Just Rewatched Contagion...

[jpmcwjr]

I have no clue whether the threat is real or not but it's definitely making my life hell at work where I'm now ...

And where are you?

 

[logs]

Illinois

 

[olkofri]

First case diagnosed in the province. No university closures as yet; people are not as quick to panic here—although the store was out of hand sanitiser.

 

[jpmcwjr]

RE: Contagion, the film. Part of the description of the movie:

"As the death toll escalates and people struggle to protect themselves and their loved ones in a society breaking down, one activist blogger (Jude Law) claims the public isnt getting the truth about whats really going on, and sets off an epidemic of paranoia and fear as infectious as the virus itself." (my emphasis)

Just found it's available on demand from DIRECTV®. Right now the character of one of my least favorite actresses is dying. Just a few minutes in, so not a spoiler, and it's Cameron Diaz.

 

[jpmcwjr]

Logs- I was born in Illinois, North of Chicago. I grew up 80 miles S thereof. I know the city of Chicago well, a number of suburbs, Champaign-Urbana, and little of the vast area below there.

So, where, please are you, as you described very specific things in your community.

 

[didimauw]

We've been getting a lot of alerts here in Wisconsin. After watching the news all day, (I know I know) and getting email after email from every store I've ever shopped at, it started to seem real.

Then my wife's friend was texting her, as she was out to get toilet paper. Apparently they were actually OUT of toilet paper at home, so she went out to get some. And every store she went to was completely out of it....

I laughed really hard hearing that. Not the fact that I don't believe it's a real thing. Just funny that it was happening to HER.

Who waits till your on the shitter , to realize there isn't any tp left? Especially at a time like this!

 

[shanez]

 

[tobefrank]

What you are describing is more a reaction to the perceived risk of the corona virus as opposed to the actual risk. People freaking out about the idea of what might happen when the corona virus spreads further.

I'm currently at home after having a sore throat and a minor cough after coming back from a surftrip to Indonesia. When I called the Corona Virus Helpline and told them I had been to Indonesia they said the risk is very low that I might have contracted it and said to just monitor the symptoms to make sure they didn't get any worse.

There was no mention of the need for self isolation, I guess because Indonesia is still a very low risk country. I have also been super careful, washing my hands with hand sanitiser every couple of minutes and wearing a face mask in the airport/plane. I did go to get myself tested yesterday, more because I wanted to know that it was safe for me to go back to work without being patent zero for my workplace.

Knowing that the likelihood of having contracted it is extremely low made me feel kind of silly going to get the test done, but I know I'll be relieved when the test results come back.

I'm not so concerned with whether I have it or not, but more with not wanting to pass it on to anyone else.

Just in case you guys were wondering, I just got the test results back and novel corona virus was not detected. ?

I guess life goes back to normal bar additional hygiene precautions.

 

[jpmcwjr]

So good to hear. How did you celebrate?

And, what was the nature of the test? Blood sample?

 

[tobefrank]

I've still got a normal cold so unfortunately haven't been able to light up a pipe or cigar to celebrate.

The test involved taking swaps from both nostrils and the back of my throat. It took them 2 days to get back to me.

 

[Elric]

All K-12 schools in MI closed for three weeks now.

 

[Bowie]

I've still got a normal cold so unfortunately haven't been able to light up a pipe or cigar to celebrate.

The test involved taking swaps from both nostrils and the back of my throat. It took them 2 days to get back to me.

Glad it was a negative test. That must've been a relief.

 

[tobefrank]

Glad it was a negative test. That must've been a relief.

Sure was! I had a nice glass of whisky to celebrate.

 

[subsalac]

I learned a valuable lesson once in my mid 20's I wish to share. Supposedly some huge hurricane was coming. The media was constantly bombarding the air waves here for weeks with non stop hurricane visuals, non-stop destruction, non-stop footage of everyone going nuts in stores buying all the water and TP and whatnot. In the streets here in NYC, you'd see all the glass taped up, some boarded up, because ya know, everyone was "informed". After all, we had a category 12 trillion 'nado something or other coming and that meant the apocalypse, right? Everyone had to get off the streets, some had to evacuate, some had to get into a special shelter... oh shit.. would my 100+ year old apartment building hold? Oh shit... oh shit... it's coming... it's getting windier...

So I did the only sane, rational thing:

I had a panic attack. I thought I was going to die, I frantically, and with futility, tried to board up my rickety old windows that probably would shatter or dislocate if you sneezed on them. No good. Oh shit... oh shit... I'm dead. Then I went to sleep and woke up to...

... the gentle hum of wind.

And then I took a walk that next day, saw all the boarded up windows. Wow... everyone was duped, just like me. But yet... who won? Who is the winner here, in the end? Why... the economy. Stuff got purchased. People panic, and there is money to be made. What if... power goes out? Well then we need a generator. What if we're stuck? We need lots of bottled water. And aren't we out of nails and 2x4's?

Where there is money to be made, there will be exploitation of the public. It turns out that when you can manipulate hundreds of millions of people because you control "The Message", the hot topic, the "news", that's a profound level of power to socially engineer for really any goal... economic, political, and so on. And this is why the media is a monopoly that won't budge. It's a tremendous level of power, held by very few people. Just let that thought simmer for a bit.

So uhhh... what I'm getting at is, be skeptical-- especially when the news is essentially telling you to panic. Don't be the guy sitting on 20 crates of Ramen in your garage because the sky is falling. The apocalypse myth is something that has been abused for millenia by the tops of human hierarchies, and for good reason. It makes money, it maintains order, it distracts. Fearful and anxious people spend more. They also alter the behavior of their neighbor, it's contagious . This causes them to fail to notice that the kings and shamans and warlords are duping the farmers and peasants-- The ancient scam.

Some will see this as an attempt to save face, but I will double down now and state that even if the hospital morgues here are overflowing with corpses, it's unclear to me how much social engineering, economic exploitation, opportunistic destruction of the US constitution(gee, when was the last big event that happened? I've already forgotten), psychosomatic panic, and other powerful dynamics for domination and social control take place in this little slice of heaven called Earth where all animals are naturally organized into a conceptual pyramid, ranked according to power which doesn't care about ethics or rules, other than "That which wins, wins."