Post-pandemic changes

[Marla_Singer]

There's a few more people than me and Donny who think this can work. Apparently, a good number of people at Ford, GM, Toyota and Tesla are on board with trying to make this happen:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/27/business/automakers-ventilator-production-coronavirus/index.html

But again, this is not something that can happen immediately. I don't think I've ever suggested that, either. In fact, my first post on the idea of them responding indicated that I think people are a little out of touch if they think this can be done overnight.

That's already ongoing in France. Car manufacturers should have produced 10,000 ventilators by the end of may.

 

[Takhisis]

I can't think of a case where power voluntarily receded. Even now, the most recent push to remove some wiretapping came about seemingly because some congresscritters realized that it could be used on them.

That is why it will need a BIG push and a constant stream of information just as the environmental movement does. By way of one example, there's people using this Zoom app even after being told that they will have their personal information sucked dry ‘because it will happen anyway/there's nothing we can do about it’ when it doesn't have to happen and there is a lot they can do about it.

Independent of the current crisis, Republicans have been moving to maximize government subversion of privacy.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/03/earn-it-act-violates-constitution

The EARN IT Act Violates the Constitution
By Sophia Cope, Aaron Mackey, and Andrew Crocker
March 31, 2020

(…)

Basically, in order to impose a police state, they have to abandon national security. And let the Russians and Chinese have full access to American communications so that the American government can have full access to American communications.

That was already done by getting Trump to be POTUS. Now it's just getting entrenched into law.

So

I wonder if remote work will become entrenched after this. Not that all jobs will switch to it, maybe not even the majority of office jobs will switch to it, but enough will that a bunch of office buildings are going to be abandoned. Maybe enough of them will be abandoned that they'll be able to re-purpose them for housing, which in turn might finally help the housing crisis out.

I'm not sure. Will our Internet connection system hold up under this stress?

 

[IglooDame]

I'm not sure. Will our Internet connection system hold up under this stress?

So far it has been showing some cracks, but generally, we've been doing quite respectably, if you're talking about actual bandwidth/throughput peaks.

 

[Birdjaguar]

That's already ongoing in France. Car manufacturers should have produced 10,000 ventilators by the end of may.

Well, Trump hasn't even ordered any from our auto manufacturers so none have been produced. We're #1! in virus cases.

 

[r16]

naturally the French output will be commandeered before it gets delivered . See , America #1 .

 

[Zardnaar]

America#1 alright. Poor bastards.

Trump literally a disaster.

 

[Zardnaar]

A more simple time.

Artists impression of our new houses and food policies for next year.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_New_Zealand#/media/File:Men_at_their_camp_site_displaying_a_catch_of_rabbits_and_fish,_1909_(4836053716).jpg

The economy is doing great. No problem. MNZGA.

 

[uppi]

I'm not sure. Will our Internet connection system hold up under this stress?

Yes. It's holding up now and it is not like ISPs are going to tear down the emergency expansions they are doing now.

The traffic peaks are happening in the hours after the usual business hours anyway.

 

[Takhisis]

The big thing is whether emergency measures i.e. power grabs by governments are going to be rolled back after the crisis is over. Mandatory installation of tracking apps in South Korea is already a bad mixture of Bradbury and Orwell for me.

In this vein, the Argentine government has admitted that it is using military and Border Guard personnel to perform ‘cyberpatrols’ ‘only on social media’ without even having bothered to try and get congressional authorisation -it is banned by the constitution anyway- and are reassuring people that they are totally not spying on people without parliamentary or judicial oversight.

 

[r16]

being spied on is constant and nobody ever cares about laws . Only to discover being spied on is horrible and insulting . Promise once again and so solemnly , and electronic tracking news is right on the radio right now , so that they are creating the infrastructure allover the world , that they will all call on you loser people to rise and smash the phones and burn down telephone towers .

 

[Grisu]

So far it has been showing some cracks, but generally, we've been doing quite respectably, if you're talking about actual bandwidth/throughput peaks.

yeah, I don't see any trouble in this department. There was some panic early on that they're gonna block Netflix during office hours or something like that if the strains becomes too big. But as it turns out our bandwidth reserves are large enough. Ironically the area where telecom had trouble was old school (non voip) phone calls. The only problems I saw apart from that were some individual services that didn't cope well with the additional load (like the teleschooling site my daughter needs to use). Also my employer initially didn't have enough licences for our VPN service

Personally, I'd welcome increased home office. Video conferencing isn't half as bad as I expected and the number of useless meetings was greatly reduced. Working from home would also relieve our public transportation system and reduce commuter traffic. I can certainly imagine doing half my work from home.

 

[innonimatu]

I was thinking about what this crisis so far has shown about power. It was common to see opinion pieces, often masking as serious studies, stating that international institutions had replaced states. Or that multinational corporations were the future, dystopia-style.

A serious crisis hits and where do the corporations turn to to get support and avoid bankruptcy? The states. Where do international organizations figure? Giving bad advice or hampering rather than helping states, ultimately having both their advice and their pre-crisis treaties and rules ignored because the reality overrides those constructs.

Power rests where it had long rested, with states, no layer above. Opinions otherwise were smoke and mirrors deployed to prevent the use of that power. Deployed because states are democratically accountable, whereas the "new powers of the future" that were promoted would not be.
If people retain out of this crisis an awareness of this democratically accountable power being the place where decisions are made, and from where orders to other would-be powers are given, there there will be at least some silver lining to it. We'll all be better placed to recover and even improve quickly on what we had before. People make the rules as a society, and those rules are only to be kept so long as they are positive - if they are harmful nothing, no "power above", prevents them being changed. The only limit is social consensus for changes within each country.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I was thinking about what this crisis so far has shown about power. It was common to see opinion pieces, often masking as serious studies, stating that international institutions had replaced states. Or that multinational corporations were the future, dystopia-style.

A serious crisis hits and where do the corporations turn to to get support and avoid bankruptcy? The states. Where do international organizations figure? Giving bad advice or hampering rather than helping states, ultimately having both their advice and their pre-crisis treaties and rules ignored because the reality overrides those constructs.

Power rests where it had long rested, with states, no layer above. Opinions otherwise were smoke and mirrors deployed to prevent the use of that power. Deployed because states are democratically accountable, whereas the "new powers of the future" that were promoted would not be.
If people retain out of this crisis an awareness of this democratically accountable power being the place where decisions are made, and from where orders to other would-be powers are given, there there will be at least some silver lining to it. We'll all be better placed to recover and even improve quickly on what we had before. People make the rules as a society, and those rules are only to be kept so long as they are positive - if they are harmful nothing, no "power above", prevents them being changed. The only limit is social consensus for changes within each country.

Yeah, whatever international restraints keep varying states from putting an end to Portugal could certainly be done without.

 

[innonimatu]

Yeah, whatever international restraints keep varying states from putting an end to Portugal could certainly be done without.

What, the might virus-infested carrier groups of he USA would attack? You can't even put an end to Afghanistan! Or help your pet arabs carry out their little genocide in Yemen. I'm not worried, we shill have some goat herders here also, so it seems we're equipped to defeat the US military...
It's pretty obvious by now, and it should have been pretty obvious after Vietnam, that anyone attempting to attack and annex other countries is going to inflict so much self-harm that it's not worth it. Even the most "successful" at annexing other countries, Israel, are a completely screwed up country as a consequence of doing it!

Going back to my point, before your distraction. There are indeed likely consequences of people demanding that states act less restrained in their home policies. For one, the europeans will get rid of this EU construct that dictated terms as if their were god-given. Whether through reform (unlikely) or breakup. Another is the collapse of trade treaties as an organizing principle of internal politics.
And many countries around the world are going to default on international debt, creditors will have to eat the losses. Wars are expensive and broke hedge funds can't put together a private army or sell to the population of the supposedly "creditor countries" (the real creditors are private corporations) the idea of any punishment war.

Reality has a way of asserting itself over political constructs.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Who said annex? Nobody wants it. In the absence of international restraints just nuke the pesky little thing and call it well done.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

So

I wonder if remote work will become entrenched after this. Not that all jobs will switch to it, maybe not even the majority of office jobs will switch to it, but enough will that a bunch of office buildings are going to be abandoned. Maybe enough of them will be abandoned that they'll be able to re-purpose them for housing, which in turn might finally help the housing crisis out.

This is already going on in some office buildings in my province - not because of COVID, but because the oil/gas companies left and won't be back.

 

[r16]

states are totally pointless at this very moment as Spain and Italy still count the dead , ı don't know , because Trump might get cross with them and tweet wondrous tweets . States are the skirts companies hide behind . Vaccine research now number at least 79 and everyone wants patents , despite the saying that 10 euros per shot is non-profit . There were no masks in Turkey , there was no need for them , the health secretariat of the palace cabinet said , every "Muslim" is producing them now and they are required and free , though complaints are still raging nobody is getting them and it will be the power of the state that will prevent anything about who delivered what to where being established even remotely .

and alas as ı kinda hate everyone , ı won't offer to be allies , but will certainly invade Portugal , because it lays in the general direction . Trolling the US , like bombing them from Azores should be fun , even if there is absolutely no need for range requirements , because back in 42 or 45 the islands were the first thing Yanks desired for their world domination .

 

[Hrothbern]

States are the owners of the setting of a nation. That setting is an environment where properties and rights are protected by the state, delivering stability, predictability and therefore economic potential, and tech growth potential.
Those potentials essential to prevent being eaten up geographically by competing states before WW2. After WW2 a hybrid ownership souvereignity loss.
After the influence of the Feudal system waned, and before democracies emerged, the states were dominated by the combi of power of residual feudal, industrious-industrial accumulated wealth, conscription soldiers (=citizens).

Democracy is in theory the new owner, in practice an increase of the citizen power factor as voter.
But if citizens do not live up to that power, they get not much power.
If citizens cannot imagine to own that power, they get not much power.

We are still in an emancipation process.

Democracy is only a century or so old

This pandemy could be a hinging point, just like WW2.



A citizen restricting his total participation in society to only voting is limiting himself.

You are a participant in everything you do, in every social group you are, including groups that reflect a temporary role like being a pupil in a kindergarten, a worker, a parent, a sportsclun member.

And instead of voting it is about bargaining ingroup and outgroup and emancipating all the time taking more influence for what you need in balance with others.

 

[r16]

or you are a file number in countless places , all of them wishing some other to do you some harm , but wowing to come alltogether if everything goes down . Not even voting gets to be acceptable in places , not anymore . Nor some clock ticking and tocking , an example should be made , right ?

 

[Takhisis]

Digging into the latest Google Mobility data

Good Lord, any minute now the Agents will be here to get us.