As I write this now, in December of 2020, the world is a chaotic mess. Politics, SARS-CoV-2, economic chaos, militarism abroad, police State at home, accusations of election fraud and other conspiracies... you already know what has people riled up, I'm sure.
It all seemed so simple twenty-one years ago.
It was a computer bug, not a coronavirus, that caused the real scare in much of the population in December of 1999. As clocks ticked over, systems using old hardware would switch from marking the year as '99' to '00,' and the resulting mathematical calculation confusion was predicted to bring anything from widespread inconvenience to catastrophic global failure. After all, there were even then embedded computer systems in telecommunications and electrical utilities, military facilities, government offices, and businesses.
Would programmers mitigate problems in the run up to the new year, or would some unexpected conflict bring civilization to its knees? No one knew.
People who prepared for armageddon were mocked beforehand, and even more so after when everyone felt a little relief when things went mostly OK with no major issues.
We also survived the end of the world when the Mayan calendar ended an era in December of 2012. There was a lot less widespread concern about that, but the media hype was insane.
I don't want to minimize the COVID-19 concerns of today, but we also survived health scares. Post-9/11 Anthrax attack concerns, swine flu, bird flu, Ebola, Zika, and more came and went with much hype, some harm, and then a fading into obscurity. The seasonal flu can be bad some years on its own. The present COVID-19 response with lockdowns and concentration of power is unprecedented, but is the pandemic really such a new thing? I admit I am not an expert, but in context of my living memory and my economic knowledge, it seems the disaster of COVID-19 is more political than viral.
Let's do what we can to make common-sense preparations for whatever disasters may come, take whatever precautions seem suited to the disasters at hand now, and try to take a broader view of reality while we break free of the fear porn surrounding us. Your energy is limited. Spend it wisely.
...He says while rambling in a blog post before watching silly YouTube videos...
