Meanwhile somewhere in my country

[bzt]

Since you can't figure out how to get the last word here, you want to change the subject?

You are the OP. People will respond to what you post and you can't expect them to do otherwise.

Actually they don't. They keep trying to change the subject instead of responding to my posts. That's why I ask them not to be off-topic, and that's why I've explicitly wrote what the topic is about several times.

To be perfectly clear, here it goes again:
What do you think, what will govs do when people realize economy has collapsed, and millions of unemployed and hungry people will go to the streets?

Cheers,
bzt

[bzt]

Who have thought of that?

To my biggest surprise Trump agrees with me. I've never thought in my wildest dreams this gonna happen!

We can’t have the cure be worse than the problem

He also said,

You can't just come in and say let's close up the United States of America, the biggest most successful country in the world by far.

Let's put aside the obvious lies in this statement (U.S is not the biggest, Russia has more land, China has more people, and China's wealth and GDP exceeds the U.S.' so they are more successful), otherwise he is correct about closing up the economy will be more severe than the disease itself. Naturally he only spoke about the U.S., but this applies worldwide.

Maybe there's hope after all. (Not sure about my own country though, they are using the pandemic as an excuse to legitimize unlimited dictatorship. Even the EP disagrees and many parties warn this is illegal, but the gov just doesn't care.)

Cheers,
bzt

[DavidCooper]

Well, this looks like the latest toxic thread where people carry over their old disputes into a new conversation instead of treating each new thread as a new start. Anything touching on politics is going to be toxic anyway though, and all the more so here on a site which has a long tradition of conflict.

Hungary does not have a benign leader, but someone who could well behave very badly if times get tougher and he acquires too many new powers to control everyone. Orbán is exactly the kind of thug that could become a vicious monster, and there are a good many other leaders like him in other parts of the world who could use this crisis to tighten their grip on power, all of them inspired by what Putin has been able to achieve. What I see from bzt is a perfectly reasonable speculation about what may happen, and yes, those gun-like thermometers must have some psychological influence on the people who get into the habit of pointing them at heads which makes it easier to do the same thing with a gun. I felt very uneasy about seeing them being pointed at children's heads in China and anyone who uses one must initially feel uncomfortable about it too, but they'll loss that feeling very quickly and that will inevitably help them to do likewise with a gun later if their leaders give them instructions to do so because it will feel like such a familiar action for them. The only thing to dispute here is the size of this effect: it may be significant of insignificant, and I haven't seen enough evidence to know which of those is the right answer, so it seems perfectly reasonable for people to hold either belief based on their own judgement and feelings.

What useful things can we do to try to avoid the possibility of rogue leaders taking advantage of any chaos and economic collapse caused by this crisis? That what this thread should be focusing on (if it belongs on this site at all, but that's a hard thing to judge when a subforum invites people to talk about their cat at the top and yet people get condemned even for discussing computing-related topics).

We are all programmers here. We have to fix bugs in our code to make it work, and if we aren't good at that, we can't build anything useful. Politicians are programmers too, but they don't have the same need to fix their bugs - they can simply let lots of people die when their policies cause trouble. They can mess things up spectacularly and get away with it because their rivals are useless too, and rather than being selected by ability, they're selected by average minds through democratic processes which do not elect the best minds to run things. Indeed, intelligent ideas often seem mad to the masses, so it can take decades of education to spread those ideas and make people understand how much they would gain from them. Basic income is one such idea, and maybe this crisis can be used to increase people's understanding of how good it would be for them.

Most jobs are actually unnecessary, merely serving to waste vast amounts of resources for a negative gain. People burn masses of fuel commuting to offices where they spend the day wasting paper and electricity fiddling with useless data. It would be better for all of us if their fake jobs were eliminated and they were paid the same (minus their commuting costs) to stay at home and do nothing. That would increase their quality of life, and it would improve everyone else's quality of life too. As it stands, those workers are essentially living on massively inflated benefits and are being forced to waste resources in order to earn the extra. Half the workforce is tied up in such fake work in one way or another. If we were to untangle the mess and work out which jobs are fake and which are worthwhile, we could lock down as many people as we are doing in this current crisis without any economic loss at all, and could even turn it into an economic gain because we'd be saving so much in the way of energy and materials. It might not show up as an economic gain though, because we measure that the wrong way using misleading statistics like GDP which is actually more of a measure of environmental destruction than anything else. We cover more and more countryside in concrete and attract in lots of people to do fake work, and what happens? GDP goes up, but quality of life goes down and people's actual wealth falls too: they can't afford to buy houses in the way that previous generations could.

This crisis is an opportunity to reset or even redesign the system, and that's worth discussing. If we leave it to mediocre minds to try to fix this, what will they achieve? It may well just end up in chaos with more rogue leaders setting up police states and grabbing eternal power for themselves. We need to explore ideas and help get them out to the people who can demand that they be implemented. Basic income is a good starting point.

[iansjack]

Yes.

But that's not what the OP was about.

[eekee]

rather than being selected by ability, they're selected by average minds through democratic processes which do not elect the best minds to run things.

No other selection mechanism has worked out in the long term, either. Even Pythagoras's meritocracy apparently enabled small-scale abuse of power. It died after a few centuries anyway, according to the nicest account I read.

Indeed, intelligent ideas often seem mad to the masses, so it can take decades of education to spread those ideas and make people understand how much they would gain from them.

I very much agree.

The only thing I can believe in is God’s Kingdom.

[bzt]

What useful things can we do to try to avoid the possibility of rogue leaders taking advantage of any chaos and economic collapse caused by this crisis? That what this thread should be focusing on

Finally, thank you, the first to recognize what this topic is about! I don't think there's much we can do, but talking about it and let people know this is and issue is definitely the first step towards any solution.

if it belongs on this site at all, but that's a hard thing to judge

I don't think so, as I wrote in the first post. I just hope such an important matter might be discussed here too.

Half the workforce is tied up in such fake work in one way or another.

Never though of this, but reading your post definitely makes sense.

This crisis is an opportunity to reset or even redesign the system, and that's worth discussing.

Thank you, exactly my thoughts!

But that's not what the OP was about.

Yes it is. It always was.

No other selection mechanism has worked out in the long term, either.

There's no democracy today, all elections are just for show, sadly. Either it is meaningless because there's only one candidate (like in my country) or because the voting is misguided by other powers (like in the U.S.). But this is really off-topic, and should not be discussed here.

Cheers,
bzt

[iansjack]

I'm very much afraid that we are about to see, in the US, what happens when profit is judged to be more important than lives.

[eekee]

I'm very much afraid that we are about to see, in the US, what happens when profit is judged to be more important than lives.

Could happen. It was normal in past centuries. Here's a story I heard: When they were excavating foundations for the Brooklyn Bridge, the workers had to push explosives into holes with iron rods. if the rod scraped on the flinty rock there could be a spark, setting off the explosive and killing the worker. The workers went to court to try to force the company to issue them copper rods instead, but the judge agreed with the company that copper rods were just too expensive. Also from that era is a photo of workers on the Empire State Building, sitting eating their lunch on an exposed beam at some insane height without any safety equipment. They were clearly used to it. Britain was not any better at the time. In the 19th century the whole job of grinding was a deathtrap; the grinding wheel could fly apart at any time, killing its operator, and yet they were still used all over the place to save time sharpening tools.

[iansjack]

20 people died building the Brooklyn Bridge. So far, and it's very early days, the virus has claimed 1300 victims in the US. Trump says the hospitals don't need ventilators. And he thinks it will be over by Easter.

They do say that ignorance kills.

[StudlyCaps]

To be perfectly clear, here it goes again:
What do you think, what will govs do when people realize economy has collapsed, and millions of unemployed and hungry people will go to the streets?

The economy is a spook, making a blood sacrifice to it (by letting vulnerable people die to push up numbers) will accomplish nothing. Food comes from farms worked by men, not from stock brokers.
What you will see is governments artificially creating scarcity by implementing austerity measures to "pay back debt" and "reduce deficits".

[eekee]

Food comes from farms worked by men, not from stock brokers.

Technically true, but food distribution has become excessively complex.

[bzt]

Food comes from farms worked by men, not from stock brokers.

Technically true, but food distribution has become excessively complex.

Yes, and also I see no way to transfer food from farms to cities during a curfew. Here one of the biggest problems last week was that every time a new truck crosses the border they quarantining the truck drivers for two weeks. And I imagine when they get out from the quarantine and go home, they'll facing similar restrictions there. This kinda kills international transportation as a whole. Luckily our argiculture is strong, but we're still going to have problems because they've ordered a curfew starting from today morning. Standard markets are closed and local farmers are not allowed to sell the food they grow. Some supermarkets are still working with limited opening hours, and only a limited number of people allowed to enter at any given time, but most of the stores has already closed for an undefined time.

They do say that ignorance kills.

True. That's why we should to talk about this topic.

Cheers,
bzt

[bzt]

Trump says the hospitals don't need ventilators.

That was yesterday. Today he blamed GM for not producing enough ventilators, and yet he says there'll be enough surplus for Britain too. How, if GM is not producing enough for the U.S. alone? This just makes no sense.

You see, with things like this, Trumps doesn't go through like a responsible politician who knows what he's doing. Sadly this stands for all the other politicians as well all around the world.

Cheers,
bzt

[bzt]

It's happening a lot sooner than I've anticipated.

In Italy, where the epidemic was the most severe, people are already starving, and the gov is sending policemen instead of food.
https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus- ... g-11965122

If govs are not getting it together ASAP to fight this pandemic wisely and smartly, the same is going to happen worldwide and we'll facing a global famine.

Cheers,
bzt

[Solar]

But I'm absolutely sure putting a stop to the economy is not the answer either

What's your "well-educated" alternative suggestion? Do you have any ideas of your own, or do you just like to stir fires?

To answer my own question, you haven't gotten any suggestions, you are not "talking" about the issue looking for a solution, you're just fear-mongering.