November 2020 Update

Writing

I have been not paying attention to this. Basically, I had a writer's group to help edit the story. Two of the members of that group criticized me for not wanting to lie about how humans work in a way which is detrimental to people struggling with mental health concerns, and I just stopped working on the project. Since I have been in and out of struggling with life, I have been ignoring this process.

Status Update

So, I was sick for about a month early in the fall when our city decided to require masks within residential building common areas. There is an aspect where I needed more masks in order to comply, but couldn't easily obtain them. There is also the aspect that I will often be alone in those hallways. I don't want to go into the details, but it is yet another time in my life when people assume something is simple when it is not. 

Things are a bit better now. I am still slow. I have been working on basic Covid modeling instead of physics. I have still been very slow with the being productive aspect, though. I have finally gotten some support put into place, so I will see if that helps in the next several weeks. 

Election Response

I was unhappy with the election result in March, and actually perhaps earlier, when Joe Biden originally chose to run. I was very unhappy with both candidates, and while I may be slightly relieved that Joe Biden won, I am not quite sure that is actually true.

Covid-19: Trump has been downplaying the crisis, including trying to manipulate the data. Biden has promised a national lockdown and to remove Trump's dissident Covid advisors. Both options are horrendous, promising to make the crisis worse.

International Relations: Again we encounter the reality that both Democrats and Republicans (and whatever Trump is) have favored military action and predatory capitalism (or empire) over diplomacy and public health. 

For Russia, while he originally promoted the arms reduction deals, Biden has become more and more anti-Russian since 2011 [ref] and Trump closed two Russian consulates and taken the US out of the remaining arms reduction treaties. Both also appear to be anti-China and fine with destroying the Middle East as well. 

With trade, like Covid, they seem less in agreement and more in favor of presenting their own brand of horribleness, with Trump favoring crude tariffs and Biden favoring free-trade agreements. 

Immigration: While Biden may appear to be gentler on immigration issues, we should not forget that Obama was nicknamed "the deporter in chief" for a reason. 

Black Lives Matter: Biden's vice president has in the past been very active in promoting problematic policing, and Biden himself has stated that he is not in favor of defunding the police.

Health Care: Biden refuses to put a single payer system into place.

I don't want to analyze everything in depth, but I do want to highlight some basic things to draw attention to the fact that people should not put much hope in Biden to be much better than Trump. Trump just happens to have the advantage of being obviously horrendous because he is not good at playing politics. 

Here are a few other people commenting on this situation: AA, BB. You don't need to read these points, but don't expect me to celebrate Biden winning the election.

Left vs Right News Analysis

This is a comparison of Russiagate (a Democrat conspiracy theory) vs Chinagate (a Republican conspiracy theory). I am sure that a lot of you believe the first one and either know the second as a conspiracy theory or have never heard of it. This journalist has a very emotional reaction to what is going on and the responses she has received to her analysis, but I still would like to show you the analysis as there are some direct comparisons. 

https://caityjohnstone.medium.com/imagine-if-msm-consistently-applied-the-evidentiary-standards-its-applying-to-hunter-biden-s-ddff7e7563b1

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/505077-trump-russiagate-biden-chinagate/

https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/1320833227293028352

Covid-19 Response

I wanted to try to write some things to be clear about what my criticisms are as people don't seem to even understand what is going on.

 -- Passive vs. Active Involvement: I know most people like to just donate to causes, then get on with ones life, but this is a big deal to me. For, say, WWII, countries shifted their economy to meet the needs of the war and encouraged people to actively help out, and not just by joining the military, although that was included as well. For me, just asking for donations or asking people to hide in their rooms while we are told to sit back and praise the "heroes on the front line" rather than joining them, is not actively helping out, and is therefore very isolating for me. I could describe this in more detail, but I will stop here.

I could also here mention that trying to get public comment on Covid-19 control measures may also help with compliance, as people are more likely to follow through if they know what is going on, feel a part of the process, and have consented to it.

 -- Shaming and Fear vs. Compassion: I have previously described a personal experience with this type of behavior for a different illness. There are certainly reports of people who get sick with Covid-19 being blamed for getting sick, which has caused people to refuse to get tested, not tell people if they do test positive, and avoid any form of contact tracing, for fear of being exiled from society. Even the fact that people are told to quarantine (from family members) if they test positive rather than quarantining as a group and helping their friends or family who are sick may make the illness worse.  

Much of this is magnified by public health messaging, with authorities blaming increased cases on people not following the rules (despite the fact that this is only one contributing factor and disobedience of policies often being caused by poorly designed policies). Many of these people, instead of having an honest discussion of herd immunity, refuse to even allow the term to be brought up, assuming people using it are denying that there is a crisis. There is also talk of penalizing people for not following Covid-19 ordinances, but very little about trying to stop the shaming (which as I pointed out could also increase compliance). 

This is a major reason why I get annoyed when people complain about others not wearing their masks -- not because I don't think people should be required to wear masks, but because the emotion conveyed is fear and the mentality appears to come from the same place as the Covid shaming. 

 -- Crude Lockdowns and Blame-Shifting: I know that not every city is like this, but it is happening across the world, and people should remember to associate these policies with the ideas of "quarantine," "lockdowns" or "stay-at-home orders,"  because otherwise policy makers may get the idea that these actions are acceptable. 

For the crude lockdown aspect, many places are restricting people's ability to leave there homes, restricting or recommending against meeting friends in person (including outside or in small, closed groups), or restricting access to health care. These are all very basic needs which allowing for doesn't substantially cause problems, but is necessary for people's health. This is what I would be referring to if I were to compare the lockdowns to house arrest -- not the inability to go to sporting events, large parties, bars, or even get ones hair cut, but the basic ability to leave one's house or choose one's associates and to have close contacts. 

The whole blame-shifting aspect and how this ties together with the lockdown design is a whole other aspect. For instance, our university here has put unnecessarily harsh restrictions for being on campus, possibly so that if there is an outbreak, it does not happen on campus, and the university administration does not get blamed. This is not the only aspect, but there is a lot going around with trying to find someone to blame for Covid. (Which seems to not carry over in trying to blame people for the damages done by the "Covid management techniques," although if you were to blame someone for something, this makes more sense than blaming people for the spread of a asymptomatically spread, naturally occurring disease. I am not saying that people should be punished for taking reasonable steps to mitigate the spread which causes some damage, but once the steps become blatantly unreasonable ... if you panic in a crisis rather than manage it, maybe you shouldn't be put in charge of managing a crisis.)

 -- Censorship and Dogmatic Thinking: So, I don't know how much people reading this have been exposed to this aspect, but it is happening, and it is a big problem. Dogmatic thinking issues I have brought up above and in previous posts, so I will talk about the censorship aspect. Basically people (researchers and others) have been told to be careful about what they are saying about Covid-19, to prevent the spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories. In addition, any dissident voice is censored by the big internet giants, again, "to prevent the spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories."

One of the things people have forgotten, however, is that it is precisely these techniques which make people doubt what you are saying, thus encouraging disobedience and the spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories. It also makes having a rational conversation about what should or shouldn't be done very difficult.

 -- Lack of Long Term Planning: I have previously described the mentality behind the whole ignore things, then shut down everything, but this should be obvious by now. The fact that people talk about the lockdowns or masks as a way to make this thing go away rather than just a way to reduce the spread and keep the hospitals open while we wait for herd immunity just emphasizes this. The fact that people keep on being surprised when cases rise at the times they had been predicted to continues to highlight this. Even things like not recruiting more staff and relying on lockdowns, not putting together field hospitals while cases are low, not making restrictions manageable long-term for people, etc. show this flaw in policy maker's mentalities. 

A Few Links

This includes some video from my time in Yakutia, taken by one of my companions while I was there.

This is the correct link for John Oliver on the call to build the wall.

Ironically, the problem discussed in the video is also a perfect description of the one involving all the misinformation everyone hears and believes about Russia, often perpetrated by "the Left" rather than "the Right" in this case. Here is a description of that for a recent scandal.

This one is on how the Inuit raise their children. I apparently didn't keep any others of this type.

Waiting for the Apocalypse

Update:
Because of my slow pace at writing, much of this content may seem out of date. I have updated stuff to a certain extent, but other things may seem a little off in how they were written.

As far as I can tell, I am basically in stasis, where I have been for the past couple years, waiting for life to be ready for me. The only thing which has worked to some degree for me is to go to Russia, but I need to wait for the risk of being sent to the US to be low.

When the reopenings were starting, before BLM began again, I needed to stop watching the news because most left-wing commentators were against the reopenings. I was always against the complete shutdowns, as I thought they were poorly thought out, poorly implemented, and would cause more harm than good. A couple weeks later, I was told by people I talk to regularly about the events in the US, specifically the protests.

I have been writing, slowly. I am editing the first chapter right now. I had been using a writer's group to help me edit, but the people there were of the type who had no attention span and were criticizing me for not following the typical erroneous and destructive tropes of action-adventure type stories common in fantasy. When one person goes into blatantly insulting me, you know there is a problem. I am sure that is not what she thought she was doing, but that doesn't mean its not a problem.

Work is not happening right now. I have been talking to my PhD supervisor, though, although mostly about Covid research. What he has been working on is here: https://nafshordi.com/welcome/covid/

I am also not working on my Russian, although I am watching Russian TV shows (without subtitles -- I don't know if this is a good idea, but I have weird tastes in TV).

The dog is being walked, although not as much as he should be. The food situation is not so great -- I am eating enough, but not necessarily well. I am not getting enough exercise or vegetables. I have been slowly managing to clean my apartment some, though.

I have been contacting people online. I also have a second DnD group right now as well as my Gloomhaven group.

About the Title:
The apocalypse is the unveiling, which means that I am referring less to a crisis situation as I am to the change in mentality which results. When the old world dies, the new world is born.

On that note, crises -- I have heard comparisons of Covid-19 to 9/11 or Pearl Harbor, but these are both singular events, not ongoing crises. For crisis comparison, I tend to use the fall of the Soviet Union or the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, events still strong in the mind of Russians, which I understand to a certain extent.

What I would like to see:
At the very least, I would like there to be a reallocation of resources away from "defense" spending, to healthcare and other actual necessities. I am not going to go further into the details, like the question of "by how much?" What is relevant is the priority shift, where government officials realize that healthcare is a national security issue and the military, at least at the level of emphasis it has in certain countries, is actually a detriment to the safety and well being of citizens.
Here are a couple comments to that regard: Referencing a comment by the UN Secretary General, Gorbachev

One of the other big things is that I would like people to figure out how to slow down society and focus on long-term planning.

Overall Impression of the Current Situation:
Everything is frustrating. Life is like watching a movie -- I see what is coming, I see people headed to disaster, but I can't do anything to stop it. For stories, it is because I am in another reality, but in our reality this effect is caused by much more complex causes, and I am not unaffected.

It appears that every time there is a crisis, people insist on taking the worst possible solution, making it worse rather than better, because they are incapable of following cause and effect chains for more than one step.

I think my understanding of this issue comes back to my interest in non-trivial cause and effect. When I got interested in physics, it was because of my love of counterintuitive effects. This probably explains my interest in time travel, as the effect becomes the cause.

For me, the shutdown would be fine, at least intellectually, if
 a) people remembered and emphasized that the shutdown was to prevent the system from being overwhelmed, not preventing illness, tuned the shutdown accordingly, acknowledged illness or death as a possibility, and didn't refuse to acknowledge herd immunity
 b) people at least properly tried other solutions, like putting more resources and labor into critical infrastructure like medicine as an integral part of the strategy, recommended in addition to recommending the shutdowns, and people demanding to be involved rather than just hero worshiping doctors,
 c) people actually acknowledged and tried to take care of the vulnerable populations like the poor and homeless (rather than ignoring them or using vulnerable populations as a justification for your favorite horrible solution),
 d) people would be intelligent about shutting down travel, based on what made sense scientifically for mitigating damages of the pandemic, not on national borders or nationalism, or the practices of businesses, and let different cities and regions implement different policies based on what made sense in those regions, and
 e) there was an acknowledgement that the crisis is partially caused by a systemic undervaluing of medicine in society and mismanagement within government and medicine.

In general, long-term strategies and acknowledging reality are vital to proper crisis management.

In terms of the last point e, I have had two instances when I had someone apologizing to me during this crisis -- the first when I had asked for someone to call me regularly and she didn't notice the request, the second when I was almost run over by a car. Both times, I broke down because I still want the apology for e, and for the poor handling of the crisis.

Another big thing which has bothered me on the handling of the crisis is the emphasis on experts and expertise, and the crackdown on dissent. Personally, I feel that the attempted implication is that my experience with social isolation, ability to avoid herd mentality, and knowledge of modeling don't count in terms of being able to develop legitimate beliefs and hypotheses. I am not going to go further into this discussion, since it is not simple at all.

Black Lives Matter:
This year, I have been thinking a lot about the events surrounding 1917 and 1991, and the constant predictions (by historians and economists) of the impending collapse of the "American empire." Granted, the way these things work, you can make generalized predictions based on underlying patterns, but not specific ones.

What is going on in the US right now is kind of surreal. The way that middle class white people and the authorities have just turned from opposing such things (as previously people claimed that we can't be anti-police, and emphasized looting and rioting piggybacking on BLM) to supporting them all of a sudden is kind of bizarre to watch.

The two main thoughts I have regarding the resurgence of Black Lives Matter are: "What took you so long? We have known this for decades." and "Don't you know that revolutions often end badly."

I will summarize my response (to BLM) in three points: humans are emotional, the issues are real, and revolutions are messy.
  -- Humans are emotional: I tend to think of the call to "defund the police" like the ones to "build the wall" or "shelter in place." No matter how much people try to convince themselves and others that this is just a shorthand for something rational, reasonable, well thought out, and scientific, the reality is that this is just an emotional reaction to crisis combined with the desire for a quick fix. I am not going to get into the analysis of these things, only saying that I don't believe all of them are equal in validity. [Here is John Oliver on the police and the wall. I may disagree with him and many "liberals" on a lot of things, but many of his analyses are very good. Just avoid anything involving Russia, and be careful about what he says regarding Trump or non-Anglophone countries. Careful research does not undo pre-existing biases.]
 -- Revolutions are messy: The first point here is that we are in a revolutionary state. This one is much more difficult to see, but the US is blatantly polarized and divided, and calls to disband the police and take down statues are blatantly revolutionary. I don't want to say whether we should or shouldn't have a revolution, or whether or not it will be successful, only that this is what is going on.
    The second is that they are often messy. Having one faction exploit a crisis to take control, or years of horribleness primarily affecting the most disadvantaged in society have been the characteristic factor of such political turmoil in the 20th century, and even into the 21st.
 -- The issues are real: I am not going to go through all the details and statistics for black oppression. I will merely start with the most readily available -- The US has the highest per capita (and total) prison population.
    As per riots and looting: I remember reports when there were protests and riots in Ferguson of the police purposefully refusing to stop the looting and destruction to make the situation worse as they attacked the protesters. It was actually the protesters who cleaned up after the mess and repaired the local shops, not the police.
    I am not saying that such things are caused by agent provocateurs. Most of the looters and rioters, like Trumps "base", the nationalists or "neo-nazis," many of the Islamic terrorists, and often even Black Bloc protesters are poor, alienated people who just want to take out their anger on society, without paying attention to if their target is even legitimate, and all the police need to encourage this behavior is to cause violence, typically by attacking the protesters, and to not stop the inevitable wave of violence in response, if it is not targeted at them. When people are in survival mode, they are not very "socially responsible," something which is quite clear when you look at the past 30 years of Russian history.

I hope that people redirect resources from the police to social services -- conflict mediation, mental health, people who help find employment and other opportunities, etc., restorative justice, and even advocates which can help negotiate with employers. Many of these things exist, but they are not very "accessible," I guess would be the best term.

My Experience and Perspective:
Quarantine is very triggering for me (as are prison and slavery). However, some of the experiences which have caused this trauma have also allowed me to appreciate the usefulness of quarantine. Maybe it is just my ability to think things through, I don't know.

Basically, if I was struggling, if I was sick, or if I did something wrong, the response was the same -- isolation. My interpretation was that I was punished for struggling in life. The result is I often needed to work to exhaustion, after which I was forced to isolate.

The belief was that this would force efficiency, but it did the opposite for me. I learned not to wait until the last minute to do work, but I learned how to be inefficient -- to make or find breaks, to take advantage of gaps in events for leisure rather than work.

Being disabled, consensus decision making is basically survival for me. I first figured this out on my own based on issues I had with group therapy in 6th grade, but later, when studying socialism as an undergraduate, learned about the existence of such practices in other societies.

So, how does this relate to our current situation:

I like the fact that things have shut down. It feels like I have the opportunity to slow down, to recover and deal with putting my life together instead of pushing to keep going into work. And, yes, trying just to go into work had become exhausting for me.

Things are difficult, though, because I am not really an internet person. I don't like relying on the internet to make contacts, learn about things, and do everything. I rely on the local gaming circles to develop connections with others.

Part of it is that I can't really handle big crowds. It gets overwhelming for me. Online communities can get big fast, while our local gaming stores have only so many people who go their regularly. What was done with my parents' friends group, using unhangouts, seemed to work well for me, since we could split up the group.

The other big issue I have with online communication is that it is not forced, like it is in person. If I go find someone and can't talk, usually they will ask me what I want, forcing the conversation. Without this, initializing conversation is very difficult for me.

I am also at the point where I am sure that I need to go to Russia, which I can't do while travel is limited. But that will end, and hopefully they will make immigration easier.

Basic Principles:
 -- "Avoid ideology." An alternative way to express this during the current pandemic would be "The next person to tell me 'flattening the curve,' I want to punch in the face."
    Basically, people tend to repeat the same things over and over again. This is the first step in the construction of an ideology. Basically, people do this because it works -- if you repeat something enough, people will believe it. Except, the reality is not so simple. Because repeating the same things doesn't make it true. And many people are resistant to this trick. I typically get very annoyed, because I am usually far past this thought in my thought process (as in "I know that already!"). Others will purposefully misbehave or refuse to believe, or they will sacrifice themselves or their people for the cause, even when it is not actually helping people like they think it is.
    "History is full of libertarian ideas which have been re-purposed into authoritarian ideologies used for societal control." The most obvious case would be the various forms of Christianity, but also Islam, communism, democracy, etc. I am not going to get into the details. You can look at the history and philosophy if you want. But, basically, when the things you are saying are aimed at trying to turn people's brains off instead of trying to get them to think, it becomes a problem. People end up doing things which cause more harm than good, whether by compliance or defiance, because the ideology becomes the cause, not helping people. Furthermore, it becomes very easy for a group of authorities to use this to solidify their power, pretending to be doing this for the greater good (and perhaps even lying to themselves about this).

 -- "If someone is violating the rules, misbehaving, etc., don't attack them, instead find an alternative way for them to satisfy their needs."
    This one feels like I can give you a lot of links, as it is certainly not a novel concept, and should be well known.

 -- "Good leadership requires listening to the needs of those for whom you are responsible, not blindly following the orders of those on top."
    I think I have brought this up before, so I will not go into detail with this.

What about my beliefs, concerns and questions about what is needed and what is happening?
 -- Don't make this a choice between the two worst options.
    The two options in this case are "do nothing" and "quarantine everything." Granted, most places are somewhere between these two options in their policies, but this is still how things are presented. The dialog is framed as one between lives and the economy, and is exemplified by protests against quarantine and the demands for lockdowns. However, there are far more options than these two presented, and the basic dialog defining them is incorrect.
    First, social distancing was proposed in order to prevent the hospitals from overloading, (and possibly even the supply chains from shutting down,) not to cause disease extinction. So the shutdown option was designed to protect the economy and reduce the death rate of the disease, but still relies on herd immunity to end the pandemic. Since there were issues with hospitals and even meat packing plants in the US, the danger this was trying to prevent was there.
    The danger from quarantine is due to the increase in depression, domestic violence, unemployment, etc, all of which cause suffering, increase health risks, and can lead to death, just like the disease. Comparing the death rates is tricky (and probably impossible), but that doesn't mean that you can just ignore one side or the other.
    Basically, both options cause excessive death, suffering, and economic collapse, and thus more intelligent solutions need to be presented, not just the basic reactions. We are still guaranteed to get death, suffering, and economic collapse, but at least we can try to mitigate it, rather than trying to dismiss certain concerns as irrelevant, as people seem to be fond of doing.
    "Accept the inevitable and work on mitigation of damage. Don't try to prevent the inevitable, thus making your situation worse." This is not a giving up hope option, it is an actually doing what you can to deal with an issue option.

    A brief word on masks: As I have experienced when young, as Muslim women have been arguing for the past several years, if the choice is between covering your face or being uncomfortable going into public at all, covering one's face is the more social option.
    Wearing masks to help stop the spread of the disease is something which has a big impact with very little cost. If a single layer of cloth worn while inside is enough to prevent the need of confining people in their homes, something which does actually kill people, then it seems wrong to object to this.

 -- Plan for this to last for years, not weeks.
    One of these things I remember watching as the shutdowns got put in place was that the policies implemented were not sustainable, and not intended to be long-term. I kind of was laughing at the two week school closings and even the couple of months of unemployment payments offered. At this point, you can start to see that shift from amusement to dread -- from "delayed" medical treatment, to the shutting down of parks, to police enforcement of arbitrary social distancing rules, etc. -- to frustration -- seeing the blatant inability to talk about the possibility of retraining people (like they conscript people in times of war). The lack of planning becomes even more obvious when you see the lack of correlation between policies and the current disease situation, issues with compliance (many of which come from the narrow walkways not designed for distancing, others from everyone choosing the same places and times for travel), relaxing of the lockdowns, and various types of protests.
    In terms of short-term vs long-term planing, another obvious such issues is how medicine was defunded before the crisis, even though we knew this was a potential issue after SARS. If people are struggling to get health care treatment when there isn't a pandemic, than this is an issue. But policy makers still think of security and preparing for the worst in terms of policing, building better weapons and war games.

 -- Isolate by urban area, not province or country. 
    One thing I remember people talking about was this debate about whether or not to close borders. One of the things I thought was bizarre about this was the emphasis on closing national borders. While travel did spread the disease, this had more to do with travel from an area that was more heavily infected to one which was less infected, which has less to do with national borders than people seem to think. As such, logically, it makes sense to propose policy and close borders and limit travel based on where people live, i.e. cities, not on political borders. This prevents migration of the disease from the main cities to the smaller ones, allows less infected regions to avoid shutting down their economy, allows for a better understanding of what is or is not necessary travel, and prevents racism. The only issue is in terms of governance.
    However, any such closing of borders needs to be based on an awareness of how exponential growth works, something which triggered my original frustration with the news. Bringing the disease from a more infected region to a less infected region does nothing to impact the curve. Mass migration, though, can seed an infection in an uninfected area without herd immunity or push an infection rate up for a region in the (slow) exponential decline side of an epidemic. The first is inevitable, but can be put off, the second is to be avoided.

 -- I think people who are used to making decisions for themselves will fare better.
    This is where I disagree with basically everyone. When people don't know what to do, they turn to those in charge. However, those people act just as emotionally and also don't know what to do. As I said in the previous, point, I don't believe that we need a uniform policy. Rather, as far as I can tell, we need an adaptable policy, one which can make full use of the known data of the situation at hand and is able to accommodate regional differences in the situation as well as the needs of individuals. As such, we need individuals to be able to make rational, informed decisions, and not decisions based on compliance to or defiance of arbitrary policies given by those on top, or on emotion and habit.

 -- Also, don't rely on our leaders, and don't blame our leaders when things go badly. They are not gods; they are only human, just like the rest of us.

Morality and Ethics:
 -- "Everything in moderation."
    Aristotle's version of ethics may be difficult to call ethics, but is very good advice in life.
Life is a complicated mess of many, many factors, many of which have contradictory requirements to deal with properly. To deal with this, instead of making a priority list, it is often much better to balance these needs properly based on the situation at hand. When that is not a possibility, you can just guess by falling back on the principle, "Everything in moderation." 

 -- Kantian ethics is more focused on sustainability. His basic principle is "That which can be taken to be a universal principle is moral." Since I don't believe in universal principles, I can rephrase this as logical analyses, something requiring more context.

 -- Utilitarianism, "The greatest good for the greatest number of people," is a more traditional ethical principle. I am not going to get into the utilitarian monster (mis)calculation argument.

 -- The Veil of Ignorance is a concept, that when designing a system, you don't know which person you are, so you need to make things comfortable for all. This is true to a certain extent in reality, especially when you consider things such as ageism (as people start young and slowly get older) and ableism (as people can get sick or hurt). Both of these effectively reduce people's life expectancy, as well as interrupting the flow of knowledge from the older generations to the younger generations, facilitating the push of society to a faster pace, which is detrimental to all. Wealth inequality is another thing which does affect everyone, as it is possible to fall out of the higher classes, into poverty. Yes, there are myths of people pushing themselves into higher classes, but this is actually extremely rare, and mostly serves as a myth used to keep the lower classes subservient.

 -- For people not managing whole systems, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," or "Do what you want, as long as you harm none," are more typical moral principles. They also have their flaws and also require some degree of calculation.

Other Lessons:
"Trust your instincts; don't trust others."
This is something I have been learning for the past year and a half. It is difficult, as undoing childhood training often is. Basically as a child we are taught, "If you can't get your work done, you are lazy. If you want something for yourself, you are selfish." I even remember being yelled at and punished for not doing something when I hadn't even realized that I needed to be doing something. If I ask to be treated fairly, or rather with respect, I am just told, "Life isn't fair." Assignments are made based on seniority, not ability. You quickly learn that your needs are unimportant, your instincts of right and wrong therefore incorrect, and only those in charge know what is right.

For me, my instincts and needs are different from those of others. I don't pick up societal cultural norms. That trick, were people get trained as to what is expected, what is right and wrong, never really happened. Therefore, I never left this state as I describe above.

At 14, I was called selfish by my parents. At 10, I volunteered in the library during recess time and was trying to be inclusive of the other individual in my class who was bullied by the students. Yes, people change over time. Yes, people grow up and learn how to deal with others. But sometimes, the adults are just wrong. And sometimes those in a position of authority are wrong.

I don't want to mark this as a general principle, as there are people on the opposite side of this. But, basically, people have an understanding of themselves which no other person can replicate, and they can't really explain to others, i.e. "You know more than you think you do," and "You know your needs better than anyone else." This is complicated slightly by the fact that people often lie to themselves to protect themselves, so sometimes you need the people close to you to tell the truth of who you are. But people often misinterpret the intentions of others as well, including those close to them. A lot of this has to do with how we compare people to others or to societal expectations, which is often not a great guide for proper behavior.

Links and Random Thoughts

It is a little weird, when you have this crisis going on, and it seems everyone around you is overly fascinated by the epidemiology or medical side of things, but I am more fascinated by crisis management and related things (and perhaps existentialism).

Every time I write, I seem to take longer than intended and write more than intended. I think right now, I just want to talk, to get out my emotions, experiences, hopes, fears, questions, concerns, and random existentialist thoughts. Eventually I will move all this stuff to the pages format which I have set up for my travel journals.

My Current Situation:
As far as I can tell, my issues right now are social isolation and burnout. I think my current phase of this started during my PhD and has gotten worse over time. Granted, considering the current level of knowledge of and respect for mental health concerns in society, I have no certainty in this.

Basically, my difficulty in life is that I think slowly, get overwhelmed easily, learn differently, and have different needs than others. Trying to be involved or included in things is a constant struggle for me, as I often can't find opportunities, and opportunities which do exist are not well fit to me, and trying to do things on my own basically destroys me.

My general experience in life is that either you do what others are doing, how they are doing it, or do things on your own. The notion that others will make room for you tends not to happen in practice. I would say this is especially true for invisible disability, but people don't tend to interpret the needs of others very well in any case.

Doing everything on my own is extremely draining for me as well as alienating when I am forced to do it alone, especially when I need help. And the list of things which are difficult or exhausting for me often includes things that people would not think of as potentially problematic.

My Experience at the Hospital:
When I got into Kingston in September 2018, I had started having issues. Basically, if I were to walk for more than ~ 28 km per week, I would break down, start crying, have trouble with balance, and start having a sense of despair. I had been going into the walk-in clinics to try to get treatment, but the couldn't really do anything. By the end of October, I had kind of felt like I had gotten to the point where I could no longer take care of myself, and decided to go into the emergency room.

The first problems occurred before I got to the doctor. Basically, they want to take the EKG, blood sample, and urine sample from everyone who goes in there. I have a lot of difficulty with needles (a common problem), and they basically had no patience for this. Unlike other times for which I had my blood taken, where they try to find a way to make it work, here they basically called me a troublemaker for not cooperating.

When I finally got to see the doctor, he asked me why I was there, and I told him what I knew. He was not happy with my response, and proceeded to ask the same questions in a harsher and harsher tone. This caused me to break down and start crying. I also attempted to call people I knew on the phone, in order to get help talking to this individual, but there was no phone signal and I didn't have Wi-Fi. The doctor also got annoyed at me for refusing to have blood drawn. (Although, I might point out that I never refused this, I only stated that I have trouble with needles, and they were kind of impatient about the process.)

Eventually the doctor referred me to the outpatient mental health program at the hospital. I apologized for the difficulty, then had them call a taxi to take me home.

The whole incident was kind of traumatic for me, and I was afraid to go back there later.

Follow up:
    So, after you go to a hospital in Canada, they will start sending you mail regularly asking for donations. At least it is better than the US, where you get a ridiculously high bill, but still, a hospital is not a charity, it is critical infrastructure, and should be funded by the government. But the government kind of underfunds the hospitals, so the hospitals are left asking for donations to enable them to maintain a reasonable level of functionality.

Basic general observations (or lessons) from this:
    A) The hospitals and health care system were in crisis before there was a pandemic. This is one of those things that everyone wants their tax money to go to, but the politicians typically undervalue when they develop the budgets. It is especially amusing / scary to see implications that medical professionals had been doing pandemic readiness modeling and simulation games before the pandemic, yet not only did they not get the supplies they requested, but they had been forced to reduce their availability before the crisis due to reduced funding.
    B) Our societies don't value mental health or know how to deal with mental health issues. In the UK, I was able to get a GP much easier after I finally got an address, but they still had no public resources for mental health care. It appears often that unless you actually try to commit suicide, it is impossible to get treatment. Basically, if people die, others freak out, but if people don't die, others just assume that there is no issue and the people with issues are just being troublemakers. Basically, if you can't see the issue, there is no issue, even though we know this is wrong.
    C) People instinctively assume ill intent in the case of lack of ability or unmet needs. This is a perpetual problem I have experienced. I think my struggles with disability and other aspects of life have allowed me to experience enough that I know what people expect of others can often be unrealistic or misguided. Sometimes it is a little weird when I get in conversations, and the other person assumes ill intent of others in a certain circumstance, and I freak out, as if my life or freedom is in danger. Because often it is -- if this individual did not know me, they would interpret my actions in this way as well. And I have had many situations when people have done just this -- assumed I was being selfish or a troublemaker because I had certain needs which differed from others or didn't know what to do or just wanted my needs to also be taken into account in a situation.
    And, yes, a surprising amount of problematic behavior is caused by alienation / social isolation issues, or other underlying issues.

A Summary of My Views of the Pandemic:

In terms of the appropriate response to the pandemic: I am against reacting, and for carefully planned responses, cost-benefit analyses, and long term planning. I am less for or against lockdown as I am against the whole reacting emotionally rather than actually calculating what best benefits the quality of life of people.

That being said, sometimes I find just watching how people react to crisis quite amusing, and seem to have been able to just consider people's poor crisis management skills as part of the crisis. If human emotion is thought of as a natural disaster, it is not so frustrating to deal with. And it is just as predictable and unavoidable as any other part of nature.

What we should be doing: In times of war, in the modern world, governments have increased the emphasis on the war economy: repurposing buildings and factories, conscripting people to serve a soldiers. Most of the things I think have been going on, except for the recruiting of new medical workers. The number of people in medicine is not fixed, most of the training is by practicing the craft, we will need more people later, and this would fix both the underwork and overwork problem at the same time. And unlike killing people, medicine is a useful skill to have in the general populace.

Hopes:

 - A slowing down of our society and a recalculation of priorities -- because we are just trying to push economic growth faster and faster, but it is not actually increasing the well-being of our people, and often actually making it worse.

 - More investment into healthcare, especially if we can get the money, attention, and resources out of the security state in the process. This second part is not going to happen, but would be extremely useful. You don't even need to remove the people or money from these industries, either. Just train the police and soldiers as doctors, nurses, social workers, etc. instead of to distrust or kill people.

 - More solidarity, empathy, socialization within the community, mental health support. Because we need each other to survive.

...

Fears:

 - Increased surveillance or authoritarianism -- This happened after 9/11, for instance. It is quite common for those in charge to exploit a crisis in order to solidify their power or pass unpopular legislation. 

 - Increased reliance on the internet -- The internet is a wonderful tool, but we do need to participate in the real world and not just live online.

Philosophy:
Here are a couple more Slavoj Zizek coronavirus articles: 1, 2
I also keep on remembering Dan Carlin talking about the atomic bomb "Logical Insanity"
Here is someone talking about the experience of people used to dealing with disasters.

Social Isolation vs. Quarantine, Sample Articles:
I don't want to give you too many of these, as they are summaries or opinions, I don't have the greatest of sources, and I tend to disagree with certain aspects of their analyses while liking other parts. What is here is intended to give a decent summary of the various issues, written by people who are in the medical profession.

This appears to be a decent summary of the issues with the coronavirus lockdowns. He doesn't talk about the risks of society breaking down from either doing nothing or poorly planned lockdowns, but he describing things from the point of view of a medical professional. He also starts by saying that he agrees with the social distancing measures if that is what his colleagues in other specializations recommend, which is important, since I have read things talking about such issues which seem more to come from a denial state.

Here is another individual talking about the dangers of lockdowns. He has a bit of a denial tone in his writing, but he does talk about the societal breakdown risks from shutting everything down (without being all "but democracy" or "but the economy"). I personally believe that the "do nothing" or "wait and see" approaches also have many of the same issues as the "quarantine everything" mentality, and we do need to act expecting the worst case scenario, even while acknowledging that it may not be the case. What is the expression: "Plan for the worst, hope for the best." Something like that. I tend to like these, because they point out the flaws in our current pandemic management strategy, but they tend to be very bad at talking about alternatives, or even acknowledging that these issues also exist in the "do nothing" type approaches.

This one has more of a neutral tone as well as ending with the warning to watch more than just coronavirus related things, as politicians can sneak in problematic legislation while nobody is watching. I want to point out that I have friends who are activists, and one of them has talked about the issues of trying to get media coverage for his campaign. [With the environmentalists and peace activists, things are kind of more corona-adjacent, like demands to end sanctions, for instance, which do tie into the current crisis, but technically existed before it.]

This is one general summary of issues with loneliness, unrelated to the virus. You can find many more.

Annual Death Rate:
So, I know it is a difficult to know what to do with this information. Basically, if this can take you out of either a denial (reminding young people that they are still vulnerable) or panic (reminding people that death is normal, and we survive despite this many people dying per year) state, then that is good, while if it causes denial (because if death is normal, we don't need to do anything about it, right?) or panic, then that is bad.

I think my mentality behind looking at this is to get people out of just thinking about the crisis in terms of number dead from the disease. The reason health professionals recommended that we take steps to minimize infection was to prevent the hospitals from being overwhelmed, thus multiplying the death rate just from the disease by a factor of 10 (or something like that) and also preventing others who need treatment for other issues from getting it, further increasing the number of deaths or long-term injury. Besides, the "flattening the curve" plots have the same number of people getting infected, just over a longer period of time.

Here is a comparison of Covid-19 death rates to the yearly death rate. This is the risk of death if you get sick with Covid-19 vs a year of living, not the total number of expected deaths or reduction of life expectancy due to the pandemic (although there may be estimates based on primitive models), which could potentially involve non-Covid-19 deaths caused by the conditions of the pandemic, whatever they may be.

This particular chart from the CDC for the US highlights accident, homicide, and suicide. Probably also relevant for Covid-19 would be to highlight the Influenza & Pneumonia cells as well. (Yes, it does make the top 10, even in years without a pandemic.) You can also look up the general Wikipedia page, or CDC page, for instance.

Other:
This was the video of the American hikers who were lured across the Iran / Iraq border and imprisoned in Iran for a while, which triggered a feeling of relation for me when I watched it in 2014. I don't think it is necessarily relevant, but it is interesting.

"Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we may die."

This is my personal story of the current pandemic for March 2020. Despite the sudden shift in attitude around the middle of this month, I include the whole month, as context is important, as the crisis had actually started earlier in the year, and was known even in February. Events never really happen as suddenly or all at once as people think.

My experience in life is with social isolation and loneliness, among other things which should be clear from the context of the narrative. After going to Russia for September and October, where I feel a strong sense of kinship (and could even deal with working or living alone without a dog), and after having gone home to visit my parents for the Christmas break, in the US where I feel a strong sense of alienation, coming into January, I was already in crisis. This is why my crisis management / preparation instincts were to go to PI (Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics) starting at the beginning of February, until the end of March. There, I had people with whom I could talk, who didn't drive me crazy when I talked with them.

The first week of March I broke down due to feeling excluded in certain political discussions. The main trigger occurred on the first weekend of that month, but the problematic state didn't lift until the weekend after. During this week, I had been talking to people about my situation, and felt like I needed to take steps to move to Russia. This led me to look at the Covid-19 maps, to know what regions were risk zones, to see if I would have to quarantine myself for 2 weeks after travel. The answer was yes -- most of Europe was already over 1000 cases each country, and Moscow and Toronto had already outbreaked. I wondered at that point why PI had not yet shut down their visitor program and discouraged people from traveling.

The second week, my entire research group at Queen's was traveling. I knew because I had forgotten to pay rent due to the previous week's emotional stress. My supervisor, who was at PI with me, was in Vancouver that week (which, like Toronto, had community transmitted Covid-19 cases already). I had thought this was suspicious, but set it aside. People know what they are doing and how to make decisions for themselves, right?

PI had been slowly implementing policies to encourage proper hygiene, people talked about the pandemic and knew the situation and risks. I say signs appear in my apartment building related to Covid-19. Something about them bothered me, but I felt it was good for people to putting more effort into proper hygiene, as while there was no outbreak in the Waterloo region, there was already a Covid-19 case, so it was only a manner of time.

Social distancing, when I had first heard that term in relation to this crisis, sort of set of certain alarms in my brain. I kind of remembered every bad instance I had with getting sick as a child. You know, all those times when you get sick and people freak out about catching it instead of helping you in your time of need? One specific instance I remembered was near the end of my time as an undergraduate. During this period in my life, I frequently went back home to my parents. I had gotten sick with a cold, and was in communication with my mother. She had told me that she hoped I was still going to classes while I was sick, which I confirmed was the case. Then I went home that weekend. She got mad at me for coming home sick, potentially infecting her. I told her that she had told me to still go to class, to which she responded that she had not realized how sick I was. I think, because of this, when I saw what was going on, I knew at some level what was happening.

That Thursday evening we received the order that people were encouraged to work from home and PI was going into partial shutdown. The students I was talking with seemed to take it as a reversal to the previous "don't panic" order, as if "don't panic" and "it is time to discourage unnecessary social contact" are somehow contradictory. I was confused about the timing, but then I was told that there was another Covid-19 case in Waterloo, so I assumed that the change of policy was due to the increased risk that someone traveling had messed up and Waterloo had Covid-19 being community transferred.

My supervisor came to pick me up and take me back to Kingston on Saturday. Since Waterloo had cases and Kingston didn't, I was going to isolate for a week to see if my portion of the Waterloo community had cases appear. Coming home, we saw people on the street, celebrating St. Patrick's Day. My supervisor was annoyed at this, but to me, I saw people in groups of 3, with the groups having ample distance between each other, so while I knew they were probably not being careful, I was annoyed by his reaction, as he seemed to not understand the need for people to enjoy themselves in times of crisis.

By Monday, I decided to take advantage of the situation to organize my life. I had been struggling since getting to Kingston, and even before, all the way back to the start of my PhD. I started with unpacking, then basic organization, making lists as to what I needed to do, etc. I knew I needed to deal with food, cleaning, walking the dog, and ensuring socialization.

Yes. I have been dealing with depression-like symptoms all my life. I know what people are supposed to do, as I am told this all the time, and I know which of these tricks help me.

For this last part, socialization, I started calling or messaging people I knew, to start developing online contacts. But I knew this would not be enough. People don't function without in-person social engagement with other humans, and since I have had this history of struggling with developing relationships, taking care of myself, or being a part of the community, this is even more important for me. I needed to find my contacts in Kingston, and to find a way to meet in person. This turned out to be impossible.

The first thing I thought of was trying to put back together our Gloomhaven group. The people in this group were all from our research group at work. We had four regulars, and we were probably all regulars as we had few, if any, other friends in town. My thought process was that we would close the group, only allowing in the four regulars, who were unlikely to have much contact with others outside the group, and wait until two weeks after everyone had traveled in order to restart the game. My supervisor instead suggested we move the game online.

So basically, we got into an argument. He told me it would be irresponsible, and a bad example as a leader to participate in a game in person, even with a closed group with three girls who have struggled with depression or social isolation, two living alone, one with him. The language he used invoked memories of my time at computer camp as a CIT. One such memory was when I refused to play dodge ball, the other was when I got sick and couldn't participate in any exercise, only to be yelled at for having avoided exercise afterwards. Then my brain suddenly realized what was going on. These steps and stages were not rational policy in order to combat a crisis, they were emotional reactions with little thought, analysis, or long term planning.

I might also point out that in this, despite this individual refusing to try to meet in person with someone who probably needs it, he also didn't self-isolate after traveling. He went into the office on Monday, saying that there was nobody around, so it was not an issue. He offered to buy me groceries on Thursday, when I was really struggling, not eating, and sleeping all the time.

As far as I can tell, what happened is this: The brother of the crack smoking mayor of Toronto is our current primer (governor). He shut down Ontario in response to Covid-19, specifically as a response to the St. Patrick's Day celebrations of the students. People kind of went "insane" as a response. They switched from a pseudo-denial phase to a pseudo-panic phase seemingly overnight. I think it is difficult for people to both not panic and to be aware of danger and take protective measures at the same time.

But part of it, as far as I can tell, is how people prioritize things. When work is the most important responsibility, people keep traveling, despite the crisis, because work priorities come first, and canceling meetings would be wrong. When everything snapped, Covid became the top priority, and its needs came first. Hence a lack of realization that socialization IS a necessity for people. (Yes, loneliness kills, including by increasing the risk of infection.) Instead of what is supposed to be going on, a cost-benefit analysis of all the factors in a situation to determine the correct course of action, people instead have this internal priority chart, and everything on top trumps that coming beneath it. Basically, people can't multitask.

Hence, instead of preventing deaths or a breakdown of society, people just focus on trying to prevent Covid-19 cases, and therefore prevent Covid-19 deaths and the overflow of hospitals due specifically to Covid-19. However, the virus is merely the trigger, one piece of the crisis, not its entirety. Healthcare was underfunded long before we had a pandemic, even as we knew this was a possibility.

Everything in this world seems to indicate that people do not understand moderation, long term planning, cost benefit analysis with complex systems, or even thinking for oneself. Denial or panic are not the only options in a crisis; we can make rational decisions.

The lack of long-term planning also seems to be endemic in this situation. What is the end game? Do we need everyone to get sick eventually to prevent future coronaviruses from being so disruptive? Are we expecting that we can make this go away? Are we waiting for a vaccine? How long do people really think this will take? Because it will, almost certainly be more than a few weeks. For less than a couple months, like in China, the current situation may work. But if it will be 6 months to years, we need to talk about shifting our economy and daily life rather than shutting it down. Trying to even out the risks and workload across the healthy population while still minimizing the risks to everyone. So people don't go insane. And we really need to be honest about the situation.

But maybe I am just one of the few strange people who actually likes to sit, talk, plan, strategize, map out cause and effect to help catch counter-intuitive system responses and positive feedback loops, rather than just jump into a situation and do things. That has certainly been a major factor contributing to my feelings of social isolation and loneliness in life.

I also think my attitude to death and crises freaks many people out. Perhaps people are so used to acting on emotion or impulse that they don't even realize it is possible to actually think for themselves about a situation without either being emotional or taking orders from the top. I say that I am not afraid of getting sick or dying, and people assume that this means I am not aware of the risks or that I don't think it is appropriate to take protective measures.

The fact of the matter is that I am aware of practices in experimental science as well as many other situations -- mitigate danger, take precautions, but don't avoid everything because it may be dangerous.

However, my generation, and those who are younger, do come from a world where we were told to do exactly this, i.e. don't do things which are potentially dangerous. People have this instinct to protect others from potential harm, and often cause more harm than good as a result. I know this; I experience this. My mother tried her best to avoid doing such things, but the modern world is as it is.

One of these things that I realized within the past few weeks is that this is normal. Crises are normal. War, famine, disease, we keep thinking we have overcome these things, and we have not. They are a part of life. They have always been with us, and will always be with us. This is not the first crisis we have seen, this is not the worst one for many people, (a fact especially obvious when I talk to Russians who remember the 90s, listen to a couple from the separatist region in Ukraine talk about how they have their own government destroying their city from the sky, listen to Palestinians, Syrians, Iranians, etc, read people describing the other coronavirus epidemics, remember all the coverage of various hurricanes or earthquakes, or even remember all the World War II monuments in Russia ... ), and this will not be the last.

I guess we need to also remember that people can be alone when surrounded by people in a crowd, and can still feel connected at a 2 meters distance. And of course, that just because we are in a crisis, and all are attention is on this crisis, doesn't mean all the other facets of society have gone away, good or bad.

There is a part of me that wants to see there being something good which will come from this pandemic. Perhaps it will force the world to slow down. Perhaps it will give me the chance to catch up, to recover and figure out how to live on my own. Although in this last case, it may be less do to being forced to live on my own as it is due to hatred of people. I don't know. I guess only time will tell.

March Update

Every time I go back to write this, more time has elapsed, and I need to add or rewrite things. In the almost two weeks since I have been back in Kingston, I have been taking things slow and dealing with the basics, food, cleaning, walking the dog, talking to people. So far this month, there has been only one good week, this week.

It seems like every day what has been bothering me about the virus for the past month and everything for the past few months has gotten clearer and clearer, going from my unconscious to my conscious mind.

So, I am back in Kingston, in my apartment, with my dog. My thought process was to self-isolate for a week, just to make sure no cases appear at PI, then go back to having some social contact -- going shopping, taking the dog for longer walks, playing games and talking (in person!) with my limited group of friends.

It is weird and frustrating to go from not being able to contact colleagues because they are traveling to not being able to contact them except online because they are self-isolating. And nothing has really changed, except the numbers, and, of course, the orders given from above.

I had realized that the week before I returned I had forgotten to pay rent because of mental issues, but seeking someone in Kingston was difficult. Apparently, all of our group was away somewhere for work. I, like always, had failed to seek out conferences or meetings to attend. By that time, however, I knew it was probably not an issue this year since conferences were being canceled or moved online.

I had forgotten because, the first week of this month was very difficult on me. I kind of broke down due to the election, although not for the reasons people may think. Basically, I had to make a decision of who to vote for, (well not really, but ...) and decided to choose my favorite of the ones I actually believed could potentially win the election, since I wanted to make my voice count for something. I was not happy with this because I was unhappy with certain things he said, but this was all I could do in this context.

However both my colleagues and my family had a different favorite from either my favored candidate or my choice, and talked to me in a way which implied that I agreed with their assessment. My mother was much better to converse with, as there was no assumption of agreement.

The basic issue -- I continuously feel left out of the conversation, my needs, perspectives, and voice continuously dismissed as irrelevant. This is what they call "lack of democracy," a problem I was fully aware of even in 6th grade. Various incidents from this time had led me to develop a consensus-based decision making model before I was taught about such things.


In the past month, there where two notable moments when things felt good. One was right before I left PI, playing Pandemic with a group of people in the Black Hole Bistro at PI. It felt like we were weathering a crisis alone, together. And that felt good. Maybe I just miss that game.

The other was my first week back, running in the park with my dog. It was the first time in a long time when I felt as if I could do vigorous exercise without it feeling horrible. Perhaps not even trying to do work or go places has helped.


Here are some articles which have inspired me in the past month or so.
   --  How South Korea managed the pandemic. -- While I am not that big a fan of trying to protect "democracy" or "the economy" as these sort of abstract concepts, he does legitimately talk about the need to take care of people, factoring in more than just the current threat, while still managing the current crisis, and, of course, actually thinking about what is necessary.
        He talks a lot about how shutting down businesses causes problems for poorer people, but he left out the mental health damage due to forced isolation of everyone, even healthy people from healthy people. (Granted, the ability to avoid isolating healthy people from healthy people requires knowing who is sick, but that is kind of the point.)
  --  Slavoj Zizek on the pandemic and the need for solidarity. -- Slavoj Zizek is one of these modern political philosophers. Unlike Noam Chomsky, he considers himself less political and more of a philosopher. Like Noam Chomsky, he actually thinks about modern societal problems.
  --  This is a joke suggestion for a US presidential candidate, which amused me since he highlights the reality of US foreign policy.


Writing:

This is going to be slow. I may try to write an unedited less serious story while I work on the one I have on the website. Part of the problem is that I am not that good at self-editing or even writing, and there are things I want to get out, but I also want my story to be decent.

Various Thoughts Regarding Politics:

This is basically my perspective of the US elections and the Russian constitutional reform.

My Thoughts about and Reaction to Coronavirus:

Coming -- I have a a large number of random thoughts and observations. What I have to say seems to freak everyone out, but my perspective from both struggling with mental health and learning from the activists should provide a break from the usual mantras everyone keeps saying.

February Update

Travel Journal Update: There is some more stuff up, if you go to the travel journal link.

Subscription Link: So, there is an issue with Google, but the link is here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/AwakeningInThePast
 I could also manually create an email list for my updates, if people want.

Story Update: This is happening very slowly as I am still struggling to do anything.

Current Thoughts:

 -- Impeachment -- I have been against this. Basically, I think Trump is problematic and impeachable, but I have issues with the mentality behind the current process.
    Summary:
    a) Let's start with an easy one -- Pence becomes president when Trump is gone. Impeaching the president also doesn't fix the issues with the Republicans.
    b) US does this to other countries -- Trump is the type of person whom the American establishment likes to put in charge of foreign countries which it destroys, as this type of person is easy to manipulate. This may explain why such people who do this believe that he was put in by a foreign power. However, the same mentality which justifies this abroad would encourage people domestically to value this.
    c) Next is something much more difficult to understand -- Trump is politics as usual, just more open about the corruption.
    Some of the more obvious points which come to mind include: The Republicans tried to sabotage Obama just as the Democrats attempt to sabotage Trump. Many horrible things Trump does are also very standard, like hurting migrants (Obama was called the "Deporter in Chief") or attacking the Middle East (and Obama escalated the drone strikes in the Middle East).
    I can also point out that US presidents will put pressure on foreign countries far worse that that which Trump was accused of doing to Ukraine. And I am not convinced American imperialism is a better justification than Trump's selfishness.
    Glenn Greenwald has talked about how Hillary Clinton got information from abroad in order to try to take down Trump, and has many times pointed out this double standard. For example: ( https://www.democracynow.org/2017/7/13/glenn_greenwald_donald_trump_jrs_emails ) "In which case, why is it OK for the Democrats to do it with Ukrainian officials or for their investigator to go to Moscow and get dirt on Trump?"
    d) Follows from (b) -- The entire impeachment process has been focused on an attempt to blame the Russians and push cold war mentality. Despite numerous potential offences, this process first focuses on the conspiracy-theory like "Russia-gate", only to switch to the American politics as usual "Ukraine-gate" when the conspiracy theory was proven false. The sin of Trump in this case is misbehaving in a way contrary to the American anti-Russian narrative rather than to advance it.
    e) Trump has been made into symbol of all the American sins. People think that if we get rid of him, we get rid of issues, but he is only more open about the corruption, not more corrupt. The people who love him don't want to admit that these things (racism, etc.) are issues, while the people who hate him don't want to admit that they have these issues.
    f) US politics has been phrased as a competition rather than focusing on fixing the issues. As such, impeachment will always be about Democrats vs Republicans rather than corruption, even if it were really about corruption (which it is not, no matter what the Democrats tell themselves).

    Here as an alternative analysis of the situation by philosopher Slavoj Zizek: https://www.rt.com/op-ed/480606-us-ideological-civil-war/

    I know appreciating these types of points is difficult for many people, especially as many of them require being honest about the reality of the US (as an imperialist state rather than being what it claims to be, a beacon of democracy).

 -- Anti-Nuclear Activism and the Youth: My mother claims that the persistence of anti-communist and other problematic perspectives come from the cold war, but in terms of Russia-phobia, many of the problematic voices are my age or younger. On my trip to Russia, I met many older Americans interested in deescalation, but very few youth, and I think the youth that were there had some sort of connection with Russia already. It seems that in this case, without cold war, people forgot about nuclear weapons, and without anti-nuclear activism, people forgot how to distrust US establishment (which hates Russia because it is a rival which refused to submit).
    In fact, Tulsi Gabbard changed her position on this regard in part due to a false alarm for a missile strike in Hawaii, causing her to realize that the US could be attacked, and the best defense is to avoid provoking a conflict.

 -- Russian Constitutional Changes -- These are necessary, as they are designed to decentralize power, which had been centralized by Yelson in 1993.
    I have been bothered about a clause which bans nationalized citizens from becoming governmental officials, as well as any Russian who have ever lived abroad. I won't get into details here but these are the types of clauses in laws which tend to get tacked on and to not be noticed as being problematic.

2020 January Update

So, I have been slow to work on my travel journal. Since I have gotten back from Russia at the end of October, I have been having issues with motivation and life. There are a few things which keep coming up.

A) I need a way to express certain political concepts, especially to not feel like people are considering my viewpoint impossible, as if, if I understand to be true certain things contrary to the liberals which the conservatives say, I must be one of the "bad guys."
    When I describe such things, everything keeps coming back to the need to change the dialog -- instead of talking conservatives vs moderates vs liberals, look instead at, say, "The Secret World," and separate people into Illuminati, Templars, and Dragons. Typical conservatives and liberals are both Templars in this picture -- they believe their ideology, and all who oppose are obviously evil or need to be saved from themselves.
    So if everyone talks in terms of good vs evil, and are opposed to people whom they claim to be only for their self interest, but I need things in terms of adapting and surviving ...
    People can debate if a given political figure is an angel or a demon, but as any fan of fantasy can point out, paladins and angels are often jerks. So, while I would always emphasize the humanity of humans, I also emphasize that even in the case when someone legitimately has the best of intentions, this, and not selfishness, can be what leads to the greatest harms, especially when you don't listen to those whom you intend to help. Also, this has been a significant part of my experience in life, and, therefore, is extremely important to me for people to recognize.

B) I feel more comfortable in Russia than the US, or even Canada.
    Since I have talked with many people, I recognize that for many people, the US is the best place for them. But just because it is the case for some people, doesn't mean it is the case for everyone, or even most people. My understanding has developed in lines with the concept that the US is just another country, like every other country, and like every other country, it has its own strengths and weaknesses, and needs to develop on its own terms, without glorification or "democracy shaming," (which is a favored game by the US and EU). The US is as legitimate as any other country, not better or worse. While one can debate the legitimacy of any government, there is a point where one needs to accept an all or none aspect to this debate. Every culture is different, has different needs, and every culture is a process, changing over time, able to correct itself if allowed on its own terms.
    Often explaining how I don't want to live in the US (and it is not even the political situation) is difficult. Explaining further that I want to live in Russia is also difficult. Just internally, it is a difficult concept for people to wrap their mind around, as it goes against everything they are trained.

I have pages which are coming. People can ask for links if they wish, for either travel journals or things which are more political. I am also hoping to restart progress on my story at some point.