Some weapons work in this civil war... oh and the statues thing... and more

From perspectives across evolution and deep time, we must now veer back our current crises dividing America and the world....

== Start with our Covid-transformed politics... ==

First see the 15 times Trump publicly praised China's handling of the coronavirus. Was he lying then or is he lying now? Note that the only action that Trump points to having taken in March (there are none - zero - in January or February) is the travel ban from China, which his officials swiss-cheesed with 40,000 holes and exceptions.

Talk about a first class RTNIT (Rub Their Noses In This). And if your MAGA cries "Fake news!" repeatedly demand cash wagers to be settled before a respected neutral... some retired military officer will do nicely. See MAGA run.

But the President's Intelligence Briefing is the great big RTNIT of the week -- how often Trump was urgently warned and ignored every opportunity to get us ready. Read the article, especially how cabinet officials get an adjusted version of the PIB, so there's a paper trail to prove every bit of this.

Meanwhile, here is Joe Biden in a USAToday op-ed way back on January 27th: "The outbreak of a new coronavirus, which has already infected more than 2,700 people and killed over 80 in China, will get worse before it gets better. Cases have been confirmed in a dozen countries, with at least five in the United States. There will likely be more."

And yes, analyses show that Fox/Limbaugh watchers have swarmed in misinformation, much of it dangerous, even life-threatening. And why does no one at all confront Hannity & co with wager demands? I tell you, it works.

Don't you dare let your RASRs swallow the line of Justin Amash - till recently running for the Libertarian Party nomination - asserting that "both parties are the same and Biden is as bad as Trump." That is the stalking horse of a factotum who's been assigned the job of distracting fed-up, decent Republicans and Libertarians, to keep them from defecting all the way to the Union side of this desperate phase of our 240 year civil war.  

== They have no answer for this one ==

Every few years I come back to disprove the most persistent and insane of all political myths... that Republicans are somehow more fiscally responsible than democrats. It is not only false, but totally 100% diametrically opposite to true, ever, at any level. 

Sure I speak of the "Second Derivative of Debt." Is that arcane? Then think of the brakes and accelerator of your car. And actually think about this slide I offered just three months ago (based on the blue chart of 2016).



Then look at the new version I made today. Cram this in the face of any MAGA or RASR who claims "well Trump is insane, but Democrats will spend us into poverty!"

Better yet, make a cash bet of that hoary cliché! It... is... an... easily... disproved... lie.

== The statues thing ==

Okay this renaming thing has proceeded to demands that NASA rename its John Stennis Center. Wow. Won’t happen right away, but with Mississippi changing its flag, we sure are moving along.

But while you're at it, there's an aircraft carrier - a top US capital ship - also named for Stennis. Also the Carl Vinson. Both of them segregationists. The excuse? "Named after Democrats!" in order to offer “balance" while Republican Congresses rushed to label carriers Reagan, Bush and… Ford? Seriously? While giving LBJ - MLK’s ally who got us the Civil Rights Acts - a destroyer and Carter a sub, in order to ensure neither will ever get carriers. See where I work it out, here.

Alas, while I agree with much of this renaming trend (Bragg and Hood weren't just slavers but BAD generals!) and relish the toppling of confederate monuments to treason, I must point out that symbolism-obsession used to be a largely GOP phenomenon. It is important to a degree, after which it becomes symptomatic and counter productive. Take the toppling of a statue to... um... US Grant who did as much as any human to ensure all slaves would be freed?

Likewise the Emancipation Monument in DC. Frederick Douglass attended the opening of this memorial to Lincoln freeing the slaves. It is an even better example than the Teddy Roosevelt statue of something that was woke in its time and hated then only by racists, that appears horrific(!) to our modern eyes! The TR statue can be saved by separating the Native American and African figures - noble looking in their own right - to their own new settings commissioned from modern artists, and let the 90% decent TR stand alone.

But this Emancipation Monument, paid for by freedmen and approved by every black leader of the time? Okay, times change. Keep Lincoln, he deserves it. But take the kneeling slave to the African American Experience Museum as a cautionary tale! Commission a new version of the same fellah standing on his own! (Symbolism experts, many of them black scholars, say that is exactly what the liberated slave is doing, in the current version. But it's still cringeworthy and demeaning to our eyes.)

 In its place next to Lincoln, put up a statue to Frederick Douglass! Lincoln's equal in all ways except power and in fact the conscience who nagged and irked and pricked and drove Lincoln to finally keep his promises.

 The crux -- there is one criterion that pierces all of these arguments. Did you try hard to be better than your times? To move the arc of justice forward, despite your own blind spots and personal flaws? Each case raises interesting perspectives! Douglass himself said Lincoln's effective good deeds vastly outweighed his sin of waffling. Jefferson and Washington were guilt ridden over their own hypocricies and they did set us on the path --grinding and too-ponderous -- away from 6000 years of feudal oppression. Can you say as much?

 On the other hand, Andrew Jackson was a bastard through and through, though his cynical populism did spread the vote to poorer men. He'll be off the $20 in two years and good riddance! As for Woodrow Wilson, he did great good for democracy, self-determination and fought to create a fair international order -- and was a neo-confederate bigot who winked at the Klan. Even if a future generation rehabilitates him for the good stuff, it is our time now! This generation has a right to its priorities! And so let's rub him out of sight, for the bad stuff.

 Only now pause. Look around at things you take for granted. Use your SFnal powers to look back at them from the year 2200. 

My nomination for something we take for granted today, that those future folks - our descendants - will abhor? Something you routinely do that is - in essence - truly a terrible thing?

 I have a candidate for that evil thing you and I do, that our better descendants won't.

Gossip.

== And finally... for you splitters, out there... ==

I've offered many reasons to quash "splitters" trying to break up our coalition to save the Great Experiment. Their prissy invectives against "DNC types" are refuted overwhelmingly in FIVE rebuttals that refute every splitter rationalization. But like numbskulls of the right, they don't read. So let's simplify. If Dems win overwhelmingly, DC becomes a state. And if you don't help make that happen, then you are proved to prefer pompous posing (or helping Putin) over helping achieve citizen justice. Yes it's that simple.

So get off your butt, cut the pretentiousness and help register folks. Fight! Then complain about Biden and Pelosi in 2022, after the nation has been saved.

And heck yeah, it's part of Polemical Judo.  And if you really want better generalship in this political phase of Civil War, then get folks in high places to read that book, filled with 100+ original and effective tactics that no pundit or politician seems yet to have come up with. 

Your Corona/Covid/Covfefe sideways update

In a moment, much of interest - including startling slides - about the covid-crisis. But first: the Trumpist-Foxite war against all fact professions is zeroing in on a central goal, to crush or eliminate all of the 75 inspectors general in US agencies, for their inconvenient dedication to fact-centered professionalism. See the horrifying progress of this purge... any one incident of which would have enraged any Republican, if a Democratic President even hinted at it.

It seems vital to keep reminding this particular audience of what one of the truest Americans said - with (alas!) prophetic insight about one age-old trend among some of his countrymen:

"Throw in a Depression for good measure, promise a material heaven here on earth, add a dash of anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicism, anti-Negrosim, and a good large dose of anti-“furriners” in general and anti-intellectuals here at home, and the result might be something quite frightening – particularly when one recalls that our voting system is such that a minority distributed as pluralities in enough states can constitute a working majority in Washington."

Jiminy! Robert A. Heinlein wrote that in the early 1950s! Is there anything he did not hit right on the head? Heck, he even nailed the dominionist "Prosperity Gospel" so popular among Ted Cruz types, promising fervid followers that their "material heaven here on earth" will come by righteously seizing the property of unbelievers. 

Seriously, read his last paragraph (above) again and again to your MAGAs who might be reachable.  Then recall that Heinlein portrayed Nehemiah Scudder taking the White House against the will of a majority, in 2012. (He also spoke of America sinking into "The Crazy Years.") 

Meanwhile... winter is coming. Our latest whistleblower, former top vaccine official Rick Bright, fired by the Trump administration, recently warned Congress that the U.S. faces its "darkest winter in modern history" if it fails to develop a coordinated, effective response to the pandemic. (Late news. Bright is no longer the "latest" fired IG. Two more in just the last week,)

== Covid/covfefe update -- from our unusual angle ==

(1) There is a simple, capitalist/market solution to surging protests against “oppressive” closures of public gatherings like bars and church services. It’s called insurance. Let such groups do as they like, so long as they take out policies to remediate any subsequent outbreaks… and so long as they gather names/addresses of participants/ parishioners/ customers for contact tracing if their event endangers the public with a flareup. Note: except for random compliance audits, the state won’t get that info, only the proprietor. Also…

… if you’re so sure it’s safe, then convincing an insurance company to give reasonable rates should be a cinch, especially since many are run by Republican moguls. Hey! Don’t trust government bureaucrats? Then do it the market way! 

-- MEANWHILE…

(2) Wuhan reported no new Covid-19 cases since April 3rd*. But six new cases just emerged. So now they plan to test all 11 million people citywide in 10 days. That's what you do if you're serious about getting the virus under control and returning to modified normalcy. We (the U.S.) haven't conducted 11 million tests nationwide during this entire pandemic. 

(* With the usual caveat that you can't believe everything coming out of China)

(3) With our regular alumni reunion cancelled, Caltech posted a zoom replacement seminar day. One talk on Covid clarified some scary things. I will append below several of the slides that are frighteningly self-explanatory. Note that nearly all of the downturn in infection rates in the US is because of New York's success turning things around. Russia, India, Brazil and the U.S. are all scary. Meanwhile Florida and other states are desperately avoiding truth-telling by redefining death-attribution and reporting. It won't work. Because of those inconvenient fact-people.

(4) Two (...now five(!)...) previously “negative” sailors aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt in Guam just tested positive, upsetting every schedule to get back in operation. The first one failed to report four days having lost his sense of smell. Indications are that one's sense of smell diminishes by the third day after infection with the novel coronavirus. 

And hence... EVERYONE, SCRATCH AND SNIFF A LEMON, DAILY!

(5) Have any of you out there noticed the surge of road repair work going on? Two months (more) ago I proposed the "Pothole Solution" to under-employment while the streets are mostly empty. I guess the idea was obvious.

(6) Hey, why aren't we seeing FOOD TRUCKS roaming neighborhoods, just like the ice cream trucks of old? With flyers they could let every home know a schedule or make orders to be dropped off. Izzit happening near you?

— AND FINALLY… An astonishing number of Sars-CoV-2 (covfefe) traits have made it more insidious than the original Sars-Cov-1 (SARS). The incredibly long and highly variable asymptomatic contagious period is the main reason for its pervasive spread and why mask discipline is vital.

But other things scare me even more and make me deeply worried and (yes) a little suspicious… like evidence of nerve and kidney damage, even when the lungs are spared. And the still unknown answer to the antibody/immunity question. (Seriously? Still? Shouldn’t the recovered be volunteering en masse for hospital duties? Or be flocking to their own bars and church services and events, so we can get an answer to that vital question? Shouldn’t Elon staff his factory with the recovered?)

All those traits - plus the notorious ability of corona viruses to cause immunity amnesia - beggar the imagination when we’re asked to believe this is just an escaped bat-pangolin virus. Just sayin’.

Covid insights... but don't forget the political implications.

Alert: With oil near $0, there's no reason for a vulnerable US carrier group to be anywhere near the dangerously confined and provocative Straits of Hormuz... except to serve as a "Tonkin Gulf" trip wire. Putin needs a US-Iran war to raise both oil prices and Trump's polls. Keep an eye on this.

 == Some Covid-related flash thoughts ==

(1) ‘Might the many who have but have antibodies, but no symptoms, have been exposed through food rather than breathing?" asks Joseph Carroll. 'Attenuated, it may not reproduce fast enough to outrace immunity." We assume the virus is killed in stomach acids. But the esophagus other points of entry might offer attenuated lethality... to many, not all. Even if true, don't restart "edibles" versions of “Corona Parties” yet! Because the virus can be brutal outside the lungs, if it gains traction almost anywhere. “[It] can attack almost anything in the body [and] Its ferocity is breathtaking.”  Both views may be partly right, for some populations and some strains. 

(2) Meanwhile, this article in the South China Morning Post suggests that Covid-19's mutation rate is far higher than previously thought, with some strains - like the one attacking most of Europe and New York - being especially aggressive and deadly.

(3) And yes it's either criminal negligence or much worse. For example: the National Security Council gave Donald Trump a 69-page pandemic plan three years ago — he ignored it. Snopes has verified: “The Trump administration fired the U.S. pandemic response team in 2018 to cut costs.” And that's just one of maybe fifty culpable failures.

(And there were ignored warnings from science fiction. My Hugo-nominated story “The Giving Plague” explores our complex relationships with viruses and such, including the several paths a parasite can go down, in “negotiating” with us hosts… and yes read it for free.)

(4) The anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine Trump touted is linked to higher rates of death in VA coronavirus patients, a VA study says. Even more strongly it says "no net benefit." And yes, when combined with that antibiotic.

(5) We need right now to start massing tracking of even the non-symptomatic infected for hidden effects. We mentioned non-lung damage, above. But further, some viruses are known to have downstream effects like triggering cancers. While I doubt this... or an HIV-style immune system attack... it means "we'll get past this" merits adding a "maybe."

(6) Lots of infected/recovered folks donating plasma for experiments using serum from covid survivors to help the ill. (I wasn't able to give my 96th pint because I'm (probably) pure and uninfected! Can't have that!) Here's a summary of efforts to evaluate this possible treatment.

(7) A couple of non-covid blips: Most years I try to warn folks in March to be wary when traveling during the 3rd week of April. Nut jobs often go rampaging on 4/19 - the anniversary of the Waco Debacle and Oklahoma City bombing. And the next day is old Adolf's birthday and Columbine Day. (Why did cannabis folks choose 4/20? Were they nuts?) And now the Nova Scotia shooter. See other mid-April jolts here. And Stay safe. Beware Holnists.

Oh but the 4th week of April starts with Earth Day... now its 50th Anniversary. So take heart. And yes, Earth.

(7) Finally, a Republican-led Senate review unanimously supported the conclusion of the intelligence community that Russia interfered in the 2016 election, undercutting claims by President Trump and his allies that the findings were those of a “deep state” seeking to undermine his victory. Demand wagers from your MAGAs, now that every GOP senator agrees with the Deep State.

== The contrast that nails them ==

“Biden's Health Play In a COVID-19 Economy: Lower Medicare's Eligibility Age To 60.”  

Well, yes, that is half of my recommendation! But it's the other half that would make election-winning headlines. 

Also include all children, up to age 25! You'll gain converts from most parents in America! Then comes the capper. Include an escalator. A year after the law takes effect, the not-covered age range becomes 27-to-58... then 28-to-57... then 29-to-56... automatically. Watch how quickly insurance companies then rush to (at last) negotiate in good faith.

And even if the GOP retakes Congress (as they did in '94 and 2010) they won't dare rip this away from the nation's kids. Unlike "Medicare for all," this could easily be afforded out of just ending Supply Side voodoo. And hence, no need to rail over "How you gonna pay for it?" Since the more complex issues have been put off for later (middle aged folks stay with employer insurance or medicaid,... at first), This version could pass within one month of a new Congress sitting in session. And support would span the spectrum from AOC types to moderates to sane Republicans.  

So good for you Joe. That's a baby step toward something both truly disruptive and affordable. See more in Polemical Judo.

== Judo your way past their reflex defenses ==

It is a grievous error for democrats to leap and proclaim "deficits don't matter!" Savvy guys like Reich and Krugman have been doing this and it's a trap. A free giveaway of a choice campaign rejoinder that just reinforces an image that helps Fox hold onto working stiffs. 

Vastly better is to shout: "Republicans are the budget-busting wastrel biggest spenders! Not only do they almost ALWAYS throw away more money and increase debt faster (care to bet on it?) but they waste it on "supply side voodoo" gifts to the super rich and oligarchs and mafias....

"...At least we'd spend it on making healthy, educated children who can then compete with the rich in flat-fair-open markets. Yes Democrats would spend extra in a recession, as FDR did, but look at the states! In good times, Democrats pay down debt! No Republican does that, ever!"

Anyway, there is a reason why US conservatives and especially libertarians never mention Adam Smith, who taught the fantastic creative power of flat-fair competition. They veer away to worship Milton Friedman and “Supply Side” incantations, or Ayn Rand, or apocalypse fetishism… or sigging a playground bully, rather than face the pure fact that Adam Smith today would be a Roosevelt Democrat:

"Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all." 

          -Adam Smith, The Wealth Of Nations (1776)

== Political potpourri ==

A member of the Supreme Court Bar resigns and tells John Roberts off. Wow, on target and apropos of this era’s John Taney.

And double wow in contrast, what a deep bench of women Biden could choose a running mate. Michigan Governor Whitmer has had a lot of attention, lately. Bottoms and Duckworth and Masto offer big diversity points while being solid folks. (Duckworth also has political and veteran chops, though is from a bluest state.) I doubt Klobuchar, who does nothing to salve the left. Harris is strong on paper (and ranks #1 on this list), but yipe do her huge brains and savvy and feistiness (and racial points) make up for the sense she has knives up her sleeves, eyeing everyone in sight?

Okay, a year ago I predicted Biden-Warren. And that he'll depart after 3 years, giving her nine, after she garners some executive experience. (She has none, but is a fast learner.)

Let's be clear on the Veep Record. Democrats always pick someone who is qualified to serve as president... and who is somewhat boring. 

Republican nominees since WWII have all but once picked a living horror, a wretched "ticket balancer" who is spectacularly not-qualified, with no thought to the national consequences.

That exception? Ronald Reagan chose as running mate a fellow who - on paper - was supremely well-qualified... and who went on to be the very worst US president of the 20th Century... who set the stage for two of the worst in the history of the republic.

Want another consistent pattern? Democratic ex-presidents are manic, they spend the rest of their lives scooting around busy trying to save the world. e.g. Jimmy Carter. Republican presidents always "retire to the ranch" or golf or paint. The pattern goes back (perfectly) to Ike. 

== Twitter metrics ==

And now some other analytics that could help you convince someone about the emperor’s non-clothes…

The New York Times analyzed Trump's 11,390 tweets since becoming president, and found he praised himself 2,026 times

Stylistic variation on the Donald Trump Twitter account: A linguistic analysis of tweets posted between 2009 and 2018.

A Text Analysis of Trump's Tweets - an Online Project.

Twitter Analysis shows How Trump Tweets Differently About Nonwhite Lawmakers.

Do not let Covid distract you from what's important -- saving the Western Enlightenment Experiment and the American dynamic progress toward better horizons. This crisis should make you more determined than ever.

What to do during Cov-Fe-Fe (Covid Forced-exile From-employment). Some of you are writing fiction. Even science fiction!

First a brief historical note about the "Asian Flu" of 1957, quoting: "Maurice Hilleman, a doctor later regarded as the godfather of vaccines, in 1957 read about a nasty flu outbreak in Hong Kong that mentioned glassy-eyed children at a clinic, tipping him off that these deaths meant the next big flu pandemic.” Hilleman requested samples of the virus be shipped to U.S. drugmakers right away so they could get a vaccine ready. Though 70,000 people in the United States ultimately died, “some predicted that the U.S. death toll would have reached 1 million without the vaccine that Hilleman called for... Health officials widely credited that vaccine with saving many lives.” 

What differed then? Well, Dwight Eisenhower was a different kind of president. And the Greatest Generation admired science and expertise. And the most popular American at the time was named Jonas Salk. Make America that kind of great again.

(Read about that event and other far worse plagues from history.)

== Are some of you taking on the Great Humanican Novel? == 

While my life has changed less than most… e.g. exercising with weights instead of at the gym… I have seen a surge in news media and podcasters wanting interviews. They claim it’s for wisdom or insights about the near and farther future… but I suspect many are just bored, or need filler.

Another uptick is from folks wanting to do spec scripts based on some of my stories.* And yes, there are many fine ‘possibles’ to be found in my three collections. Someone, someday, will do “Dr. Pak’s Preschool” right and creep-out millions!  

But most prevalent in the era of Covfefe are pleas from the house-quarantined, seeking advice about writing! Both nonfiction books and (especially) science fiction stories and novels. (Ignore the slander phrase "novel-coronavirus"! They are trying to deter you!)

Yes, this happens more mildly during NaNoWriMo November (National Novel Writing Month.) Only now with greater urgency! At-minimum, it’s a more creative use of time than binge-TV and maybe a lifetime opportunity to check that item off a bucket list. And so, to those of you with an ear for dialogue and a feel for character and sense-of-story… and willingness to work hard while seeking criticism… to all of you talented up-and-comers I say –

-- to Go Away! The field is full! Have you tried jigsaw puzzles?

Um, just kidding! We’re all readers, too! And someone out there might be just on the verge of creating the Great Humanican Novel -- a tale so deeply moving it will change us all for the better. For that reason… and others… I am among the few “best-selling authors” who always responds personally to every such appeal. (I do not promise always to do that! Stephen King used to, but physically can’t anymore, alas; Nice guy, BTW.)

 Oh, sure, I have some shortcuts, like “canned advice” that I paste into most responses, using QuickKeys, before adding some bits apropos to each person. So it occurred to me. Why don’t I share that now, with all of you? 

For one thing, it might keep some of you from emailing me! (Except to say thanks and to promise me a copy of the award-winning best-seller I helped to inspire? ;-) 

More importantly, maybe some practical tools and tricks will help a few of you achieve that glimmering goal, and thus enrich us all.

== David Brin’s Canned Advice Note ==

Dear _____

Naturally I’m pleased you are writing and I do want to offer my encouragement. Still, there is good news and bad news in this modern era. The good: there are so many new ways to get heard or read or published that any persistent person can get out there.  Talent and good ideas will see the light of day!  The bad news… it is so easy to get "published," bypassing traditional channels, that millions can convince themselves "I am a published author!" without passing through the old grinding mill, in which my generation honed our skills by dint of relentless pain. 

 . . . . . . . . (Insert apropos personal note in here! ____)

Alas, fiction writing is a complex art that involves a lot of tradecraft... as it would if you took up landscape painting or silver smithing. It is insufficient simply having ideas and being skilled at nonfiction-prose, nor does a lifetime of reading stories prepare you to write them.

Story telling is incantatory magic and there are aspects to the incantation process that are mostly invisible to the incantation recipient (reader). Skills at rapid-opening, point-of-view, showing-not-telling, action, evading passive-voice and so on are achieved by studied workshopping -- and as in most arts, the whole thing is predicated upon ineffable things like talent, e.g. an ear for dialogue that only a few people have. Indeed, point-of-view (POV) is so hard that half of would be writers never "get" it, no matter how many years they put in.

This is not meant to be discouraging! It is to suggest that extensive workshopping and skill-building are as important today as they were 30 years ago.  And to do that, you need to do one of the most difficult  but rewarding things a mature human can do – relish and seek criticism.

And enjoy whatever level you reach! Seriously. Tell a story. Even give it a way (as I am virtually giving away my sci fi comedy!)
No matter what, you'll be a creator of worlds. 
A kind of deity. 
An artist.

This answer is already too long. So what I can do is point you to an "advice article" that I've posted online, containing a distillation of wisdom and answers to questions I've been sent across 20 years.  (Note, most authors never answer at all.) 

I can also offer a general site containing advice bits from other top writers.

Then there is my advice video!  

Many people have found these items extremely helpful. I hope you will. But either way, do persevere.

Good luck!

David Brin

== Anything Specific? ==

All right that was a bit vague and general. There's lots more specific advice and pointers if you follow the links. And down below in comments. If enough of you ask, I may append some very specific examples of common beginner mistakes and how to avoid them.

Beyond that, however, the adventure is yours. Enjoy. And at-risk of violating my own rule against repetition… persevere!


------

* Re spec scripts: I do require a very strong, signed release! And real experience is required. And this applies only to short fiction, not novels or series. Sorry.

Where might this all lead? Unexpected options and outcomes... and some solace.

I've been asked by so many in the press and media etc. to speculate on "what might be longer term effects of the COVID-19 crisis?" And so, for this weekend posting, let's ponder some of those answers.

Of course there are deeply sobering possibilities. Authors like Mary Shelley, Alice Sheldon, Margaret Atwood, Joanna Russ, Stephen King, Frank Herbert, John Christopher, Cormac McCarthy and even yours truly have cast their eyes to plagues far worse than this one.* Indeed, some of my own past sci fi has proved more pertinent than I’d want! My Hugo-nominated story “The Giving Plague” explores our complex relationships with viruses and such, including several paths a parasite can go down, in “negotiating” with us hosts. 

We'll return to that topic. But for a moment, let’s take a pragmatically optimistic turn. 

== Things we could do now, if we had leadership ==

Earlier I made a modest suggestion for what cities across America and the world might do, to maintain some employment and solve real problems, while our streets are mostly empty. The “Pothole Gambit” proposed that we send out scores of 2-person teams to fill potholes, repair empty schools, etc. Risk to the crews would be minimal, if they take basic precautions, and paychecks would flow. This could be done even before testing is widely available.

This kind of selective-contingent thinking leads further to an almost sci fi extension. Once the U.S. has rapid, effective and plentiful COVID-19 tests (as we should and could have had, two months ago) then why not let companies re-open some factories etc., putting back to work employees who have already gone through their exposure to the virus and the following latency period, whether symptomatic or not? 

Picture a scenario. Elon Musk rents the Pebble Beach Golf Club in order to test and ease-in staff for his Tesla factory... If that works, expand the experiment. Eventually, some restaurants might even bring in Covid-positive staff to serve an only-Covid-positive clientele. 

Sure, one should always look ahead to secondary consequences; would healthy folks in their 20s then deliberately hold COVID Parties, in order to get it over with? I don't recommend this, as it's dangerous for the rest of us... and for an unknown few of those youths(!)... that is unless resort hotels rented themselves out to let this happen while young "invulnerables" stay away from their older relatives? (Envision those 1980s “herpes dating clubs.”)

The same sort of thing could happen for Covid-negatives (though only with much better quick-testing.) Companies might wind up having pairs of offices or twin plants engaged in friendly rivalry, like those in that commercial, that produce the left vs. right halves of Twix bars.  

Or else trade-off and pick-a-side? Envision Disneyland open for positives and Universal for negatives? 

Extrapole some more! "Sectors" of cities divide-up just like in some sci fi flick! ("You're from ZONE TWO? Get away from me!")  Heck let's go beyond the obvious Romeo & Juliet riff. Maybe we'll speciate... !

...no no, forget that last part. Sorry. Professional habit. But the first part seems quite do-able in a gradual and incremental way. 

Note that these two factors are mutually dependent. The Separation Workforce gambit cannot possibly work without cheap, rapid and massively available and accurate testing. And massive testing can only happen if we augment our public services by puttin the immune or semi-immune to work.

Indeed, had Donald Trump pushed to deploy massive testing, instead of sabotaging it at every turn, we'd by now not only have the data we need to fight the pandemic better. We'd also possibly be positioned to implement this positive-negative plan and rescue "his economy." 

== Okay, Earth to Brin. Come back down now... ==

Let's get practical, then. I’m sure you’ve seen reports that an early harbinger of COVID illness is loss of the sense of smell. 

This suggests a mass experiment that would produce useful data while having zero possible deleterious side effects. If everyone simply scratches and sniffs a lemon, three times daily, the minimum outcome will be cheering up the nation a bit! (Try it now! Go on. I'll wait... And now, aren't your spirits lifted just a little?)

 And if thousands note the time span between not smelling anything and other symptoms, that could be significant data! Is a mass experiment with zero conceivable negative outcomes worth encouraging? (And  doubly necessary, since some doubt has been cast on this "smell test." after all. Can it hurt to check it out?)

== Longer term effects? ==

Technological changes: Assuming the grip of lunacy is pried off of federal government... or even if we have to rely on real leadership from California and New York... there will be a Manhattan Project level push to reduce the ramp-up time for testing kits and vaccines. (Side-bet: this may involve human-animal chimeras to shorten the pathway to antibody discovery and deployment.)

Business meetingware and work-from-home software has been predicted for decades and languished due to managerial reluctance. These will advance rapidly. But I predict also a real estate boomlet in small scale satellite offices, where employees will spend at least part of each day being personally supervised, so their work-at-home hours can be kept effective. This “sweet spot” might reduce rush hour traffic, but also strain middle management.

Expect a revival of Obama-era push for nationwide broadband, as has proved so useful in South Korea and Taiwan. There's a constituency now, for sure. 

Infrastructure. It goes far beyond potholes and school repairs. Democrats have demanded major programs to rebuild bridges etc while improving the quality (vs. quantity) of jobs and increasing money velocity. Republicans - while speaking the "I-Word" have blocked all such endeavors. All of this changes in a major recession, of course. Expect partisan gridlock to break in this one area.

Transportation. The shift to Uber/Lyft style ride services will boom, short term. But also mid-scale van/jitney services in big cities… followed by a big push for self-driving taxis. But underground metros may not be finished. Today’s filthy subway trains could be supplanted by smaller, more efficient cars that shunt between lines and report in regularly for disinfecting.

Social effects: It wall take more than COVID to end the personal handshake, but those pretentious European three-cheek air-kisses may be finished. Elbow greetings won’t last! But the fist-bump is likely the big winner, over time, as a compromise that's about 75% sanitary/safe and good enough for the new -- post-COVID -- normal. (My preference? I like the Roman style fore-arm clasp.)

Of course, many are already commenting and speculating on possible effects upon birth rates, divorce rates, domestic violence and so on. I guess we'll find out.

As usual, those suffering most are the poor and working stiffs. Even if they keep a job and can manage the financial strain, families are stressed out in cramped quarters with many ensuing problems. While supporting actions to help, somehow we must encourage such folks to do one thing to make a difference. Vote.

Epidemiology extends beyond just raging viruses. Will we discover that other chains of cause and effect were broken by cities and states and nations semi-shut down? Certainly not the "viral" effects of rumors and faux-news, which have electronic vectors. But the precipitate drop in traffic accidents may have side effects. Are there contagions of wide variety that we never noticed before, because they were part of the background noise of urban life?

And yes, some foresee all this accelerating the exodus of the uber-rich, abandoning us to simmer in festering cities and suburbs. Certainly there is a “prepper” wing of oligarchy that’s bought up whole mountain ranges in Patagonia, Siberia and under the sea. I portrayed that sick mind set in The Postman and in Earth and in Existence. And of course the smarter half of the zillionaire caste wants no part of such insanity. Nor will all their preparations avail the selfishness fetishists an iota, even if the fit truly hits the shan. There are five reasons why this masturbatory survivalist fantasy is utter proof of mental defectiveness.

Reason number six: we could sure use all hands on deck, right now. And we’ll remember which ones helped, or wallowed in apocalypse fantasies. Oh, however things go down, we will remember each and every one of you.

== Artistic Solace ==

Was that lemon sniff helpful? 

Well maybe I can add a little wry comfort. 

I last posted about this during the "bird flu" mini-crisis in May 2006. 

But it's never seemed more apropos.

In December 1979, NPR ran an evening show called "Unpacking the Eighties" which had some very clever riffs, including a song about the terrible flu we'd all get, around the far-future date of 1986... Alas, in this age when nothing is supposedly ever lost or un-findable, I can't sniff out any trace of this masterpiece!** Still, I'll manage to share something, with a nod to an unknown genius.

Here's a riff I remember by heart... except for parts I made up, in order to fill in gaps:

IT’S A VIRUS

Back in the Pleistocene,
When we were still marine,
a virus launched a quest
to be the perfect guest
And re-arranged our genes.

So to this very day,
Whether you grok or pray,
all your inheritors
count on those visitors
And what they make you pay.

REFRAIN

It’s a virus,
It inspired us,
to rise above the mud.
It’s a virus,
It’s desirous,
of your very flesh and blood.

Now I know your body’s burning,
But don’t give up the ghost.
Tiny viruses are turning you
Into the perfect host.

... 

Though you may curse microbes
who make you blow your nose,
evolution bends
to what a virus sends,
making us recompose.

Though when you least expect
You may be struck down next,
thank the virus, he
put us in misery,
But then he gave us sex!

.

It’s a virus,
Its inspired us,
to rise above the mud.
It’s a virus,
It’s desirous,
of your very flesh and blood.

Now I know your body’s burning,
But don’t give up the ghost.
Tiny viruses are turning you
Into the perfect... 

                        ...host.


Persevere. Endure...

================

*The Last Man, The Screwfly Solution, The Handmaid’s Tale, The Female Man, The Stand, The White Plague, No Blade of Grass, The Road, The Postman.... and so many others.

** I think the artist was named "Jesse" something, but can't be sure.