#i suspect that AI will be so embedded into everything at that point

[whentherewerebicycles]

ok more AI thoughts sorry i'm tagging them if you want to filter. we had a team meeting last week where everyone was raving about this workshop they'd been to where they learned how to use generative AI tools to analyze a spreadsheet, create a slide deck, and generate their very own personalized chatbot. one person on our team was like 'yeah our student workers are already using chatGPT to do all of their assignments for us' and another person on our team (whom i really respect!) was like 'that's not really a problem though right? when i onboard my new student workers next year i'm going to have them do a bunch of tasks with AI to start with to show them how to use it more effectively in their work.' and i was just sitting there like aaaaa aaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaa what are we even doing here.

here are some thoughts:

yes AI can automate mundane tasks that would've otherwise taken students longer to complete. however i think it is important to ask: is there value in learning how to do mundane tasks that require sustained focus and careful attention to detail even if you are not that interested in the subject matter? i can think of many times in my life where i have needed to use my capacity to pay attention even when i'm bored to do something carefully and well. and i honed that capacity to pay attention and do careful work through... you guessed it... practicing the skill of paying attention and doing careful work even when i was bored. like of course you can look at the task itself and say "this task is meaningless/boring for the student, so let's teach them how to automate it." but i think in its best form, working closely with students shares some things with parenting, in that you are not just trying to get them through a set list of tasks, you are trying to give them opportunities to develop decision-making frameworks and diverse skillsets that they can transfer to many different areas of their lives. so I think it is really important for us to pause and think about how we are asking them to work and what we are communicating to them when we immediately direct them to AI.

i also think that rushing to automate a boring task cuts out all the stuff that students learn or absorb or encounter through doing the task that are not directly tied to the task itself! to give an example: my coworker was like let's have them use AI to review a bunch of pages on our website to look for outdated info. we'll just give them the info that needs to be updated and then they can essentially use AI to find and replace each thing without having to look at the individual pages. to which i'm like... ok but let's zoom out a little bit further. first of all, as i said above, i think there is value in learning how to read closely and attentively so that you can spot inaccuracies and replace them with accurate information. second of all, i think the exercise of actually reviewing things closely with my own human eyes & brain can be incredibly valuable. often i will go back to old pages i've created or old workshops i've made, and when i look at them with fresh eyes, i'm like ohh wait i bet i can express this idea more clearly, or hang on, i actually think this example is a little more confusing and i've since thought of a better one to illustrate this concept, or whatever. a student worker reading through a bunch of pages to perform the mundane task of updating deadlines might end up spotting all kinds of things that can be improved or changed. LASTLY i think that students end up absorbing a lot about the organization they work for when they have to read through a bunch of webpages looking for information. the vast majority of students don't have a clear understanding of how different units within a complex organization like a university function/interact with each other or how they communicate their work to different stakeholders (students, faculty, administrators, parents, donors, etc.). reading closely through a bunch of different pages -- even just to perform a simple task like updating application deadlines -- gives the student a chance to absorb more knowledge about their own unit's inner workings and gain a sense of how its work connects to other parts of the university. and i think there is tremendous value in that, since students who have higher levels of navigational capital are likely to be more aware of the resources/opportunities available to them and savvier at navigating the complex organization of the university.

i think what this boils down to is: our culture encourages us to prize efficiency in the workplace over everything else. we want to optimize optimize optimize. but when we focus obsessively on a single task (and on the fastest, most efficient way to complete it), i think we can really lose sight of the web of potential skills to be learned and knowledge or experience to be gained around the task itself, which may seem "inefficient" or unrelated to the task but can actually be hugely important to the person's growth/learning. idk!!! maybe i am old man shouting at cloud!!! i am sure people said this about computers in the workplace too!!! but also WERE THEY WRONG??? I AM NOT SURE THEY WERE!!!!

and i have not even broached the other part of my concern which is that if we tell students it's totally fine to use AI tools in the workplace to automate tasks they find boring, i think we may be ceding the right to tell them they can't use AI tools in the classroom to automate learning tasks they find boring. like how can we tell them that THIS space (the classroom) is a sacred domain of learning where you must do everything yourself even if you find it slow and frustrating and boring. but as soon as you leave your class and head over to your on-campus job, you are encouraged to use AI to speed up everything you find slow, frustrating, and boring. how can we possibly expect students to make sense of those mixed messages!! and if we are already devaluing education so much by telling students that the sole purpose of pursuing an education is to get a well-paying job, then it's like, why NOT cheat your way through college using the exact same tools you'll be rewarded for using in the future job that you're going to college to get? ughhhhhhHHHHHHHHHHh.

[otterskin]

Inverted Mobius, Mr. Tesseract and The Avatar of Truth

The mystery of the weird collar has deepened, thanks to @nebulousfishgills​ - by which I mean they totally solved it.

To those just joining me, I noticed this in my previous breakdown of the Loki trailer here.

Mr. Mobius, played by Owen Wilson, has an ‘inverted suit’. His collar is an indentation in his suit, rather than going on top of it.

So, first, a scene from Endgame that I seriously did think of when we learned there was a character called ‘Mobius M. Mobius’ in Loki (played by Owen Wilson). And yet I didn’t put this together. Thanks again to nebulousfish for making me realize that these things might not be coincidences.

When Mr. Stark is inventing time travel, he asks his AI to create a depiction of a Mobius Strip, inverted.

Which gets him this:

Anyway, what is a Mobius Strip, and who is Mobius M. Mobius? (Not to be confused with Morbius the Living Vampire, though wouldn’t it be funny if he was mistaken for Mobius M. if this show gets big first?)

I am not a quantum theorist or comic book aficionado by trade, so let’s do a Wikipedia-Fu on it.

In mathematics, a Möbius strip, band, or loop (US: /ˈmoʊbiəs, ˈmeɪ-/ MOH-bee-əs, MAY-, UK: /ˈmɜːbiəs/;[1]German: [ˈmøːbi̯ʊs]), also spelled Mobius or Moebius, is a surface with only one side (when embedded in three-dimensional Euclidean space) and only one boundary curve. The Möbius strip is the simplest non-orientable surface.

An example of a Möbius strip can be created by taking a strip of paper and giving one end a half-twist, then joining the ends to form a loop; its boundary is a simple closed curve which can be traced by a single unknotted string. Any topological space homeomorphic to this example is also called a Möbius strip, allowing for a very wide variety of geometric realizations as surfaces with a definite size and shape. For example, any rectangle can be glued left-edge to right-edge with a reversal of orientation. Some, but not all, of these can be smoothly modeled as surfaces in Euclidean space. A closely related, but not homeomorphic, surface is the complete open Möbius band, a boundaryless surface in which the width of the strip is extended infinitely to become a Euclidean line.A half-twist clockwise gives an embedding of the Möbius strip which cannot be moved or stretched to give the half-twist counterclockwise; thus, a Möbius strip embedded in Euclidean space is a chiral object with right- or left-handedness. The Möbius strip can also be embedded by twisting the strip any odd number of times, or by knotting and twisting the strip before joining its ends.

A Möbius strip does not self-intersect but its projection in 2 dimensions does.

Uh....right. Well, that clears everything up, doesn’t it?

Let’s crib off someone else’s work. Thanks to Thomas Wong on Medium, I was able to understand this a little better.

A Möbius strip is just a strip of paper, turned and taped together. It it only has one side, so an ant walking along the strip eventually returns to where he started. If we metaphorically interpret the ant, not as returning to a point in space, but a point in time, then it alludes to time travel.

...

As previously discussed, after a measurement, the quantum mixture (half born and half never born) becomes a definite state (born or never born). Finding the “spectral decomposition” is to find all the possible energies (eigenvalues) and states. Using these, one can determine how a quantum object evolves with time.

Combining this with the metaphoric interpretation of the Möbius strip, it could be that Stark found how to make quantum objects evolve such that they revisit a point in time, hence time travel.

Okay, that’s a little easier to understand. So how does this relate to the character Mobius M. Mobius, aside from him being named after the strip and the (apparently antiquated) ideas about time travel?

Well, he was based on Marvel Comics Legend Mark Gruenwald, a guy known for his passion for the lore of the comics, which he knew in innate detail. He even wrote the Official Handbooks and whatnot. Likewise, Mr. Mobius is a stickler for detail and one of the few members of the TVA even allowed a face - although it is off the rack, as he’s one an infinite number of clones (god I love the TVA so much already, it’s heaven for a Douglas Addams fan like me).

Despite being a clone, he rose through the ranks and is nearly the top guy, serving only underneath Mr. Alternity (and I am not familiar with these comics so feel free to correct me). Mr. Alternity has almost no comics history, but is based on editor Tom Brevoort.

There are several other misters, all of them near-identical to ‘Moby’. Mr. Orobourous, Mr. Paradox, Mr. Tesseract (!) and Mr. Oburos. They are also minor characters, but let’s look at all these names.

Clearly they are named after quantum theories of some-sort or another.

Mr. Mobius: Mobius Strip Theory - the idea that, essentially, is about the shape of time itself and the theory of traveling along that shape.

Mr. Alternity : Alternative universes

Mr. Ouroboros: A divine figure representing the beginning and the end of time in an endless cycle of death and rebirth.

Mr. Oburos - I’m not sure, but I think this is a variant of Ouroboros. 

Mr. Paradox - Temporal paradox, causal loops - ex. The Grandfather Paradox

Mr. Tesseract - An object that exists in 4 dimensions. Time is often called the fourth dimension.

Obviously that last one is interesting, considering how the Tesseract will be the start of our adventure. The Cosmic Cube was renamed for the MCU, and in the comics has no relation to this minor character.

But what if it now does?

What if Tony has caused a change in the very appearance of Mr. Mobius when he inverted the Mobius Strip - literally inverting his clothing because he changed the shape of the Mobius - does that mean that these seemingly human-looking misters are in fact some sort of avatars for aspects of time itself? And if Mr. Tesseract is representative of how space and time intersect in the fourth dimension, wouldn’t a rogue god twisting space and time with the device that shares his name cause him some affect? Perhaps why the TVA noticed something was amiss to begin with.

This would be a departure from the comics, but the characters have almost no history there. They are ripe for new ideas.

Or, then again, since Loki will be working for the TVA - perhaps he’s the one who becomes ‘Mr. Tesseract’?

But continuing with that ‘Avatar of Aspects’ idea, let’s get away from this sausagefest for a second and visit my next newest favourite character -

I’m guessing she’s one of the Justices of the TVA. What gives it away? The imperious look, the giant oaken table, or the fact that I’m suddenly self-conscious when she looks at me? It’s the last one, of course. She’s a natural judge.

Of the named TVA judges, there’s :

Justice Goodwill, Justice Hope, Justice Liberty, Justice Love, Justice Might, Justice Mills, Justice Peace and Justice Truth.

Could they also possibly be avatars of their respective aspects?

If I had to guess, I’d say this is Justice Truth, as pairing up Loki with an avatar of Truth seems like it’d be a smashing good time, similar to how he was paired with Verity Willis in the comics. She might even be a composite character with Verity.

Verity’s power is detecting and seeing through all lies and illusions. I think this powerset will be given to Justice Truth, except instead of deriving it from a magic ring that she swallowed, she’d simply be the actual ‘Embodiment of Truth’ - and let’s get real here, when I said ‘Avatars of Aspects’, I was using that clunky phrase because the more obvious one - God of - is already ‘taken’. So Justice Truth may well be the ‘God of Truth’, as it were.

I think she’ll end up in something of a buddy-comedy with Loki, giving him someone to bounce off against who literally cuts through his carefully crafted veneer.

I’m reminded of a great quote from Taika Waititi when he was talking about what he wanted to do with Loki in Ragnarok:

“(He’s) someone who tries so hard to embody this idea of the tortured artist, this tortured, gothy orphan...It’s too tiring trying to be like that,” he says. “And, most humans, we get over ourselves, we get to that point where we’re like, ‘man, being a tortured artist is actually, like, a lot of work. Maybe I should just be real and present, and just be me, and I don’t have to be a tortured artist to be interesting, I can just be a f*cking weird New Zealander and that’s enough.”

...I think Taika is a living Loki, tbh, ha ha. No wonder he gets it.

Waititi, Yost, Pearson and Kyle did great work to cut through Loki’s illusions, both with dialogue and the visual allegory of his projections being dispelled by handy thrown objects, culminating in the very sweet ‘I’m here,’ scene at the end of the film. Loki seems to be much more open and expressive at the end of that film, and it seems like a weight has lifted off his shoulders.

But while this new Loki (Loki 2.0? Loki’s Show’s Loki? Loki II? Lokii? Lokii.) is shown a clip show of Ragnarok (one I previously theorized will be deliberately incomplete), that’s quite different from actually experiencing it, and he’ll be as performative as he was in Avengers and Thor 2. Instead of processing that ‘lack of presence’ as he did in Ragnarok, which came about as a result of Thor finally seeing through Loki’s illusions (guess he doesn’t fall for it anymore) as a result of their long history together, I suspect the band-aid will be torn off much more harshly by a total stranger who nonetheless simply sees through him.

Loki in general has a bad relationship with the truth (see the famous Vault Confrontation scene), and literally putting him on trial before the Truth Herself would certainly be enough to get him to switch from this phony expression:

To this one:

That’s not much of a facade there.

It’s not the same character arc as Ragnarok, but it does get us to a similar place, albeit in a darker and less healing way for Loki. I mean Lokii.

Anyhow. That’s what I got out of this thing.

[componentplanet]

If Hollywood Won’t Remaster Its Content, Fans Will Do It for Them

One of the most interesting things about my project to remaster and upscale Deep Space Nine has been the people it’s brought me into contact with around the world. In the nine months since I launched my project, I’ve been contacted by over a dozen individuals who were interested in launching their own projects specifically around Deep Space Nine, and at least that many people curious about other late-90s intellectual property stuck in what I’d unaffectionately call “VFR Hell,” including Babylon 5 (a top request), Buffy the Vampire Slayer, probably its spin-off, Angel (I am uncertain, but if Buffy is a VFR show, Angel probably is as well). Stargate SG-1 is another popular request for remastering, as is Star Trek: Voyager.

Tony Amendola as Master Bra’tac. Stargate SG-1. Upscaled in Topaz Video Enhance AI.

The situation with Stargate: Atlantis and SG-1 is the reverse of TNG and DS9: Atlantis, which began in 2004 and ran through 2009, is available on Blu-ray. SG-1, which began in 1997 and was shown mostly in standard definition for the duration of its run, is only available on DVD. Amazon Prime had both shows until late July 2020, and only the last few seasons of SG-1 were available in HD.

But this isn’t just about late-1990s science fiction. There’s a veritable ocean of content on DVDs that’s never gotten a re-release on Blu-ray because Blu-ray never became as popular as DVD was. In some cases, the failure of expensive Blu-ray conversions to sell as well as expected has been used as an argument for why there’s no point in investing in further remastering.

That argument might have flown before the introduction of mainstream AI upscaling software, but it’s falling out of the sky like a lead turd today. I’ve talked to people working on everything from old Hanna-Barbera Scooby Doo cartoons, to Grateful Dead concerts, to, well, old science-fiction television shows. There’s clearly no shortage of people who are willing to pay to have customized home libraries of upscaled content. That’s always been true. What’s different is that now, it’s possible to do the work at home.

I expect Ampere to deliver anywhere from a 1.5x – 3x performance boost in applications like Topaz Video Enhance AI. At that point, upscaling an episode of 45-minute television would take 2-5 hours — easily handled overnight, while everyone is sleeping. DVD-quality source is far from ideal, but it’s good enough to get real uplift from the underlying footage.

Instead of referring to my Deep Space Nine work, let’s look at a different show: Stargate: SG-1. Here’s a frame from the Season 7 finale “City of the Gods:”

And the upscaled and processed version:

All I did to turn one into the other was apply the same processing techniques I’ve used on Deep Space Nine. Objectively, they’re the wrong techniques. I need to tune them to deal with the show optimally, and I can tell I need to tune them when I look through the footage. But as far as a naive implementation goes, it’s a fair bit of improvement.

Video upscaling is coming for the content market, and while I can’t predict which shows or streaming services are going to adopt it first, it’s going to happen. In the long run, I suspect we’ll see these capabilities deployed in edge computing and as centralized options services like Netflix and Amazon Prime use to improve their video quality before sending it to customers. Long-term, AI-boosted upscaling may replace more conventional methods of improving image quality. Imagine if, instead of sending an 8K native video stream, Netflix could send a signal encoded somewhere between 1080p and 4K, but with additional hints embedded in the video stream to tell the AI upscaler at the other end how best to handle the content.

But even as we see these capabilities deployed at-scale, we’re going to see them in the individual consumer market as well. It’s already happening. People are buying content in various forms, or looking through their own archives to find media they recorded decades ago and running it through modern software to improve the final quality. There’s nothing new about that, in and of itself. But AI upscaling software can make such a dramatic difference, it’s driving interest in the topic.

Given that consumer-friendly commercial AI upscaling software is so new, I genuinely believe we’ve barely scratched the surface of what the technique is capable of. It’s not that I think fans can do this job as well as studio professionals can — if anything, my work on Deep Space Nine has convinced me of how nice it would be to have an actual studio doing the work in the first place. But it doesn’t matter. People aren’t waiting.

This represents nothing less than a sea change in who controls final output quality. Up until now, studios have wielded near-total control of final video quality. There have always been individuals active in the video editing community who could help you improve a clip or sharpen a video. But for dramatic improvements, the movie or television studio was the only realistic game in town for 99.9 percent of viewers. That’s not going to be the case going forward.

The entire point of my Deep Space Nine work is to demonstrate to Star Trek fans that the mediocre DVD version, while vastly better than the Netflix/Amazon Prime streams, is merely the gateway to dramatically improved image quality. There’s a tremendous opportunity for studios and content creators here, especially in the middle of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic when the challenges of producing new content are high. It’s precisely because studios can perform this work more effectively than individuals that I’d like to see more of them backing remastering and upscaling projects. But the work itself is happening regardless.

I created my Deep Space Nine project partly because I was angry at the quality of the show as represented by Netflix and Amazon Prime and I wanted Star Trek fans who searched for “Deep Space 9 upscale” or something similar to find a repository of information that would show them how to create the best possible version of the show, to stand against the garbage streaming services have decided constitutes acceptable quality. Thanks to the advent of upscaling, no fan of any show has to accept whatever bargain-basement encode companies can vomit into the internet.

Companies with IP belonging to once-popular films and movies that haven’t been reissued in 1080p or above ought to take note: Chances are good that at least some of your fan base has already noticed the capabilities of new AI upscaling engines and is working on taking advantage of them. After waiting for decades to see their favorite content in something approaching modern resolution, there’s a lot of general impatience that isn’t tied to any specific show or movie. Anyone who doesn’t get in front of the trend now risks discovering their most dedicated fans created their own solution years ago, to fill a void the IP owner wasn’t interested in occupying.

Now Read:

What No Fan Has Seen Before: Remastering Deep Space Nine to Maximum Quality

How to Upscale Video to 4K, 8K, and Beyond

Upscaling Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Using Topaz Video Enhance AI

from ExtremeTechExtremeTech https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/314987-if-hollywood-wont-remaster-its-content-fans-will-do-it-for-them from Blogger http://componentplanet.blogspot.com/2020/09/if-hollywood-wont-remaster-its-content.html

[khalilhumam]

COVID-19 diaries from Wuhan: A person can survive the pandemic but not bullying, fear, and hatred’

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COVID-19 diaries from Wuhan: A person can survive the pandemic but not bullying, fear, and hatred’

Kids playing and jumping in a yard. (Photo credit: Guo Jing. Used with permission.)

The following post is the thirteenth in a series of diary entries written by independent filmmaker and feminist scholar Ai Xiaoming and feminist activist Guo Jing. Both are living in Wuhan at the initial center of the COVID-19 pandemic. Here are the links to the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth parts of the series. Check out Global Voices’ special coverage of the global impact of COVID-19. This installment was written between March 20 and March 22, 2020. The original Chinese diaries were published on Matter News.

Guo Jing: March 20, 2020

有人在群里发消息：治好回家后复发后有症状大家知晓还好点，还有回家复发无任何症状那才真可怕，建议不要过早溜娃溜狗，引起重视不能最后放松���惕啊！ 有几个人应和了起来。每次发类似信息的都是那几个人。我开始替那些依然走不出家门的人担心，不知道他们内心的自我封锁什么时候可以结束？

Someone sent a message to our online group: Some patients who recovered from COVID-19 may turn positive with symptoms or without any symptom. The latter is more terrible. It is better not to take children outside or walk dogs too early. We should not lower our guards. The message attracted some echoing. Similar messages are usually sent by a few in the group. I started to worry about those who dare not step outside their homes. When will their minds be eased

Guo Jing: March 21, 2020

封锁让很多人没有收入，可很多支出又没法停。封锁给越来越多的人带来了经济危机。湖北封城将近2个月，很多行业也受到重创。湖北的一个朋友说，她家附近的一个养鸡户由于封城买不到饲料，开始把家里的鸡便宜卖给别人，甚至送人。 人们承受着封锁带来的经济负担、心理压力，这些重压已经到了危及生命的程度。很多国家和地区都在给居民发放补贴。发放补贴是展现政府责任的措施。我们要把走投无路的人拉回来，而不是推出去。

The lockdown has left many people having no income, but bills keep coming in. The lockdown has brought financial crisis to more and more people. Hubei Province has locked down for almost two months, causing serious damages to many business sectors. A friend of mine in Hubei said that a poultry farmer nearby started selling chicken cheaply or even giving out for free because s/he could not buy chicken feed during the lockdown. People have suffered from huge financial and psychological stress and the pressure has escalated to a life-threatening level. Many countries have released subsidies to their residents. Such measure is a manifestation of the responsibility of a government. We should help people who couldn't find a solution to their problem, instead of pushing them away.

Ai Xiaoming: March 22, 2020

武汉被封城60天了，小区里生活平静。莺飞草长，门前的日本晚樱马上就是繁花满树。人们都宅在家中，网格员让大家每日在小程序里填写报表。为了得到今后顺利出行的机会，我也每日汇报个人隐私：在家吗？在家。体温正常吗？正常。住房是自己的还是别人的？居家自住。家中几个人？……除此之外，每天还在湖北健康码小程序上打卡。总之，我们的个人信息比玻璃都透明。 我们一直在放弃，等待上级有关部门决定自己的命运。如今的等待就是小区解封，可以自由出行，可以去超市买菜，外出见朋友；至少，湖边跑个步什么的。忍了这么久，动力是什么呢？无非是不得病，活下去。 可是，我们活下去了，世界改变了。你还相信一切会是从前的样子吗？ 作为一个户籍广州现居武汉的人，我被告知，现在既不能去北京，也不能回广州。…如果武汉新增病例已经归零，如果健康码以及每日小区疫情报表都管用，如果说我们是健康的；为什么不能回到户籍或工作所在地？ 另一个如果是：我们依然被假定为无症状的病毒携带者；那么，归零的统计、健康码打卡以及每日报表，不是浪费了很多人的时间吗？ 又或者，我们属于疫区居民，不管健康与否，对其他地区总是一个风险人群。 在这个想象意义大于统计意义的推论中，个人的喜怒哀乐、个人权利和尊严，都无足轻重，不在考量的范围内。它依然在全社会范围内，支持对湖北人的地域偏见和恐惧。 一个人可能从新冠肺炎中幸存下来，却难以在排挤、恐惧和仇恨中活下去。 当人们无法应对一种困难，一个简单的办法就是找替罪羊。统治者也可以以此转移公众焦虑，缓解真正的危机，逃避被问责。这是原始的做法，但很方便。 人民的希望未必仅在于瑞德西韦，希望之��无，还在于我们内心是否保有对疾病带来的伤亡而深感悲痛的能力。……总之，把对方看做人之同类的情感，是缓解他人病苦的起点。

This is the 60th day since Wuhan has been locked down. The life in my residential district is peaceful. Birds fly and grass grows. The Japanese cherry tree in front of my door will soon be in full blossom. Everyone is stuck at home. The grid controllers [note: officers of small district social management system] ask us to update our status online every day in exchange of a permission to go out after the lifting of the lockdown. I also report my private information every day: Are you at home? Yes. Do you have a normal temperature? Yes. Do you live in your own apartment or someone else's apartment? I live in my own apartment. How many people are staying in your apartment?…In addition, I also need to check in with the online application of “Hubei Health Code” every day. In summary, our private information is more transparent than glass. We keep giving up. We keep waiting for the officials to make decisions on our fate. Now we are waiting for the lifting of the lockdown in our residential district. Then we can be free to go out, buy food in supermarkets and visit friends. Alas, we can go jogging along the lake. What has motivated us to endure all these? We don't want to get sick and we want to survive the pandemic. Now, we have survived and the world has changed. Do you believe that everything will go back to normal? I have my household registration in Guangzhou but currently reside in Wuhan, I was told that I am not allowed to go to either Beijing or Guangzhou now… If the number of newly confirmed cases is zero now, if the so-called Health Code and the community pandemic report systems are reliable, we are supposed to be healthy and free of virus. Why can’t we go back to where we have household registration or where we have work to do? If we are suspected to be asymptomatic virus carriers, what's the point of updating our status and health report every day? Perhaps residents from endemic regions, regardless of their health conditions, are considered a risk to other places. All the above scenarios is the result of a rationality that governed people’s imagination rather than statistics. Under such rationality, individual emotions, rights and dignity can be put aside. Prejudice and fear against people coming from Hubei is embedded on people's minds. A person can survive COVID-19 pandemic but may not survive bullying, fear, or hatred. When people cannot handle a difficult situation, a simple way out is to find a scapegoat. The government can also apply the method to shift public attention, mitigate the political crisis, and evade responsibility. This is a primitive method, but very convenient for a way out. Our hope is not limited to the Remdesivir drug. Our hope relies on our capability to feel remorse for the victims of the pandemic… compassion is the starting point to relieve the pain of others.

Guo Jing: March 22, 2020

今天，中国民航局等五部门发公告称，国际航班目的地为北京的航班需从天津、石家庄等12个指定的第一入境点入境，在第一入境点做完检疫并符登机条件的旅客可搭乘原航班入京。看到这个消息的时候，我脑海中浮现了一些北京人用趾高气扬的口气说着：“我们北京人……”。 这些北京人确实有得意的资本，毕竟北京为了控制入境感染人数的增加，能把别的城市作为过滤器，还有哪个城市可以做到呢？北京各方面的资源都很多，应对疫情上的资源也不会少，可是却在这种时候将风险转移出去。这是极其不好的示范。

Today, five government departments, including the Civil Aviation Administration of China, announced that international flights heading for Beijing should first land in other airports, including Tianjin and Shijiazhuang. After passengers finish quarantine procedures and pass all the inspections, they can take the same flight to Beijing. This news brought the image of an elitist and arrogant Beijingese saying “we Beijingese….” back to my mind. These Beijingese do enjoy the kind of (political) capital that they can be proud of – they have the power to use other cities as filters to suppress the number of imported cases in their city. No other city has such power. Beijing is resourceful in many aspects, and they should have a lot of medical resources to tackle the pandemic, too. However, they still try to transfer the risk to other cities. This sets a very bad example.

< p class='gv-rss-footer'>Written by Winston Chiu · comments (0) Donate · Share this: twitter facebook reddit