KozmoNau7

> "99% survival rate"

1% dead means around 3.5 million dead, in the US alone. Do you consider that acceptable?

> Who does this benefit??

Great upheaval brings great opportunity, if you are ruthless enough to exploit it.

There are unfortunately many actors around the world who - for various reasons - desire to create instability, because they see it as a way to profit or to gain political power.

It's the history of international politics.

Exactly, things have a purpose and more often than not, that purpose is to be used up, possibly repaired and then used again, until it finally wears out or breaks completely.

I tend to baby new things until the feeling of novelty wear off, then I just use them. I don't abuse them, but I stop trying to avoid normal wear and tear. Repairing things is also something I find relaxing and interesting.

As a consequence, I tend to stick to things that are durable and can be repaired, designs and materials that have stood the test of time, and I keep them for as long as I can.

A well-worn patina on an obviously beloved object is hard to fake.

I didn't have COVID, and I also only had a day or so of fever after my J&J shot in June. My girlfriend had a similarly mild reaction, and we've both been tested regularly for various reasons, we're pretty certain that we haven't been infected.

I just got my recommended booster shot of Moderna yesterday, now I'm waiting to see how hard that will hit me.

There are no certainties, but I know that here you would also been considered immune if you had previously been infected, but not yet vaccinated.

Bad public policy unfortunately exists, same with the thing about not accepting the J&J vaccine as valid. It works about as well as the mRNA vaccines against hospitalizations and death, but with somewhat less efficacy against base infection, and of course a slightly larger risk of complications. That doesn't make it a bad vaccine, so countries not accepting it is completely insane.

Equipment keeps on running until it needs to be repaired or replaced. If you can't get parts or new machinery at that point, you're screwed for a while, currently that can be a long while. Those situations will add up and get worse and worse.

> Global warming is going to open up the northwest passage and the arctic trade routes which would cut shipping times by a huge percentage from asia to europe. It would be the greatest boon to world trade in human history.

Climate change is going to cause droughts and starvation for millions and millions of people, who are either going to die or desperately seek to migrate to the parts of the world that are less inhospitable.

An increase in potential global trade is a drop in the ocean against the instability that large scale climate migrations are going to cause, especially considering how hostile our governments and media have acted against immigrants for decades.

We're not seeing empty shelves in supermarkets just yet, groceries are still available, because most places have reasonably local production available.

But electronics, cars, machinery, the kinds of things that are produced more centrally in just one part of the world are facing shortages. It's a small thing, but there was a 3 week wait on the access point I bought recently, where in normal times that would have been a day-to-day delivery. The mechanical keyboard I was looking to buy took a full year to get back in stock before I could order it.

These are of course small things, luxuries in the grand scope of life. But industries are facing component shortages that are going to last for years.

Maybe, just maybe we should take a long hard look at just how fragile and easy to topple all of our supply chains are, and actually do something to build in more resilience, to better weather adverse conditions.

With how the climate is changing, we are only going to see more and more instability and disturbances to production and shipping in the future, due to climate refugees and unrest.

We've played a dangerous game of brinkmanship and now we're paying the price.

This goes for all big corporations, all of them lie through their teeth and only care about the appearance of caring, because that's a lot more profitable than actually caring.

Reduce your consumption and lifestyle. Buy as little as possible, preferably second-hand. Maintain and repair what you already own. Become politically active or at least vote for people who are not in the pockets of big business.

    The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit- and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains. And the smell of rot fills the country. Burn coffee for fuel in the ships. Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth.

    There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate- died of malnutrition- because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.

- John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

I think that sums it up better than I could ever do.

I will admit that you had me for a minute there. Pretty solid impression of a ghoulish libertarian.

You should sit down and calculate the absolutely disastrous consequences for the economy if you put millions of (jobless) people on the streets, during a massive epidemic.

The rise in property values alone over the last 10+ years should have been more than plenty to cover any landlord's expenses due to the moratorium. They did not plan for the bad times, too bad for them. They had the means to mitigate by preparing, renters living paycheck to paycheck have no such possibility, so the government did its job for once and helped out the under-privileged.

So the landlords can just sell some of their properties, downsize and scale back until better times. They gambled on stability and lost.