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A 5-year plan for a (hopefully happy) new normal: - Reduce unnecessary social contact to a minimum: all-remote workplaces, ubiquitous and fast grocery delivery

A 5-year plan for a (hopefully happy) new normal: - Reduce unnecessary social contact to a minimum: all-remote workplaces, ubiquitous and fast grocery delivery, a culutre of avoiding "window-shopping" and mall-going. - Significantly reduce residential density: reduce the need for work commutes, dismantle crowded public transit, minimize public spaces and the need for them, preferentially live at a distance from the urban core, incorporate more single-family homes into natural wilderness and parklands. - Reverse the "unbundling" of family and home activities: prefer to home-school children instead of packing them off to overcrowded schools, or at least share private instructors with a few other parents in your "pod," eat out less and cook at home more (or hire an in-home cook, as many of my peers did). Disease needs density and crowding. Get more fresh air and put more space between people, and we'll all get healthier and happier.

legerdemain 5y ago
Before someone comments that not all of these measures are affordable or accessible to everyone: you're right! But don't let perfect be the enemy of good! Lots and lots of people, many people on HN among them, can pursue many of these changes in their lives. And improving the lives of an entire class of people is surely a better outcome than inaction and defeatism, no?
- onecommentman 5y ago
  The operative word is “can”…people should be informed of risks and then they can/may choose to restrict contacts and the like. Not must, but can respond in helpful ways. Many people will be personally motivated to “do the right, and feasible, thing” and feel good in the process. If it turns out to be overkill, they won’t be resentful, just bemused. Any external social incentives should be taken with great care. A heavy-handed or meat-ax approach, especially in situations of significant uncertainty, will cause more long-term harm than good. Translation: don’t be an overbearing buffoon if you aren’t very certain about the consequences of what you are doing or requiring of others. You can be a buffoon (there is still a lot of “fog of war” on this and inaction is an action itself), just not an overbearing one. Defer to individual choice, it really is the Americasian way. (Want a descriptor for all the Americas, North and South, so trying Americasian. Too clunky?)
marssaxman 5y ago
The first two items sound like a dystopian nightmare. That's just... continuing the suffering we've been experiencing for the last two years.
nradov 5y ago
So you want to roll back the clock to lifestyles typical in 1889, a simpler time when it seems another coronavirus pandemic probably swept unchecked throughout the world and killed a lot of people. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7252012/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7252012/ Most of us enjoy our "unnecessary" social contacts. If reducing those is the price then no thanks, I'd rather have the disease. But feel free to go hide in the woods with your family if that's the life you prefer. Just watch out for the COVID infected animals. https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/covid-rampant-deer-research-shows-rcna10181 https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/covid-rampant-d...
dehrmann 5y ago
Upvoting because I think this strategy would be effective, and people should see what an effective strategy looks like, but I find the long-term social consequences very worrying, and don't think it's worth it. What you're proposing feels like a Black Mirror episode.
effie 5y ago
That is rather a 2-week plan, most people can't take it in isolation for much longer. I agree some mass events/mass transport should be rationalized, either greatly decrease density of people and maintain distances, or cancel them.

legerdemain 5y ago

Before someone comments that not all of these measures are affordable or accessible to everyone: you're right! But don't let perfect be the enemy of good! Lots and lots of people, many people on HN among them, can pursue many of these changes in their lives. And improving the lives of an entire class of people is surely a better outcome than inaction and defeatism, no?

onecommentman 5y ago
The operative word is “can”…people should be informed of risks and then they can/may choose to restrict contacts and the like. Not must, but can respond in helpful ways. Many people will be personally motivated to “do the right, and feasible, thing” and feel good in the process. If it turns out to be overkill, they won’t be resentful, just bemused. Any external social incentives should be taken with great care. A heavy-handed or meat-ax approach, especially in situations of significant uncertainty, will cause more long-term harm than good. Translation: don’t be an overbearing buffoon if you aren’t very certain about the consequences of what you are doing or requiring of others. You can be a buffoon (there is still a lot of “fog of war” on this and inaction is an action itself), just not an overbearing one. Defer to individual choice, it really is the Americasian way. (Want a descriptor for all the Americas, North and South, so trying Americasian. Too clunky?)

marssaxman 5y ago

The first two items sound like a dystopian nightmare. That's just... continuing the suffering we've been experiencing for the last two years.

nradov 5y ago

So you want to roll back the clock to lifestyles typical in 1889, a simpler time when it seems another coronavirus pandemic probably swept unchecked throughout the world and killed a lot of people. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7252012/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7252012/ Most of us enjoy our "unnecessary" social contacts. If reducing those is the price then no thanks, I'd rather have the disease. But feel free to go hide in the woods with your family if that's the life you prefer. Just watch out for the COVID infected animals. https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/covid-rampant-deer-research-shows-rcna10181 https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/covid-rampant-d...

dehrmann 5y ago

Upvoting because I think this strategy would be effective, and people should see what an effective strategy looks like, but I find the long-term social consequences very worrying, and don't think it's worth it. What you're proposing feels like a Black Mirror episode.

effie 5y ago

That is rather a 2-week plan, most people can't take it in isolation for much longer. I agree some mass events/mass transport should be rationalized, either greatly decrease density of people and maintain distances, or cancel them.