Coronavirus

[cobito]

Today, for the first time since the new cover was launched, I haven't found any relevant news to post. I've published the announcement of a new version of an audio player. Come on, a little filler to show that we're still alive.

The world of marketing seems dead at the moment and probably for good reason. People are already talking about the disaster that technology companies will face in the not too distant future when they have to start paying for the mess.

During this time I've tried to avoid (without success) bringing up the topic on any of the pages for the sake of mental sanity. As the rules say, it's not allowed to talk about politics. The main reason is because it's a topic that usually causes trouble. But also because it's good to have a sterile place away from everyday reality from where we can disconnect. In the end, Hardlimit serves me mainly for that; to disconnect for a few minutes a day from reality. I think it's even therapeutic. It's a great shame that the forum has died but still, the work of administration and moderation continues to do that function. That's not counting new projects like the Museum, and your sporadic collaborations that excite me.

I know that the topic monopolizes practically all the media and that it's something that surrounds us, whether we like it or not, all day long. And it will continue to surround us for a good season. In fact, it will remain present long after it has gone. The true reality is that we are living a historic moment. When it seems to be forgotten, it will start to be published in history books. Dozens of documentaries and films will appear, and our descendants will ask what happened.

That's why I want to sacrifice a little of that mental sanity that is intended for this site to leave a small scar on the forum that serves as a reference to this milestone. And along the way, to put down my thoughts.

I think all of this will serve a bit to define the societies of the 21st century and also, to define humanity itself. If a month ago you had asked me, "hey, what could you tell me about Western civilization?" I probably wouldn't have been able to give a very concrete answer. I think that, today, we can see a fairly defined portrait of ourselves. A portrait where we see horrible things, but also wonderful things.

Yesterday, my partner showed me a video of a Ted Talk in which Bill Gates appeared talking about the Ebola epidemic of 2015. The guy really seems like a prophet. But leaving aside his prophecies, he said something like that "the Ebola crisis should serve as an example for us to prepare, because the world is not prepared for the next pandemic". Upon hearing that, I let out a chuckle and it made me see the supreme arrogance of Western societies, something I hadn't been fully aware of until now. Let's review what has happened in broad strokes:

· In January, the problem began in China, at which point cities of millions of inhabitants were completely closed off. What exaggerators! We said here that this happens because they are a totalitarian dictatorship! That wouldn't happen here! Fools.

· At the beginning of February, the construction of a hospital that would be finished in 10 days began. The Chinese built a damn hospital in 10 days. That's how their healthcare system will be, they get a flu and they have to start building hospitals! That would never happen to us. Our healthcare system is clearly superior!

· During the first week of February, things started to look bad in Italy and the first towns were closed. But it's not a problem because the alarm spreads faster than the data!

· A week later, the situation became really bad in Italy. But, we all know how the Italians are: a organizational disaster and no seriousness whatsoever. They are the shame of Europe! That would never happen to us. Besides, there are very few cases in Spain and after all, it's just a flu!

· March begins and some people start to worry in Spain but it's not serious enough to paralyze economic activity. The show must go on.

· During the second week of March, the situation started to look bad in Spain. Wait a minute, this sounds familiar, maybe we should start taking measures?

· During these days, the pattern began to repeat in the various major countries of Europe and meanwhile, from the USA "bah, what exaggerators, it's just a simple flu". Look, there you have Spanish mediocrity in all its splendor. Those small European countries are not representative of anything. Ridiculous.

· Last week, things started to look bad in the USA; the pattern repeats in the most wonderful and best prepared country for pandemics in the world (according to a report published by Johns Hopkins University at the end of 2019).

So of course, Bill Gates comes along and says that the 2015 Ebola epidemic should be taken as an example to prepare and I can't help but laugh (because the alternative would have been to cry). We've had the monster right in front of our noses and we've systematically believed ourselves superior to it. By system, the pattern of arrogance and arrogance has been repeated in all Western societies. It's been brutal! BRUTAL!

And now we're here, locked up, defeated and I would even say humiliated. Why would a country like China have been willing to sacrifice weeks of production and consume resources to build hospitals in record time? It's incredible that almost no one has asked this. And it's also incredible the blindness of our societies. This makes me wonder what other things we are blind to. Things that could end us in an instant and that we are incapable of seeing even when they are right in front of our noses. This is frankly worrying, really.

Anyway, just as we are portraying ourselves in this sense, it's also incredible to see millions of people sacrificing their freedoms for the common good. It's exciting to hear the applause every evening at 8. It's comforting to see videos where neighbors in a neighborhood scold people for going out for a run. It's dignifying to see local police walking through the streets of a town playing the guitar and singing to brighten up the confinement of those in quarantine.

It seems that this pause in the productive and consumerist whirlwind is showing the human side of our societies. When I go shopping, I observe an order and concert that I had never seen before in this country to make a queue. The other day I had to go to the office to pick up some things and people were driving with a care and civility that made you want to cry. At a fork, a van and I almost stopped in the middle of an otherwise deserted highway to give way. A van (which are the wildest on the road) giving me way in the middle of a highway!

Things have changed. There are changes that will be temporary (when this ends and I get in the car, I know I'll have to wait for any nonsense from a van). But other changes will be permanent. There will be changes, social, political and economic. The world we knew has disappeared. The one that comes will be similar, but not the same.

In the coming months, what happened will be analyzed. Some will say that the government should have done this or that. That they should have acted sooner or later. That the opposition should have criticized more or less. Public services will be redefined. Some will take the opportunity to say that public health should be promoted for the common good (rich and poor because it turns out that this virus is also killing the rich). Some will take the opportunity to say that a private healthcare system offers the efficiency that a situation like this requires. These will be moments of opportunities to change things and of opportunists who will blow up their discourse.

This is a situation that could take me as depressing. In fact, when I analyze it with a little depth, it's depressing. But then I get a huge curiosity. I'm curious to know what will come out of all this. I know that what's left of 2020 is doomed. Economic and job uncertainty lurks for all of us. Some may even lose loved ones. It will be complicated and unpleasant months. But I have the hope that all of this is being that vaccine that we so need: a pinch that will sting and that will give us some fever eventually, but that will make us stronger.

And now, what's going through your heads at this moment (without getting too political)? Come on, I know you're stuck without being able to go out.

[Yorus]

I will try to be brief, because although for the moment I am grateful that no one close to me is affected, I am terrified.

I am terrified for my parents, because they are elderly and my mother is already very delicate. I find it hard to write this without my tears spilling over, but if it touches them, it is possible that when they are taken to the hospital I will never see them again. I am not religious, but I pray to whoever, whatever, luck... that they hold on until this calms down, that there are effective treatments and even vaccines, but the latter especially is going to take a long time.

Honestly, I put all my hope in science, and that all services hold on until this gets us out of the mess with the least possible damage and above all the least human losses.

As for people, you see the best and the worst of human nature, acts of total solidarity and others who go about their business and care about nothing and no one. Social networks have become a hotbed of videos, memes, etc... and I have been forced to mute all groups and not watch almost any videos... for my mental health. I try to look at the news a couple of times a day, and the rest of the time I abstract myself with work (telework) and with geeky topics, small projects, etc...

I don't know how we will get out of this, but I hope that we end this phase as soon as possible, that we will already be fighting against the economic damage, unemployment, etc...

Greetings to everyone and I hope that your loved ones are well.

[Sylver]

I am also a witness to that arrogance that you mention @cobito. People who have always despised the real magnitude (or potential at first) of all this, and who, over time and as reality approached, have transformed their arrogance into nerves and sometimes, to the extreme, into panic.

Personally, I have an affected cousin, and although she is incredibly strong from the time I saw her born until today, and although the symptoms she has are quite mild compared to those of other cases, I will never be calm or confident as long as this lasts. The idea is being promulgated at all hours that only a "reduced" percentage of the population is more vulnerable to the virus, the so-called "risk group" (elderly, people with previous pathologies...), but it has been inevitable to know personal cases, narrated in private by trusted people, eyewitnesses, face to face, in which people of any age and without previous pathologies are dying.

I do not pretend to be alarmist, but to emphasize the need to banish any thought of superiority or carelessness in the face of this reality. To still think that all this is "exaggerated" or that "it's not that bad", seems to me a brutal irresponsibility and a lack of contact with reality.

From here I take the opportunity to send everyone a big hug and a lot of strength, especially to those who have loved ones of advanced age, who are indeed at higher risk, but not the only ones seriously vulnerable.

As for the rest, I am trying to spend the confinement as well as possible, disconnecting as much as possible from the networks of "disinformation", even trying not to come across numbers when I search for things on the internet, for mental health as you mention. I am trying to catch up on games, books, movies... In short, leisure material that I had pending, although seeing myself with so much time ahead has made me very ambitious and it is costing me to organize myself, to be honest.

I miss having a space where I can dedicate myself to absolutely everything, I already missed it before, but now with so much forced free time, it even gives me courage. I have a couple of classic motorcycle projects and could be restoring them right now with all the patience in the world. I have some unfinished modding project that I could also be finishing. I have to change a window regulator in my car, which I even bought two days before the confinement and there it is, dead laughing.

I have a renovation to do at a friend's house, we were preparing for it with a lot of motivation and then, the state of alarm arrived.

In short, all things of no importance compared to the vital magnitude of all this, but it is proof that whole days to think about give you the opportunity to make a journey through all aspects, details, ideas or concerns that a creative mind can develop in time.

A huge hug to everyone. A lot of strength and encouragement, we will continue here, at the forefront.

[whoololon]

Well, after almost a week of being caged (which isn't that I care much, I'm a bore and a fish and there's nothing on the street that attracts me in the slightest) I'm, to put it mildly, up to my eyeballs.

And not because to go buy bread and milk you have to dress like a surgeon, or that at eight o'clock without fail every day the neighbors start singing (before it was only clapping, now you have to put out the bluetooth speaker you bought at the Chinese store, which sounds like a can but comes with lots of little lights and that's what counts)... but because one starts to think strange things.

Those kinds of things that debunkers like to use to put you in your place with official data, but which now strike me as acts of faith... and I hope I don't offend anyone and I take the risk of looking like a jerk, but the feeling that something doesn't add up in this matter surpasses my logical part.

Anyway, if I end up with the little dignity I had left because of these words, I'll blame it on the isolation and that it's four thirty in the morning, so the brain can only think of nonsense.... look, a three-headed monkey!

[lorTnuyosoN]

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