The way we live now - how will covid-19 change us?

Out of choice, I haven't flown anywhere since 2002 so if this all results in fewer people flying, then good cos I will feel like less of a freak.

On my Amazon "wishlists", third party seller offers haven't been listed, only new prices from Amazon.

― Sanpaku, Wednesday, March 25, 2020 3:46 PM

If you go into the item pages, the used sellers are still listed. Amazon has done this before and I hate it because I regularly browse to see what's getting scarce or changing significantly in price and my wishlists are colossal, so I hope they change it back. Seems a bit shady.

A friend, a father of three (grade 6 girl, a couple of younger boys), wondered today, "I get depressed in particular thinking about ______ (and to some extent, ______)--what kind of 'developmental' time is this? How many kids are going to grow up completely screwed up by all this? Socially, at least." I didn't have an answer.

Two things will definitely change in my own life. One I posted about in the economic thread--a fund I invested in that I will extricate myself from pronto, if it ever gets back to par.

The other is so basic I'm almost embarrassed to say so: if it's not too cold out (probably not often in the winter as a whole), I will leave the car in the driveway and make short trips to the grocery store or for coffee on foot. Understand that I've had a life-long love affair with driving, very much tied in with the experience of listening to music in a car--really, it's the only place I ever listen to music anymore. But I've come to love the twilight-turning-dark walks around town I've gone on every night for the past two-plus weeks, in spite of (I hope not because of) how desolate it is out there.

This is a how-will-COVID-19-not-change-the-world post, but there (thankfully) isn't a thread for that, so I'll put it here: people will still argue about Dylan's-back pronouncements.

I mean, there's a chance this will stop that!

As someone who lives about 10 minutes (by car or train) from a major airport, I gotta say it's kind of nice to hear almost no planes and to hear lots and lots of birds.

the air has gotten better here and I hope it is a significant next step toward banning cars

I mentioned on Facebook how quiet it is when I go out walking after 8:00 at night. I've never experienced anything like it. On the rare occasion a car passes, it's like a train going through.

i feel sad for anybody who grows up completely screwed up but given that i grew up completely screwed up myself, and so did a fairly sizeable chunk of the people i know and love, i feel like this is more of a quantitative change than a qualitative change?

I also, perhaps chimerically and naively, believe that some of those kids will come out of this with a better appreciation of things they took for granted (hey, if it's happening with me, maybe it'll happen with some of them). Two middle-school kids, out for a walk in 2024: "Remember that bizarre time when we couldn't leave the house for six months, and we were stuck playing the same dumb video games and looking at the same dumb Instagram pages over and over and over?"

(Preemptive flash of self-awareness: not a knock on ILX! I'm glad it's here.)

Loved those recent posts clemenza and kate. Lots chiming with my own thoughts about how this will play out socially and emotionally.

Appreciate that. Walking is very conducive to writing in your head before you get home.

I think my kids will remember these as glory days. “Remember when we didn’t have to go to school and got to play video games every day?”

Getting paid to do nothing for 3 months is gonna be hard to come back from I think. God knows I hate working for a living.

I mean I find returning to work after paid 2 weeks vacation depressing enough as it is.

Getting paid to do nothing for 3 months is gonna be hard to come back from I think. God knows I hate working for a living.

I'm actually working (if managing the social media accounts for a medical school counts) but I'm curious how many people who have office jobs that are now doing those jobs via video-conferencing and email, and seeing no drop in productivity other than that attributable to COVID-19 generally, are gonna want to stay on WFH status permanently? I know I vastly prefer it, but I've been doing it for close to five years already.

I’m definitely switching to 3 days a week telework. I need to be in the office for certain things, though, and my wife already WFH’s nearly every day of the week.

Getting paid to do nothing for 3 months is gonna be hard to come back from I think. God knows I hate working for a living.

Haha so true. I have all the natural human responses to global peril, but at the same time whenever I hear "We're closer to a vaccine!" or "Deaths are down!" part of me shivers at the thought of returning to the office.

will all the de-lurking ilxors still post once this is over?

count me as the opposite -- I need some measure of externally imposed routine in my life

Wearing shoes all day every day again is going to feel really weird.

When I'm out walking now, and I see anybody do anything that's even remotely out of the ordinary--stop in the middle of the street and stare at something for a few seconds, signal for a right-hand turn and then change their mind...okay, if I see anybody do anything except walk forward in a straight line--I grumble "What the fuck are you doing?" Hopefully that will pass.

private health insurance won't survive this. millions are being thrown off their healthcare at the time they need ti most.

finally getting out of my pyjamas will feel odd

haha I was properly dressed bar wearing pyjamas today, but I haven’t worn shoes in two weeks

What's a shoe?

*pyjamas bottoms

I was watching Top Chef and people were touching their faces while preparing food!

I can see a star in the Paris night sky : things have changed

i keep waiting for the sky/air to clear a lot here but I think it's unlikely since we are in a valley.

I would like to think that ppl might be less inclined to be cunts about the whole concept of prison

Like they’ll be about to moan about how “lenient” it is to lock a human being away for five years of their life in the shittiest conditions and then suddenly they’ll remember that time they lost their fucking mind after two weeks of having to mostly stay in their house with only Netflix and Disney plus and Ocado and deliveroo and Spotify and FaceTime and amazon prime and audible and six concubines for company

bloody concubine hoarders, some of us have to get by with only three

this may be a "men are from mars, women are from Venus" thing but I'm actually ok with rapists having a shitty time

Can certainly see how my post comes across as strongly pro-rapist but that isn’t how I intended it fwiw

I’m thinking of the daily mail reader arguments that judges are all too soft and it’s practically a holiday to lock people (including non-violent offenders and disproportionately non-whites) away for “only” a year or five or ten. We should at least be honest and start with the admission that this is a heinous punishment and argue why it’s good from there

The thought processes of Daily Mail readers are probably past saving tbh. There will always be some reason why XYZ doesn't apply to any other group.

Anyone else getting a ton of magazine ebook suggestions on amazon? The magazines usually bought in newsagents and supermarkets.

I just went outside to take out the trash and see if the bodega had any paper towels and it was terrifying. The dull gray sky and light drizzle didn't help matters much. Also paper towels were $3.50 a roll at the bodega where I wound up buying them (another had opened a Costco pack of Bounty and affixed a $3.99 price tag to each individual roll)

I timed my beer run perfectly today and picked up an 8 pack of giant paper towel rolls from the rapidly dwindling delivery that our local Safeway must have gotten just this morning. Also fresh strawberries and popsicles (people been hoarding the good popsicles too).

xp: our local kmart was reportedly selling individual rolls of toilet paper for $2.69.

I have been feeling really bad lately for people who are having to go through this alone, or worse, stuck with someone they would prefer not to be around constantly. I grew up starved of loving touch, and I know how that affected me. I already felt like I was living in a world where physical touch was stigmatized because of uncontrolled abusers and creeps without a proper understanding of consent or relational power dynamics. How many people are having, possibly for the first time, to live a life completely bereft of touch? How long will this go on, and what is happening to all those people?

https://www.chicagotribune.com/coronavirus/sns-nyt-coronavirus-department-stores-neiman-marcus-20200425-lisnd7bztncthoc32uulww4odi-story.html

The sales of clothing and accessories fell by more than half in March, a trend that is expected to only get worse in April. The entire executive team at Lord & Taylor was let go this month. Nordstrom has canceled orders and put off paying its vendors. The Neiman Marcus Group, the most glittering of the American department store chains, is expected to declare bankruptcy in the coming days, the first major retailer felled during the current crisis.

all stores will be online, 3% of the world will have jobs, we will be hooked up to machines that feed us Nerds that act as our sustenance.

all music will be made by Toby Keith

I’m cool with all of that except the last sentence.

The changes in logistics are not especially interesting or meaningful to me. If anything basic changes about 'how we live' as a result of this pandemic, I think it is likely to be that a much larger percentage of the privileged classes will come to realize that wealth and privilege cannot totally insulate them from unpredictable pain and suffering. I wonder if this will allow them to develop a greater empathy with the less privileged, but I'm not counting on it.

how did 3 weeks pass between the last post and the revive

groundhog day, holy shit

The story on the impending collapse of department stores suggests to me that gift cards will be much less desirable. In an age of massive economic uncertainty, purchasing credit as a gift will be far too risky. Tangibles rule.

we will be hooked up to machines that feed us Nerds that act as our sustenance.

so there's an upside, you're saying

to the optimism thread!