COVID-19 [Note #1]

I'm not likely to create a series of thoughts on this matter.  I am however likely to note a thing or two in the future, directly or not, regarding this matter. 

I am worried about the future.  Not because I think things will get that bad due to coronavirus disease, but rather, I suspect a general period of stagnation.  Fear on one hand and disruption on the other as thousands die.  Our ill-prepared system is shown to be as it is.  Our experts and government officials over-estimating risks to ensure they limit those risk factors.  People then rejecting the inflated risks and so creating the risk factors that can lead to worsening problems.  Many try to lower risk as much as possible, others ignore advice, jobs at risk, future hopes placed on hold, but for a cause that is not unfair.  A likelihood is normality returns within months, or months longer if handled poorly.  Yet, with much debate on the matter of how to handle the situation, the question of how the cope is much contested.  A pondered question by some is would the cost of mass illness even be as bad as the concerns, or should those with health issues be isolated while the rest keep calm and carry on.  But how can you Isolate such people when society mingles.  And many don't know what they do or do not have.  Health concerns and unseen problems conspiring to up the toll.  Equally, if on matters of carers, if they are expected to be the plague doctors of the modern-day, then how can they limit risk unless we all limit together??  No easy answers, no simple tricks, but in a year's time some will laugh about this.  And, indeed, Some are laughing now.  Is this wisdom or folly, no person may say until the passage is scribbled into the history books.  I suspect that it would not be as bad as some suggest, yet a trivial matter it is not. 

An undercurrent of racism? [ramble]

[Just a few thoughts I noted on Facebook, I wanted to preserve them here.]

An undercurrent of racism?

Race or ethnicity is the least interesting thing to me. some people get annoyed or offended if I say it of my background, but to me it wouldn't matter where I or you are from. And if you base your life and sense of belonging on race, then I think you're missing something important.
I get this from nationalists who say they "aren't racist, but..." But they worry about the death of the white race, they don't see Islam as a race but they assume Indian(south Asian, in general) and middle eastern people are Muslims. And yes, they're the same people who worry about extremist Islam but mock Muslims who don't stick to a hardline view of the faith, thus condemning moderation within the faith to a degree. Islam isn't a race, but a lot of critics of Islam, mostly older men, see a brown person from north Africa, middle east or Indian or maybe Indonesia, and they assume they're Muslim and they might be the enemy to some degree. Basically, suggest; "If they aren't here to attack us they're here to outbreed us." So I'm not a fan of the not-racist-racists, or closeted racists, or those who otherwise don't see that they're the kind of commenting fools who gives, anyone who wants it, an example of ignorance and casual racism.

When I begin to feel like the anti-racists begin to become the racists. [Ramble]

When I begin to feel like the anti-racists begin to become the racists. [Ramble]

When raised as a kid, in the 80s, I didn't see race. PC culture worked as early as the late 80s for me. Working-class, had very little. Didn't see race. I recall a very dark-skinned girl called Natalie, we were good friends, I thought nothing of skin colour differences as I recall. Most friends in that town were white, very few people at that time in that town were anything else.

Much later, I was about 11, a person who was taught racist opinions, who bullied a Malaysian boy. I didn't know it was racist. It just seemed like a joke, as it must have done to the lad who was the bully, but not the boy who was bullied. The bully got that from this family, as a joke, the older generational casual racist humour. If we didn't magnify racial divides and what makes us different we wouldn't have racial divides.

Sadly, the shoe can be on the other foot. Where many magnify the issue of race politics to correct injustice, but often they generalise and promote division. Which makes the new political correctness in some situations conflict with old skool political correctness. As not treating others differently according to race is treated by some as if it is somehow racist. And being of the right or wrong ethnic background or skin tone can allow generalisations that throw some rich black african people who abuse power into the same rank as the abuse and slaved black Africans used as cheap labour across much of the empires of the colonial empires.

This kind of generalisation also means a person of average working-class who is white-European of average poverty ancestry is junked in with the wealthy slave owners and their descendants. And the preachers of this new political view claim to be socialists as they forget class struggles, as they forget those that still exist, preferring to see things only through racial lines and not in a wider view that accounts for many injustices.

I wouldn't say you're a socialist, or even a liberal or conservative if you claim socialism primarily applies via race. Yet many of the shady opinions that I see as racist now are expressed as socially progress. And it is very concerning political shorthand. As when one generalises, it can, as it goes around, become where they don't express a difference between Jewish people and Israelis and the Israeli government(and military). I know it is cliche to bring things back to anti-Semitism, but it is in vogue with many who claim to be educated anti-racists. And as an example it expresses so much of the kind of confusion that is common if you didn't know better. And, in some ways, it not a great distance away from the confusing the average Jew for an extremist Zionist settler on the West Bank.

And it is not unlike mistaking the character of the average UK-Muslim with the stories of ISIS and Grooming gangs.

There is this idea that if you could find someone associated with the greatest ills of the world, as you see it, even if by a stretch of the imagination and by the blurring through generalisation, that even obvious prejudice is justifiable. It is as if the radical voices on the left have taken a few broad notes from the far-right. Where characterisation matters more than the quality of each person's character. And, it is made more socially acceptable if it wrap it in academic language. In the same way that racism has, from time to time, been wrapped up in the words of the church, if only to gain value in the eyes of the people. And more recently, the racist will toy with pseudoscience, just like the snake oil salesman.

I worry only about one thing, that those who think themselves informed lead society with their little collection of ideas, while those who doubt them and those who know better remain muted.

Some sketchy areas?? [random thoughts on grey areas of gender and gender identity politics.]

Some sketchy areas?? [random thoughts on grey areas of gender and gender identity politics.]

I'm told by some on the left that transgenderism isn't a thing you're wrong about. I know of a few people who tried it and realised it wasn't for them. In fact, before surgery or other treatments, in most cases. And the counselling for those who think they're transgender tends to see most change their mind on this matter. I think a lot of progressives generalise and don't get that some people are mistaken in their choices. They support the idea so much because of those who do transition, and stay the course, don't turn back. That in itself creates the idea that there is no changing your mind. By generalising, intolerance is the broad result. As with some of those who did live their life as trans for a number of years, as soon as they returned to what is, in general, cisgender. They might find hatred from those who can be ideological about these things. The social media abuse between sides who set standards is troubling. And most people who have tried and considered transgender lifestyles or differing ways of life, don't feel comfortable talking about it. I think there is a mainstream polarity, which leaves behind those between. Who may have other reasons behind why they thought they were trans. And in modern times, the watering down of gender identity has created a popularity of calling a thing a gender, when if it is a personality type. And oddly, most mainstream UK conservatives seem to not mind people undergoing gender assignment. We're very liberal in the UK, it seems. I think what many are confused about are the nebulous areas of special identity. Or a unique identity. Where some seem to confuse character traits and personality types with gender issues, and some, in some cases, confuse sexual kinks with gender identity. Hardline conservatives blur the lines to throw out the baby with the bathwater. While the progressive-left blur things in their own way with ever-expanding lists of things that people are or are meant to be, and seem to ignore some things that are sometimes bigger issues. Such as those former-trans people, those who were gender-confused, sexually confused gender relating identity issues, those who reverse transition, and many other types or groups. These outnumber the new specialist and semi-unique labellings for gender identities that many are obsessed with. It begins to make a mockery of what is gender or gender identity by making out that some things are gender types or identity types that may not be best described by gender political terms.

[Thank you for reading, I trust no one will characterise me based on interpretation or suggestion, employing characterisation to suggest that I must be on the right-wing or an alt-right cartoon. I am happy to discussion points that are worth consideration. Thanks]

World peace because an epidemic, and I doubt that'll be coronavirus(2020).

World peace could come about because of an epidemic, but I doubt that'll be this coronavirus. As you might know, coronavirus is a bit of a blanket term for a series of similar viruses. SARS and a few others you may have heard of are in the same group or family of viruses. The recent coronavirus is a variation upon a theme, in the present cases, we see the transition from bats and possibly other mammals to humans. The overall potential of coronavirus is high, even as deaths are low. As it is an adaptive virus that can mutate and become far more dangerous. We have had various similar viruses over recent years, they all took a small toll. And it might be that to unite powers of the world under a single alliance that we might have to see a disastrous viral outbreak on the scale of 1918 influenza(Spanish flu). Naturally, such types of outbreaks are rare, and the Spanish flu is considered the worst outbreak in human history. Although, one must admit that more common viruses kill many thousands per year and lead to greater figures over the course of decades. Vast numbers of people are killed by regular viruses, seasonal influenza has caused a vast death toll. Other conditions cause great devastation, diarrhoea is commonly an infection of the intestines leading to watery bowel movements and resulting dehydration, caused by viruses, bacteria infection or parasites. Resulting in millions of deaths. I have to ask myself on the matter of outbreaks if there would be serious cooperation between nations on a scale never seen before if we don't see a serious threat to our civilisation as we know it. What are we willing to do or blunder through over this new wave of coronavirus does not present the best case if even great threats should endanger mankind. With other threats to human health, often in the poorest parts of the world, we do far less than we could, even as the death toll is far greater than corona. So I'm left to ponder whether or not we would only unite too late, if and when a true danger appears. It seems likely to me, that we would unite if a new 1918 flu enters the stage of human events. And, I do not, at this time think we're going to see that occur any time soon.