Coronavirus: Better Call Sol - CORONAMANIA (11 Viewers)

[magicbastarder]

by the time we get around to nationalising the amazon, it'll all be pastureland.

 

[hugh]

RE: The coming months/years. If the ideal cure was invented right now, and the world was crop dusted tonight with it so that in the morning the virus was gone completely, the world has still changed significantly and will not return to it's former self ever.

Why not? Because we will never be completely free of it? Because pandemics like COVID-19 are going to become more common? Or because we have started living in a different way and you can't simply turn back the clock?

I don't necessarily disagree but I'm very uneasy about the "the world has changed get used to it buddy" narrative that you see pushed in some quarters .... as sometimes there are agendas at work there that have nothing to do with the virus per se ......

 

[ann post]

Why not? Because we will never be completely free of it? Because pandemics like COVID-19 are going to become more common? Or because we have started living in a different way and you can't simply turn back the clock?

I don't necessarily disagree but I'm very uneasy about the "the world has changed get used to it buddy" narrative that you see pushed in some quarters .... as sometimes there are agendas at work there that have nothing to do with the virus per se ......

Working from home - Some hate it, some love it and there are economics depending on wether a company was renting or buying. We are not going back to our old workplace.
Socialising - My goddam favourite bar on the whole green earth is about 95% chance of A: never opening again and B: if it does, never being what it was again. I'm sure you have a local example of this.
Cities: Not in love as much as we thought. I know property people in the west who are working round the clock trying to hit the demand of people leaving the eastern commuter belt.
Recession: Unlike anything in living memory unless you are about 105 years old. We are close to 60% of what we are bailing out the boomtime banks on in the hole now, so a cure in the morning still wont fix budget 2020.
Global Dynamics: In massice flux. I don't know the outcomes. China's resilience is sorta based on USA's wealth, who are on the brink of moving into a slightly soviet insular mode. UK will DEFO want to out-tax haven us in about 6 months. etc etc.
Air Travel: It was kinda bullshit to begin with, now really it should be for families and work, not drunk me's looking to get sunburnt.

The proverbial crop dusting of the planet will not slow any of these wheels, and none of these are the actual virus, more the ground zero of it.

 

[Cormcolash]

Tell me why i'm wrong challenge.

You're clearly a loon

 

[Cormcolash]

You're not wrong. We clearly need to go to Level 5 for a period. It's not a question of "if" ... it's a question of "when". The sooner we do it, the less people will die. The overall economy has not collapsed (even though some sectors have been decimated) so we can borrow the money to support those who will be put out of work (again).

Also the sooner we do it, the less time we need it to be effective, as the sooner we mitigate the virus spread, the less time will be needed to bring case numbers down towards zero.

 

[dudley]

A large part of whatever reshapes our society going forward isn't going to be the mass realisation that it's been good to slow down/work from home etc., but that it's been hugely profitable for the Facebooks/Googles to have everyone out of the office.

I think we'll see a push from smaller Irish business to get people back into the towns and city centres, but the IT workers at home in the suburbs are going to largely stay put. What I hope is that it leads to a regeneration of the 'burbs, ala Chicago, where every neighbourhood has amazing bars and galleries etc. Already seeing it locally, at least three small new coffee shops have opened around here, and it's been aided and abetted by the pedestrianisation of our main street. I cynically thought it was a token gesure but the street is springing back to life. A zero waste shop opened just before lockdown and I thought they'd be wiped out in weeks, but they're doing brilliant business from everyone utilising their neighbourhood again.

I know of at least one college that's gone online only, and they've filled some of their courses for the first time in years, the remote option allowing for big fees from international students. They're not going to dismiss that model when the virus is killed off.

I tell you what I miss though, practice rooms. I haven't had the nerve to step inside one with other sweaty humans making the rock since before lockdown, I miss it immensely. Hopefully we can repurpose a few abandoned penthouse apartments in the docklands (rocklands??) for spacious, socially distanced studios...

On the other hand, the virus might yet mutate and wipe us all out.

 

[Cormcolash]

Unless the reasons for the flare-up after we did so well up to the summer, are addressed

Yeah it's booze.

 

[hugh]

Working from home - Some hate it, some love it and there are economics depending on wether a company was renting or buying. We are not going back to our old workplace.

Sure. It's going to be hard to put that genie back into the bottle. It's a whole new front on the struggle between capital and labour. The right to a desk? The right to have a separation of home and work life? The right not be to be surveilled in your "home" office? Also opens up a whole new class divide between those who can work from home and those who can't.

Socialising - My goddam favourite bar on the whole green earth is about 95% chance of A: never opening again and B: if it does, never being what it was again. I'm sure you have a local example of this.

I don't see that necessarily has to be the case. For specific pubs and bars who have gone, or are going, bust then yes. And it's a tragedy. I live in fear of Neary's closing down and not opening again. But I don't see why, in a Corona-free world, we can't do the same type of socialising.

Cities: Not in love as much as we thought. I know property people in the west who are working round the clock trying to hit the demand of people leaving the eastern commuter belt.

True and no bad thing. But it could be a temporary trend.

Recession: Unlike anything in living memory unless you are about 105 years old. We are close to 60% of what we are bailing out the boomtime banks on in the hole now, so a cure in the morning still wont fix budget 2020.

We've had recessions before. As I understand it, economic indicators (whatever the fuck they actually are) are so far nowhere near as catastrophic as feared. Capitalism seems to be fine with a load of death. But we'll see I suppose.

Global Dynamics: In massice flux. I don't know the outcomes. China's resilience is sorta based on USA's wealth, who are on the brink of moving into a slightly soviet insular mode. UK will DEFO want to out-tax haven us in about 6 months. etc etc.

No idea how this stuff pans out.

Air Travel: It was kinda bullshit to begin with, now really it should be for families and work, not drunk me's looking to get sunburnt.

Yes absolutely - and no bad thing either. Most work travel is absolute bullshit and totally unneccessary too.

 

[hugh]

I tell you what I miss though, practice rooms. I haven't had the nerve to step inside one with other sweaty humans making the rock since before lockdown, I miss it immensely. Hopefully we can repurpose a few abandoned penthouse apartments in the docklands (rocklands??) for spacious, socially distanced studios...

This is where we really miss the Smithfield fruit market place ...

 

[Unicron]

Sure. It's going to be hard to put that genie back into the bottle. It's a whole new front on the struggle between capital and labour. The right to a desk? The right to have a separation of home and work life? The right not be to be surveilled in your "home" office? Also opens up a whole new class divide between those who can work from home and those who can't.

I think a big boom post this will be suburban co-working/hot desk facilities. Don't want to get on a train or bus for an hour into the docklands/town/whereever but for whatever reason can't or don't want to work in your gaff then why not use a space 10 minutes down the road that has good internet and space for you to work.

 

[Cormcolash]

I think a big boom post this will be suburban co-working/hot desk facilities. Don't want to get on a train or bus for an hour into the docklands/town/whereever but for whatever reason can't or don't want to work in your gaff then why not use a space 10 minutes down the road that has good internet and space for you to work.

People have been doing that in coffee shops for years though

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

Air Travel: It was kinda bullshit to begin with, now really it should be for families and work, not drunk me's looking to get sunburnt.

Why for families and not aging singletons?

 

[Lili Marlene]

I think a big boom post this will be suburban co-working/hot desk facilities. Don't want to get on a train or bus for an hour into the docklands/town/whereever but for whatever reason can't or don't want to work in your gaff then why not use a space 10 minutes down the road that has good internet and space for you to work.

Emer Currie, Fine Gael senator, was running on setting this up in Blanch over the past year or two. Dunno if she did in the end but it seems like a Fine Gael solution alright. Outsource it to literally anyone and away they go.

One of the big things about London at the moment, at least in the LEFTY CONSPIRATORIAL NEWS that i'm reading, is that the big commercial landowners in the UK want people back at work in work because, well, that's where their money is. They absolutely do not want people working from home and bringing their land value down. Is Ireland different in that way? Are there less commerical land owners or what? They don't seem to have the power they have in the UK.

 

[ann post]

Why for families and not aging singletons?

Because my hatred of people starts with myself.

No because what we are doing here is going from a pandemic to an environmental transition, which is again, unprecedented in known memory (though some things point to a big event around 1130ad). Boomtime encouraged the global life, this was stupid. We can't have me's going and getting all loved up all over the place and then expecting another generation of air travel. That would be the realistic, not much fun but most humane path. Unless solar boats get fucking amazing people would want to put down roots near to the people they expect to see regularly, without punishing those who were told that things would be like that forever. But like, 60,000 people crossing a continent 80 times a week to watch football/rugby/music whatever is insanity.

 

[ann post]

I don't see that necessarily has to be the case. For specific pubs and bars who have gone, or are going, bust then yes. And it's a tragedy. I live in fear of Neary's closing down and not opening again. But I don't see why, in a Corona-free world, we can't do the same type of socialising.

We've had recessions before. As I understand it, economic indicators (whatever the fuck they actually are) are so far nowhere near as catastrophic as feared. Capitalism seems to be fine with a load of death. But we'll see I suppose.

The thing is the overnight crop dusting is the fantastical version of events. The more likely is 1-2 years of vaccine mistrust and being hazed by 'shir i got my shots buddy'. I'm already really tenous about people i used to roll with socially (this is possibly why I rolled with them tbh) but i've been in a bar space about 4 times now and knowing or not knowing about people is not going away. I know they've been in house party land already, I even know they've been to house party land and showed up the next day to work without mentioning it. ON THE OTHER HAND - I do agree that down the line, that atmosphere will come back. Gigs are a human instinct.

RE: Recessions. Don't listen to those finincial indicator pricks. They don't have a notion. They were denying the last recession while it was happening in broad daylight. They want a range rover, something an architect shat into autocad to spill wine on and some nice golf clubs and the reprocussions of saying something is fucked will remove that status, leaving them to be boring pricks with less crap lying around. Even if the crop dust happened, boris johnston HAS to put us in recession, it is basically his job at this point.

I know It's a bit craicumny BUT i've kinda gotten to a point where I've realised the 'when we go back to normal' gang are the real dangerous rhetoric, those pricks will wear you down faster than i will - I don't really see it on thumped but when i lift the lid of twitter its everywhere - and like @dudley is saying - working on the good new things is where it is at.

 

[Cormcolash]

The 'normal' they talk about was a total load of fucking shit anyway, that's for sure

 

[hugh]

I suppose I oscillate daily between being annoyed by the "when we get back to normal" gang and the "you must adjust to the new normal" gang. There are often unacknowledged agendas going on in both cases.

About the recession thing - I hear more economist pricks providing dire warnings about the terrible times ahead than I hear ones minimising it's likelihood so I'm in the camp of refusing to be cowed into agreeing with things like increased austerity measures when I know that money can currently be borrowed at interest rates that are practically zero.

 

[Cormcolash]

The old normal and the new normal both just mean "Rich people still own everything"

 

[pete]

so will an extra week for mid term break become an extra month, and sure they're winding down for christmas now anyway....

 

[chris d]

People are going to still live in cities lads. I'm not pushing broom sticks down poo pipes like you sickos.