Many Americans bemoan the normalcy before the lockdown prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Until we can get back to normalcy, however, we can do all the things that make America America by using technology.
American Exceptionalism: Pandemic Edition
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The Final Countdown" talk show on Radio Sputnik. He is a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "2024: Revisited."
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Heil Artificial Intelligence !!!
You though COVID/19-caused unemployment was bad?!?
Right on Falco
Fewer people doing the same job and job slashing tech are going into overdrive:
The Feds are not bailing out the states, so they need to save money. Here come teaching cuts, triple on line class size, close and sell off some the schools to save money.
De Voss and the private school promoters will push harder for vouchers: pick them or the budget slashed public option.
More zoom meetings less need for airlines, rental cars, hotels, restaurants. More at home work, less need for office buildings, less need for pricey homes or rentals, move out to lower prices. High rent cities will have to slash their workforce and pensions.
Self driving car makers will point all benefits robo cars if another pandemic hits, never mind all the unemployed drivers and the accidents caused by a shortened approval process
Are you ready for robo uber and lyft
How about robo postal and package delivery
Then comes 18 wheelers with software in the drivers seat and robo buses (they started those two projects before C-19).
Software reading your medical test and diagnosing your conditions.
The list goes on and on…..the 21 century looks to be a mess for workers
Speaking of pandemics. …
Here in New York City, based on my admittedly unscientific sampling, about a third of all the people I encountered last week weren’t wearing their masks correctly (down around your neck or not covering your nose is like locking the front door but leaving the windows wide open). This week? It’s gone up to almost 50% of the people I’m counting not wearing those masks right.
New York isn’t even CLOSE to herd immunity levels and, apparently, we’re gonna be reopening any day now.
This leaves me concerned. How are the police gonna murder black men when we re-enter lockdown for an even longer period this time? Murder via Zoom just doesn’t perk up your nipples like the in-person act does. Won’t someone think of the pigs?
What I fail to understand, Ted, is why a country that is so proud of being «exceptional», not to say «indispensable» is so concerned about spreading its way of doing things to the rest of the world. Or is it precisely that which renders it so «exceptional» and «indispensable» ?…
Henri
It’s called the McKinley improvement on the Monroe Doctrine: the US must guarantee freedom for every country. In Iran in ’53, Mosaddegh stole the British oil, and the Brits asked Ike to fix it, and Ike did, replacing the Commie dictator Mosaddegh with the Shah who returned all the oil to its rightful owners: US oil companies. Then, in ’73, the Shah was far worse than Mosaddegh when he stole the American oil. So the US must bring democracy to Iran with an honest leader who’ll let America have all their own oil back. Ditto Venezuela, where the Commie Chávez stole American oil and Guidó promised to give it all back, so the US is trying hard to replace the Commie dictator with the honest, democrat Guidó. & etc.
Thanks, Michael – thanks to your concrete examples, at long last I understand Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz’s doctrine that all is for the best dans le meilleur des mondes possibles. I must confess that I previously had some doubts…. 😉
Henri
Don’t worry, Henri. There’s an operation to remove all doubt. You won’t be very interesting to talk to afterward, assuming you ever relearn how to speak after the lobotomy, but you will be considered a safe asset of the parentland. (HR demands that we use gender-neutral terms whenever possible.)