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Six Hopeful Sci-Fi Stories of a Post Covid-19 World

80 points by jamesjyu 6y ago

lacker 6y ago
I don’t want to post a spoiler, so I will just abstractly say that I like the concept that children will remember this completely differently than adults do. For my little children, it’s interesting and different to be sheltering in place. It’s annoying they can’t go to the local park, but they don’t have anything near the stress and worry that adults do.
- def8cefe 6y ago
  I think it depends on a few factors. For a lot of children in poverty (already experiencing food insecurity before their family lost more resources) or with abusive family it will be remembered significantly worse. For me personally, as an adult, I work in an essential industry and spend every waking hour at work pretty much so life hasn't really changed at all and my level of stress hasn't increased in any meaningful way.
- Loughla 6y ago
  I'm with the other poster. Child experience and their memories will vary greatly (mainly around socioeconomic status). I can't help but be afraid this will only bake in the inequality already present. For my kids, this means more enrichment time, more time spent outside exploring the woods and streams around our home, and generally more quality creative time. For the family down the street, this means more time in an abusive/shitty situation, less food, and more instability in the present and near future. I feel like this is going to have a real, lasting impact on inequality, and not in a good way. As an example; my grandfather talks about the great depression. He always says it wasn't that bad. But his family were already dirt-poor subsistence farmers. So for them, it was just less noise from other people. They had food, they had water, they had livestock. But for my grandmother, who lived in town and was the daughter of a banker, the experience was very, very different. And you could tell by the way they acted. Grandpa was free to give out food/money to anyone who he thought had a need. Grandma hid silver and various other valuables in floorboards and in wall-slats. I can't help but feel like this is going to have a similar outcome for many people.
  - finnh 6y ago
    Society-wide, though, the Great Depression led to the New Deal, which radically reduced inequality, created our first social safety net, and set the stage for decades of public policy whose net effect was to reduce inequality. Hopefully we will see another silver lining with such lasting impact on society. [edit: typo s/last/lasting/]
    - Loughla 6y ago
      I don't know enough about it to infer anything. Is there anyone reading this thread that can speak to political leadership and social will today compared to immediately before the New Deal? My take is that we're at a place in politics where any positive change is very unlikely. Maybe I'm wrong.
- tomca32 6y ago
  I have some personal experience on this subject. When I was growing up, my country got engulfed into a pretty rough war. We went through air raids, bombings, artillery strikes, and a bunch of people died. I'm sure all the adults were freaking out and just spent all the day thinking how best to survive. My city wasn't hit that hard, but we still had some rough moments. However, during the was I was young enough to not understand the seriousness of the situation. I liked Rambo movies, and for me running to a shelter, while the air raid sirens were blasting, was just an incredibly exciting experience. I had absolutely zero fear, and didn't truly understand why were my parents freaking out. Kids are stupid.
- jelliclesfarm 6y ago
  Agree. The opposite(adult version ) is a very first world perspective. I grew up in the developing world and in my short stay there, I remember so many more traumatic events than covid SIP..which..honestly..feels like an extended holiday...what with Netflix and zoom and home deliveries. I am also painfully..albeit with a giggle..aware that I am probably channeling Monty Python and their Four Yorkshiremen skit. https://youtu.be/ue7wM0QC5LE https://youtu.be/ue7wM0QC5LE ..
rrrrobi 6y ago
I haven’t read all of them, but so far, I’ve enjoyed “Sheltering Notebook” the most. Nice work!
- jamesjyu 6y ago
  Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it :)
narrator 6y ago
There's this really brutal and obscure documentary I watch about the Congo War in the late 90s whenever I need to appreciate life. It's called "Kisangani Diary." It's far more terrifying than any horror movie because it's real. It's a documentary about a relief mission that goes out into the Congo using disused railway tracks in order to feed 10s of thousands of Hutu refugees wandering around in the forest fleeing reprisals for the earlier genocide in Rawanda. They are starving to death and being chased by militia who are shooting at them from time to time from the forest. Absolutely no one except for the people in this relief mission cares about what happens to them. The movie begins with the narrator saying that almost everyone you see in this film will be dead by the end of the movie. When I rewatched it lately, I wondered about those lines and what the future holds for us. What kind of documentary are we in? What if ending shelter in place fails. What if a deadlier strain shows up? What if this is the early days of WW III? All things to contemplate in my opinion, because I've been watching this since January and every week I expected things to get better and they've just been getting worse.
- redis_mlc 6y ago
  > What if ending shelter in place fails. 98% of people who contract corona virus recover just fine, So lockdown is unnecessary. The original reason for it was to not run out of ventilators, but we know now that ventilators have a mortality rate of 66% to 90%, so use a cannula instead as long as possible. We should let corona run its course like every other flu year. > What if a deadlier strain shows up? Ebola is deadlier than corona. So's obesity. But the flu we're dealing with is only about 2% fatal.
  - jamesjyu 6y ago
    > Ebola is deadlier than corona. So's obesity. The interesting thing about Ebola is that b/c its symptoms are so horrible and fatality rate so high (50%), people treated it much more seriously, therefore helping to contain it. COVID-19's asymptomatic nature is a curse in this way, leading to many more deaths.
    - jacobr1 6y ago
nshm 6y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eyes_of_Darkness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eyes_of_Darkness definitely which tells the story of Wuhan-400 virus.

80 points by jamesjyu 6y ago

I don’t want to post a spoiler, so I will just abstractly say that I like the concept that children will remember this completely differently than adults do. For my little children, it’s interesting and different to be sheltering in place. It’s annoying they can’t go to the local park, but they don’t have anything near the stress and worry that adults do.

def8cefe 6y ago
I think it depends on a few factors. For a lot of children in poverty (already experiencing food insecurity before their family lost more resources) or with abusive family it will be remembered significantly worse. For me personally, as an adult, I work in an essential industry and spend every waking hour at work pretty much so life hasn't really changed at all and my level of stress hasn't increased in any meaningful way.
Loughla 6y ago
I'm with the other poster. Child experience and their memories will vary greatly (mainly around socioeconomic status). I can't help but be afraid this will only bake in the inequality already present. For my kids, this means more enrichment time, more time spent outside exploring the woods and streams around our home, and generally more quality creative time. For the family down the street, this means more time in an abusive/shitty situation, less food, and more instability in the present and near future. I feel like this is going to have a real, lasting impact on inequality, and not in a good way. As an example; my grandfather talks about the great depression. He always says it wasn't that bad. But his family were already dirt-poor subsistence farmers. So for them, it was just less noise from other people. They had food, they had water, they had livestock. But for my grandmother, who lived in town and was the daughter of a banker, the experience was very, very different. And you could tell by the way they acted. Grandpa was free to give out food/money to anyone who he thought had a need. Grandma hid silver and various other valuables in floorboards and in wall-slats. I can't help but feel like this is going to have a similar outcome for many people.
- finnh 6y ago
  Society-wide, though, the Great Depression led to the New Deal, which radically reduced inequality, created our first social safety net, and set the stage for decades of public policy whose net effect was to reduce inequality. Hopefully we will see another silver lining with such lasting impact on society. [edit: typo s/last/lasting/]
  - Loughla 6y ago
    I don't know enough about it to infer anything. Is there anyone reading this thread that can speak to political leadership and social will today compared to immediately before the New Deal? My take is that we're at a place in politics where any positive change is very unlikely. Maybe I'm wrong.
tomca32 6y ago
I have some personal experience on this subject. When I was growing up, my country got engulfed into a pretty rough war. We went through air raids, bombings, artillery strikes, and a bunch of people died. I'm sure all the adults were freaking out and just spent all the day thinking how best to survive. My city wasn't hit that hard, but we still had some rough moments. However, during the was I was young enough to not understand the seriousness of the situation. I liked Rambo movies, and for me running to a shelter, while the air raid sirens were blasting, was just an incredibly exciting experience. I had absolutely zero fear, and didn't truly understand why were my parents freaking out. Kids are stupid.
jelliclesfarm 6y ago
Agree. The opposite(adult version ) is a very first world perspective. I grew up in the developing world and in my short stay there, I remember so many more traumatic events than covid SIP..which..honestly..feels like an extended holiday...what with Netflix and zoom and home deliveries. I am also painfully..albeit with a giggle..aware that I am probably channeling Monty Python and their Four Yorkshiremen skit. https://youtu.be/ue7wM0QC5LE https://youtu.be/ue7wM0QC5LE ..

rrrrobi 6y ago

I haven’t read all of them, but so far, I’ve enjoyed “Sheltering Notebook” the most. Nice work!

jamesjyu 6y ago
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it :)

narrator 6y ago

There's this really brutal and obscure documentary I watch about the Congo War in the late 90s whenever I need to appreciate life. It's called "Kisangani Diary." It's far more terrifying than any horror movie because it's real. It's a documentary about a relief mission that goes out into the Congo using disused railway tracks in order to feed 10s of thousands of Hutu refugees wandering around in the forest fleeing reprisals for the earlier genocide in Rawanda. They are starving to death and being chased by militia who are shooting at them from time to time from the forest. Absolutely no one except for the people in this relief mission cares about what happens to them. The movie begins with the narrator saying that almost everyone you see in this film will be dead by the end of the movie. When I rewatched it lately, I wondered about those lines and what the future holds for us. What kind of documentary are we in? What if ending shelter in place fails. What if a deadlier strain shows up? What if this is the early days of WW III? All things to contemplate in my opinion, because I've been watching this since January and every week I expected things to get better and they've just been getting worse.

redis_mlc 6y ago
> What if ending shelter in place fails. 98% of people who contract corona virus recover just fine, So lockdown is unnecessary. The original reason for it was to not run out of ventilators, but we know now that ventilators have a mortality rate of 66% to 90%, so use a cannula instead as long as possible. We should let corona run its course like every other flu year. > What if a deadlier strain shows up? Ebola is deadlier than corona. So's obesity. But the flu we're dealing with is only about 2% fatal.
- jamesjyu 6y ago
  > Ebola is deadlier than corona. So's obesity. The interesting thing about Ebola is that b/c its symptoms are so horrible and fatality rate so high (50%), people treated it much more seriously, therefore helping to contain it. COVID-19's asymptomatic nature is a curse in this way, leading to many more deaths.
  - jacobr1 6y ago

nshm 6y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eyes_of_Darkness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eyes_of_Darkness definitely which tells the story of Wuhan-400 virus.