Tuesday, March 17, 2020

Global lockdown; The Issue of Self-reliance; Biden and Bernie's Showdown

by Daryl D. Tan

The declaration of the pandemic last week has led to all-out pandemonium.

The situation now seems to be hopelessly bleak.

News outlets are littered with reports about countries shutting their borders. Denmark, Poland, Czech Republic, and Germany, among a host of other European nations have sealed their borders in an attempt to contain the virus. Elsewhere, Malaysia and New Zealand have imposed extremely tough border restrictions, and perhaps more shockingly - Canada, too, has closed off its borders, a measure completely contrary to Justin Trudeau's agenda to make Canada a beacon of immigration, diversity and globalism.

However, in times of crisis - the intuitive nature of man springs forth - in this case, the intrinsic desire to protect his own tribe first.

Nationalism is vindicated by this intuitive nature of man. We are inherently tribalistic whether we like it or not. Read Jonathan Haidt's 'The Righteous Mind' if you don't believe me - it's a brilliant psychological account of why someone is of a particular political stripe, but it really all boils down to how we perceive morality coupled with our innate desire to form associations with others who either think/are like us or share the same values as we do.

These border control measures - extreme as they may be - are effective in containing the virus.

Lessons can (and ought to be) gleaned from the past.

The 1918 Flu which devastated the entire world was halted in its tracks in St. Louis thanks to strict quarantining measures which resulted in the death rate there being the "lowest among major U.S. cities" as compared to Philadelphia "where bodies piled up on sidewalks when the morgues overflowed". Philadelphia, in contrast to St. Louis, did not impose appropriate measures and irresponsibly failed to cancel a war parade which is believed to have caused the virus to spread rapidly among its inhabitants.

Another place that shut itself off from the rest of the world and reported a total number of zero deaths caused by the 1918 pandemic was American Samoa where Governor John Martin Poyer quarantined the entire territory and received a Navy Cross for preventing the virus from reaching its shores.

These lessons are instructive, and yet they were taken into account a little too late this time round. As George Santayana once said, "Those who fail to remember the past are condemned to repeat it" and before our very eyes - we see that this is indeed the case right now.

Strangely enough, many are still calling for coordinated and globalistic efforts to try to stem the tide of the virus despite these lessons.

Slavoj Zizek, an extremely influential contemporary Marxist philosopher, was recently interviewed on Russia Today, and was asked how the Coronavirus situation should be handled.

He had this to say:

"The big loser in this, I think, will be precisely the nationalist, racist, and so on who think "our country should isolate itself" and so on. Of course, we need quarantines and all that, but for example, take Europe - we should act in a united way, helping each other, with respirators, with masks, with whatever is needed, and so on, and so on. I think in this sense, we should behave as if we are in the middle of a military operation."

He goes on to say that "some kind of Communism" in which he means a "strong, global, international cooperation and coordination" effort of some sort would work in this case.

Sorry, Zizek. What you are proposing doesn't work in practice.

Of course, nations helping each other during such a crisis should be the norm, but Zizek isn't just calling for that. Zizek is calling for a collectivist and over-centralized response to this crisis. This will fail spectacularly.

Take the European Union for instance. During the whole Brexit debate, the EU was touted as the paragon of cooperation and inter-trade friendship - essentially everything that Zizek had described in the interview.

How has the EU fared throughout this crisis so far?

Terribly.

Italy, a member state of the European Union, was left to fend for itself:

"Last month, when COVID-19 began spreading rapidly in Italy, the country appealed for help via the Emergency Response Coordination Centre. “We asked for supplies of medical equipment, and the European Commission forwarded the appeal to the member states,” Italy’s permanent representative to the EU, Maurizio Massari, told me. “But it didn’t work.”

So far, not a single EU member state has sent Italy the needed supplies. That’s tragic for a country with 21,157 coronavirus infections and 1,441 deaths as of March 14, and with medical staff working under severe shortages of supplies."

Am I saying that it's wrong for Italy's European allies to want to keep important medical supplies for themselves? No, it's not wrong. As I've mentioned earlier, there's nothing wrong in wanting to prioritize the safety of your own people. What I have an issue with is the stark hypocrisy of the European agenda of unity when no such unity exists in times of trouble.

This is just testament to the fact that the European project is a colossal failure, and Coronachan is merely exposing the hypocrisy of this terribly mismanaged bureaucratic leviathan which seeks to implement an overarching philosophy among its culturally diverse member states as a means of control.

In a recent poll, Italians voiced their displeasure with Brussels. See the tweet below:



This pandemic will definitely cause a shift in the way states trade in the future. Autarky (Self-Reliance) will be looked at more fondly and no longer be derided as merely being a component of "Fascism".

I have to say though, Autarky has got me thinking about whether my country, Singapore, (which by the way has been managing this crisis extremely well so far) can ever be completely self-reliant.

One of the primary reasons for Singapore's success is its pragmatic "board of directors" style of governance. It doesn't deal in abstract concepts. It doesn't dabble in theories. It simply discards what doesn't work, and uses what does work efficiently. This is why Singapore gets shit done, and done well.

The problem is whether this style of governance which is clearly meant to function and perform exceedingly well in peacetime can sustain itself for the long haul. If this virus stays with us for a long time, countries that are self-reliant in terms of resources will survive, and countries like Singapore that typically rely on trade from other countries will find itself in a very compromised situation.

This was the case last night when Malaysia, the main importer of fresh produce in Singapore, announced that it would be sealing its borders for two weeks. Singaporeans reacted by panicking and fled to supermarkets to buy as much as fresh produce as they could - eggs, poultry, vegetables, and what have you.

Thankfully, the supermarket raiding (sort of) abated when our Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong, clarified that this border control measure undertaken by Malaysia did not apply to the flow of goods, but only to people crossing the border. The government also sent out an infographic explaining that it has multiple trade partners with regards to produce and that Singapore is not wholly reliant on Malaysia. We have other trade partners such as Thailand, Netherlands and Australia just to name a few as well.

While this generally allayed the fears of the people here, it does make me wonder what would happen if shit got really bad for our other trade partners as well. Will they be there for us in our time of need? Will they turn away from us just as the European Union turned away from Italy during their darkest hour?

In the short term, however, there's some hope that Singapore will ride this one out. Despite the severity of the crisis, it's likely that trade will continue as per normal, though perhaps minimised greatly and there may be shortages from time to time. It also depends on how long this pandemic will last. The problem is that Singapore lacks land for its agricultural industry to properly thrive.

As for updates on society transitioning towards a more virtual environment, WWE Wrestlemania 36 will be televised in front of an empty arena and Universal Studios will be shifting new movies to home streaming. We are on the way there, folks.

Speaking of empty arenas, Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden battled it out on Sunday in a televised debate without an audience as well.

In my previous blogpost, I talked about how I thought Bernie was going to come back swinging after losing vital states in the previous Primaries, but it seems that he has lost his steam. There were instances during the debate where he displayed aggression. He first implored Americans to go to YouTube to fact-check Biden and also asked Biden to get rid of his Super PAC which can be seen below:



Bernie was slightly aggressive but not aggressive enough to make his presence felt or leave any sort of lasting impact. It could be that there was no one in the crowd to spur him on, or it could be that he wanted to tone down on the "aggressive" aspect of the debate amidst a global crisis. Whatever it is, he has lost his steam for sure.

More interestingly, Biden made a pledge during the debate that he would nominate a woman as his Vice President. This is significant because it's clear that Biden is cognitively wasting away. His vice president is therefore likely to be the one pulling the strings from behind (like Cheney) if he's elected president. I personally think that he's going to choose either Hillary Clinton or Kamala Harris to be his running mate. He has been rather chummy with Harris as of late and she seems to be firmly entrenched within the inner cabal of the DNC.

Meanwhile, everyone's eyes continue to be peeled on the more pressing matter of Coronachan and how things will develop in the coming weeks.
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Thursday, March 12, 2020

Pandemic declared; Trump rises to the occasion; Bernie stays in the race

by Daryl Dominic Tan


PANDEMIC DECLARED:

A Pandemic has finally been declared by the WHO and the world is officially in "freak out" mode.

Speaking at a conference, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said:

"We are deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity and by the alarming levels of inaction. We have therefore made the assessment that COVID-19 can be characterised as a pandemic,"

He also made it very clear to those watching that "Pandemic" is "not a word to use lightly or carelessly."

Frankly speaking, this was already a Pandemic some time ago. Calling it a Pandemic now isn't going to help very much at this point because the damage has already been done. As Singapore's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Vivian Balakrishnan, said, "the Genie is out of the bottle".

Tedros implied that the reason it has become a Pandemic is due to "inaction" by some countries when the outbreak first began.

Seriously?

Maybe Tedros and his buddies at the WHO should have declared it a "Pandemic" earlier so that countries around the world would have taken it more seriously. It should have been declared a pandemic the minute it started spreading all over the world, but it was only when Italy's healthcare system started imploding in real time that the WHO decided to do something about the worsening situation.

In the WHO's defense, a "public health emergency of international concern" was declared on January 30th. This has been described as their "highest level of alarm". But let's be honest with ourselves, specific terms that convey a sense of urgency and are easily recognizable such as "PANDEMIC" are much more instructive & effective than broad sweeping statements. This is just another fine example of bureaucratic mismanagement.

Now that a pandemic has been declared, what's going to happen?

I mentioned in my previous post that there will be disruptions to supply lines.

It's already happening.

Check out the following excerpt in an article from Fortune:

"Nearly 75% of companies are seeing capacity disruptions in their supply chains as a result of coronavirus-related transportation restrictions, according to an Institute for Supply Management survey published Wednesday.

This is strong warning sign that COVID-19—which was ruled a pandemic by the World Health Organization on Wednesday—is weighing down the global economy.

“For a majority of U.S. businesses, lead times have doubled, and that shortage is compounded by the shortage of air and ocean freight options to move product to the United States—even if they can get orders filled,” said Thomas Derry, CEO of ISM, in the report. "Companies are faced with a lengthy recovery to normal operations in the wake of the virus outbreak."

Over 60% of firms are experiencing delays in receiving orders from China, and 53% are having difficulty getting information from China."

So is declaring a "pandemic" good or bad? It's both. It's good in the sense that countries all over the world will recognize the urgency of the outbreak and take the appropriate measures to try to curb it. It's bad in the sense that supply chains will be disrupted and the economy will suffer, and on a personal level - your damaged iPhone is unlikely to have its parts replaced any time soon since Apple's manufacturing is done primarily in China. If you have prepared well by having enough essential items to last you through a potential and hopefully short-term disruption then you should be okay.

What's scarier with regards to a disruption in supply lines is the issue of prescription medication. Unfortunately, most Americans rely heavily on China for their prescription drugs, and this is where a supply chain disruption could cause huge problems for sick Americans, and perhaps for many across the world.

However, while society in Europe seems to be collapsing due to the increasing number of cases, the spread of Coronachan seems to be slowing in China with Xi Jinping even visiting Wuhan yesterday; perhaps a sign that things are starting to look up. If people get back to work and China functions somewhat normally again, then a supply chain disruption may not materialize. We can only know in the next few days whether this would indeed be the case.

There's also sliver of hope that China's supply line is somewhat active based on the Chinese government's commitment to assist Italy by supplying them with equipment to combat the virus. This could be further evidence that China, a major exporter, might be healing just in time to offset the difficulties faced by the rest of the world.

One should be wary of China's recovery, however. Michael Osterholm, an expert in infectious epidemiology and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP), posited on the Joe Rogan Experience a couple of days ago that if the Chinese workforce springs back to life too quickly and crowds start to form once more, Coronachan is likely to strike again, and China will end back up at square one.

With regards to society transitioning towards a more futuristic environment with further reliance on telepresence and VR, schools across the globe have effectively closed (not the case here in Singapore though) and Harvard in particular has moved classes online. In Japan, some have taken to online drinking parties as a way to alleviate their restlessness since public gatherings are frowned upon right now.

In Singapore, PM Lee Hsien Loong assured citizens that the situation is under control, but pointed out that Singaporeans should be prepared for a spike in the number of infected.

He also said:

“Besides medical plans, if there is a spike, we will also need additional social distancing measures. These will be temporary like suspending school, staggering work hours, or compulsory telecommuting.”

Since we are to brace ourselves for a spike in the numbers now that the entire world is affected, it follows that these social distancing measures mentioned by PM Lee which promote less reliance on physical interaction will be implemented here in Singapore in time to come as well.

Hollywood is also getting hit pretty badly, with the production of 'Mission Impossible 7' and 'James Bond: No Time to Die' among a whole cornucopia of other movies being delayed. This is a huge boon to streaming services and will definitely help to expedite the transition towards a more virtual environment.

Speaking of Hollywood, Tom Hanks and his wife, Rita Wilson, tested positive for the Coronavirus in Australia. Tom Hanks seems to be the sacrificial goat for regular Joes and Janes across the world. Will it take a prominent & wealthy celebrity to test positive for people who don't typically follow the news to finally take this matter seriously? Furthermore, what's alarming is that Hanks was infected in Australia, a country that (though having infected cases) is not as severely hit as Italy, Spain or Germany. This is an indication that literally anyone can get it at any point in time without any warning whatsoever and also completely irrespective of one's social status and wealth.

TRUMP RISES TO THE OCCASION:

In response to the Pandemic, Trump has finally risen to the occasion by implementing a measure that bans all flights from Europe for 30 days.

This is the sensible and necessary thing to do at a chaotic time like this. Europe is a complete mess right now with the numbers in Spain, Germany and Italy soaring and threatening the rest of the world through intercontinental traveling, and further compounded by the Schengen Agreement which allows for borders not to be strictly controlled among European Union Member States.

Such a bold move requires immense testicular fortitude to pull off, and who better than Trump to do something that's drastically needed but simultaneously spits in the face of political correctness and flies in the face of the globalist agenda?

Someone like Bernie wouldn't have done the same thing because of what he perceives to be the implications of such a measure. When asked if he would close borders as president if the situation worsened at a recent town hall, he somehow linked the temporary measure of closing one's borders to curb the spread of Coronachan to the issue of illegal immigration - an entirely separate matter.

Speaking of Bernie,

BERNIE STAYS IN THE RACE:

After a poor showing on Tuesday where Biden bagged Idaho, Mississippi, Missouri and Michigan, in the primaries, Bernie's campaign is - for all intents & purposes - toast, unless due to some miraculous event, he performs exceedingly well at the next Primaries, which is extremely unlikely at this point. This was especially shocking since Bernie took some of these States in 2016, especially Michigan. Bernie was hoping to capture the same group of voters this time, but lost resoundingly to Biden instead.

In spite of this, Bernie is carrying on, asserting that he's winning the generational debate despite the disappointing results. Are you kidding, Bernie? Winning "the generational debate" does not win you the required number of delegates to be the nominee.

The problem is that the youth do not go out to vote. Old people do, and old people are generally for Biden.

Either way, it seems like Bernie is changing his strategy; He's finally coming to terms that he needs to be more aggressive against his opponents.

Evidence of his campaign strategy adopting a more aggressive approach can be found on his campaign manager's Twitter feed (with the following Tweets taking potshots at Biden's Gaffes):





Expect a different Bernie going forward.

In 2016, Bernie said he didn't care about the primary issue affecting the credibility of his opponent, Hillary Clinton, at the time: her emails, and while that sounded noble - it cost him dearly.

Politics is a dirty game. Being a nice guy will get you absolutely destroyed in politics. Bernie is only now realizing that he cannot afford to play Mr. Nice Guy because it no longer works, especially in this day & age.

The problem is that Bernie realizing this now may be too late.

Late or not, he is getting into gear for this Sunday's debate in Arizona. He's going to be on full form on Sunday and he's going to pounce on Biden and try to rip off his jugular like an attack dog from the get-go.

However, being overly aggressive is not typically part of his natural demeanor (grumpy & cantankanerous - yes, aggressive - no) and it may not sit well with voters. Some may even see his performance as contrived, but who knows. We'll see.
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Sunday, March 08, 2020

More on Coronachan

by Daryl Dominic Tan

I spent the past couple of days scaring myself shitless about the Coronachan situation by listening to/reading as much as I can on the subject, and I'm going to write a little bit about what I've learnt. (Big shoutout to Scott Adams, Scott Alexander and Naval Ravikant for some very valuable information which I will be sharing in this post)

First off, in my previous blogpost, I talked about how Coronachan is leading us towards a VR society. I was listening to Naval Ravikant on Scott Adams' podcast a couple of days ago, and he believes the same thing as well; but of course he puts it more eloquently than I do:

“I think it’ll move us more towards the future faster. Robotics, automation, telepresence, VR, and remote work—all of those things that are coming anyway. Let’s face it; most white-collar jobs are just larping—people running around, attending meetings, and pretending like they’re doing work. I think this will expose a lot of that.”

Ravikant referring to modern white-collar work as mostly LARPing is pure gold. 70% of time spent in office is really downtime from my personal experience, and so much more could be done via remote working. He also goes on to mention that schools being closed across the world will be the new normal (at least for the time being) and this is going to be a huge boon to the homeschooling movement as a result. He makes a really good point that kids these days go to school really for socializing and daycare purposes and not so much for education, and this is something that's probably going to be exposed as well.

Scott Adams also had some interesting things to say about the virus on Episode 842 of his Periscope podcast. According to Adams, there's not going to be any vaccine for this virus (not any time soon at least) and we have to come to terms with that.

I don't think Adams is wrong about this. There was no vaccine for the other deadly forms of novel coronaviruses that afflicted us such as SARS and MERS either, so clinging on to the hope that there's going to be a vaccine for this particular virus soon is pointless.

Scott Adams believes that we (humanity) are just going to have to deal with this virus head-on and be prepared to get infected with it sooner or later so that we can naturally build up an immunity to it. Some guy listening in made a comment that everybody should all go out and deliberately get infected in that case so we can get this over and done with, but Adams disagrees with this idea, saying that it's better to spread out the rate of infection by fighting hard not to get infected so that we don't overwhelm medical services. Medical facilities being overwhelmed is the real threat to society at this point, and I concur wholeheartedly.

Adams is also of the view that this virus is going to fade out for a bit in June, but that it's likely to come back stronger in Winter. This theory is further buttressed by an existing research paper on influenza pandemics typically occurring in multiple waves. If true, then we're going to have to be well prepared for a second stronger wave of Coronachan.

Adams & Ravikant are both increasing their Vitamin D intake as part of their prep plan. Everyone's so hung up on Vitamin C that they are forgetting all about Vitamin D which is equally important in building up one's immunity. The problem with Vitamin D is that it's rarely found in food sources - so one would either have to go out and get lots of sunshine, or procure Vitamin D supplements.

Scott Alexander from Slate Star Codex is of the view that Zinc MAY also help. He cites some links in his post on Coronachan on studies suggesting that Zinc may prevent pneumonia, shortens the duration of colds, and also boosts immunity.

Everyone also needs to read this entire Twitter thread to truly understand the importance of washing one's hands during this period of time, and also because it provides a nice visualization of what we are really dealing with here.



TLDR: Palli Thordarson, a Professor of Chemistry, is essentially saying:

(1) Most viruses consist of 3 self-assembling key building blocks: RNA (the genetic material of the virus similar to DNA), Proteins (which assists in replication of the virus and is the key building block of the virus akin to a brick in a house) and Lipids (something like a fatty layer that forms a coat around the virus for protective purposes among other things)

(2) This virus is based on weak "non-covalent" interactions between the 3 blocks discussed in point (1), and despite being generally hard to break up, can be effectively done so by washing one's hands thoroughly with soap.

(3) Soap "contains fat-like substances known as amphiphiles" which "compete" with the lipids found in the virus and when combined with water - pretty much "dissolves the glue that holds the virus together."

(4) Wash thoroughly because the virus is "sticky" and can hide in the nooks and crannies on the skin surface (i.e. wrinkles, folds, under fingernails)

Stay safe, folks!
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Wednesday, March 04, 2020

Thoughts on Super Tuesday and Coronachan

by Daryl Dominic Tan


ON AMERICAN POLITICS

Just a day before Super Tuesday, Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg (both Moderates) dropped out of the 2020 race to throw their support behind the main establishment candidate, Joe Biden. It's blatantly obvious that the Democratic National Commitee (DNC) is doing everything in its power to prevent Bernie Sanders from becoming the Democratic nominee, and its efforts yielded the results it so desired on Super Tuesday.

Here are some takeaways from Super Tuesday:

(1) Biden performed exceedingly well, winning in states that he hardly invested in during his campaign trail.

(2) One big surprise was Biden winning the State of Massachusetts which is Elizabeth Warren's home state. Warren ended up in third place here, which is a huge slap to her face, considering how well she was doing in the polls when she first began campaigning.

(3) Despite Biden doing really well overall, Bernie is projected to win California, a state which gives its winner a huge amount of delegates.

(4) One state that everyone had their eyes peeled on during Super Tuesday was Texas. As Kristin Tate argues, a demographic shift is occurring across the United States as we speak and what were once traditionally "Red" states are turning "Blue" due to interstate migration, especially Texas. This was also evident in the 2018 United States Senate election in Texas when Beto O'Rourke came pretty close to defeating Ted Cruz trailing him by just 2 points. As such, Bernie was hoping to clinch a slightly more progressive Texas to put him in the lead or at least closely behind Biden. However, Biden took Texas which indicates that while Texas is more "Blue" now, it isn't that radical yet. Beto throwing his support behind Biden probably also had something to do with it.

(5) Bloomberg investing $500+ million in his campaign just to win American Samoa was truly the highlight of Super Tuesday. As Nigel Farage succinctly put it in on Twitter: "Bloomberg has more money than sense. Only ideas and personality win in politics." Bloomberg has since dropped out, and his very short run puts a dent in the arguments of those that believe one of the main factors contributing to Trump's 2016 victory was his wealth. Myth busted.

(6) In order to be nominee, a candidate has to get at least 1,991 delegates (majority of delegates). Super Tuesday is just a fraction of that. The primaries continue in June.

(7) Will a brokered convention occur? Some pundits are saying that Bernie is likely to win more states in the primaries and caucuses scheduled to be held throughout the second week of June, and it could certainly be the case that Biden and Bernie's delegate counts are so close to each other that neither are able to obtain the necessary 1,991 delegates to officially become the 2020 nominee. If this happens, a brokered convention could take place which would allow superdelegates to be brought into the fold. Superdelegates are essentially unpledged delegates that consist of party leaders and elected officials and are free to support any candidate for the presidential nomination as opposed to pledged delegates. Bernie has argued that this is undemocratic, proposing instead that a candidate with a plurality of delegates (the most number of delegates despite not reaching the 1,991 threshold) should automatically be awarded the nomination. As far as I'm aware, the rest of the candidates are in favour of having a majority of delegates (whomever reaches 1,991 delegates) in order to be awarded the nomination.

Bernie is not in favour of a brokered convention for one simple reason - he's not part of the Establishment. The more deeply one is entrenched within the Democratic Establishment by virtue of having close links with the DNC, the more likely one is able to win in a brokered convention based on having Superdelegates (Party insiders) vote for him/her. This was somewhat the case in the 1984 Democratic primary when Walter Mondale and Gary Hart were toe to toe with neither being able to reach the majority of delegates threshold. Though no brokered convention took place, the usage of superdelegates was invoked with Mondale making "50 calls in three hours to nail down an additional 40 superdelegates" and then going on to win the first ballot as a result.

Last I read, Warren is reassessing her run for 2020 after her atrocious performance on Super Tuesday, but in the (unlikely) event that she stays on - she would definitely be hoping for a brokered convention to happen so that she can have another fighting chance at being nominated.

On point (1), there's a plethora of reasons why Biden was able to win in states that he hardly invested in. Either Buttigieg and Klobuchar supporters that flocked to him made a huge difference, or the majority of Americans in those Super Tuesday states aren't ready for Bernie's radical policies, or that those states that Biden won in (Arkansas, Alabama, etc.) generally tend to have older people that are less inclined to vote for Bernie and also more African-Americans, or a combination of all these various factors. It's an unspoken fact that white millennial voters tend to lean towards Bernie while older and African-American voters tend to lean more towards Biden. Either way, the DNC is coalescing behind Biden and doing everything it can to slow Bernie down and Super Tuesday has shown that it has been successful so far.

Only time will tell if the DNC continues to get its way.

---

ON CORONACHAN

Coronachan doesn't seem to be letting up. It's evidently getting worse, with schools across Italy being shut down, Australians fighting over toilet paper with knives, 54,000 prisoners in Iran being temporarily released to prevent further infections, Masses in Singapore being suspended (an unprecedented move by the Archdiocese) and also Slipknot postponing their concert here. Despite this, the naysayers are telling us not to worry. This post may age really badly, or not, but for the sake of the world - I sincerely hope it's the former and that I'm wrong about this.

Initially, the fatality rate of Coronachan was estimated to be 2% globally. Two days ago, however, WHO announced that the death rate is actually 3.4%. Still, not many people are taking it very seriously, with many comparing it to the common flu (never mind that the fatality rate of the common flu is only 1%.) The 3.4% fatality rate is still not as bad as the fatality rate of SARS (10%), and for this reason - many are saying that Coronachan is only a real threat to the seriously ill and those with pre-existing conditions. While this is a factual statement, Coronachan's infection rate is much higher than SARs - something which should not be taken lightly.

The thing is, the 3.4% fatality rate is contingent on unfettered access to adequate medical facilities (i.e. ICU). At the rate the infection is spreading, how long it would take before most of these medical facilities and healthcare services are overwhelmed and maxed out is anyone's guess, but when that happens, access to such facilities will start to decrease drastically, with ICU beds being filled up at an extremely quick rate (just like in Wuhan when the outbreak first began and what's happening in Italy as I'm typing this.) Furthermore, as Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of the 'Black Swan', has also pointed out, once medical facilities are overwhelmed with those infected with Coronachan, patients with primary care issues and needs (Diabetes, etc.) will suffer due to lack of medical attention, and the fatality rate (not just from Coronachan) but from other issues DUE to the spread of Coronachan handicapping medical services will also increase.

Let us also not forget that because Coronachan is spreading rapidly throughout the world, the likelihood of a global pandemic being declared is becoming more and more of a reality with each passing day. If a pandemic is declared (it already is somewhat of a de facto pandemic, just that it isn't being announced), global supply chains will be disrupted and countries that rely on imports will be hit pretty badly.

This is why it isn't ridiculous to stock up on essentials (such as non-perishable foods, medication, etc.) right now so that in the event of a supply chain disruption (lasting not more than 2 weeks one hopes), everyone would have enough to get by in the interim. Everyone ought to read Australian virologist Ian McKay's article on how to prepare and what you should get in case shit hits the fan. He's also telling people not to hoard, and to buy a few things each time you do your weekly grocery shopping as opposed to emptying shelves at one go. To the naysayers: prepping is risk-management, not paranoia.

I'm not going to lie, this whole Coronachan sitch is making me reassess my views on Libertarianism with regards to free trade. I am ordinarily in favour of free trade (when it doesn't involve one-sided and heavily-managed treaties like NAFTA) and I generally dislike economic nationalism. I've always been of the view that economic nationalism gives the shaft to consumers as it raises prices just to protect domestic markets. However, unfettered free trade has resulted in the United States and many other countries being totally reliant on China for manufacturing.

Contracts with Chinese companies to procure plastic gloves and masks for instance, have apparently been dishonoured due to the priority the Chinese are placing on its own citizens. The Chinese aren't necessarily wrong for doing this. It's normal to want to protect your own citizens first, even if it meaning dishonouring contractual obligations, but being wholly reliant on the Chinese with regards to manufacturing makes the world much more unstable when a pandemic of this sort hits.

No, libertarians, I'm not saying the solution is bigger government or a one-world Government. I despise globalism. I'm just wondering if smaller government solutions of a localist stripe (such as sealing the borders and imposing isolationism in cases such as these and some form of economic nationalism) would help. Let us not forget that the 1918 flu (otherwise known as the Spanish flu) which decimated 1% of the world's population was non-existent in American Samoa thanks to Governor John Martin Poyer's decision to isolate American Samoa from the rest of the world once the pandemic broke out. What I'm essentially saying is that economic nationalism may not necessarily be such a bad thing after all. It may raise prices, sure, but at least goods are accessible. I haven't thought this through enough yet, and I'm open to libertarians convincing me otherwise.

With regards to the consequences of Coronachan, I came across two tweets: one by Pete Suderman and the other by Mike Cernovich.





These tweets had me wondering whether this Coronachan situation is helping to accelerate society's transition towards a more cybernetically-enhanced and Transhumanist world with increasingly minimal need for physical interaction.

I mean, aren't we already sort of Transhumanists in the sense that our smart phones can't be pried away from our hands for more than 10 minutes? Is Coronachan just speeding up our move towards 'Ready Player One'?

Who knows?! But it's certainly something to think about, and as Cernovich rightly points out, a massive real-time experiment is definitely taking place.
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