3 ms·
Covid was for many people a Rorschach test that let them predict or believe whatever their desired change to society, it would become permanent. But the origin
by add-sub-mul-div 3y ago
Covid was for many people a Rorschach test that let them predict or believe whatever their desired change to society, it would become permanent. But the original unknown, uncontrolled, emergency form of covid was always likely to be temporary.
Some people in service jobs thought work was over, or should be.
People said movie theaters would die. Maybe people who already didn't like theaters.
It was supposed to be the death of brick and mortar retail. Of cities.
People prone to fearing impractically theatrical methods of control by governments thought we'd be forcibly under house arrest for good, or that businesses would never be allowed to reopen. I never understood how this should benefit local governments, why they were waiting for this opportunity to force people to wear masks and collect unemployment and spend their money online instead of locally.
Many people in a community with a high percentage of introverts who work in a city with real estate that makes it too expensive to live close to their office thought that working from home would last forever.
Some things are taking longer to get back to normal than others, but we knew fairly early on that a few promising vaccines were in development. I never understood why it didn't feel likely that society would get back to its old status quo in the most fundamental ways.
We're a social species, period. We're not Solarians. We don't want to become the society from Wall-E.
- tycho-newman 3y agoThe humans in Wall-E are all fat and happy. Plus they get a second chance at rebuilding the world. Sounds like a good deal to me?
- mvdtnz 3y agoIf your takeaway from Wall-E was that the human characters were aspirational I don't even know what to say. Suffice to say most people don't see it that way.
- tycho-newman 3y agoThe human characters in Wall-E had more to look forward to than most of us. Perhaps that is why apocalyptic fiction is compelling. It is as way of wiping the slate clean.
- mvdtnz 3y agoWe'll have to agree to disagree. Most of the things I look forward to involve getting out of my chair.
- lusus_naturae 3y agoWhy would "wiping the slate clean" mean anything? The behaviors that lead to the previous slate don't magically go away. Our behaviors are innate and ingrained into us one away or another (nature, nurture etc.). I don't imagine society would evolve differently even if it started all over again, unless something fundamentally changes about the human condition or human nature. Edit: had a question about unions, asked and answered by the article...
- tycho-newman 3y agoPerhaps that apocalyptic event is the closest thing we can imagine to changing fundamentally.
- lusus_naturae 3y agoHistory says no--look at any event that was considered apocalyptic for a given population. Pompeii? Black death? Spanish flu?
- tycho-newman 3y agoIn my timeline, those events produced very fundamental changes in their societies. Extinction of that society counts as a fundamental change.
- lusus_naturae 3y agoSure, but what about people changed in general? Our relatively short life spans and the increasing amount of information renders it difficult to keep a perfect thread of lessons learnt from history (and people are inclined to learn different lessons from the same events). Future generations also have their own morals, ethics philosophies (as they should), and so anything we think was accomplished by some big event in the past may just as well as had not happened. So no, I am not convinced that apocalyptic events are needed for human cultural evolution. The catalyst of cultural evolution is almost always a desire for a better way to live. Even if everyone was the same religion, caste, race, class, education level, IQ etc. , fundamentally people will always behave the same.
- hindsightbias 3y agoHN may be Solariana, but they should spend a week in Dallas, Chicago or Kansas City. Bustling. People mingling. Going to the office. Oh the humanity. Perhaps Elon will take all the intros to Mars. I should write a scifi on that…
- wkat4242 3y agoBut things have changed. Before COVID I had a fixed desk. Now I'm lucky to get a locker and have to fight with colleagues over a random desk because they didn't bother making a reservation (in the retarded "Planon" system which is admittedly unusable) And when I'm there my colleagues aren't nearby. I used to enjoy being in the office but now it feels like I'm coming in just for the sake of it. During the office days I do almost no useful work (apart from the occasional meeting) because it's so distracting.