Category: Me Myself&I

We read it all the freaking time these days. Basically:

“China, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong were able to curve the virus’ spread thanks to an incredible community and mass surveillance system”

And so we have people that are like:

– let’s do the same

– why can’t we do the same?

And I’m like BE-CAUSE, THAT’S WHY. LEAVE IT.

Yes obviously, very homogenous populations, socially, culturally, will do a better job at fighting a global issue (except for Japan, it looks like they love Denial over there; there’s always exceptions). Yes, for very heterogenous populations like we see in giant cities like Paris London NYC or LA, it is a lot more difficult. We don’t care the same way.

And that’s fine. Why? BECAUSE DIVERSITY IS GOOD. I mostly lived my life in big cities with vibrant communities but I also lived in monolithic cultures. It’s not a debate, plurality is phenomenal. It’s exciting for the mind, it’s invigorating. It’s not easy. It’s valuable as hell.

But now in 2020, after feeling within the past decade how tensions between communities prevail, people flock toward the idea that being separated is the exit to happiness. Sure, it makes things easier to deal with people who feel like you. I’m kind of new to this and it’s completely dope and necessary.

But we need to melt too. Growth. Comprehension. Empathy.

So of course right wing folks are pushing for this “exclusively white people together would be so great, wouldn’t it?” while salivating at the “let’s monitor everyone else!” and I don’t like this shit at all.

If this virus leads democratic countries to autocratic behaviors Imma throw hands, wash them, throw them again ad nauseam.

The fact that I lost my two jobs and that they’re probably gone for the rest of the year if not forever, is settling down in my mind. That weird zone between denial and acceptance I guess.

Jesus fucking Christ, 2020.

In my research of the best shape ever for a house, I stumbled upon this one. All curves. Curves are fine, pretty much always right?

But in construction and particularly with insulation, the rounder, the better. The problem is that it’s usually weird to have a circle-shaped house. The Wing House opts for half-circle forms and it looks quite fantastic.

I wonder what kind of performance you get in terms of heating and cooling. How it feels to live in a space that seems to extend wherever you settle. I would definitely not have those floors though. Hardwood floors or gtfo, I don’t care. I would also make the pool smaller and slap some grass in the middle of that courtyard. Nature, son. Nature.

It’s a starchitect house so the price is dumb (put on the market for $45M, sold at $25M). But it’s an inspiring one.

With all that I totally forgot about the elections.

First the primaries and its terrible outcomes. It seems like Bernie won’t be able to win but I hope he can viscerally change Biden’s plans, which pretty much don’t exist because he’s not very good –or is very good, depending on how you see it– at politics. He looks solid to many people, vote for him while Bernie cooks us some good bills. I hope? Man I got nothing. Warren and Sanders not forging an alliance *at all* made me so sad.

That filthy greed for power will kill us all.

Then the presidential election in November. Will we be alive? Will rats have bridges between palm trees? Will my sister continue to send me short stories of her confinement? All I know is that the world will be much different than when this white house race started.

Will compassion and empathy be all the rage then? lol but also seriously, it has to. It has to.

After all of that we know, after having proof of how effective social distancing is, apparently they do not quarantine US citizens coming back from Europe, nor do they test them (at LAX). After they spent hours confined with travelers from all over the world, they can freely roam this country.

Man, we haven’t seen shit yet.

Horniness is off the charts, it’s gotten me. Yesterday was hard, hard for hours if you know what I’ okay I’m sorry. Mmmh.

I have no idea what next week or next month are going to be. Probably same as Day 5 I guess.

Ominous clouds during virus pandemic with not a soul in sight but a few who are so far that you don’t even know who you’re waving at? Yup.

I keep shooting.

I’ve been following the tracker since its inception. I’m trying to get a sense of what’s going to happen in the US.

First interesting thing to me is that there are roughly as many cases in France and Germany, yet Germany has about ten times less deaths. Germany has one of the highest rate of ICU per 100,000 citizens in the world, that could explain that. The tracker is overwhelmed and states 91 deaths in France but French news confirm about 120 who died from the virus.

Italy is insanely concerning. Stratospheric rise of cases and deaths. Almost 400 dead in one day today, that’s crazy.

Spain is growing massively too.

What I get from this is that older white folks from South Europe are extremely sensitive to covid-19. I still connect this partially to the dismissive culture that enabled that mess in the past month or so. Now they pay the price.

Which is going to be exorbitant here in the US. They barely started to lock down things this weekend, in a country way bigger than Europe. People stuck for 6 hours in an airport? Before spreading out all over 52 states? Oh boy. People were still partying last night at the end of the street.

I still can’t believe this presidential press conference on Friday. What the actual fuck. They’re absolutely not ready, at all. Epidemiologists must be losing their shit, yelling at White House staff for the past four weeks at least.

So now knowing that the pandemic is brutal in countries with way better healthcare than the US, we’re not ready. I wouldn’t be surprised if the virus mutates to an even more potent form here. But before that, tons of people are going to die.

On the business side, because everything is so tight, there’s going to be a wave of bankruptcy like we’ve never seen before. If no one works on that $10B stadium that no one wants to go for a while anyway, it’s going to crash. Hard.

Hope for the best. Prepare for the worst.

So I think the apocalypse is double-bladed: while automation kicks a bunch of current workers out by making them immediately redundant, it also freezes out the next generation by removing entry level jobs and not really replacing them with anything equivalent. Meanwhile, universities and vocational ed programs won’t get this memo for another ten years so they will continue to happily propel waves of students onto a set of closed and locked doors. 

Finally, people start getting it. I think it was a comment on Hacker News.

There are no jobs left and it’s getting worse by the minute. The hockey stick exponential curve thing: most people know the first part -the slow part but fewer experience the fast part that dramatically changes, all the time. That part is now.

There are mostly no entry level jobs these days, only jobs and gigs. And rare good jobs and good gigs. Career has a wild spectrum of definition. Everything is contracted out, as much as possible, with no more benefits. The system is just ruthless.

I could still make some money just a few years ago, as a web developer. No one is on anything but social media. And if you do have a website you use a service, click a bunch of shit and you have a beautiful page now. The entire web designer/developer career: 1999-2015ish (unless you work for a campus or a giant company; wayyy fewer jobs and harder to get). That’s a good-paying job in a thriving environment, growing and shrinking in fifteen years. We can’t build a future society on moving parts like that.

It’s a colossal change from pre-2010s, yet hard to really see. 

We’re a big bunch of human beings, living longer than ever, and we’re automating everything faster than ever, producing more wealth than ever. 

It can’t work without serious wealth redistribution. It just can’t. And it shouldn’t be hard to change. It’s the right thing to do, the only thing to do too. 

A bunch of signatures over a few laws and contracts, a few people get way less extremely wealthy, another billion breathes, everything changes smh.

Well. As the virus spreads, like millions in this country, I lost most of my income. I imagine all hiring is frozen as well. I fought a couple hours to grab water and food for my friends this morning. I made a three off dribble, in the rain. And then had to retreat because it was pou-ring.

For some reason, there’s no entertainment that interests me in the moment. Cuddling sounds delicious though, omg.

Okay. Let’s have a real, “everything on it” combo right now. We just need an earthquake. *grabs bass* Earth, hit it!

Well.

I guess I’m screwed in so many ways. Visiting France looked good this past January, coming through during Spring right?

Family is in France, parents have gotten sick all winter like never before and my sister doesn’t have the strongest immune system. Grandma is 94 and was supposed to get some dental work done at the hospital.

I’m in California and I just lost quite some money because of events cancelled. I might lose a lot more because they’re going to have to cancel this entire year in many ways. The only thing I have for me right now is a strong immune system and this mofo is going to have to work even harder for the foreseeable future.

Then there’s the NBA and this French dude who was touching the mics and laughing at the virus. I don’t even want to say his name. South European culture (France, Spain, Italy) is so dismissive sometimes that it summons entire pandemic by itself. This NBA season being cancelled is some wild shit. LA has blue balls. The Spurs are giggling into madness. So many businesses are going to close shop.

It’s like, we know death is coming. But man, let’s slow down.