Who else here is now forced work from home?

Literally any action at this point would be better than doing nothing.

Besides the fact that your example is making some sweeping assumptions that are already probably untrue for many cases.

 

There are literally no actions that can be taken that do not exhaust a severely limited income.

This is the thing you do not seem to understand. As I literally just said, the people who have to analyze their material conditions and the context they exist under have done so because they are at the end of the line.

 

You don't seem to notice one resource that just massively increased.

What do you mean by 'analyze', draw the conclusion that their future is ruined?

It's precisely when you're at the 'end of the line' that analysis is pretty much the worst thing you can do. You just accept the fact that things are f***ed and start doing something.

 

At the risk of controversy, I thought this was an interesting read.

Spoiler: spoiler

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/22/opinion/coronavirus-economy.html

 

Yeah, I have to admit I don't understand why this has to last as long as some people are suggesting.

 

Because the actual epidemiological warnings are getting crowded out by people posting economic analyses and NYT opinion pieces. Epidemiologists are going "no, seriously, we need to practice social isolation and that means shutting down non-essential services and occupations" because otherwise everyone is a disease vector.

Otherwise you end up with situations like Spain, Italy, and the USA.

 

As I understood it, the gist of the article was that everyone should self-isolate for 2 weeks (enough time to know for sure if you have the virus or not) and then anyone not presenting symptoms should be allowed to go back to work, business as usual.

It won't prevent the virus from spreading, of course, but there would be a relatively low infection rate among the workforce once the two-week period is over. This enables the economy to be sustained without overburdening the health system by just letting everyone carry on as usual.

It's not without its complications - for example how to prevent sick people from returning to work because they don't want to be left out. But once you stop blanket measures it's possible to begin allocating resources in a more effective way - the government could focus financial aid toward the relatively low number of sick people during their recovery, for example, rather than having to provide financial aid to everyone simultaneously (which cannot go on for long).

No one seems to be measuring the amount of human suffering that is (and will be) occurring from shutting down everything without a precise end date or plan for recovery. Especially when people realize the actual risk to themselves from the virus, they will find it hard to reconcile the collateral damage on their lives.

PS the article was an opinion piece about another article written by a doctor named David L. Katz, unfortunately the other article requires a sign-up for access but it's an even better read if you're up for it.

 

No, this is terrible advice because there are asymptomatic carriers and people who are infected but aren't showing symptoms because symptoms may not manifest for up to 14 days in the first place.

No, this would get people killed because it's not actual medical advice at all and goes against what the vast majority of medical professionals are saying.

This is, of course, not true at all. This is exactly why there's a major relief effort bill that just passed the senate.

 

That's exactly the rationale for the 2-week isolation period for everyone. You could make it 3 weeks to be sure, the point is that once it's over, you get to return to normal life. For those who are sick, the government can target resources toward them.

Like I said, the article is an opinion piece about another article written by an actual doctor, which goes into far more detail but requires a sign-up for access (though it's free). I recommend that you read that before dismissing it as 'not actual medical advice'.

Also, I think you're confusing immediate medical advice with long term strategy. Of course, in the absence of any consensus on a long term plan, doctors are telling people to stay indoors, which is perfectly reasonable. That doesn't mean that other strategies have been dismissed.

I hope that you understand that someone has to pay for financial aid and relief. It doesn't come from nowhere. Sooner or later, you are going to need an economy to pay for the gifts of the government.

 

Two weeks is for total isolation. Shutdowns like everyone is doing now, like what China did, is so you don't get this:



and instead get this:

You have one doctor saying this, while the vast majority and also evidence about this specific infection say the exact opposite.

It literally comes from nothing. The economy is fake.

 

That's a good point. But as I understand it, the horse may have already bolted on that one. China acted much faster than many other countries did, and there may not be the possibility of facing it down in nearly as short a period of time (not exactly short either, I believe 2 months) that they did.

Again, I think you are confusing immediate medical advice with long term strategy. Doctors don't typically go around telling people all their thoughts, they tell people what they need to know at every given moment. As the current situation stands, it makes perfect sense for the status quo to be self-isolation until further notice, i.e. until a plan can be put together.

But that doesn't mean that first-aid is a viable long-term strategy.

I don't have anything to say to that, except that I hope you work for free once this is all over to see how fake it really is.

 

Yeah, which means that an even more extended period is going to be necessary.

And that plan won't include being told to just go back out into the world to serve as a vector.

I HAVE worked for free, but maybe you should consider how the US government has just approved a $2,000,000,000,000 stimulus package that predominantly covers the stock market, which comes after a $831,000,000,000 package in 2009, to say nothing of the zero interest loans that were approved to help bail out a load of high profit companies or the federal reserve cutting interest rates to 0-0.25%.

The economy is fake. Money is made up. These things are all enforced by systems designed to facilitate the upward flow of capital and control.

 

I know you are ignoring me, but i pray your disabilities do not put life + well being in danger.

 

And who will keep your wonderful (currently) first-world country operating during this time?

For many people, the impact of the virus is negligible compared to how much they will suffer from the effects of a long term shutdown of the entire country and the complete loss of income for the foreseeable future. If people can be given a choice about how to respond to the crisis, they should be.

It's perfectly debatable whether financial aid is well spent, what is not debatable is that it doesn't come from thin air. As I said, sooner or later you need an economy to pay for the debt of government gifts, or otherwise those gifts actually do become worthless.

 

I don't know how to tell you this, but that's where essential workers come from. You may also know them as "the people we have told for decades are not really important and pay barely above minimum wage, if you're lucky." You fundamentally reduce exposure. Most of the jobs that exist nowadays are not important or even required. Most of them are there to support consumerism that modern economic systems encourage.

Consumerism is not important.

That's literally what a small portion of the latest stimulus plan does.

People have no choice when it comes to responding to this. You would know this if you bothered to think about the material conditions and contexts of others instead of assuming a universal status quo. People who work non-essential jobs but who have not been let go do not have a choice. They have to keep going to work or they can't make rent.

Where is this choice you speak of?

It literally does come from thin air. There have been numerous points in time where money is conjured up to deal with the failings of an economic system that we made up.

 

So people do have to keep going to work? That's my point.

I'll leave debates about utopian utilitarian paradises to another thread.

Except that this has to be paid for in the future. Immediate relief comes at a cost.

Isn't that my point? Shutting down the country leaves people with no choice.

So what exactly do you propose we give to people in this time of crisis, and from where should it come?

 

On the contrary there are many choices available precisely because of the shutdown. Online retailers and delivery services are completely swamped by the massive number of orders thanks to people being unable to shop in actual stores.

Amazon is hiring 100,000 new employees and while it would be on the bottom of my list to work for them it's an option.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon...orkers-amid-coronavirus-shutdowns-11584387833

Lowes is hiring 80,000 new employees.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/mone...ee-bonuses-new-positions-covid-19/5080573002/

Domino's is hiring 10,000 new employees.

https://www.wbrc.com/2020/03/26/need-job-big-companies-hiring-thousands-workers/

UPS and FedEx are hiring.

https://www.nj.com/coronavirus/2020...t-now-in-nj-and-the-jobs-theyre-offering.html

 

There are definitely opportunities, I know warehouse picking and packing jobs are at an all time high. But a country cannot work with only online and delivery services. There are many industries whose problems cannot be solved this way.

Sooner or later someone has to come up with an actual plan for how to keep society functioning well, and which properly factors in the actual risk that the virus poses.

 

possibly NSFWFH:

Spoiler

 

I am experiencing very bad backaches although am not sure if it is just me sitting in chair for so long.

 

Is that school, college, or uni?

 

Been working from home last week and a half now. Most likely will do so for another month here in NJ...

Stocked up on fruits/meats/smoothie stuff/seeds for nutrition. To compensate for the lack of the office movement and talking and walking, I occasionally get on VR and play beat sabre. Helps a lot.

 

Wife and I both working from home, but for me that was normal before. Wife works for a big game studio and they are like most tech companies setup for it. It's tough on her though because she was very active outside of work and very athletic, so being pent up in the house is driving her nuts.

We live in Kirkland WA so we are taking the whole social distancing thing fairly serious. But at the same time we both work in the game industry so economically we are fairly shielded from the whole thing compared to many other industries. Games are not only generally recession proof but are doing extremely well right now. The big topic in game studios is how to not take advantage of the situation in a bad way.

 

University.

 

I thought so, but I wanted make sure.
I am asking because,

University is very good time to do part time. I did myself full time education and found time for part time work.
I doubt you spend full week at Uni. Is most likely up to you, how you want proceed with rest of available time.

One thing is, if you don't like direction of study you took, change it, or resign. Is no point to drag into miserable time. If you don't enjoy what you are doing, is difficult to be good at it anyway. At most you will get probably an average degree. Study is for you, not for someone else.

Also, it may be simply not right time for you. You can pickup study in other time, or change direction, when you feel for it. I quit first Uni, as I didn't enjoy it, to take and complete other and that with few years apart.

Other options are, take a break, or even better take internship (previous any work experience is great advantage).

In the end, many jobs don't require uni papers, but good experience. You can completely bypass education.

 

Honestly the churches are the last business we should be opening back up. A typical church service closely packs a bunch of people into the same room for multiple hours. It often includes older people who are highly vulnerable. And in many cases it includes people who wouldn't spend time together during the week otherwise. Just one errant parishioner who comes to church sick could infect several hundred people.

I get church services are important to many. But you don't have to be at risk to get your spiritual fix. Read your bible at home. Have the pastor broadcast sermons. Open up a skype or discord channel to chat with other believers. Spend time praying in your closet.

The Christian God is typically characterized as being omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent. That means your Easter celebration will be just as effective from home as it will be from church.

 

Skype is just awful in my experience. Very limited on participants and has frequent connection problems. We've been using Zoom since it supports large groups and a wide array of platforms (Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS, Blackberry) and for any communications outside of it we use WhatsApp which has nearly the same platform support.

https://zoom.us/
https://www.whatsapp.com/

 

Zoom's especially great because it isn't dealing with two decades of UX change cruft. People who barely even touch computers can be easily walked through setting it up, which is more than can be said for anyone trying to set up a Skype video conference.

 

This topic is about WORKING FROM HOME. Period. Everything else will be deleted. If there is much more off-topic nonsense, we'll shut down the topic.

 

Day 22 of captivity: I thought that I was getting a lot done but I didn't realize that it has been three weeks already. Turns out having two kids and two adults "stuck" in one house is not all that productive. I have made some important progress, just not three weeks worth. My motivation sunk noticeably yesterday and has not improved today. I need to get that back because I have had some really good ideas over the last three weeks.

My work just sent me an email not to use Zoom. Apparently encryption is not end to end and they have been selling user info? Our standards are going to be more stringent than most peoples since we are dealing with sensitive health information. I have not looked into it myself since telehealth is not really appropriate for my clients.

 

Yeah, looking into it, this is a pretty severe problem. The only comparable software I can think of that does support it is Microsoft Teams' video system but that's kind of a nightmare to set up.

 

Thank you for your beautiful message sir. I often follow the message of the elders but i pray you and everyone is safe during these testing times.

 

Here in New Zealand, we're almost at the end of week 2 of a nation wide lockdown. Only essential services are open, such as supermarkets and pharmacies. They recently allowed some online computer stores to open back up, as for some, having a working computer is essential.

I'm fortunate that my full time job can continue at home, I'm contracting to a local essential services company (Water utility), working on websites and API stuff.

I have an extra hour or two each day as there is no commute.
If things get too much i go out for a ride on my bike, or even hit the supermarket! Exciting times..