Random thoughts post `Land of Confusion'.

There is so much conflicting information about it is hard to tell what's right, from stupid. 

All of this is compounded by the fact that we now live in an attention economy, which is effectively a time acquisition economy. The whole point of the world inside cyber is to ream your pockets. However, with such easy access to information and such ease with which you can produce passable information, or agenderise it to polarise or advertise, you just don't know which way to jump.

It is an uncertain time and opacity seems to be the norm, so everything ìs opaque, regardless of facts that are just in the mix. Add to that uncomfortable truths or comforting lies and it just becomes a total mess.

Part of me thinks that binning off Social Media completely is the answer because trying to narrow your purview to mitigate rage just puts you in a bubble or an echo chamber, and that isn't healthy, so the best bet is just a position of ignorance is bliss outside.

How does anyone make a sensible decision? And is the actual biggest worry: Getting into an argument on Facebook? Because we're all just confused? And really and truly Social Media is where we all vent, so it's tense, but I'm not sure it's as tense out in the UK at large. Elsewhere I have no clue. I haven't left the country for over a year, so I haven't seen our nearest neighbour countries, to know if they are; nowhere near as tense either.

We've been mushroomed from all sides, be they politicians, pundits, agitators, vested interests, the media (including the stuff we add) everyone's had a go, even us.

As a world, we all need some headspace and a bit of calm and kindness. And the obligatory, time. However, try getting a consensus on that as an idea.

Covid 19 lab leak hypothesis

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-covid-lab-leak-theory-is-looking-increasingly-plausible?fbclid=IwAR3kSfdFeXTrec4Vy-U7C1wZHiva-v9g28aG4yKvyzndPUbtggFDu4USIzE

A linked Spectator article written by Matt Ridley (blog link here https://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/ ) who has written numerous articles about the progression and evolution of the SARS Covid-19 situation since the emergence of the virus in 2020.

My limited thoughts on the lab leak hypothesis below.

I think from the reaction of the CCP, at the start (in hindsight now). Is that they didn't actually know how mutative Covid-19 was, but suspected it could jump in many different directions depending on the human host affected. 

The CCP was caught on the hop, just the same as the rest of us, and by the time they had finished trying against the odds to suppress the virus and information regarding the virus, it was too late. 

They tried to spin too many plates.

And as our author above has pointed in previous articles; the various ways we have tried to tackle the virus has taught it new tricks. So now the whole world forevermore is going to have to live with a viral pathogen that is transmissible in enclosed spaces where crowds gather. 

The good things (depending on your perspective), is that it's not deadly to most people; which is no comfort to all those people who have lost loved ones. And will be no comfort for anyone who now approaches the last quarter of life, or has an ongoing chronic health condition (fingers crossed the vaccine will mitigate the risk). And I suppose the other useful thing that has been discovered and early on, is this ability to learn new tricks, as it has in long-term patients treated with convalescent plasma, which means that scientists can possibly keep pace with the changes.

The issue or issues with the CCP overall and how it's dealt with, and how it deals with the 6 billion other souls external to its citizens in the world is an entirely separate matter. 

The Chinese people can't be punished for the mistakes of the regime. But the regime needs to take a very long hard look at itself if it wants to stay as the worlds 2nd superpower. Because there are other large emerging economies, Brazil and Mexico, never mind the traditional industrial centres in the west, that could with the right motivation reclaim manufacturing and stall the rise of China. And we can only hope that the top of the CCP realises it, and doesn't dig in any further.

Defund the BBC

I genuinely don't see the point of the BBC anymore.

For every radio station, there is an individual newsroom, for each of those newsrooms there is a subset of reporters, and for each of those newsrooms, there is a different slant on the same stories. The important point being that they are the same stories, the narrative being shaped is the same but clearly at different demographic points.

It is social engineering, not news. Because news is at its core facts about the world and those facts don't change. Therefore re-shaping the way the facts are presented has nothing to do with the facts themselves and everything to do with shaping opinion across as broad a sweep of the entire population as possible.

Underlying this is the cost to us, to replicate the same main news service six or seven (probably more) times (never mind the news channel itself, and then all the regional programmes). I've done the experiment in the mornings, and programed in the four primary radio stations and then flicked through the news, the variation in the facts is minimal, just the presentation changes.

So one simple change: A single radio newscast fed to all stations at the same time would save hundreds of thousands if not millions of pounds. The excuse that they will lose the engagement of the younger generation if they make news too highbrow is bogus. When we were kids the news was the news, there was one flavour. And likewise, the argument that if the news is made too lightweight they will lose engagement from the older generation is equally spurious, and at all points in between depending on the station.

You only have to flick to Al Jazeera at 10pm, to realise the narrow band of news you are being fed. The BBC is rotten to the core and no matter how much it tries to self-flagellate itself in the wake of the latest scandal to try and make it appear like it's going to change, it simply won't, it's just more smoke and mirrors. There will be a noisy kerfuffle for a bit, some talking heads will vomit platitudes, time will pass, people will forget, BAU. It's the same pattern time and again.

Brave New World

 

This is truer now than ever before, and more so as automatons kill weeds in fields, drive tractors, irrigators (see link below ), pick goods in warehouses, make cars, pick-load-CNC and then package things. As we make ourselves redundant, we then look for new things to do, new roles to fulfil our lives. We lack direction and meaning because we are told that without working for forty hours a week our lives are meaningless.

You may argue that in the developing and third world these things and ideas are luxuries they can ill afford. However, the simple question is: If those people in developing economies lack employment now, will they ever find a place for people to do jobs in the future? 

I would suggest, no.

At the top of the pyramid `The Man' decides to buy a few 24/7/365 machines that require minimal human input just for programming and maintenance. And an entire economy leapfrogs, in one bound past all those willing but idle hands, with their demands for pay, rights, fair treatment, pensions. Will it solve the problem of those populations? Probably not, if you confine your thinking to the way we work now. However, if you think about Universal Basic Income, and driving the stress of the grind out of your life. Would you then find that people are more content, less fractious, less likely to be forced into creating progeny they can't afford financially, but need anyway, to preserve their genetic stock and family name?

It sounds a little utopian, and it's a way off anyway, but I would argue that it's inevitable and that the sooner we embrace living rather than existing, the sooner we will be a happier species.

https://www.igus.co.uk/info/laser-robots-for-farming

Fitness returning slowly

 A few weeks back I said I was going to have to get back on the fitness horse and try to get back in shape after an injury. 

Well, I've mostly done it. It wasn't easy for the first couple of weeks, it was still cold, windy and dark. I kept on wondering if I was trying to regain some sense of youth long since gone, and if on balance I'd be far better off taking things a bit easier and slowing down? I can't. Is the simple response. I think I have a crossed wire or some sort of shortcircuit that overrides this fantasy of sitting back and ageing gracefully. I simply can't and even if I try, I just end up anxious like a wasp trapped in a jar. All jokes aside, I rather suspect that there is some underlying syndrome that pushes me, sometimes, even when I shouldn't be pushing. However, I would also strongly suspect that there is a genetic component to this syndrome because my dad was the same as is my younger brother.

I started with little steps, I had a week of back and forth with my surgery trying to get them to see things from my perspective and was fortunate enough to speak to a doctor, who could see from my bloodwork that the diet that supports my `general' lifestyle strongly suggested that I do usually keep myself in a reasonable state of fitness. He suggested a month-long course of Naproxen to settle my tennis elbow, assist the lumbar spine in settling down and to dull of the injury to the intercostal muscles. It's one of those daft situations that you look at retrospectively and think `idiot'. I had no idea you could take a month-long course of Naproxen, if I had, I think I would have requested it, never mind.

I let the medication do its work for a few days, and then did some test walks. Over the course of maybe a fortnight I extended my range from three-hundred-and-sixty odd PACES (maybe 400mtrs) out to 800mtrs and then in a few more days to just over 4k. This said, it was in only one direction and Amanda picked me up a couple of times, as the walks back home would have resulted in too much the disk-compression and subsequent sciatica.

As soon as I had the walking legs back, I decided a few short test cycles would be sensible. The first time back on the bike was an eye-opener. By the time I had pedalled from our house to the main road I was breathless, my legs were ruined and I thought I'd have to go home... but, that isn't the way I'm made, so I pushed on. Through the lens of hindsight, it wasn't one of my best ideas. I cycled into town, 2.4k thinking the wind would be behind me on the way home, not realising because I'd been far too deep in thought and apprehension at the start, to notice the wind was at my back on the way into town, and therefore in my face all the way home. By the time I'd realised my mistake I was committed to the route home which is 3.4k, and is very exposed, and with the wind in my face for at least two-thirds of the distance. That cycle ride became a test of endurance in spite of the relatively short distance. The important thing is I made it home and my back didn't complain, but I did have secondary neuropathy and spasmodic cramps in the left leg.

A couple of days later I could barely move, I felt fluey and exhausted, but also very satisfied. since that day and throughout I've kept up a fairly regular routine of walks and cycles, and for those two activities, I can say with reasonable certainty I have my cardio-vascular fitness back. I'm basing my current workouts around the principles of HIT (High-Intensity Training) to maximise impacts in a short amount of time, but also because cycling fifty miles in a day is practically impossible for me nowadays. The short cycles, lunges and squats are enough for maintenance. There is a but coming... swimming pools reopen on the 12th of April 2021. I suspect that while the underlying cardio-vascular fitness will help. The actual swim fitness will be a problem. I don't think it will be insurmountable, but I do think it's going to take some effort because the truth is that while I had the Naproxen to settle my various aches and pains down. I took the opportunity that the medication provided to crack on down in the shed, finishing my work benchs, and starting a bed renovation project. The upshot is that I had to make a choice between, manual work or weights and upper-body work. I plumbed for manual work so I could have somewhere to work as the summer waxes. The downside is that for the first time in, I don't know how long? Maybe ten years, I have moobs where previously I had pecks, and it's a similar story for biceps and triceps; they have all faded. So in terms of the main swimming engines -things could be better- but we'll see. I do have some very useful working space, and as I said a couple of months back. I enjoy the rebuild process in some slightly masochistic way.

Final note, on Easter Monday Amanda and I went off to Holford Coombe for a low-level walk (I'd estimate 200mtrs max elevation... nothing really, but with decent views, and lots of spring bird-song). We were out for four hours, it was easy enough on the legs, the breathing was a bit raggedy, but overall I was chuffed. That little goal of walking on the Quantcks being achieved and before summer has given me quite a boost.