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Reading list

This post isn't about COVID-19. At least, not directly: I thought I'd point out some things tthat are linked to COVID-19, because if you think that the world is a bit crazy now but you're just playing along until it's over, I think you've got another thing coming. The world is seriously fucked up, and it's going to get worse, whichever angle you're coming from. You know this. Your government knows this. Everyone knows this. We're all just playing the game: and it is not finishing any time soon.

Recession

We all know it's coming. In fact, it's already here. My Dad wrote this a little while ago (maybe two weeks):

The FTSE 100 share index was 7700 in early March. It dipped below 5000 two weeks ago (now it's 5750). My guess is it'll be 3,500 or lower before the end of the year. Bounce Back? I don't think so; more like a long, slow, agonising crawl. Pundits on the TV are saying 'do we want politics or do we want science (i.e. epidemiology)?' Likewise, 'should we worry about health or should we worry about the economy?'

My view (and I think the New Yorker contributor) is that if we don't save the people, we'll have neither politics nor economy. And that's the UK.... god knows what might develop in the US where everyone's walking around with guns! Do the maths (probability theory) Bankrupcies+lockdown+poverty+matrimonial violence+summer heatwave+firearms =...... ?

We are still discovering. the long-term effects of Covid-19 - and there's much more that we haven't yet discovered. The article does convey that, for the investor, cash is king.

But this article is about the scandalously rich and is aimed at the moderately comfortable (investing) class. For my money, (no pun intended) we should conserve our cash and draw in our horns - yes, a little frivolity, perhaps, an occasional purchase for the home, but I'll always make sure our expenditure is much less than our monthly income..... however long that may last!

Well, the article he's talking about is 'The Price of the Coronavirus Pandemic', published in the New Yorker magazine a couple of weeks ago. It's kinda interesting.

More worrying tho is our reaction to all of this....

Hypernormalisation

Yep, we're accepting it all as if it's normal. The hand-clapping: in France, it happens every night at 20:00 (they use the 24-hour clock here) whereas in the UK it's once a week on Thursdays (apparently). And the press-conferences. But this isn't normal, this is FUBAR. And while it's easy to say, "We Must Resist this Exercise in Hypernormalisation", it's much harder to know what to do. Still, some things it's clear what not to do.

Privacy

Don't get fucked over by the government, that's for sure. John Naughton highlights that "Contact apps won't end lockdown. But they might kill off democracy - and he's got a point. Other people are making the same point - there was an article in the Financial Times (warning: there's some attempt at paywall sometimes; it's possible to get around it though) on a similar topic which I thought was pretty good, and my friend Dave Hyrcyszyn also wrote an article called Coronavirus tracking app privacy — an introduction that is well worth reading.

Listening

Finally, there's a piece from an online radio show that some friends of mine run. The show's called Dissident Island and the piece discusses "the UK government’s shambolic pandemic action and concerns over surveillance, privacy and data, as well as silver-linings to the crisis like open science, collaboration and solidarity action." You can listen to it below or download the mp3 (24M) for listening on your local computer.

Enjoy!