to be optimistically cautious, individuals collectively will cause this situation to get worse on an exponential level simply because they are fucking dumb.
I’ve read stats that they predict at least 1 million people to perish as a result of this. Let me say that this number sounds low and I hope it is low. The earth has been needing a massive purging of humanity because people won’t stop fucking and propagating. I type this while listening to a variety of brats outside being excessively loud and troublesome. I wouldn’t doubt that in the near future these tiny brained shmucks get their comeuppance by this heavenly blessing.
But the way this thing looks reminds me of that Will Smith I Am Legend movie. I can see the wasteland of urban dilapidation abounding as large segments of densely populated zones slowly succumb to this epidemic simply because people had no fucking clue how to handle it. There will be survivors but only those who have half a brain since they had prepared for this well in advance or merely knew that staying at home and away from the diseased population would be the actual cure.
In case we don’t enter into an I Am Legend scenario, the next thing that this plague will point out is the failure of a variety of places in the way the government has handled the situation. America has been ill prepared on numerous levels in dealing with an outbreak of this potential magnitude from its failing medical situation, to allowing anyone with a plane ticket to drop on its door step, all the way to not providing sufficient facilities and working environments.
The medical situation above all else is a monumental embarrassment because of the FDA and the way this country treats drugs and the medical field as a business rather than a right or need. Allowing the perpetual economic bubble of the pharmaceutical industry to have dominating control over the FDA along with the way doctors and hospitals charge patients even for basic care an ass raping of disproportionate magnitude show exactly why this system needs to be dismantled starting at the administrative level and revamping all these levels into a basic social function.
The fact that medicine is treated in education as more akin to a college hazing rather than a noble aspiration to enter into multiplies the issues where there simply isn’t enough help that the average citizen can afford. Compare that to the tech field which has opened its virtual legs like a prostitute on the corner of Long Beach where anyone who is capable can enter but at least allow the growth and continue advancement of that area.
Next, the whole working condition situation is a joke because we are in a period where distribution is more possible than ever. Yet the insistence on an ancient mentality where people are physically forced to gather in a single spot where it really should not be mandatory shows that businesses, especially tech ones, are fucking stupid.
Instead, this situation hopefully will rectify how businesses in tech can improve on that front, allowing real virtual offices rather than a congregation of potential disease ridden bodies that can spread and help multiply such an event into a worse condition than need be. A job like mine should allow permanent work from home which would in turn permit living in any location.
The implication of more distributed work should unburden overly crowded cities like an LA and prevent the risks of airborne communicable diseases by encouraging the growth of smaller sects of suburbs around the country. At the same time, hopefully this will allow a place like LA to finally come down in price as I expect people to slow dribble out once they realize what a shitshow California is.
Overall, I am hopeful in what the future this disease brings upon the practical life impact this will have. The world has been in desperate need of a change at all levels and I feel this is the one that will cause those gears to finally turn.