We've been having a lot of discussion and debate in my family about reopening in the United States.
To us on the left, it's happening way too fast, and we're alarmed by the low level of testing and tracing and also by the people refusing to wear masks.
My parents, both on the right, push for the need to open the economy.
Recently there was a text declaring that millions would die if the economy falls, and that would be worse than the 100-200 thousand people who might die of the virus.
I had an urge to ask...well, what about the OTHER animals on this planet then? How do they manage to survive without an economy.
Although a lot of animals are NOT doing very well. But a lot of that has to do with us....and probably mostly due to our economy.
Now sometimes when people text things, I'm not sure if they are being hyperbolic, if they have facts behind what they're saying, if they're making things up, or if they've made a typo.
I'm not an expert on economics. I mean far from it, really.
Wait. Rewind.
I didn't say the animal thing in my head. Instead I suggested that the billionaires could help prevent people from dying. They couldn't save everyone, of course. But maybe they could pitch in, so it's not millions dying?
Anyway, I was curious about how and why so many people would die from economic disaster. I didn't doubt that there would be despair and death. But the idea that more people would die from economic problems than a virus surprised me.
So I Googled deaths during the Great Depression.
I ended up with this article from History.com. According to them, people actually lived LONGER during the Great Depression.
Why?
Various theories and things. Less stress. Less driving. Less smoking. Less pollution.
Unemployed people were more depressed, but they had lower blood pressure.
Now before we cheer for the economy to totally collapse, the article does contain a counter-theory. This is that there's a lag. The good health seen is from what was happening before the economy tanked. The bad health from the economy tanking might be seen later.
I think, though, that I can continue wanting people to stay at home for a few more months and not feel guilty of having a mindset that has the potential to kill millions.
Yesterday I made up categories. Because that is something I tend to like to do.
I divided people into four groups.
A) Those who think protecting people from Covid 19 illness and death should be the top priority.
B) Those who think Covid 19 is horrible and scary but see an economic collapse as being worse. They're the cure-can't-be-worse-than-the-disease people.
C) Those who think Covid 19 is a hoax or a Democratic exaggeration. They think it's a political ploy to prevent Donald Trump from holding huge rallies and people from getting haircuts. These are the people who refuse to wear masks and get angry and disgusted with those who do wear them.
D) People who are just apolitical and really just want to visit their grandma, hang out at the park, go to Disney World, etc. They will go without masks...not as a political statement. But they just haven't bothered to make or buy one.
This morning I started thinking of something.
It's something I've thought about in terms of Disney World but didn't apply it to the rest of the economy.
A few weeks ago, I started brainstorming ideas of how Disney could open before a vaccine.
My idea: Have double the amount of people they allow at the After Hour Event. I know it would look more intelligent if I gave a capacity percentage. But I'm ignorant to what the usual capacity is.
After Hours is pretty empty, though. So if they doubled that, social-distancing would probably be doable.
My suggestion was that 50% of guests pay double the price. This would be for the very rich folks who have money to spare. Then 40% pay regular price, and those people would be chosen by a lottery. And then 10% would be people given free admission. These could be families of essential workers and other struggling and/or extra-deserving people.
Anyway...I had all kinds of ideas about the parks. Some of it was similar to what Shanghai Disney ended up doing. I won't go into all of it.
But one question I had back then was whether it would be worth it? Would revenue make up for the operational costs?
I really have no idea.
I don't know how much it costs to run Disney World on a daily basis.
I'm guessing the fireworks are expensive. And paying salaries. Does it cost a lot of money each time to run each ride? Or are most of the ride costs due to the actual creation of the ride? A part of me thinks it's the latter, because otherwise why would they keep running the very unpopular rides?
Well....maybe that's about guest satisfaction. Every so often, there might be someone angry that Imagination has closed.
Although...now I'm arguing with myself again. Rides DO shut down for refurbishment, and guests seem to survive that.
The basic question, though, is would it be worth it for Disney to open parks up at low capacity?
Tim lately has said this kind of thing about other places. What's the point of restaurants opening up at low capacity? How are they going to make enough money?
I wasn't ignoring him when he said this. I did hear him. I paid attention. But I was more preoccupied with the idea of people going to restaurants and catching the virus. I was more into the health aspects of reopening.
This morning, though, it alls started sinking in more.
The people who keep crying out about the economy....
I know some of them are quite educated about the economy...much more than me.
Why are they pushing for restaurants, gyms, beauty shops, tattoo parlors, etc. to open up if the businesses won't make enough money at the required capacity level?
Plus these places have to spend money on disposable menus. They'll probably need to redesign the bathrooms to be less germy. They'll have to hire more cleaning staff. How are they going to make enough money to make up for all that and the other stuff that restaurants usually have to pay for.
Then I read somewhere.....
I'm not sure if it was one restaurant's rule or something more widespread. But it said waitstaff would be limited to one table at a time.
Members of my family have talked about people needing to get back to work so they can pay their bills.
I personally wish the government would do what other countries are doing and pay these people their salaries for a few months.
But that probably won't happen here. Unfortunately.
So the waitresses and waiters will need to put on a mask, hope for the best...so they can pay their bills and have enough food.
Okay but can they really manage that with only one table? I don't think so. UNLESS restaurants do away with the whole tipping thing and pay their staff higher wages.
Oh and while we talked about that, Tim talked about how Australia has higher restaurant prices BECAUSE they don't have the tipping thing. Then I felt dumb and guilty, because I've complained about Australian restaurants being too expensive.
Anyway....
What I suspect is that social distancing and thriving businesses don't go well together.
From what I know, good business equals crowds.
We might not like the Disney crowds, but I'm pretty sure the executives love them.
I ended up with a rather nasty conclusion. This doesn't apply to all conservatives. But I think it probably applies to all or most Trump supporter conservatives. The push to reopen is NOT about saving the economy. Because a robust economy probably can't coexist with social distancing.
I think the push to reopen is a protest.
A protest against what?
Democrats taking away freedom.
It's about shaping the narrative to one in which the left wants everyone locked up at home...hanging out in their basement, and the right wants to bring back freedom.
It's a narrative in which the economy and our old way of life are so sacred that the elderly are willing to die for it.
I personally am fine if we all stay at home for a few months, a few years, or even a few decades.
Why?
Because I'm picturing Ready Player One becoming reality. And I think with something like that, we can TRANSFORM the economy rather than kill it.
Although, I'd probably rather the world be a quarantine world for several months rather than decades.
If we're all sitting on our butts all day in Ready Player One World, we probably WILL be unhealthy. Then the prediction of millions of people dying could possibly come true.
One more thing.
My other theory is that people who push for the reopening are also people who don't watch and read a lot of science fiction. I think with people like me...we kind of always expected something like this to happen.
I think some of us, in the back of our mind, have always been waiting for four things to happen.
A) A pandemic (Zombie or otherwise)
B) Time travel
C) Visit from extraterrestrials.
D) An apocalypse...which could be caused by (A or C).
I think some of us are more open to the world totally changing, because we've been expecting it all along.
And also...maybe I wasn't paying enough attention. But I don't remember scenes in any movie where someone is more worried about the economy than the disaster.
When there's an astroid hurling towards Earth, I don't think the movie President says, We're all going to probably die soon, but make sure you keep clocking in at your job. We don't want the stock market going down.
When the Hitchcock people were hiding from all those birds, I don't think anyone said something like Well, we can hide here for awhile, but eventually we're going to have to get out there and open things back up.
When Rick Grimes met Morgan for the first time, I don't remember them discussing how they can hurry up and get the economy back on track.
Sometimes you just have to run, scream, and hide.
Then later...if you're still alive, you can go shopping and out to dinner.
To us on the left, it's happening way too fast, and we're alarmed by the low level of testing and tracing and also by the people refusing to wear masks.
My parents, both on the right, push for the need to open the economy.
Recently there was a text declaring that millions would die if the economy falls, and that would be worse than the 100-200 thousand people who might die of the virus.
I had an urge to ask...well, what about the OTHER animals on this planet then? How do they manage to survive without an economy.
Although a lot of animals are NOT doing very well. But a lot of that has to do with us....and probably mostly due to our economy.
Now sometimes when people text things, I'm not sure if they are being hyperbolic, if they have facts behind what they're saying, if they're making things up, or if they've made a typo.
I'm not an expert on economics. I mean far from it, really.
Wait. Rewind.
I didn't say the animal thing in my head. Instead I suggested that the billionaires could help prevent people from dying. They couldn't save everyone, of course. But maybe they could pitch in, so it's not millions dying?
Anyway, I was curious about how and why so many people would die from economic disaster. I didn't doubt that there would be despair and death. But the idea that more people would die from economic problems than a virus surprised me.
So I Googled deaths during the Great Depression.
I ended up with this article from History.com. According to them, people actually lived LONGER during the Great Depression.
Why?
Various theories and things. Less stress. Less driving. Less smoking. Less pollution.
Unemployed people were more depressed, but they had lower blood pressure.
Now before we cheer for the economy to totally collapse, the article does contain a counter-theory. This is that there's a lag. The good health seen is from what was happening before the economy tanked. The bad health from the economy tanking might be seen later.
I think, though, that I can continue wanting people to stay at home for a few more months and not feel guilty of having a mindset that has the potential to kill millions.
Yesterday I made up categories. Because that is something I tend to like to do.
I divided people into four groups.
A) Those who think protecting people from Covid 19 illness and death should be the top priority.
B) Those who think Covid 19 is horrible and scary but see an economic collapse as being worse. They're the cure-can't-be-worse-than-the-disease people.
C) Those who think Covid 19 is a hoax or a Democratic exaggeration. They think it's a political ploy to prevent Donald Trump from holding huge rallies and people from getting haircuts. These are the people who refuse to wear masks and get angry and disgusted with those who do wear them.
D) People who are just apolitical and really just want to visit their grandma, hang out at the park, go to Disney World, etc. They will go without masks...not as a political statement. But they just haven't bothered to make or buy one.
This morning I started thinking of something.
It's something I've thought about in terms of Disney World but didn't apply it to the rest of the economy.
A few weeks ago, I started brainstorming ideas of how Disney could open before a vaccine.
My idea: Have double the amount of people they allow at the After Hour Event. I know it would look more intelligent if I gave a capacity percentage. But I'm ignorant to what the usual capacity is.
After Hours is pretty empty, though. So if they doubled that, social-distancing would probably be doable.
My suggestion was that 50% of guests pay double the price. This would be for the very rich folks who have money to spare. Then 40% pay regular price, and those people would be chosen by a lottery. And then 10% would be people given free admission. These could be families of essential workers and other struggling and/or extra-deserving people.
Anyway...I had all kinds of ideas about the parks. Some of it was similar to what Shanghai Disney ended up doing. I won't go into all of it.
But one question I had back then was whether it would be worth it? Would revenue make up for the operational costs?
I really have no idea.
I don't know how much it costs to run Disney World on a daily basis.
I'm guessing the fireworks are expensive. And paying salaries. Does it cost a lot of money each time to run each ride? Or are most of the ride costs due to the actual creation of the ride? A part of me thinks it's the latter, because otherwise why would they keep running the very unpopular rides?
Well....maybe that's about guest satisfaction. Every so often, there might be someone angry that Imagination has closed.
Although...now I'm arguing with myself again. Rides DO shut down for refurbishment, and guests seem to survive that.
The basic question, though, is would it be worth it for Disney to open parks up at low capacity?
Tim lately has said this kind of thing about other places. What's the point of restaurants opening up at low capacity? How are they going to make enough money?
I wasn't ignoring him when he said this. I did hear him. I paid attention. But I was more preoccupied with the idea of people going to restaurants and catching the virus. I was more into the health aspects of reopening.
This morning, though, it alls started sinking in more.
The people who keep crying out about the economy....
I know some of them are quite educated about the economy...much more than me.
Why are they pushing for restaurants, gyms, beauty shops, tattoo parlors, etc. to open up if the businesses won't make enough money at the required capacity level?
Plus these places have to spend money on disposable menus. They'll probably need to redesign the bathrooms to be less germy. They'll have to hire more cleaning staff. How are they going to make enough money to make up for all that and the other stuff that restaurants usually have to pay for.
Then I read somewhere.....
I'm not sure if it was one restaurant's rule or something more widespread. But it said waitstaff would be limited to one table at a time.
Members of my family have talked about people needing to get back to work so they can pay their bills.
I personally wish the government would do what other countries are doing and pay these people their salaries for a few months.
But that probably won't happen here. Unfortunately.
So the waitresses and waiters will need to put on a mask, hope for the best...so they can pay their bills and have enough food.
Okay but can they really manage that with only one table? I don't think so. UNLESS restaurants do away with the whole tipping thing and pay their staff higher wages.
Oh and while we talked about that, Tim talked about how Australia has higher restaurant prices BECAUSE they don't have the tipping thing. Then I felt dumb and guilty, because I've complained about Australian restaurants being too expensive.
Anyway....
What I suspect is that social distancing and thriving businesses don't go well together.
From what I know, good business equals crowds.
We might not like the Disney crowds, but I'm pretty sure the executives love them.
I ended up with a rather nasty conclusion. This doesn't apply to all conservatives. But I think it probably applies to all or most Trump supporter conservatives. The push to reopen is NOT about saving the economy. Because a robust economy probably can't coexist with social distancing.
I think the push to reopen is a protest.
A protest against what?
Democrats taking away freedom.
It's about shaping the narrative to one in which the left wants everyone locked up at home...hanging out in their basement, and the right wants to bring back freedom.
It's a narrative in which the economy and our old way of life are so sacred that the elderly are willing to die for it.
I personally am fine if we all stay at home for a few months, a few years, or even a few decades.
Why?
Because I'm picturing Ready Player One becoming reality. And I think with something like that, we can TRANSFORM the economy rather than kill it.
Although, I'd probably rather the world be a quarantine world for several months rather than decades.
If we're all sitting on our butts all day in Ready Player One World, we probably WILL be unhealthy. Then the prediction of millions of people dying could possibly come true.
One more thing.
My other theory is that people who push for the reopening are also people who don't watch and read a lot of science fiction. I think with people like me...we kind of always expected something like this to happen.
I think some of us, in the back of our mind, have always been waiting for four things to happen.
A) A pandemic (Zombie or otherwise)
B) Time travel
C) Visit from extraterrestrials.
D) An apocalypse...which could be caused by (A or C).
I think some of us are more open to the world totally changing, because we've been expecting it all along.
And also...maybe I wasn't paying enough attention. But I don't remember scenes in any movie where someone is more worried about the economy than the disaster.
When there's an astroid hurling towards Earth, I don't think the movie President says, We're all going to probably die soon, but make sure you keep clocking in at your job. We don't want the stock market going down.
When the Hitchcock people were hiding from all those birds, I don't think anyone said something like Well, we can hide here for awhile, but eventually we're going to have to get out there and open things back up.
When Rick Grimes met Morgan for the first time, I don't remember them discussing how they can hurry up and get the economy back on track.
Sometimes you just have to run, scream, and hide.
Then later...if you're still alive, you can go shopping and out to dinner.
What would our world be like if we knew for sure there was life after death, and we could easily talk to our dearly-departed on the Internet?
What would our world be like if we
The Dead are Online a novel by Dina Roberts
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