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

maybe food is going to get a bit more geared to the essentials? less artisinal/bourgie

like, fewer people are gonna be cheerfully paying $8.50 Australian (as I do a few times a week) for a loaf soy and linseed sourdough

i literally made my own linseed and emmer sourdough this morning. isolation = crafts (& crusts)

remote work is gonna really fuck universities in the long run

― Paul Ponzi, Tuesday, March 17, 2020

This can't be stressed enough.

Can't see things vastly changing re: remote working.

It's partly that the infrastructure would need to improve but mainly that managers usually get off on the day-to-day control.

seeing a lot of musicians and DJs I follow on social media begin livestreaming performances from home, sometimes posting paypal or venmo links

idk whether distance learning is going to be a medium / long term proposition for most universities.

What's likely to have a more immediate financial and cultural impact is an end to international student mobility.

Managers can still “get off” on their daily control needs by holding morning sync teleconferences and regular status reports. Telework offers potentially even more ways for bosses to surveil employee behavior.

I wouldn't be surprised if a whole lot of things that should or could change, won't. I think a lot of people already long for "how things were" and will wish to return to exactly what it was like, our species being very fond of habits and regularity etc. I also think mobility (international in every way: work, students, leisure) is already so ingrained it takes more than this one virus to put a stop to that?

Card/phone payment only though, that I can see finally catching on completely. The war on cash has been going on for some time now, this might be what seals the deal. I've not had an uptick w/ phone calls tbh, and I'm pretty sure people will return to texting once the danger is averted a bit.

Is it likely that it will become more difficult/cost-prohibitive to acquire lower-demand goods the further one lives from the source of said goods? I don't think that's an altogether bad thing, if so.

I think it really comes down to a) how long we're impacted by The Cov and b) how many people are directly affected by The Cov. Memories are short and it's easy to ignore things when they aren't happening to you specifically, but I have a feeling this is an upheaval likely to induce serious change, for better or worse.

I suspect that the very wealthy will be investing in sturdier locks, more robust security systems, etc. The wiser ones, anyway.

Now that we're both WFH, I've never spent this much daily time with my wife in our entire relationship, I imagine this will continue provided our daycare doesn't close.

OTOH, I recently heard a story about Chinese couples being released from quarantine and immediately filing for divorce.

Is it likely that it will become more difficult/cost-prohibitive to acquire lower-demand goods the further one lives from the source of said goods? I don't think that's an altogether bad thing, if so.

I'm thinking the opposite, given the rise of Amazon and the likely growth of other home delivery services.

also think mobility (international in every way: work, students, leisure) is already so ingrained it takes more than this one virus to put a stop to that?

Expect anti-fom voices (left and right) to get louder

I worry that a cashless society will fuck over certain sections of society that will find it difficult to make that transition. Certainly won’t be good for homeless people

One thing that has been frustrating here (and our priorities shift around a lot but yesterday my wife was super worked up about this) was the lack of any distance learning options from our school district. We have friends with kids in private schools and they all shifted to live classes via zoom with stuff distributed via google classroom. Our school? Not a thing. they have google classroom but are forbidden from using it or assigning work because not every kid in the district has access to technology. Which ... I get that, however, the districts are going to have to find a solution for this. They were going to distribute chromebooks to some families but used the 'shelter in place' rules to not do that. Ok fine, it's early stages. But you're going to have to figure this out. I hate to be one of those people but we just voted for three more ballot measures to pump more money to our local school district and the administration there appears to be unable to solve basic problems.

Kinda feel like blind trust in bumblefuck authority, in people who play act at being in charge while demonstrating no real skills or knowledge, is gonna take a real kick in the balls over this. At long last. Which maybe doesn't mean that a more authoritarian authority won't rise up to fill the void. Be careful what you wish for, I guess.

I wouldn't be surprised if a whole lot of things that should or could change, won't

this

i'm most optimistic for improvements to the social safety net in various countries, primarily statutory sick pay

Realistically, if China and others, manage to control coronavirus and the UK, US and Australia don't, there's next to no chance parents are going to send their kids here to study for quite some time. I'd guess at least eighteen months. That radically changes the financial viability of universities and i wouldn't be surprised to see quite a few close.

More broadly, it's going to have to prompt a logistical and cultural shift in the sending countries. International study is increasingly seen as a way to manage overspill in the domestic sector. If China responds by layering in additional capacity at its domestic universities, idk how easy it's going to be to tempt people back.

One thing that has been frustrating here (and our priorities shift around a lot but yesterday my wife was super worked up about this) was the lack of any distance learning options from our school district.

I hadn't heard the term "the digital divide" in a while, but it is still very much a thing.

Kinda feel like blind trust in bumblefuck authority, in people who play act at being in charge while demonstrating no real skills or knowledge, is gonna take a real kick in the balls over this.

More likely people will double down on their existing prejudices--"My [preferred] leaders rose to the challenge, but [opposition] just wouldn't let them do what ought to have been done." Agreeing with the pessimism about long-term changes that OUGHT to be made versus those that WILL be made.

I guess the original premise is in part about small but significant changes in our behaviour that will arise from this period of self-containment that could continue if and when things return to something approaching normal? ie after the epidemic is brought under control or effective vaccines or treatments are discovered?

The biggest area for me is around tourism, holidays, business travel etc. On the assumption that industrialised nations will return to broad normality within a year or so then a lot of things will come absolutely roaring back if there is money available - restaurants, nightlife etc being main area, because the pent-up demand will be gigantic. But when is the opportunity to just travel somewhere coming back? The crisis has barely even begun in poorer nations and that's going to have a huge effect on which countries are easier or harder to get into.

― Matt DC

i'm struggling to understand the idea of "small but significant changes". there are so many people in the tourism, travel, hospitality, restaurant industries, and the potential collapse of those industries doesn't seem small to me!

i will say again that, i have relatives working in education, and the assumption is that everybody will just be able to _do_ distance learning, distance work, and that won't be a problem. and it's just not true. there's a certain strand of pedagogy that's, imo, rightly critical of people going out of the way to focus on online education, because it privileges a certain sort of learner and a certain sort of learning style. this just happens to be my learning style - i'm a self-directed learner - but this sort of silicon valley/big tech approach to things just doesn't track with most people's everyday experience. in education the smarter teachers are already writing off the rest of the year; they're spending the week completely redoing their lesson plans but the idea that any kids are going to _learn anything_ for the rest of it is just not practical or sustainable. but most people i guess will not figure this out until the next round of standardized test scores come back, if even then!

I guess the unspoken thought underlying a lot of the changes I quasi-predict is that they aren't going to just happen because but rather because people will be more likely to make them happen. Like we're seeing the logical endpoint of mass shrugging in the face of entropy.

Small but significant changes in our lives I mean, obviously this is going to have a huge impact on the jobs and livelihoods of millions of people, particularly in tourism-dependent countries.

Wait have dating apps not been mentioned? Or dating in general.

xp -- that plus a lot of extant online education systems are a groverhaus clusterfuck

was reminded of this series a few years back https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2017/05/u-s-high-schools-may-be-over-relying-on-online-credit-recovery-to-boost-their-graduation-rates.html

oh yeah i graduated from indiana's community college system, they were overenrolled and had a totally inadequate informational infrastructure for the students they were trying to support, i know a lot of people complain at the growing percentage of administrative staff versus direct teaching staff but my experience is that administrative staff are there because they are needed

I can't imagine anyone wanting to go to the dentist for the foreseeable future.

Oh yeah that reminds me, I have a hygienist appointment next week and they haven’t called to cancel

Dentists are pretty damn clean! Feel safer w/them than w/my kids' grubby hands tbh

I'm hesitant at this point to speculate about this stuff, but perhaps post-pandemic there'll be less pissing & moaning about 1st world problems. "____ is annoying, but hey at least I can shoot down the store and known they'll have toilet paper and pasta for me." "this month has kinda sucked for me, but at least I can go out for a drink with friends now" etc.

Yeah, in line with that I've been thinking we might see a long-overdue swell of appreciation for all of the generally unrecognized people who help keep our fragile systems in good working order. There were a lot of unsung heroes involved in getting that apple into your hand!

In a better world, yes, but in this world nah. People will immediately revert back to "$15 AN HOUR TO FLIP BURGERS THE ABSOLUTE NERVE"

Me, I’m hoping we get back to “first world problems” being a dumb and shitty phrase that posits problems of the developed world as being de facto luxuries as opposed to seeing conditions in the developing world as extra unacceptable

Like “1st world problems” is exactly the phrase people would use to say “you’re complaining about $15 an hour but you have running water, gtfo”

I imagine in Roman times plebeians would say shit like 'your indentured servitude is a fucking cakewalk compared to REAL slavery'.

wins otm

People in the “third world” can take the piss out of “third world problems” otherwise I think it’s more regressive than not

Uh *”first world problems”

People in the “third world” can take the piss out of “first world problems” otherwise I think it’s more regressive than not

Good rule of thumb.

If this kills air bnb I'll be happy

I can definitely see this impacting e.g. the norms of internat'l travel (in that we'll see less of it, both voluntarily and by mandate), but it's really hard for me to imagine a world without live music, mainly because such a world is too depressing to countenance.

folks, what is the consensus around getting takeaway food

we've been cooking happily for a week but i rly, rly would love a pizza or such. would i be supporting local businesses or putting myself/others at risk

10 days, not a week

I have been wondering the same, eventually I'm afraid the urge is gonna win out but I don't want it to be suicide pizza

I found this article helpful: https://www.seriouseats.com/2020/03/food-safety-and-coronavirus-a-comprehensive-guide.html

I went to the chippy yesterday. Didn't touch door handle, food all handled with tongs, contactless payment, in and out in 2 mins. takeaway is prob safer than food shopping.

judging from that article it suggests it's riskier getting groceries and cooking yourself since the person stocking the groceries may be less following less stringent sanitation guidelines than the cook

if your food has a lone virion on it, you’d have to intensely smear the food on your hands then purposely rub them in your eyes and up your nose

so the consensus is that takeaway is fine? so long as you kind of avoid the courier?

yeah I got a pizza yesterday and I made sure to keep my distance. when they insisted on getting within two inches of me, I kicked the delivery driver in the ribs and then put their car in reverse.

had to be sure

This is the thread for “how will this event permanently change the way we live” not for more endless fearful nattering about whether touching anything that comes from outside is fucking going to kill you or not

that's true, but I didn't want to ruin any of the ongoing other threads with a relatively trivial concern

to bring the thread back into form I can safely speculate that when this is all over I will be spending a lot more time in pizzaerias and eating pretty much only pizza, with and/or around other people

Word

maybe it was NAthaniel, looking for Jaime Spears email?