The virus itself is not what we should fear

[petrus4]

I just made the mistake of going to the supermarket in the middle of the day.  Going there early is fine; but there was a crowd, like there always is at midday.

Ironically, the thing that I'm having the most difficulty with, is my own cynicism.  The front noticeboard was exclusively covered in exhortations for everyone to be kind to each other.  You might be asking; what could possibly be wrong with that?  Nothing, except for the fact that I encountered the same thing in Nimbin, and I KNEW that the people doing it there were genuine, because they were all on psychedelics.  They also stopped doing it once the police sank their boots in and started busting everyone for weed, mushrooms and acid, which were the only drugs we were taking.

The other half of it, which were what made me really dislike it, were the posters inside the supermarket which highlighted two words in large print.

"Zero Tolerance."

Not long ago, I read Strauss and Howe's book on the Millennial generation.  I was trying to understand why the Millennials I had seen on Reddit, had such an apparently desperate craving for political totalitarianism.  It has always seemed to me that no matter how limited the permissible range of thought and action has become, for the Millennials, it's never enough.  There always seems to be some minor form of freedom that has somehow been overlooked, that needs, on discovery, to be immediately and urgently legislated against.

In said book, I found a chapter where the title was those two words; Zero Tolerance.  It was the name of the doctrine which was apparently used in the American education system during the 90s, while the Millennials were at school.  Even before Columbine, apparently there had been a rise in school violence, and so a belief developed among school authorities that even the most minor rule violations should result in summary disappearance (generally expulsion) for the first offense, with no possibility of either redemption or rehabilitation.

This has manifested among the Millennials and Zoomers online, as a desire to see literally anyone who disagrees with them on any ideological point, simply cease to exist.  If you deviate from the collective standard of what is acceptable, then in their minds you should simply be deleted. 



No second chances; they just want you gone.

In the supermarket, the posters in question were referring to the abuse of employees; which I have never done, to the point where one of the employees of that supermarket once actually praised me for my treatment of them.

So please understand; I am not seeking a license to behave badly, here.  What I have an enormous sense of unease about, at the moment, is the level of political oppression that the Corona virus is potentially going to be used as a justification for.  I can remember thinking while in the supermarket earlier, that somewhere there were a large number of fascist politicians who were masturbating themselves to sleep every night over the situation that is developing.

What's most disturbing, as mentioned, are the two sides of this.  The outward facing side seems incredibly cheerful, happy, and loving; but the inner facing side is downright menacing.

[micjer]

Total clamp down here in Canada, with the exception of essential services.

Subway in Toronto, normally packed, with hardly any one on trains

[Ellirium113]

30+ workers at the company I work for used their right to refuse to come to work. The company I work for is considered an essential service and is using this status loophole to bring in many contractors from across the country putting the small community I live in a t great risk. The workers managed to force the company to stop flying them in, however they will still be allowed to drive. The workers share a large camp and only marginal extra precautions have been taken that will not really be effective but give the illusion something is being done. I feel it is only a matter of time before many workers across the country will be going home voluntarily or by force. I think if the government paid everyone to stay home for a month they would lose less money than the fallout of continuing the status quo. The fear of not affording to be off work is going to cause a lot of people to avoid quarantine so this would be the only way to get those people to play ball.

[fansongecho]

The UK seems to be (in the North East at least) observing the stay at the home message and panic buying "seems" to have calmed down somewhat, Boris said we must observe the 3-week strategy, I think though that we will see this initial 3 weeks extended as they try to flatten our Covid-19 outbreak.

Stay safe friends, lots of time now to do research on the many esoteric topics out there.

Cheers! 

Fans'

[ArMaP]

Today was my 8th day working from home, so I don't have much more free time than I had before.