If you are tired of reading about the virus, skip to the end sections where Nafeez Ahmed is talking about the world AFTERWARDS - and how we can make it better. Posted this yesterday in the Ecology group but it has philosophical ramifications, of course.
[medium.com]
That was very hopeful. I hope a return to 'normal' doesn't send people back to sleep. For me, this was the heart of the article:
Getting through coronavirus will be an exercise not just in building societal resilience, but relearning the values of cooperation, compassion, generosity and kindness, and building systems which institutionalize these values. It is high time to recognize that such ethical values are not simply human constructs, products of socialization. They are cognitive categories which reflect patterns of behaviour in individuals and organizations that have an evolutionary, adaptive function. In the global phase shift, systems which fail to incorporate these values into their structures will eventually die.
With the Australian Government literally 'busting its arse' to prop up the Business Sector ( mainly, imo, the BIG Businesses) and handing out relatively measly small extra payments to the average people, workers, unemployed, pensioners, etc, etc, I tend to think that the Big End of Town needs far less financial support from Governments than do the average peoples.
The Big End of town have HUGE cash reserves to fall back on, so a short term loss of massive profits, bonuses to Executives, etc, is NOT going to do them any real harm at all, even IF the Shareholders do NOT get the dividends they expect also.
Big Businesses NEED the little people to keep them running, the little people NEED to have money to buy essentials, etc, to help them survive through this pandemic, IF the little people don't make it through then the Big End of Town Businesses WILL collapse for lack of workers and little people purchasing the goods, etc, they sell to them to make their profits.
After all it IS only logical that NO money in the pockets of the little people means NO purchasing of the Goods produced and sold by the Big End of Town Companies and Corporations does it not?
I have been thinking about this and when the dust settles we have to have a hard think about what is important. Firstly every industry will be under pressure and will be looking for govt help. There will not be enough money for them all even with the massive debt that govts are willing to incur. There will most certainly be a depression. Not a recession but a full-blown 1930s style depression.
It will time to cut off deadwood. The first to go will be airlines, it is an industry that has never made a profit as a whole and is very damaging to the envioment. If this means that you need to pay twice as much to go to Hawaii then so be it. The time of cheap tickets has got to go.
Excellent. Loved the idea of deconstruction of global systems, and focus on opportunities to phase shift toward cooperative systems of energy, food production, ecological use of land, etc.