This article does a very good job of pointing out what we should have seen coming, but I disagree with the conclusion. I don’t think it takes any sort of specialized ‘complex systems’ thinking to observe the actions China was taking and realize that soon everyone would be in the same situation. I think the problem was simpler – people have a hard time imagining that the world is going to change very quickly, or that something will affect them. You see the same thing with a lot of risk taking.
This tweet chain: is a good summary of what it was like to experience the evolving situation at Slack, a company we and many others use for chat and videoconferencing. There is competition at Hopjump between Slack and Zoom. There are a few macbooks that won’t run Slack calls with a mic, and Zoom offers hilarious backgrounds. But we all already use slack and it removes the overhead of notifying people that the call is starting, distributing the link, etc. I suppose this is the sort of problem an IT department would solve by A) mandating it’s favorite be used and B) fixing everyone’s computer, but we where caught at an especially inopportune time when we’d just engaged an IT services provider. Let’s keep this theme of articles going. This hefty think piece puts the whole situation in an interesting perspective.
is there any benefit to reading all of this, at this point? We’re already doing what we can by avoiding all human contact. We don’t need further convincing. At some point there have to be diminishing returns. I can’t believe this week is already over.
Let’s instead talk entertainment. Nine Inch nails released new Ghosts this week, can’t wait to listen to it. Tiger King (Netflix) is absolutely bonkers, like /r/unsolvedmysteries meets /r/hobbydrama. It’s got a cast of zany, homicidal characters who are all accusing each other of larger than life crimes. I finished the cover for an EP-type thing and I’ll probably drop it next week. I finished painting another 40k miniature.