[ExI] Even India and Haiti do it better

Sat May 9 14:43:35 UTC 2020

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of John Clark via extropy-chat

>… By the way, the new death number for America is 78,616. and at the beginning of March the number was zero.  John K Clark

 John, this makes it sound like you are cheering for the virus. 

>…I'm sorry if it makes you uncomfortable…

Does it make you comfortable?  It feels like you are trying to leverage a crisis into an opportunity.

>…to be reminded of the grim reality that an American dies of this virus about every 49 seconds, but with all Trump's grandiose talk…

The Federal government doesn’t have the final say on that.  It can advise, but governors have a lot more authority, counties and cities make the final call.  So why keep focusing attention up where it doesn’t do much good?  From what I can tell, this is mostly a county-level leadership issue, where county health departments make the call.  That is what is going on in California: the counties with the biggest cities are setting the strictest standards.  That causes problems for those of us who don’t live in those cities, but out here in the suburbs.

If presidents are really that important, I don’t see you posting curses on Xi Jinping.  Why is that?

>…of opening up and getting back to normal it might be relevant to remember that people are suffering and dying right now, and Trump's idea would make it much worse…

Trump doesn’t make the call on that.  Never let a good crisis go to waste?

>…And I'm not likely to be cheering the virus when I could very well become Trump's next victim.  And the new number is 78,701.  John K Clark

May you escape all illness John.  May we all.

We cannot effectively make nation-level rules that apply to everyone.  Even state level is difficult, with a perfect example being New York.  That is a state completely dominated by the city.  Most of New York is rural, with plenty of people who do not get paid if their businesses stay closed because of rules designed for the city.  They are pissed.  They want to re-open, and they should if they can do it safely.  They don’t have subways, they don’t have high-rise condos out there.  A lot of upstate New York is as sparsely populated as the Midwest.

There are co-factors in New York city with the mass transit: they have the tall buildings.  I haven’t heard of studies on whether people who live and work in those buildings but I would think that is what we should be examining.  It makes sense to me that people in there share hallways, offices, breath each others’ air.  In about a dozen locations, we have created a system inherently vulnerable to contagion.  I see no good way to undo that.

spike

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