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

I think one of the major ones is going to be mass depression, a widespread mental health crisis.

― Deflatormouse

america was already in the throes of a mental health epidemic and most people were pretending it didn't exist

honestly? honestly i can't see that covid is making a lot of long-term changes in how people live their lives. people are just the way they were before, but moreso.

I certainly hope so, it always gives me the shudders when someone puts their hand out to me and it's a fucking odious hangover from the paleocene that should have never made it into the modern era imo

― calzino, Monday, March 23, 2020 7:40 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

I will take a handshake over a goddamn hug any day of the week

I like shaking hands with someone I'm meeting, and hugging a friend. I miss physical contact with people already.

Me too

People who can still afford it are going to be out all the fucking time when this is over. I intend to go to the pub three or four times a week and as many restaurants as possible.

To be honest though going more than a 15min walk from my front door would feel like a wild and dangerous adventure right now.

I really hope all the heathens who wear shoes in their homes finally stop.

Chris Ware strip:

https://scontent.fman2-2.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/s960x960/90760460_10156859421891176_2600980156633841664_o.jpg?_nc_cat=107&_nc_sid=8024bb&_nc_ohc=kTLAFbUa-hAAX_zUvsC&_nc_ht=scontent.fman2-2.fna&_nc_tp=7&oh=7760efd7579f051639b3df5476e3fb29&oe=5E9EC54E

i gave up making long-term, specific predictions in november 2016. i don't feel like there's enough specific information about covid-19 right now for me to make any prognostications that are differentiable from wide-eyed speculation.

Haha, I should probably clarify that I reached the conclusion I posted about mass depression after consulting the Yijing:
六三：萃如，嗟如，无攸利，往无咎，小吝。
上六：齎咨涕洟，无咎。
That may be an overly literal take on it, but it does suggest to me a certian seriousness over frivolity.

I do worry what will become of public swimming pools and halloween.

I wonder if this might actually kill the direct market in comics - I've given notice to my local shop to cancel my pull order timed with an upcoming move (which, fuck knows if that's going to happen now), so I'll try and get them to mail them out to me until then, but after they stop I might go digital and just pick up collections.

Handshakes may be on their way out, but waving to strangers might make a big comeback. I wave to almost everyone I pass now (not close...) when I'm out walking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rzZ2F18MwI&feature=youtu.be

ugh maybe this will work (toronto symphony playing from their individual homes)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rzZ2F18MwI

I hear you, death to conductors.

That may be an overly literal take on it, but it does suggest to me a certian seriousness over frivolity.

I do worry what will become of public swimming pools and halloween.

― Deflatormouse

idk if it's overly literal or not! there are so many variant translations of that verse that i can't actually tell what you were referencing - "in the beginning good fortune, at the end chaos"?

halloween has already changed so much since i was a child. all this fear of strangers, everybody worried about being poisoned and all that. look i know this is "a child used to kick a ball in the street" territory but when we lived in apartments, nobody would come by our house at all... now that we own a home sporadically large gangs of chaperoned children will come by and we have to individually hand out pieces of candy to them because if we let them just pick their own half of them will just plunge their hand into the bowl and take half the damn candy, and the chaperoning parent won't say boo about it. i don't blame the kids.

anyway that's not my point, my point is that from what i see trick-or-treating is already in transition, kids wandering from door to door in the dark was already well on its way to becoming a thing of the past.

public swimming pools i didn't go near even before transitioning. "here let me show off this body i fucking hate", you know? i'm glad the notion of bathing suits that don't show off every square inch of skin are starting to not automatically trigger the assumption that one is some hyper-conservative prude.

i do wonder about the hyper-social people, what will change, how their behaviours will adapt, because all of the precautions on personal space being suggested now are perfectly amenable to me.

at least where I live my old neighborhood last Halloween was wall to wall kids and parents sidewalks were so crowded

and all I'll say is everyone in this thread is vastly underestimates human beings' ability to forget

I am trying to keep hyper-social people (which I am not) in my thoughts and prayers during these trying times. Imagining a different crisis which required me to be around gaggles of people 24/7 makes me want to tear my own face off.

to individually hand out pieces of candy to them because if we let them just pick their own half of them will just plunge their hand into the bowl and take half the damn candy, and the chaperoning parent won't say boo about it.

This has become a worse problem over the years but there is definitely some complicity with some people who give out treats "Oh, go ahead. Take a few." What I'm doing next Halloween (if, as mentioned above, there is trick or treating this year) is to make small goody bags with 3-4 items (candy, toy, pencil, etc) and each kid gets one bag, which contains multiple items.

I think I m/l properly estimate human beings' ability to forget but I think the likely factors of longevity and personal impact in this instance will make it a little more difficult to just paper over.

Also there will be habits and behaviours that people develop over the next couple of months that they actually like, and those will endure.

xp to old lunch:

Yeah, at work yesterday we had a Zoom meeting to discuss the personal challenges that we're all facing with these lifestyle changes. God bless my boss for that. But one of my colleagues was like "I'm an extrovert and this is driving me crazy!" Which I hadn't really thought about.

Also there will be habits and behaviours that people develop over the next couple of months that they actually like, and those will endure.

I definitely think "not commuting" and "day drinking around the house" are going to end up on this list.

There was a craze for adult ball pits last year. Think that is probably over.

and all I'll say is everyone in this thread is vastly underestimates human beings' ability to forget

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown)

i talked to my older relatives who went through the depression, when they were still alive. maybe there were some people who went through the depression and forgot? but not the people i knew.

I think most things will go back to normal, in a sense. I don't think people will stop going to the gym or to pools. I think the recession is likely to have more of an overall impact on, like, the way society functions than the pandemic itself. But I do think this will leave its imprint on our psyches and we'll have even more depression, anxiety, isolation, obsession with cleanliness and health, etc. than we had before.

Talking to an organizer friend yesterday, she said NYPD have already started to stop ppl on the street and ask where they're going--while teens, many of them non-white because it's NYC, are still getting together in public because they're teens, they live in tiny apartments, and this is going to lead to police harassment & murder. So Black organizers are working on doing online Know Yr Rights trainings targeted at young people and some kind of public education campaign. The lord's work.

She also observed that wealthy/financially protected people and unemployed people are staying home right now (can work from home, have non-essential jobs, etc), and Black and brown people and those with blue-collar and service jobs are in the streets. What does it mean for the privileged to occupy the interior spaces and make lower status people go out into exposure? There's so much to unpack and be prepared for because this can go a lot of ways, most of them really bad.

Also that she sees a future in which ppl with means decide against an urban future and NYC trends back toward the NYC of the '70s--that it goes back to being a city of the working class + poor.

/shrugmoji

I see a big spike in leg humping

Expect there will be a slowdown in supply of illegal drugs given that most routes into UK are closed. Downstream effect of increasing price on street with subsequent increase in crime to get funds to support it.

in orbit, a lot of the same thing going on in DC (the largely white "creative class" is indoors, the black and brown blue collar folks are out and about) but we don't have DCPD stopping people on the street and asking for hall passes or whatever. I don't think full-on white flight is going to happen again, people really like living in the city (when it's functioning); but also see above where I worried about young folks abandoning their high rent studios if the promise of fun urban living is suspended for too long.

one of my colleagues was like "I'm an extrovert and this is driving me crazy!" Which I hadn't really thought about.

Saw somebody on fb saying "You know who this is really affecting? School bullies."

i talked to my older relatives who went through the depression, when they were still alive.

That is usually the best time to talk to people, imo.

I have seen wisdom itt from LBI, Matt DC, rushomancy.

What I imagine will happen (whether in a month, six months, or a year) is a great "sproing" back to how people were living last month.

Many businesses - restaurants, bars, etc. - will have had to go out of business. Life for their workers will suck even more than it did before. I have no wish to diminish those hardships!

But the demand that created those businesses in the first place is still there and will reemerge, even stronger. Which could lead to another wave of failures - when it's safe to go out again, some businesses will pop up during that surge in demand, with ideas that might not be sustainable long-term.

I dunno. Very sad for the people hit hardest now and in the future.

Tomboto, you raise an interesting notion - if the point of spending a gazillion dollars on rent is to be near nightlife, shopping, and cultural activities... then what's the point if there isn't any nightlife, shopping, or cultural activities?

I just ordered a load of beer online for the first time ever. That's probably going to continue for a while.

did you go through a particular provider, MDC, or just a supermarket?

There is a good Vice article about this xpost https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xgqpyq/most-brown-and-black-americans-are-exposing-themselves-to-coronavirus-for-a-paycheck

Young ppl abandoning their hi-rent studios would actually relieve some/all? of the pressures of gentrification as experienced by lower income folks. If freewheeling "urban" gap-20s stop being so appealing, we might get liveable communities back.

I observed that the same thing was said after 9.11 and businesses didn't really take their corporate centers elsewhere en masse and the appeal of NYC didn't noticeably diminish, but this event could be different in lots of ways.

xp Oh thank you I'll read that now.

I went through a nearby bottle shop that does delivery. My guess is that most people's best bet will be to order directly from a brewery, they will have an absolute shit-ton of unsold stock right now.

Lol at the idea of being able to get anything delivered from a supermarket right now. (xposts)

Here in the US, the governing org that oversees Alcohol sales has relaxed laws allowing breweries that were unable to ship previously to do so, as well as bars to expand their retail to "takeout" (within reason).

I imagine there will be a spike in suicides towards the end of this twelve-week period, if that's how long it will be, and a higher number if it goes on longer. People who live alone, in particular.

I just ordered a load of beer online for the first time ever. That's probably going to continue for a while.

the largely white "creative class" is indoors

tbf, many of them will be facing eviction in 1-2 months

Not sure about that. They're "working" from home and getting paid their normal salaries. Their employers may cry wolf about THA ECONOMY but have plenty of cash reserves.

Also we're talking about DC, which has a famously recession-proof industry in it.

one thing that's a positive and I hope I remember the lessons, but I'm doing a much better job of really making the most of the food that I've bought. I've been much more mindful of trying to use things up and use things that are going to go bad first. Also, just frozen food in general I used to avoid and it's great, I could have saved myself so much money. And, just cooking at home in general.

anyway, a good life lesson.

hard agree! i have a tiny freezer so i don't get very much stuff already frozen but i push it to its limits in storing leftovers, stock, meat etc

yeah!!! i get annoying about using all the food in the house before it goes bad and rotating first in/first out (which is why I end up eating disgusting combinations sometimes) so this is great.

cosign, better fridge management here

Yeah, we were looking to say goodbye to our small fridge freezer (has to fit beneath the boiler), but I guess not.

So Black organizers are working on doing online Know Yr Rights trainings targeted at young people and some kind of public education campaign.

My immediate thought is, do they have some way to contact all these kids again when their rights change?

Like, every time I have to leave my apt for a long trip, I will end up juicing everything that is able to be juiced (it's disgusting) and like freezing 3 eggs because I can not bear to toss it.

You can freeze eggs?!

I looked it up and apparently you can crack them into an ice cube tray and freeze them that way. I've never tried it.

yeah, you can totally freeze eggs. I just ate some that had been frozen for two months.

I am lazy so just scramble them all in one container and later defrost when I know I will be eating them in the next couple of days.