THE PANDEMIC was "long time coming" and probably inevitable; history shows that it happens in cycles -- like economic collapses -- and high-density populations are harmed the most (or proportionally). It might be nature's way of 'balancing' itself; it has not been "long in the making" (nobody made it; no need to), it's just "long time coming..."
"Please kindly ignore people who claim Bill Gates started it..."I won't comment on COVID-19 as it's way outside my area of expertise (and unlike Bill Gates I'm not pretending to be an expert, either). I wrote about why it's unlikely to be a biological weapon (no nation benefits from it, not even China which relies on endless consumption, upon which manufacturing is dependent).
I am rather pissed off (to be brutally honest) seeing some people who link to Techrights claiming that it 'proves' Bill Gates is a paedophile (we never made such a claim and anyone who somehow infers/concludes that has a severe case of dishonesty or lacks reading comprehension skills). There's extensive evidence, however, including admission from Gates himself, that he closely associated -- for years -- with people whom he knew were large-scale, serial, practicing paedophiles. These details do matter as otherwise our adversaries can seek to discredit factual reporting, based on deliberate distortions of what we wrote and very carefully published.
People are stuck home, watching stupid YouTube channels (to pass time), losing their sanity without even realising it...
For me, personally, almost nothing has changed because my wife and I have worked from home for well over a decade and I still do my nighttime job from the same old workstations. The main difference, to us at least, is that we no longer travel to places and we cannot go to the gym. Instead we work out from home.
"Financially speaking, for a lot of people these are unbelievably scary times."That said, everybody I speak to has experienced very profound changes. Some lost their job, some work at very limited capacity or temporarily lost their job, not even knowing if that job will ever resume at all.
Financially speaking, for a lot of people these are unbelievably scary times. They never saw that coming. Some already worry they'd get kicked out of the place they call "home" (mortgage or rent payments) if they formally lost their job; finding a new job is almost impossible at this moment as face-to-face interviews are rare and difficult, not to mention public and private transport restrictions (still in place in London for instance).
I recently heard some gossip about GNU/Linux news sites and various Free software companies; it seems like they're mostly OK and judging by some recent reports, Free software is actually surging in popularity right now.
Life Will Never Be the Same Again... if you work for a proprietary software vendor. Uber has just announced (privately) thousands of layoffs, talking to its newly-canned employees about it over the Internet (and not even in person). All that 'digital-only' vision isn't meant to last after the outbreak. People still need to do manual tasks; this is particularly true for warehouse workers of Amazon and couriers that actually ship the stuff. High-profile Amazon staff quits in protest, Amazon employees blow the whistle en masses, and Jeff Bezos is coming under greater fire each day (there's a new scandal today).
"Expect some crazy times ahead, maybe even a war (we hope not)."In some particular aspects, this may be the demise of internationalism (especially as far as shipping and travel are concerned). As we said earlier this week, there's no "back to normal"; society will never go back to the same old normal. Now is the time to introspect, to adapt, to learn new things. Tell that to the Saudis and Gulf states whose economy was almost solely dependent on fossil fuels (and whose gamble on the airline 'industry' was a misguided one -- a deeply-linked contingency tied to oil). Few people have paid attention to news about the US Army withdrawing from some Saudis territories along with Patriot [sic] missiles and the latest big scandal is an FBI 'leak' of a Saudi official connection to the 9/11 attacks -- details long suppressed by both the Obama and Trump administrations.
Expect some crazy times ahead, maybe even a war (we hope not). The real unemployment rates are now officially worse than during the Great Depression, but the corporate media intentionally distracts from that (more on that in our latest Daily Links). There's growing debate about the next pandemic phases and the likely food crises which those phases entail. And no, Mr. Gates, Monsanto (now Bayer) won't save us with their 'foods' (patented seeds and cancer-causing pesticides) any more than Bayer's predecessors 'saved' people during the last major war (using chemicals and lethal gases). ⬆