5 ms·

"Covid-19 seems to have changed [x] for good" is not worth reading, for all values of x, until we have gotten to a post-pandemic environment. It's like saying,

"Covid-19 seems to have changed [x] for good" is not worth reading, for all values of x, until we have gotten to a post-pandemic environment. It's like saying, in the seconds or even days after a car crash, that the car crash has changed your driving styles for good. Wayyyyyy too early to say.

NoOneNew 6y ago
Yea, was going to say the same. I'm personally sick and tired of hearing "the new normal". No, it's temporary, get over the doomsday fetish. I swear this is worse than those hardcore preppers who pray for an apocalypse. Every person that goes, "the end is near" over every damn thing is literally the least or naively prepared person for such a thing. It's just a fetish developed by people unable to cope with any state of existence. They just think that if no one is doing well, then they're equal with everyone else.
- wolco 6y ago
  Not sure you are using the right word. If a prepper subscribed to your idea wouldn't they think they are better off not equal because of the investments they made.
  - NoOneNew 6y ago
    That's fair.
- blaser-waffle 6y ago
  > They just think that if no one is doing well, then they're equal with everyone else. A great deal of human existence is comparing yourselves to others, and exalting youself over everyone else when possible. If you can't be better than them at least you can take consolation they're equally miserable.
shrimpx 6y ago
Also all those trends it shows are all approaching the old baseline.
dredmorbius 6y ago
s/for good/for the better/ In the "it's an improvement" sense, not the "it's a permanent change" sense.
Jedd 6y ago
Your point is true for some, but I dispute 'all values of x'. Post-pandemic, yes, some items from that page are going to return to pre-pandemic numbers, I'm sure - hangover, restaurant, ticket, etc. But for people who've discovered that stuff they grow at home - from herbs on the balcony to tomatoes in the yard - taste much better, are unlikely to just forget that. Similarly people discovering this year that they enjoy the process and flavours of cooking or baking bread are also unlikely to forget it all. Ditto people who pay more attention to their health and work environment - dumbbell, standing desk. Google search terms are likely to reach stasis, of course, as people who want this knowledge now have it, but that doesn't mean there won't be a shift in people's behaviours and activities.
- rossdavidh 6y ago
  Not saying "not true for all values of x", I'm claiming "not worth reading for all values of x", because it's way too soon to make predictions about what will stick and what won't. I could imagine that _something_ will stick, I just don't think the Economist or anyone else is going to be any good at predicting what.
  - Jedd 6y ago
    I guess TFA doesn't think there's a constraint on how soon they can offer up some predictions based on google search words. > I just don't think the Economist or anyone else is going to be any good at predicting what. So your early prediction is that their early predictions are going to be wrong? ; )
    - rossdavidh 6y ago
      Ha! Yes, although technically I'm just saying "frequently wrong", for example maybe half of them, and thus not worth reading.
- toomanybeersies 6y ago
  > But for people who've discovered that stuff they grow at home - from herbs on the balcony to tomatoes in the yard - taste much better, are unlikely to just forget that. That is, until everyone has to go back to working in offices etc, and they realise they don't have time to maintain a garden any more.
Barrin92 6y ago
Yep, some of these predictions are outright comical. "has covid ended handshakes forever" or "will we ever go back to bars?". Bars and handshakes have survived thousands of years of pandemics. I get that people always tend to think their moment in history is particularly special, but I'm just gonna say if the black death didn't do something in this won't either
- chrisandchips 6y ago
  I agree with you and I’ve been repeating this point to my close circle, though this article did (for the first time) make me sort of excited to see what will stick, if anything. Take the searches for yeast and recipe, for example. I don’t think its totally farfetched to imagine that a sizeable handful of people have wondered, maybe for the first time, how to bake things like bread and cookies or how to make meatballs. It would be really cool if we actually saw these things’ growth in popularity persist in some tangible form into the future. These things have definitely existed for a long time, but I feel like we North Americans have been trending towards fast food and delivered meals for a few decades now.
  - DoingIsLearning 6y ago
    I agree with the general feeling of promoting home cooked food and having/learning the skill set for it. However, specifically on the bread making aspect, we should probably do some back of the napkin estimations before supporting this more long term. One good thing about a bakery is that it uses huge ovens, in which multiples trays of bread are baked, at the same time, with minimal dead space. Contrast that with the scenario where we all decide to start baking our own bread, in a normal oven, raising it to very high temperatures, for a long period, to bake a single loaf every 1 or 2 days. This sort of makes me worry what would be the carbon impact of that consumer change?
    - cardiffspaceman 6y ago
      The future of home electric power is renewable power such as rooftop photovoltaic, so maybe the change's carbon impact tracks the trend of the rest of home carbon impact? Efficiency at a community level should be considered, but it should be considered while looking at all the trends.
perl4ever 6y ago
I'm finding a sudden interest in reading letters/diaries from during WWII, when people didn't have the benefit of hindsight. It's true that people don't have the same information and perspective as they will later, but time also warps and obscures aspects of a period when history is being made.
apatters 6y ago
Just flag the article and be done with it. My tolerance for clickbait headlines has gone to zero during this pandemic.
tonyedgecombe 6y ago
I think it's a reasonable assumption that any existing trends that are accelerated by covid will be fairly sticky. An obvious example in the UK is people switching to grocery delivery. Some people will switch back but a lot will continue because the virus helped them past whatever inertia was holding them back before.

NoOneNew 6y ago

Yea, was going to say the same. I'm personally sick and tired of hearing "the new normal". No, it's temporary, get over the doomsday fetish. I swear this is worse than those hardcore preppers who pray for an apocalypse. Every person that goes, "the end is near" over every damn thing is literally the least or naively prepared person for such a thing. It's just a fetish developed by people unable to cope with any state of existence. They just think that if no one is doing well, then they're equal with everyone else.

wolco 6y ago
Not sure you are using the right word. If a prepper subscribed to your idea wouldn't they think they are better off not equal because of the investments they made.
- NoOneNew 6y ago
  That's fair.
blaser-waffle 6y ago
> They just think that if no one is doing well, then they're equal with everyone else. A great deal of human existence is comparing yourselves to others, and exalting youself over everyone else when possible. If you can't be better than them at least you can take consolation they're equally miserable.

shrimpx 6y ago

Also all those trends it shows are all approaching the old baseline.

dredmorbius 6y ago

s/for good/for the better/ In the "it's an improvement" sense, not the "it's a permanent change" sense.

Jedd 6y ago

Your point is true for some, but I dispute 'all values of x'. Post-pandemic, yes, some items from that page are going to return to pre-pandemic numbers, I'm sure - hangover, restaurant, ticket, etc. But for people who've discovered that stuff they grow at home - from herbs on the balcony to tomatoes in the yard - taste much better, are unlikely to just forget that. Similarly people discovering this year that they enjoy the process and flavours of cooking or baking bread are also unlikely to forget it all. Ditto people who pay more attention to their health and work environment - dumbbell, standing desk. Google search terms are likely to reach stasis, of course, as people who want this knowledge now have it, but that doesn't mean there won't be a shift in people's behaviours and activities.

rossdavidh 6y ago
Not saying "not true for all values of x", I'm claiming "not worth reading for all values of x", because it's way too soon to make predictions about what will stick and what won't. I could imagine that _something_ will stick, I just don't think the Economist or anyone else is going to be any good at predicting what.
- Jedd 6y ago
  I guess TFA doesn't think there's a constraint on how soon they can offer up some predictions based on google search words. > I just don't think the Economist or anyone else is going to be any good at predicting what. So your early prediction is that their early predictions are going to be wrong? ; )
  - rossdavidh 6y ago
    Ha! Yes, although technically I'm just saying "frequently wrong", for example maybe half of them, and thus not worth reading.
toomanybeersies 6y ago
> But for people who've discovered that stuff they grow at home - from herbs on the balcony to tomatoes in the yard - taste much better, are unlikely to just forget that. That is, until everyone has to go back to working in offices etc, and they realise they don't have time to maintain a garden any more.

Barrin92 6y ago

Yep, some of these predictions are outright comical. "has covid ended handshakes forever" or "will we ever go back to bars?". Bars and handshakes have survived thousands of years of pandemics. I get that people always tend to think their moment in history is particularly special, but I'm just gonna say if the black death didn't do something in this won't either

chrisandchips 6y ago
I agree with you and I’ve been repeating this point to my close circle, though this article did (for the first time) make me sort of excited to see what will stick, if anything. Take the searches for yeast and recipe, for example. I don’t think its totally farfetched to imagine that a sizeable handful of people have wondered, maybe for the first time, how to bake things like bread and cookies or how to make meatballs. It would be really cool if we actually saw these things’ growth in popularity persist in some tangible form into the future. These things have definitely existed for a long time, but I feel like we North Americans have been trending towards fast food and delivered meals for a few decades now.
- DoingIsLearning 6y ago
  I agree with the general feeling of promoting home cooked food and having/learning the skill set for it. However, specifically on the bread making aspect, we should probably do some back of the napkin estimations before supporting this more long term. One good thing about a bakery is that it uses huge ovens, in which multiples trays of bread are baked, at the same time, with minimal dead space. Contrast that with the scenario where we all decide to start baking our own bread, in a normal oven, raising it to very high temperatures, for a long period, to bake a single loaf every 1 or 2 days. This sort of makes me worry what would be the carbon impact of that consumer change?
  - cardiffspaceman 6y ago
    The future of home electric power is renewable power such as rooftop photovoltaic, so maybe the change's carbon impact tracks the trend of the rest of home carbon impact? Efficiency at a community level should be considered, but it should be considered while looking at all the trends.

perl4ever 6y ago

I'm finding a sudden interest in reading letters/diaries from during WWII, when people didn't have the benefit of hindsight. It's true that people don't have the same information and perspective as they will later, but time also warps and obscures aspects of a period when history is being made.

apatters 6y ago

Just flag the article and be done with it. My tolerance for clickbait headlines has gone to zero during this pandemic.

tonyedgecombe 6y ago

I think it's a reasonable assumption that any existing trends that are accelerated by covid will be fairly sticky. An obvious example in the UK is people switching to grocery delivery. Some people will switch back but a lot will continue because the virus helped them past whatever inertia was holding them back before.