The earthquake in Zagreb was quite disruptive locally, but overall, merely a local distraction of no wider consequence.
The COVID-19 is quite nasty, especially if you had the worst symptoms, as I did, but overall, it’s a minor thing blown out of all proportions by governments in love of dictatorial behavior, and panicked snowflakes using social media to virtue-signal about how terrible it is that people actually die.
The panic regarding COVID-19 is much worse, and will eventually kill much more people than the virus, because all that virtue signalling about value of human life broke the economy and that when that starts bearing fruit, you’ll wish you had the SARS.
All the noise about quarantine and the virus is too loud to hear a more dangerous noise:
Money printer go brrr, makes more money than ever. You be so rich, with all those zeroes on paper. You’ll be able to wipe your arse forever when you run out of all that toilet paper you stacked.
I was actually curious about this since I don’t know enough to be able to estimate properly. So in your view it would’ve been better to let it spread (“herd immunity”) and who dies dies and life goes on? It did seem to me that overall result might be the same in the end (or even better in some cases), but there are people/governments with more information than me (including Russians) and they’re still doing the same more aggressive moves to handle this (which doesn’t mean they can’t be wrong, but it does mean I’m going to be more reserved). It will be interesting to see how this plays out in Belarus and then compare.
Now, as you know I quite like dictatorships 😉 although that depends on who is the dictator and what he is doing (and it has to be fluid and situational, not rigid and all-encompassing). In this particular case I think the Chinese response was good, and if I’m to be more direct – it was quite a joy observing their efficiency and resourcefulness on all levels. But they also had more at stake – they didn’t know what they’re dealing with but had to act fast, and they also have against them the biggest propaganda machine of all time, which means they have to overcompensate. Even with all that there’s a lot of talk about how China has to pay reparations and what not (Molyneux dedicated entire video to that, albeit a short one), so I’m not sure what they should’ve done better. Singapore is also “authoritarian” country and has been doing quite well so far. I don’t know what EU is at the moment (a liberal dictatorship?) but it neither managed to protect the people, nor the economy. It’s a trainwreck in slow motion.
That aside, this situation in many ways just accelerates the inevitable. Yes, money printing machines are working overtime, but the same would’ve happened gradually over the next ten years. And I don’t care if as a result of this America becomes a police state. They’ll get the taste of their foreign policy and they love that. Not sure what the rest of the world will look like but the world is going to hell anyway, and besides, I share Tolkien’s view that the history of the world is one long defeat (there’s a good video on that, “The Philosophy of J.R.R. Tolkien: Why Things Keep Getting Worse”).
That seems to be US phenomenon. I haven’t noticed it elsewhere (unless you mean government reactions). People are more cautious but act in orderly manner and are generally calm. The US was hyping this all the time and I’m not even sure anymore if that’s just for political (both internal and external) reasons. Panic and war were always American features. Americans remind me of those people who constantly need some drama otherwise they’re bored or end up like madame Bovary. It’s been a while since I read the book but I don’t think it’s far off to compare Americans with madame Bovary and pro-Americans/allies with Charles Bovary.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9NhncU5_CE
It’s just that I know more than most; I’ve seen the contagion spread a whole month before they even knew there’s something going on; my family had it, all the kids in my son’s class had it, all the teachers in school had it etc., and none of it was diagnosed properly, none died, none developed the bad symptoms, other than myself, and that was a karmic/ritual thing and I knew it would happen, in advance, and I agreed. So basically, absolutely nothing they did with their draconian overreactions was of any consequence because by the time they even realized something was going on, half the population already had it, and got well. All they did was raise a shitstorm and destroy the economy, and brainwash the population with false numbers obtained by intentionally not testing anyone who didn’t conform to their stupid theory about the contagion vector.
Yes, and I think it’s too convenient to be accidental. They wanted to do this breakdown on their own terms instead of just letting it happen, and this virus either came incredibly handy, or, more likely, they intentionally released it and engineered the whole thing, which seems much more likely considering the coordinated and almost universal introduction of totalitarian measures worldwide.
And now the “strongest economy ever” in America will look like it’s destroyed by something else and not internal vulnerabilities. You say totalitarian measures worldwide, but why are they worldwide? I get why in China, and I get that America and EU want more totalitarianism. But I don’t get these measures elsewhere. OK, most countries are copying others, and some may be scared that people dying will be bad for political points considering all the hype that the US did. Every single death will look bad. It’s still not satisfying explanation. What’s the reason behind Russian moves? And is this some kind of rehearsal/preparation for nuclear exchange?
Yes, it all looks like preparation for something – have the population in panic mode and obedient, lock everything down, curfews, everyone under house arrest, control the streets. I actually think all those cameras that were installed everywhere might have been in preparation for something like this. It all looks too coordinated for the West, which usually argues endlessly over storms in a teapot like Brexit, and they never come to any decisive solution. This is very uncharacteristic and thus makes me suspicious. I think something worse is coming.
What’s interesting is that almost nobody I’ve met believes in this virus story. They know it’s here, but nobody buys the rationalisation behind the reintroduction of fascism.
Almost everyone turned into conspiracy theorist of some sort these days, all the way from digitally barely literate ones to a younger population that reads independent media.
They all stay at home and obey state rules, though, whatever they look like at the moment.
That’s only logical, but the problem are the stupid idiots from social media that literally applaud the totalitarian state measures and are begging for more, and they think they are virtue signalling by doing it.
That’s the smartest thing to do at the moment because any kind of rebellion from the position of ignorance is not the smartest course of action. Basically, until we learn what’s actually going on, resistance is not only dangerous, but also possibly harmful.