I convinced three people to get vaccinated. Dunno what happened, but I noticed people in general are finally listening to what I have to say instead of just assuming it can't be worth their time and dismissing it seemingly before I even stop talking. Then again, I gained a lot of bulk over the last year and a half, so maybe they're finally intimidated enough to stop treating me like that. Either way, fun. Some skills, apparently, just evaporate if left unpracticed. It's like my brain completely lost any juggle-related wiring and downgraded from casually dealing with four balls in high school to barely able to swap two. I found How to read a book by M.J. Adler while trawling card catalogues over weekend, and it's an honestly good guide for becoming a more demanding reader. I'm experimenting with some of the advice, like writing in my books as I read to see if it does anything (yes, I remember that post about reading with a pen), though it's still kind of a mental block against ruining it. I have some textbook on knot theory where the margins are filled with stuff that's simultaneously distractingly superficial and straight-up wrong half the time, and on a lowkey anxiety level I wouldn't want that to be the impression of me. Humorously, How to... dwells a lot and falls into reiterating same thing numerous times in slightly different contexts/complications, but I suppose it's a way of hammering the point home. Also while looking for books, I scored an eight volume, hardback series on painters, their works, and general art critique for a price of a sub sandwich. It was still in cellophane and the 'new book' smell is overwhelming despite them being about my age. The literal title would be White Man's Paintings (Malarstwo Białego Człowieka), and I'd probably leave it at that since there likely isn't a more idiomartic word for "Europe and northward of Panama." I'm in this shock-like state where time perception doesn't exist. It's usually preceeded by something bad, and having it as a standalone feeling of flow is very alien. Last time I was like that, my father died and the last three months were a blur. It's hard to disassociate the state and memory, especially when everything feels immensely absorbing.
Our patients and colleagues have moved from "I have a different opinion" to "I'm not going to discuss this" to just straight-up lying to us, fuck your consequences I gots my freedoms. Good friend of mine lost a family member not to COVID, but to an overwhelmed hospital that couldn't treat him properly because of too much COVID. Colleague is thinking of closing her facility, which has been open for 25 years, because she's got an entirely-vaccinated customer base (they're all military and have no choice in the matter) and two of her employees are Q. As of October 19, it's a gross misdemeanor for a healthcare facility to have unvaccinated employees or contractors. That's a year in jail and/or $10k in fines. She'd rather fold the practice than fight the war (yes she'd love to come down and deliver babies with us because we don't have to deal with this shit, we've got Brazilians with families full of dead people thanks to Bolsonaro this shit ain't no joke). Another colleague has been prescribing Ivermectin at 3x the therapeutic dose, 5x the therapeutic frequency, because "well there's this study." Which says "mainline Ivermectin for its anti-inflammatory properties if you're in the midst of a cytokine storm and about to die, it seems to cut mortality by 68%, what's the worst that could happen" not "megadose known teratogens as if they were fucking Vitamin C". We called three pharmacies to find out about side effects in pregnancy and all three volunteered that they're not filling Ivermectin prescriptions at the moment, they don't care if you have guinea worm it'll wait. It's like hydroxychloroquine a year ago - "Tough shit about your lupus we got freedom on the line here." We know nurses. They're now posting on FB about teenagers dying of COVID. I just finished Patrick Wyman's The Verge. He casually mentions that most of the innovations of the Renaissance were economic, and the driving force of that economic innovation was the massive redistribution of wealth brought about by the megadeath of the Bubonic Plague. Stands to reason; Tony Judt made the argument that the Long Boom was entirely due to the massive redistribution of wealth brought about by the Holocaust. Shit tons of death - - - shit tons of liquidity - - - shit tons of innovation - - - shit tons of upheaval - - - shit tons of death Black Death - - - Mercantile class - - - printing press and mercantilism - - - Protestant reformation - - - Thirty Years War Holocaust - - - Marshall Plan & Globalism - - - Space Race and the Internet - - - Facebook and Q-anon - - - ???
Capitalism survived the Economic Crisis of 2008 because everyone believed deeply in capitalism - hell, 95% of the central bank leaders in the Western World were Goldman Sachs alums. I think Xi wants Evergrande to be an example about the dangers of not living Confucianist Communism.