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Do we need a coronavirus thread?

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  1. chdot
    Admin

  2. gembo
    Member

    @Try Cycle - of all these funny letters the one from La Garrigue restaurant actually touched me. Alas cant go for lunch as Working From Home now

    Posted 4 years ago #
  3. chdot
    Admin

  4. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    Still no reply from my Italian mate who lives 100km from Bergamo, the epicentre of the outbreak there.

    I'm hoping he's just busy looking after his people.

    Posted 4 years ago #
  5. Fionam
    Member

    Small upside... The water in the venice canals has cleared so much that not only is the bottom visible but fish and dolphins too:

    [+] Embed the video | Video DownloadGet the Flash Video

    Posted 4 years ago #
  6. Trixie
    Member

    Never mind the haircuts - soon a lot of us are going to see our natural hair colour for the first time in a long time! :D

    Mr Trix is an ex-hairdresser and his scissors are sharp, so he can fix me when I need it. However we'll be isolating separately cos we both have elderly mothers and we're hoping to not both be useless at once so we'll see how that works out. I have every faith that the hairdressers of the world will be offering quick trims from their front doorsteps or whatever. Many are self-employed and they have a skill that will be in demand.

    Posted 4 years ago #
  7. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    It occurs to me that the UK of GB&NI is heading for a philosophical crisis. I think their underlying philosophy is that a citizen's worth is pretty much the value of the assets they own plus the value of their labour in the next pay period.

    This leads them to see the beneficiaries of the trust that owns Virgin Atlantic as far more important than a gig-economy worker in rented accommodation with no savings who has a worth of zero under that system.

    It explains why they want to bale out mortgage holders but not renters. I don't think that philosophy can survive when so many people are unable to sell their labour.

    Posted 4 years ago #
  8. chdot
    Admin

  9. minus six
    Member

    jap topknot this side

    thinking of going for the wizened fu manchu goatee while in quarantine

    Posted 4 years ago #
  10. amir
    Member

    I have been home cutting for a while - it does help my drift towards baldness anyway and it saves about £10 per month!

    Posted 4 years ago #
  11. LaidBack
    Member

    @iwrats - spot on overview. Every intervention creates an imbalance. This extends beyond UK of GB&NI though. We are now more connected to Europe than we've ever been through a shared problem? British 'nationalised' banks operating in Dublin an other places will also have to suspend mortgage collections. EU rules still apply - in fact banks just announced last week the abolition of EU charges on card withdrawals etc

    Posted 4 years ago #
  12. Rosie
    Member

    Cycling Uk's advice.

    https://www.cyclinguk.org/article/coronavirus-qa-it-safe-cycle?fbclid=IwAR3v5NcEAQUJwNsRipgJtOZjoQAPvN8dcVa0dK0VFGxDhnlzHtoKfZEQe7M

    Nae toilet paper in the Co-op but plenty of everything else.

    A woman told me that cycling was a good idea if it wasn't for the potholes also wouldn't I be unbalanced with one heavy pannier?

    Posted 4 years ago #
  13. Baldcyclist
    Member

    I'm begining to think we should just pause the system.
    Freeze every private citizens bank account, all wages, bills, mortgages and rents, stock markets etc

    Expect workers to carry on as they are currently doing, working at home if they can, or one of the new key services, delivery drivers, health care proffesionals, teachers, internet service providers etc. I'm happy to have investment bankers driving Tesco vans, or in food factories to help.

    Govt provides food, fuel, and 2 alcoholic drink (per week) vouchers of equal value to every citizen.

    In a year we can go back to normal.

    Posted 4 years ago #
  14. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    2 alcoholic drink (per week) vouchers

    Ganja through the roof there.

    Posted 4 years ago #
  15. steveo
    Member

    These are office workers hands!

    Ganja through the roof there.

    Homebrewers will inherit the earth.

    Posted 4 years ago #
  16. minus six
    Member

    In a year we can go back to normal

    you really need to read this

    Posted 4 years ago #
  17. Rosie
    Member

    @Baldcyclist - a friend who has just lost her job at an upmarket gym is speculating about working for a Tesco delivery van or a careworker.

    Posted 4 years ago #
  18. minus six
    Member

    The mayor of Berlin, Michael Müller said he was appalled by the lack of consideration many Berliners were showing. “People do not understand. It is unacceptable that people are actually inviting each other to Corona parties. It is terrible!” he said.

    Das ist immer Berlin !

    Posted 4 years ago #
  19. unhurt
    Member

    It explains why they want to bale out mortgage holders but not renters. I don't think that philosophy can survive when so many people are unable to sell their labour.

    Doesn't even make coherent sense as a policy though - who do they think renters are paying their rent TO? Unless they plan to suspend mortgage payments on second, third, fourth, fifth etc. properties owned by one person - in which case, (1) how do they begin to justify still charging rent (above a fraction for repairs etc)? (2)I think we might see a (socially distanced) riot.

    Grimly fascinating watching the Airbnb meltdown.

    Wonder of one fallout from all this will be a serious rethink of residential property as the ideal investment? Can I dream of controls on property speculation?

    Posted 4 years ago #
  20. SRD
    Moderator

    Nairns (the oatcake people) were advertising for more staff recently, because of unprecedented demand.

    Posted 4 years ago #
  21. unhurt
    Member

    https://theconversation.com/philosopher-in-italian-coronavirus-lockdown-on-how-to-think-positively-about-isolation-133859?

    "We often assume that freedom is to do as we choose, and that is contrasted with being told what to do. As long as I am doing what the government tells me, I am not free. I am going out, not because I want to, but because that shows I am free.

    But there is another route to freedom, which goes back to some of Midgley’s notions about oneself as part of something larger. If we thought we were part of Gaia, wouldn’t inflicting potential damage to our community feel like self-harm rather than freedom? Here we could think of freedom in the philosopher Immanuel Kant’s way – as choosing what you understand to be right. Or, with Plato, as answering to the pull of what is good. That could mean accepting some discomfort and boredom to protect someone else.

    There are worries with taking a broader perspective though. One is that it may ignore individuals. Some environmentalists claim to dislike humans from the perspective of the whole planet and the damage we have done to Earth. Perhaps some people welcome or at least accept pandemics for that reason. Yet if we place ourselves closer to individual suffering, we may struggle to keep that view: the director of a hospital ward in Lombardy nearly broke down when interviewed on TV, talking about the deaths he witnesses, relentlessly, every day.

    Can the two perspectives, being part of the whole and caring for individuals, be reconciled? Sometimes this possibility runs up against conflicting interests and resistance. Sometimes it does not: we have, with a smile, seen pictures of dolphins reclaiming the waters near the port of Cagliari, Sardinia, and shoals of tiny of fish glittering under the sun in Venice’s canals. We don’t have to die for such things to happen. But we do have to significantly rethink our lifestyle and our role within the planet."

    Posted 4 years ago #
  22. jdanielp
    Member

    @unhurt can we possibly learn from this situation and not simply return to business as usual as soon as is feasibly possible? I would love to think so but I'm not optimistic.

    Posted 4 years ago #
  23. unhurt
    Member

    I don't think we will be able to return to "business as usual" - there will be powerful efforts by powerful players - which must be fought*, but once you've shown that you CAN do UBI, you MUST have enough slack in the health system to handle the unxepected (and that health is not & cannot be a simply individual(istic) matter) - you can't reverse that knowledge.

    *I absoluetly expect claims that we need to put addressing the climate crisis aside because only a masive return to whatever fossil-fuel driven industry lobbies hardest for can drive economic recovery. With the usal claims that addressing cimate change is just a nice thing for the middle classes to want and not a fundamental piece of building a more just society.

    Posted 4 years ago #
  24. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    The politics of my entire adult life has been the reversing of the gains made by my grand-parents' generation when they came home from WWII and simply refused, fighting knowledge in hand, to go on crapping outdoors at the bottom of the garden. Concessions were granted in fear of the lamp posts.

    Five years of war made them hard, implacable, pragmatic and capable.

    Who knows what six months indoors will do to us?

    Posted 4 years ago #
  25. crowriver
    Member

    Supermarkets are hiring - boom time in the food supply sector.

    I imagine broadband and mobile data providers are doing quite nicely.

    Ditto Microsoft (Teams); Google (Classroom); Social media companies...

    Posted 4 years ago #
  26. minus six
    Member

    Who knows what six months indoors will do to us?

    a smorgasbord of schadenfreude turning into a vertible feast

    starting with the AirBnB vultures of the auld town

    hip hip hooray !

    Posted 4 years ago #
  27. chdot
    Admin

    Fantasy Post-CV Society thread

    http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/topic.php?id=20146

    Posted 4 years ago #
  28. minus six
    Member

    Brush up on yer Camus. The future has been CANCELLED.

    Posted 4 years ago #
  29. ARobComp
    Member

    Global Fruit and veg in town busting at the seams with good produce. The guy definitely overcharged me for tomatos but I didn't bother arguing. Assume it'll help him stay open longer and I didn't mind. Incredible mushrooms at that place.

    Three chaps standing around the till in close proximity having a good old chinwag. Tall lady purchasing significant amount of veg stood some way off looking a bit nervous till they got the idea and dispersed so she could purchase her wares without being super close to them all.

    Posted 4 years ago #
  30. gembo
    Member

    Also in spotted thread but the hardware non-shop in Stockbridge - Corson - has cleared and cleaned two shelves in the window

    Posted 4 years ago #

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