Not having a life to begin with also helps.

Watching CNBC I'm reassured from the 100% consensus amongst all the experts that the market may go up and may go down. They seem quite confident about this.



PairTheBoard

Lol

Science has finally come up w/ a tool for the perpetually undecided:

The UniverseSplitter!

If I manage to avoid the corona I might use this tool in poker.

So, you are still alive! I’m Glad!

Although, it is possible you are the Howard Beale from another Universe that somehow is bleeding through to this one - Just to be annoying. An honest and honorable endeavor that I fully endorse.

According to Sean Carroll there are a very great many of me. I hope that some of them are having a better go of it than I am at the moment.

“Relax everything is out of control” [Mac]

So when were things in control? You can start with the Neolithic Revolution; to par down any verbose response.

I’m relaxing with a Beer, or two. And a snort of whiskey.

I said exactly this to a Pakistani doctor I met in a nightclub in Vegas a few years back. Should I ever meet you in person, Zeno, I'll tell you the entire amusing story.

I have been through worse times personally, but never macroscopically. I'm 56, so JFK's assassination and the cuban missile crisis happened before I was sentient. Kent State was bad, and I remember that although I was only seven, and I remember my shock and dismay watching footage of helicopters being pushed off the edge of aircraft carriers to make more room for evacuees as Saigon fell. Watergate was traumatic. So too was 9/11. But I told both daughters that this plague is the worst world event I've lived through here in USA#9 and they should both keep journals capturing their thoughts and feelings as we go through it. We've been completely sequestered for eight days now, and I told them to plan for another full month.

I listen to Carroll's podcast and usually like it.

For good reason. There are competing theories that he addresses in his latest book 'Something deeply hidden', well worth the read but not recommended w/o some grounding first.

Ah, well all of the past is now perfectly under control. Something about the lack of time symmetry, I imagine.

It is always the scariest of times.

Trying to remember back to earlier frights,* I believe that my feelings about mad cow disease were quite a bit more intense.

For those who are too young to have direct experience, imagine a world in which brisket was not entirely a force for good. Quite a bit more concerning than simply suffocating from a virus. We expect viruses to be our natural enemies, but our friends the cows plotting our downfall? That treachery turned the world upside down and inside out.

*a task humans are particularly bad at. No one would have second spouses and certainly no one would have more than one child if we were skilled at holding tightly on to unpleasant feelings.

Mad Cow was perturbing and prions eating holes in your brain is particularly gruesome. But it simply didn't affect enough people to be really scary.

The Limits of Control Official Trailer #1 - Isaach De BankolÉ Movie (2009) HD






PairTheBoard

Ah, but the numbers of people affected weren't available while I was busy worrying.

Also, I've found that the statistical portion of my brain is not on good speaking terms with the emotional portion. They rarely even acknowledge each other outside of the holidays

You should be drinking; life is short, and brutish*.


* and it is always the scariest of times as noted above by SMP's most eminent philosopher and historian and long-haul Trucker. And good friend. Cheers!

I remember this; many here may also (Hong Kong Flu):

/pandemic-resources/1968-pandemicl

From above link:

1968 Pandemic (H3N2 virus)

The 1968 pandemic was caused by an influenza A (H3N2) virus comprised of two genes from an avian influenza A virus, including a new H3 hemagglutinin, but also contained the N2 neuraminidase from the 1957 H2N2 virus. It was first noted in the United States in September 1968. The estimated number of deaths was 1 million worldwide and about 100,000 in the United States. Most excess deaths were in people 65 years and older. The H3N2 virus continues to circulate worldwide as a seasonal influenza A virus. Seasonal H3N2 viruses, which are associated with severe illness in older people, undergo regular antigenic drift. [My Bold]

***************************

1968 was a very disruptive year, and not just on the health front.

Have two for me

And then of course we have the Swine Flu*: See link below- This is an excellent and illustrative read, with up-to-date timeline to 2009!

-timeline-the-secret-history-of-swine-flu/


*I remember being vaccinated for this flu virus in 1976.

I too am a fan of that line. Brian must have stolen it from somewhere.

I've nearly no original thoughts.

A huge difference with BSE is that there was nothing to do - worrying about past dinners was pointless and many of us are quite good at not worrying too much about pointless things (even if others aren't). Plus we get to laugh at those worrying about pointless things.

I'm replete with original and brilliant thoughts. Unfortunately ...

We are now under a curfew, a strange circumstance as just being out doesn’t break physical distancing, but they have to break physical distancing to give you a citation ( 500 dollar fine) or detain you. Oh, and the city is recently infamous for needing revenue too.