4 ms·
When all this passes, I wonder what lessons people will take away regarding the other huge complex system elephant-in-the-room: climate change. With covid, we'
by floatrock 7y ago
When all this passes, I wonder what lessons people will take away regarding the other huge complex system elephant-in-the-room: climate change.
With covid, we've seen the climate drama play out in a rapid 3-month microcosm (both what's happening and what the climate doomsday-ists say will happen): denial, dismissal of its severity, ignorance towards the science and experts, incompetent government response until it's too late, widespread disruptions, stock market collapse, the connected officials catching wind of this early and hitting their personal exits, etc. The idealogical debate going on now with covid is what's the acceptable tradeoff between economic/corporate welfare versus literally human lives.
But we've also seen positive trends too: individuals are taking matters into their own hands by 3D printing medical hacks around ventilator shortages, and manufacturers are retooling and mobilizing industrial capabilities towards those same needs.
Covid is the current systemic crisis -- we need all-hands on deck for it. And as we've seen with the shelter-in-place orders, if it's not voluntary it's going to be forced. Question is can we learn from it and be humbled by it enough to seriously tackle the existential systemic crisis on our doorsteps.
- antisthenes 7y agoClimate change will continue to happen locally first. Meaning you can have a state-wide localized disaster in e.g. Texas or Florida, or France, but it won't be global for quite some time. Weather events also tend to be much more predictable (we know that a Hurricane won't hover over 1 state for 6 weeks, for example) Don't get me wrong, it is a global phenomenon, but because it's much more gradual than "shut everything down", it doesn't have the same effect on people's behavior. I'd venture to say local weather crises evoke approximately the same response as Covid-19.