#think about it kind of like nuclear physics. it can help us immensely

[faaun]

i want to be a machine learning engineer but some of u guys r making it embarrassing actually. long but IMO important explanation below. We have bigger issues to deal w and better things to focus on.

like our planet is dying and the commercialisation of massive AI models and training the models themselves releases like hundreds of thousands of tonnes of carbon emissions. and this includes very "nonessential" models that don't tend to contribute much to society (re: new fancy image generation toy). but u have decided your new career path is "AI artist" (glorified prompt-writer?) .

and just as bad, some of you have decided the biggest issue w AI is those people, the glorified prompt writers!! you draw more attention to it instead of focusing on the real problems behind AI and the ethics of training models! about the harm it causes to the planet, about web-scraping limitations basically not existing (stolen art falls under this domain), copyright laws to do with AI, the way facial recognition deals with race, about the boundaries between letting AI learn and develop in an "unbiased" way vs preventing sociopolitical damage at the cost of (potentially) further progress.

conversely, there is nowhere NEAR enough focus about how AI can help us overcome some of our fundamental problems. i love machine learning bc i find it - specifically the maths behind it - fascinating and i believe one day it could help us make very cool advancements, as it already has. i think the mathematical architectures and processes behind creating new deep learning models are beautiful. i also know the damage capitalists will inevitably do - they always wield powerful, beautiful new tools as weapons.

AND HERE YOU ARE FALLING FOR IT! it's very frustrating to watch!! if you're angry on behalf of artists, i'm begging you to protect the rights of artists and be mad at greedy companies instead of villanising a tool that can help us immensely! learn about AI ethics, learn about how it is present in our lives, what we should try to stop, what we should promote.

if you "boycott AI" as a whole with no desire to gain more literacy on the topic other than "steals art therefore bad", you will have to be against your translate app, your search engine, your email spam filter, almost everything on your phone that categorises anything (i.e. pretty much all of your search functions), NPC enemies in games, your medical diagnostic tools, your phone's face unlock, your maps app, online banking, accessibility tools that help blind and deaf people, new advancements in genetic sequencing and protein folding and treating cancer and modelling new solutions in physics and so on and so on.

the issue isn't all AI as a whole. the issue is A) how companies are using it and B) how a lot of you guys are getting mad at the concept of AI instead of responding to A.

[galaxybooper]

Ninjago Ramblings

Cracks knuckles.

Let's do this. I did post this on my server already but I wanted to expand it after a whole day of drinking coffee.

Lloyd for a while can wield all four elements of creation. I think regardless of whether he's the golden ninja or not doesn't matter. Besides his "green" energy still resembles a lot like the elements of fire and lightning. Which goes into the title of his element discussion too. The title Master of Energy works. Why? Because the elements of creation are essentially a kind of energy.

Definitions of energy:

the strength and vitality required for sustained physical or mental activity. "changes in the levels of vitamins can affect energy and well-being"

a person's physical and mental powers. "an alternative is to devote your energies to voluntary work"

power derived from the utilization of physical or chemical resources, especially to provide light and heat or to work machines. "nuclear energy"

the property of matter and radiation which is manifest as a capacity to perform work (such as causing motion or the interaction of molecules). "a collision in which no energy is transferred" a degree or level of energy possessed by something or required by a process.

The FSM used the elements to create Ninjago and the other realms. He couldn't do it without the elements of creation and especially when they were embedded into the golden weapons of spinjitzu. It was an energy the FSM couldn't obtain/use. Now besides the creation of Ninjago and several other realms, why were the golden weapons still important? The FSM seems to be able to wield all four golden weapons and Garmadon was able too. AND the weapons are used to identify Lloyd as the green ninja. This can't be a mistake. Perhaps there was always meant to be one who would wield all four elements without bursting from the intensity of the powers. Like it had to genetically be passed down to "create" the vessel aka Lloyd. Ergo the golden weapons were used to identify the green ninja. The green ninja who would wield all four elements without needing the golden weapons. Ergo the legend of the green ninja was important. Because not only can the green ninja defeat the overlord BUT also to have a master of energy. The energy comes from the four elements of creation. I think the Golden Ninja thing was more like a power boost if anything. Sort of like with Riyu and Sora in DR. The ability was always inside Lloyd, he just needed help to find it himself.

This also goes into why the Overlord needed Lloyd in S3. He needed that extra power Lloyd had to regenerate a physical body. But think about it. That golden energy the Overlord took needed time to create a body and even at 99% it wasn't complete! Because the Overlord himself can't handle the immense power of all four elements of creation. He wasn't build/made to handle that power easily. He couldn't just take it all in seconds, he needed time to process the intense energy and withstand it. That's why in S3, no one could touch the blob of the melted together golden weapons. Because again, the power was far too great for anyone to handle.

Although the FSM and Garmadon were able to handle the four golden weapons, it's not the same as wielding all elements within you. In S2, Garmadon had the Mega Weapon but everytime he used it, it drained him of his powers for probably hours. And this was AFTER he obtained four arms by spending time in the Realm of Madness. The FSM couldn't handle the power, Garmadon, his son, couldn't handle it, but Lloyd seems to be able to.

The point of this ramble was to theorize. Maybe the FSM wanted kids to obtain someone who could handle all four elements after he passed away and when he noticed Garmadon and Wu not having that elemental power, maybe he hoped that his lineage would. Maybe he foresaw the realms needing the Master of Energy. Just maybe...

[heliosthegriffin]

Jaune “Mean Bastard” Arc AU.

The Arc family is a family stapled into history with their deeds of heroism, their immense physical strength, willingness to accept others into their clan at the drop of a hat, fighting against insurmountable odds for no apparent reason other than it being the right thing to do.

...That was only half the story however.

Ozpin thought to himself as he watched a tall, very lean blonde strut off the airship.

“Please, please don’t make scene today, Mr. Arc.” Ozpin said to himself, but the tone lacked hope, and most of all was riddled with fear. “Your not even a student here! You didn’t even send in transcript! How’d you even get onto the airship!”

But, deep down Ozpin knew, he always knew, he was an Arc, and Arc’s found a way, one that most people wouldn’t call ethical, sane or even reasonable.

Ozpin shivered, the Arc clan had been much too quiet in recent years. Was he the reason?

What terrible reason could this new Arc have to come to his school.

“Gods help us all, gods help every one of us.”

-

“So, much for a warm welcome to Beacon.” Ruby muttered to herself in her crater.

“Need a hand?” A warm voice asked her.

Ruby looked up into the two bluest eyes she’d ever seen, and blushed deeply.

“You ok? Looking a little hot under the collar.” The man before her asked with concern.

Ruby could hardly speak, he looked like a modern day fairly tail knight. WIth long blonde bangs, sapphire eyes, handsome face, dressed in all white, blue, and gold.

“I..I”..I”m fine!” Ruby squeaked out.

The blonde boy reached out to grab a flailing hand and pull her to her feet. Ruby wasn’t ready for that however and ended up face to abs with him.

‘So warm, so firm, I could stay here forever.’ Ruby thought to herself. Before going atomic on her blushing, and Rose Warping ten feet behind herself.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you, just thought you could use a hand getting up.” The man said with remourse. “I’ll let you go about your buisness now.

“RUBY ROSE!”

“Hmm?” “MY NAME IS RUBY ROSE! THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR HELPING ME!”

The blonde man reeled back from her sudden outburst of thanks.

A smile graced his face.

“Jaune Arc.”

-

“So I got this.”

*Unfurls Crescent Rose*

“Neat.”

“So, you got anything?”

“Hmm. not here.” “Oh, did you send it ahead?” “Nope just didn’t feel like bringing it from home. Didn’t think I need a weapon for this.”

“What! How are you going to fight any Grimm if you don’t have a weapon!? Even my sister needs Ember Celica before she goes punching Grimm out!” Ruby said doing so painfully bad shadow boxing.

“Oh, I didn’t come here to fight Grimm.” “What? Why are you here then, if you’re going to be a hunts-man in training you need to fight Grimm.” “Bold assumption, I’m not already a huntsman.” “Oh, yeah right, you look pretty strong and stuff...” “But, a correct one.” Ruby could only pout at being played like she had. Eye little eyes then spyed two blocky pouchs on his waist.

“What are those?”

“Oh those, one is my journal that take notes in, and the other, well, hehehe, I guess you could say it’s ledger.” “A ledger for what?” “Oh, for keeping track of debts and stuff.”

SIlence filled the space between the two.

“Are you a kneecapper?”

“Of sorts.” “I don’t think we can be friends.” “That is fair.”

“Do you work for the mob, or like, Torchwick.” “Nope, I work for me.”

“Freelance?” “All of my debts relates not to money, but personal experiences.”

“Oh, kinda like when you help some move, and they drive you across town?”

“Close enough, and looks like we’re at the auditorium, I’d say see you around, but since we can’t be friends, bye forever.”

“Wait, wait, I take it back!” But Jaune was gone into the crowd.

“Ahh, fiddle sticks.”

-

Ozpin looked calm and composed on the outside, but he was freaking the hell out on the inside. He lost track of the Arc, he fucking lost him! He could be anywhere doing anything!

He hasn’t even told Glynda, or anybody else, oh, gods this is going to be a blood bath.

He gave a inperceptible sigh, and decided to give his speech. “Hello, children-”

Warm breath behind him caused him to freeze.

‘When did he get behind me!?’

He could see the children murmuring at the unexpected guest.

“Hi, you must be Ozpin!” The warm voice said behind him. “I’m Jaune Arc lord patriarch of the Arc Clan, and you have been at the top of our shit list for five decades, you have a one day to prepare your last will and rights. Tah-Tah see you in twenty four hours.”

“What are you doing here young man! Get off the stage!” He heard Glynda yell at the Arc behind him.

He would stop her, but he needed to right his will again tonight.

Jaune Arc seemingly did nothing to react to Goodwitch but stare at her.

“Are you obstructing me?”

“Why yes I am, you are interrupting the initiation!”

“I see then.” Jaune brought out his note book.

“What are you doing!?” “Adding you to my shit-list ma’am, and if you don’t stop talking I’m going to just put you further up there.” Jaune said as if it was the most casual thing in the world.

“What I, I never, you, you miscreant!”

“Just keeping talking sugar tits, just keep going up my to-do list.” He shot a Glynda a smirk. “I changed my mind I want to break you into the Arc clan, we like ‘em feisty.”

She went Nuclear with rage and leveled her wand at him and fired a telekinetic wave at him.

“Oops,” Jaune said as the wave hit him, sending him out of the room and into the courtyard.

“That’ll teach him, the arrogant miscreant, should have been smarter to pick a fight here.” Glynda said proudly, “Someone get him off this campus and into a hospital.” “Ah, so kind. You do care, too bad you hit like a child.” Jaune said from behind Glynda picking her up in his arms like a princess “Well, fix that later.” Shooting her a wink in his arms.

‘So strong, and comfy.’ Glynda thought gobsmacked in his arms.

He then looked at Ozpin. “Remember old man, a day and no more.”

It was then that Jaune remembered a legion of students looking at him. “The fuck you all looking at, never seen a man take care of business before?”

The student shuffled around awkwardly.

“Yeah, I damn well thought so. Why are you all dressed so damn weird? Am I at a Anime con or a huntsman academy, Ozpin your standards suck.”

‘I like him more already.” Glynda thought. ‘Standards have been dropping for years.’

“Alright, I know whats happening next.” Jaune said proudly. “I am going to walk my happy ass out of here, and if anyone of you can so much as inconvience me, I will personally train or find someone to train you at the Arc compound.”

The student started looking very nervous, the man took down Glynda Goodwitch with no effort. What chance did they have?

Yang thought differently and launched a flying punch at him, Jaune bent his waist and launched a brutal kick straight into Yang's midsection and sending her through the ceiling.

Ruby came next like a rose petal reaper for his bent over next. Jaune grabbed it with his teeth and threw her aside like a puppy with just neck power.

Weiss not to miss a opportunity, speeds forward on glyphs to skewer him also while shoot a wave of ice at his feet, and a stream of fire at his face.

Casually he flexed his legs and shattered the ice, and kicked his leg out hard enough to send a shock-wave that knocked over idle students and killed Weiss flames.

Weiss however sped through the shock wave, and went to stab Jaune. The blade mere inches from his heart, Jaune leaned down to head butt Weiss while dodging the blade. Weiss went down like a sack of potatos.

Nora went down with hammer at Jaune, but he moved and let her fall on his knee, then grab her by the neck with his teeth throwing her through a wall. Jauen followed up with a kick behind him hitting Ren rag dolling him.

Pyrrha appeared last, an launched a series of precise shots and then strikes at Jaune, only for him to dodge each one, and knee her when she over extended by the millimeter.

WIth that the last of the challengers fell unconscious. All within twenty second, All with Goodwitch in his arms.

“Nice try, I’ll come collect the one’s who tried tomorrow, but first.” Jaune grabbed a handful of Goodwitch’s ass, causing her to gasp out. “I got break in the new Arc.”

“It’s Goodwitch..” She muttered weakly.

“Not anymore.” “...Ok.”

“Ozpin, anyone else that wants to try can do so tomorrow when I merc’ you ass.”

And with that the Arc left, taking Ozpins secretary with him.

-

That was the other side of the Arc clan, one of maruding madmen who recorded their grudges and never let them go, holding onto any slight for centuries, training their young to perfecting and taking fresh blood to increase their grudge spilling power.

Destroying Grimm Hordes because they killed a family pet.

Killing Tyrants for increasing taxes.

Cucking buisness men, because they heard they them demean their name.

The list goes on. But the fact is the Arc Clan is petty beyond reason, and always looking for more members... If you meet their interest that is.

AN: Added a drop of smut in there, don’t know how I feel about it. Hope it turned out ok. Then again it’s crack.

[amazingsubahu]

The True Power

The True Power

The True Power lies in how we can use it, what we can create with it, not how much we have possessed. Power is divine and the most vital, constructive element of our Life. We must meet and use it creatively, productively in various aspects and attributes of our life. It's a driving force of everything in this world and the Universe. Power moves everything in this universe, so we always wished for and worshiped power and powerful entities. From the beginning of humanity, people were engaged in worshipping the natural powers, Sun, Moon, Fire, Water, Winds, Earth and other known and unknown celestial influences. Now we have new avatars of power equations and entities, it's not as raw and divine as it was at the beginning of humanity. We have more advanced and planned, organized and more deadly/lethal and immensely powerful tools and devices in our hands. We can create more destruction and creation of them for the whole of humanity.

Due to the advent and influence of science and technology over life, humans have more power to change anything in their environment positively/negatively. We have created tools and immensely powerful devices, but we have not developed the processes, methods and intelligence and creative positive people to use them intelligently and in the service of life. The history of thousands of years of humanity told us this truth. Only a few in billions ever happened to this earth. They knew the real meaning and proper use of it for the liberation of soul and growth and well-being of all the life forms and elements on earth and in every possible way and for all possible dimensions of life. Due to this sick and unconscious tendency of thousands of years, it came in belief and become a norm and rule that Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely - Lord Acton. We need to change this, through our conscious living and making examples of greater and better self-conduct through awareness and consciousness about every aspect of our living and our world. We have new challenges and a new beginning in our evolution as the human race; we need to learn how to use our power and potentials to create more love, health, vitality, sanity, creativity, peace, harmony, and abundance in our lives and for our environment. This is the biggest quest we have now and ahead. Power says about itself, from the beginning of life, it has seen that people are engaged in acquiring it in multiple ways, physical, mental, spiritual, emotional, material and in every possible dimension to enhance, enrich their Lives and rule and direct themselves and others towards greatest goals and sick interests too. One most important thing people should remember and learn that Power does not lie in accumulating it; it's in how we think about it, and what we can create through it. People are power-hungry from the rise of civilizations and doing everything to acquire it, without knowing and understanding that what they really want to do with it.

They think it is somewhere outside them, in money, in politics, in materials, in positions, in possessions of everything. But they all were at the mistake and proven wrong because, without consciousness and creative intelligence, it only creates destruction and perversion of all kinds. But they are at mistake here, what will you do with money and power if you don't know how to use it in most constructive and creative ways. There are chances due to inability or ignorance about how to use the power, people are ruining themselves physically, and mentally in every possible way also everything and everyone they have access. You can see it with all our politicians, billionaires, society icons, look at them closely. We can see it all around us; all the so-called wealthy and powerful people have most deadly diseases, psychological problems, heart attacks, worst physical conditions, disastrous personal relationships, and all the miserable things you can imagine. Everyone here is less or more victim of it, due to the unconscious way of living and ignorance about how to use the power of themselves in the growth and development of their own mind-body-spirit. And we can see it with ourselves and everyone around us. We knew about the nuclear attack on Hiroshima & Nagasaki in the last century and then of Mahabharata around 4000 - 5000 years ago. All our powerful and intelligent people cannot make it possible to use them in the service of life. We can run all our machinery, plants, devices, industries, and all life support/enhancing systems with these inventions, but we didn't have heart, and intelligence and consciousness to use them for our growth and well-being and in service of life. The same is with other dimensions of power; it always lies in utilizing it, not holding alone. If you don't have insight and intelligence or a pure, well-balanced, defined holistic plan on how to use it for productivity and creativity, it will create more destruction than it can create any good. We have examples of it in every walk of our life, we have money accumulators, and we have the political systems and super clever politicians, physical and material wealth possessors, brilliant scientists and inventors, artists and painters, writers and poets. But what they are doing with it? Most of them are using their power and potentials in service of corrupt power and money and anti-life elements.

 They all are busy in accumulating, name, fame, money, and favor from other rich and famous people in powerful positions in society and governments. This is all happening at the cost of degradation and abuse of all life forces existing here. They are ruining themselves, and everyone and everything around them and accessible to them, physically, mentally, emotionally. They put themselves and all their powers to accumulating more without the understanding of why what and when they can do with or use it for? The world has more billionaires than ever before, food and buildings, all kinds of possessions, material goods and wealth, all kinds of fancy gadgets and scientific inventions and luxuries but it cannot make our lives better. Is this growth? Do we really develop in any way? Are we Humans? We have more criminals than before, frauds, scams, murders, rapes, communal violence, and all kinds of heinous inhuman activities around the globe and rise of new unknown diseases every decade. We don't have natural, healthy foods? Don't we have pure clean water? Don't we have a pollution-free atmosphere? Have we overpopulated earth and also did brutal and insane misuse and destruction of all the natural resources? We are never so miserable than now, why it is so? Why the scene is so horrible, and frightening because people don't know how to use their power, they don't have intelligence, sanity and a good action plan about how to use their power, and for what? The answer is simple, the power is in blind and incapable hands, and they don't have the vision, creativity, intelligence, and consciousness. Only conscious and intelligent people can use the power of anything to create every good on this earth. They can use it in the service of life, its fulfillment, its growth, and enhancement. They are the only hope for this world, we must find and help them to empower and do good things for us. Do we are ready to do this with ourselves, or ready to live as miserable as we are for the rest of our life?

At present and most of the times in human history, the power is in hands of people who are in service of death, chaos, blindness, and lust for power, money, land and filthy things. So our situation is like this, living in turmoil, insanity, and sick body-mind- and lost spirit. Unfortunately, it has always misused and in today's environment too. Only conscious and sensible people know what it can create or deliver, so they always used it in most constructive and creative ways. Everyone here is hungry for it because it moves everything in this world, and capable of delivering everything sanely, insanely. Lust for power about anything is ugly; it leads nowhere and ruins everything beautiful we have. So we must cautious about our desires, motives, and tools available to us and always try to learn their better and creative use before possessing them. People of the world just want to acquire and accumulate it, without understanding its consequences and side effects. Power should be in the right hands always, then only it will support and enhance life; otherwise, it will be a curse to the beholder and the things and people come under its influence and reach. Power in conscious and creative hands is a symbol of life, grace, beauty and fulfillment and gratitude. But in hand of unconscious and sick people, it has always created havoc for humanity. And it can be accomplished only by learning how to use our physical, mental and spiritual wealth, ancestor's wisdom and modern science and technology to shift towards a totally new phase of development and growth of human mind-body-spirit. So one thing I want to say that, to live blissfully, graciously, creatively and on our own terms. We need to acquire it, and to learn how to use it, to get best out of it sufficiently to survive, grow and enrich ourselves and all everything we are surrounded with. Being capable of acquiring enough Money for our living and to fulfill all our essential needs and to cooperate and coordinate with others in this world is the most important thing I feel. So we need everything as per our need and need to do things effectively, productively and creatively, not more not less. So I am not in the lust of accumulating tons of money, and not using it for our own good, and for people in our life. Money and all other things, to whom, we have given power or established as powerful tools, are actually devices to serve us, it should not allow ruling our lives, and all of them are means, not an end in our life. And this is the same with every aspect of power and things and forces influencing and operating our lives. We must use it for sake of our own good and for others too, this is the best way to treat it, otherwise, it will become a curse to our lives and will snatch everything from us, and left us ruined and drowned totally.

So, we need understanding and Consciousness about anything we want to hold in our life, and then we can get the best out of it. Consciousness is the key, it opens always the best way things can be operated and used. My viewpoint of being powerful is how intuitive, intelligent and loving you are, and how much you are capable of bringing everything to grow, enhance and enrich your life and of your loved ones and everything and everyone around you. Being Powerful in creative and noble terms is creating a blissful and enriched life for us and everyone around us, and being powerless means lack of intelligence, love, and creativity and it is state of living dead. So The power lies in using it in most creative and constructive ways, not holding or accumulating it. So be Powerful in a sane way, in nice things and for a sane and fulfilled purposeful creative life. With love Amazingsubahu   Read the full article

[newstfionline]

Headlines

U.S. given low marks in global poll (Foreign Policy) A new poll suggests the U.S. response to the coronavirus pandemic has not gone unnoticed around the world. The poll, by the Alliance of Democracies Foundation asked 120,000 people in 53 countries to assess country responses to the pandemic. Over 60 percent of respondents said China had handled it well, while only a third said the United States had.

Making masks compulsory for plane travel (Reuters) Major U.S. airlines may prevent anyone not wearing a mask during the novel coronavirus pandemic from boarding and provide the coverings to passengers who have none. Once onboard, however, flight attendants have had little power over passengers who remove the face covering. Each carrier will decide the appropriate consequences for passengers who fail to comply, up to and including being put on that airline’s no-fly list, the industry’s main lobby group said on Monday. Carriers with the stricter policy include Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Hawaiian Airlines, JetBlue Airways, Southwest Airlines and United Airlines, Airlines for America said in a statement.

The American incarceration complex (Bloomberg) Much of the upheaval around U.S. criminal justice has focused on policing violence and killings of unarmed African Americans. But what also stands out to the rest of the world is the massive American incarceration complex. As of 2016, the U.S. prison and jail population was the biggest in the world, both in absolute terms and relative to population.

Brexit “done” in July? (Foreign Policy) British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has suggested a trade deal between the European Union and the United Kingdom could be completed as soon as July. “I don’t think we’re actually that far apart but what we need now is to see a bit of oomph in the negotiations,” Johnson said. Last week, the British government repeated its intention not to seek an extension to the current transition period, due to expire at the end of this year.

Turkey eyes Libya bases (Foreign Policy) Turkey is in talks with the internationally-recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) in Libya to use two military bases in the country, Reuters reports. The move comes as Turkey has increased its support to the GNA in recent weeks as it helped break a months-long siege by Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army. Awake to the possible threat to its influence in the Eastern Mediterranean, France has called for talks between NATO allies to discuss Turkey’s “aggressive” posture in Libya.

India says 3 soldiers killed in standoff with Chinese troops (AP) At least three Indian soldiers, including a senior army officer, were killed in a confrontation with Chinese troops along their disputed border high in the Himalayas where thousands of soldiers on both sides have been facing off for over a month, the Indian army said Tuesday. The incident—in which neither side fired any shots, according to Indian officials—is the first deadly confrontation between the two Asian giants since 1975. The Indian army said in a statement that a “violent faceoff” took place in Galwan Valley in the Ladakh region on Monday night, “with casualties on both sides.” China, for its part, accused Indian forces along the border of carrying out “provocative attacks” on its troops, leading to “serious physical conflicts” between the sides. (Update: India now says 20 Indian soldiers were killed.)

Russia rolls back restrictions (Reuters) Residents of Moscow were able to return to museums and summer terraces on Tuesday for the first time in more than two months as the Russian capital rolled back more coronavirus curbs despite continuing to record over 1,000 new daily infections. Museums, libraries and zoos in the city of nearly 13 million are reopening their doors, albeit with continued limits on the number of visitors at any one time. Kremlin critics have accused authorities of lifting restrictions too fast to pave the way for a nationwide vote on reforms that would allow President Vladimir Putin to run again for president twice after 2024 when his current term ends.

Beijing expands lockdowns as cases top 100 in new outbreak (AP) Chinese authorities locked down a third neighborhood in Beijing on Tuesday as they rushed to prevent the spread of a new coronavirus outbreak that has infected more than 100 people in a country that appeared to have largely contained the virus. Most of the cases have been linked to the Xinfadi wholesale food market, and people lined up around the city for massive testing campaigns of anyone who had visited the market in the past two weeks or come in contact with them. About 9,000 workers at the market were tested previously.

North Korea blows up inter-Korea liaison office (AP) North Korea blew up an inter-Korean liaison office building just north of the heavily armed border with South Korea on Tuesday in a dramatic display of anger that sharply raises tensions on the Korean Peninsula and puts pressure on Washington and Seoul amid deadlocked nuclear diplomacy. The demolition of the building, which is located on North Korean territory and had no South Koreans working there, is largely symbolic. But it’s still likely the most provocative thing North Korea has done since it entered nuclear diplomacy in 2018 after a U.S.-North Korean standoff had many fearing war. It will pose a serious setback to the efforts of liberal South Korean President Moon Jae-in to restore inter-Korean engagement.

Syria’s Economy Collapses Even as Civil War Winds to a Close (NYT) President Bashar al-Assad, who has mostly won Syria’s civil war, now faces an acute economic crisis that has impoverished his people, brought about the collapse of the currency and fueled a rare public rift in the ruling elite. Government salaries have become nearly worthless. Protests against falling living standards have broken out in the southeast. The Syrian pound is worth so little that people have posted images on social media of bank notes used to roll cigarettes. And strict American economic sanctions that take effect Wednesday are likely to make matters worse. The war has throttled Syria’s economy, reducing it to a third the size it was before the war and taking a toll thought to be in the hundreds of billions of dollars. An estimated 80 percent of Syrians live in poverty. About 40 percent were unemployed at the end of 2019, the latest figures available, and joblessness has only increased because of government restrictions to control the coronavirus.

U.N. rights experts condemn Israel’s annexation plan and U.S. support (Reuters) U.N. human rights experts said on Tuesday that Israel’s plan to annex significant parts of the occupied West Bank would violate international law banning the taking of territory by force, and urged other countries to actively oppose it. The joint statement, signed by nearly 50 independent experts, voiced dismay at U.S. support for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “unlawful” plan to extend sovereignty, de facto annexation of land that the Palestinians seek for a state. “The annexation of occupied territory is a serious violation of the Charter of the United Nations and the Geneva Conventions, and contrary to the fundamental rule affirmed many times by the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly that the acquisition of territory by war or force is inadmissible,” it said.

Saudis see high hopes for 2020 upended by pandemic (AP) This was supposed to be Saudi Arabia’s year to shine as host of the prestigious G20 gathering of world leaders. The event would have seen Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman share handshakes and wide smiles with presidents and prime ministers. Instead, the gathering this November will likely be a virtual meet-up, stripping its host of the pomp that would have accompanied televised arrivals on Riyadh’s tarmac just two years after the killing of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi had cast a shadow over the crown prince, who U.S. intelligence says bore responsibility for the crime. It was also to be another year of sweeping change for Saudi Arabia. The kingdom had only just begun to swing open its doors to tourists and eye-popping concerts when the pandemic struck, spawning social distancing and lockdowns. With Saudi cities under curfew and the country’s borders shut, even the upcoming hajj pilgrimage in Mecca could be cancelled or dramatically pared down. The hajj, which starts in late July this year, has not been cancelled in the 90 years since Saudi Arabia’s founding. The hajj not only provides Saudi Arabia with immense influence and prestige among Muslims, it also generates around $6 billion in revenue for the government annually.

Hummingbirds Can See Colours We Can’t Even Imagine, Experiment Reveals (Science Alert) Hummingbirds can perceive colours that the human eye cannot, thanks to the addition of an extra cone in the hummingbird’s eye that we don’t possess, new research reveals. Unlike humans, who have three kinds of colour-sensitive cone cells in our eyes, birds have four types of cone cells that help them to process the differences between different kinds of colours. With three cones, human eyes can perceive what’s known as trichromatic colour, made up from a neural blend of red, green, and blue light. Thanks to that process, our brains can perceive the non-spectral colour purple (because it’s a combination of blue and red). But animals with an extra cone can see an even greater spectrum of colours by being sensitive to more kinds of light wavelengths—opening the door to other kinds of colour combinations that we can’t see or even... imagine. “Humans are colour-blind compared to birds and many other animals,” says evolutionary biologist Mary Caswell Stoddard from Princeton University.

[anaymalpani]

Coronavirus Will Change the World Permanently. Here’s How.

A crisis on this scale can reorder society in dramatic ways, for better or worse. Here are 34 big thinkers’ predictions for what’s to come.

For many Americans right now, the scale of the coronavirus crisis calls to mind 9/11 or the 2008 financial crisis—events that reshaped society in lasting ways, from how we travel and buy homes, to the level of security and surveillance we’re accustomed to, and even to the language we use.

Politico Magazine surveyed more than 30 smart, macro thinkers this week, and they have some news for you: Buckle in. This could be bigger.

A global, novel virus that keeps us contained in our homes—maybe for months—is already reorienting our relationship to government, to the outside world, even to each other. Some changes these experts expect to see in the coming months or years might feel unfamiliar or unsettling: Will nations stay closed? Will touch become taboo? What will become of restaurants?

But crisis moments also present opportunity: more sophisticated and flexible use of technology, less polarization, a revived appreciation for the outdoors and life’s other simple pleasures. No one knows exactly what will come, but here is our best stab at a guide to the unknown ways that society—government, healthcare, the economy, our lifestyles and more—will change.

Community

The personal becomes dangerous. Deborah Tannen is a professor of linguistics at Georgetown and author, most recently, of You’re the Only One I Can Tell: Inside the Language of Women’s Friendships.

On 9/11, Americans discovered we are vulnerable to calamities we thought only happened in distant lands. The 2008 financial crisis told us we also can suffer the calamities of past eras, like the economic meltdown of the Great Depression. Now, the 1918 flu pandemic is a sudden spectre in our lives.

This loss of innocence, or complacency, is a new way of being-in-the-world that we can expect to change our doing-in-the-world. We know now that touching things, being with other people and breathing the air in an enclosed space can be risky. How quickly that awareness recedes will be different for different people, but it can never vanish completely for anyone who lived through this year. It could become second nature to recoil from shaking hands or touching our faces—and we might all find we can’t stop washing our hands.

The comfort of being in the presence of others might be replaced by a greater comfort with absence, especially with those we don’t know intimately. Instead of asking, “Is there a reason to do this online?” we’ll be asking, “Is there any good reason to do this in person?”—and might need to be reminded and convinced that there is. Unfortunately, if unintendedly, those without easy access to broadband will be further disadvantaged. The paradox of online communication will be ratcheted up: It creates more distance, yes, but also more connection, as we communicate more often with people who are physically farther and farther away—and who feel safer to us because of that distance.

A new kind of patriotism. Mark Lawrence Schrad is an associate professor of political science and author of the forthcoming Smashing the Liquor Machine: A Global History of Prohibition.

America has long equated patriotism with the armed forces. But you can’t shoot a virus. Those on the frontlines against coronavirus aren’t conscripts, mercenaries or enlisted men; they are our doctors, nurses, pharmacists, teachers, caregivers, store clerks, utility workers, small-business owners and employees. Like Li Wenliang and the doctors of Wuhan, many are suddenly saddled with unfathomable tasks, compounded by an increased risk of contamination and death they never signed up for.

When all is said and done, perhaps we will recognize their sacrifice as true patriotism, saluting our doctors and nurses, genuflecting and saying, “Thank you for your service,” as we now do for military veterans. We will give them guaranteed health benefits and corporate discounts, and build statues and have holidays for this new class of people who sacrifice their health and their lives for ours. Perhaps, too, we will finally start to understand patriotism more as cultivating the health and life of your community, rather than blowing up someone else’s community. Maybe the de-militarization of American patriotism and love of community will be one of the benefits to come out of this whole awful mess.

A decline in polarization. Peter T. Coleman is a professor of psychology at Columbia University who studies intractable conflict. His next book, The Way Out: How to Overcome Toxic Polarization, will be released in 2021.

The extraordinary shock(s) to our system that the coronavirus pandemic is bringing has the potential to break America out of the 50-plus year pattern of escalating political and cultural polarization we have been trapped in, and help us to change course toward greater national solidarity and functionality. It might sound idealistic, but there are two reasons to think it can happen.

The first is the “common enemy” scenario, in which people begin to look past their differences when faced with a shared external threat. COVID-19 is presenting us with a formidable enemy that will not distinguish between reds and blues, and might provide us with fusion-like energy and a singularity of purpose to help us reset and regroup. During the Blitz, the 56-day Nazi bombing campaign against the Britain, Winston Churchill’s cabinet was amazed and heartened to witness the ascendance of human goodness—altruism, compassion and generosity of spirit and action.

The second reason is the “political shock wave” scenario. Studies have shown that strong, enduring relational patterns often become more susceptible to change after some type of major shock destabilizes them. This doesn’t necessarily happen right away, but a study of 850 enduring inter-state conflicts that occurred between 1816 to 1992 found that more than 75 percent of them ended within 10 years of a major destabilizing shock. Societal shocks can break different ways, making things better or worse. But given our current levels of tension, this scenario suggests that now is the time to begin to promote more constructive patterns in our cultural and political discourse. The time for change is clearly ripening.

A return to faith in serious experts. Tom Nichols is a professor at the U.S. Naval War College and author of The Death of Expertise.

America for several years has become a fundamentally unserious country. This is the luxury afforded us by peace, affluence and high levels of consumer technology. We didn’t have to think about the things that once focused our minds—nuclear war, oil shortages, high unemployment, skyrocketing interest rates. Terrorism has receded back to being a kind of notional threat for which we dispatch volunteers in our military to the far corners of the desert as the advance guard of the homeland. We even elevated a reality TV star to the presidency as a populist attack on the bureaucracy and expertise that makes most of the government function on a day to day basis.

The COVID-19 crisis could change this in two ways. First, it has already forced people back to accepting that expertise matters. It was easy to sneer at experts until a pandemic arrived, and then people wanted to hear from medical professionals like Anthony Fauci. Second, it may—one might hope—return Americans to a new seriousness, or at least move them back toward the idea that government is a matter for serious people. The colossal failure of the Trump administration both to keep Americans healthy and to slow the pandemic-driven implosion of the economy might shock the public enough back to insisting on something from government other than emotional satisfaction.

Less individualism. Eric Klinenberg is professor of sociology and director of the Institute for Public Knowledge at New York University. He is the author, most recently, of Palaces for the People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life.

The coronavirus pandemic marks the end of our romance with market society and hyper-individualism. We could turn toward authoritarianism. Imagine President Donald Trump trying to suspend the November election. Consider the prospect of a military crackdown. The dystopian scenario is real. But I believe we will go in the other direction. We’re now seeing the market-based models for social organization fail, catastrophically, as self-seeking behavior (from Trump down) makes this crisis so much more dangerous than it needed to be.

When this ends, we will reorient our politics and make substantial new investments in public goods—for health, especially—and public services. I don’t think we will become less communal. Instead, we will be better able to see how our fates are linked. The cheap burger I eat from a restaurant that denies paid sick leave to its cashiers and kitchen staff makes me more vulnerable to illness, as does the neighbor who refuses to stay home in a pandemic because our public school failed to teach him science or critical thinking skills. The economy—and the social order it helps support—will collapse if the government doesn’t guarantee income for the millions of workers who will lose their jobs in a major recession or depression. Young adults will fail to launch if government doesn’t help reduce or cancel their student debt. The coronavirus pandemic is going to cause immense pain and suffering. But it will force us to reconsider who we are and what we value, and, in the long run, it could help us rediscover the better version of ourselves.

Religious worship will look different. Amy Sullivan is director of strategy for Vote Common Good.

We are an Easter people, many Christians are fond of saying, emphasizing the triumph of hope and life over fear. But how do an Easter people observe their holiest day if they cannot rejoice together on Easter morning? How do Jews celebrate their deliverance from bondage when Passover Seders must take place on Zoom, with in-laws left to wonder whether Cousin Joey forgot the Four Questions or the internet connection merely froze? Can Muslim families celebrate Ramadan if they cannot visit local mosques for Tarawih prayers or gather with loved ones to break the fast?

All faiths have dealt with the challenge of keeping faith alive under the adverse conditions of war or diaspora or persecution—but never all faiths at the same time. Religion in the time of quarantine will challenge conceptions of what it means to minister and to fellowship. But it will also expand the opportunities for those who have no local congregation to sample sermons from afar. Contemplative practices may gain popularity. And maybe—just maybe—the culture war that has branded those who preach about the common good with the epithet “Social Justice Warriors” may ease amid the very present reminder of our interconnected humanity.

New forms of reform. Jonathan Rauch is a contributing writer at the Atlantic and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

One group of Americans has lived through a transformational epidemic in recent memory: gay men. Of course, HIV/AIDS was (and is) different in all kinds of ways from coronavirus, but one lesson is likely to apply: Plagues drive change. Partly because our government failed us, gay Americans mobilized to build organizations, networks and know-how that changed our place in society and have enduring legacies today. The epidemic also revealed deadly flaws in the health care system, and it awakened us to the need for the protection of marriage—revelations which led to landmark reforms. I wouldn’t be surprised to see some analogous changes in the wake of coronavirus. People are finding new ways to connect and support each other in adversity; they are sure to demand major changes in the health-care system and maybe also the government; and they’ll become newly conscious of interdependency and community. I can’t predict the precise effects, but I’m sure we’ll be seeing them for years.

Tech

Regulatory barriers to online tools will fall. Katherine Mangu-Ward is editor-in-chief of Reason magazine.

COVID-19 will sweep away many of the artificial barriers to moving more of our lives online. Not everything can become virtual, of course. But in many areas of our lives, uptake on genuinely useful online tools has been slowed by powerful legacy players, often working in collaboration with overcautious bureaucrats. Medicare allowing billing for telemedicine was a long-overdue change, for instance, as was revisiting HIPAA to permit more medical providers to use the same tools the rest of us use every day to communicate, such as Skype, Facetime and email. The regulatory bureaucracy might well have dragged its feet on this for many more years if not for this crisis. The resistance—led by teachers’ unions and the politicians beholden to them—to allowing partial home-schooling or online learning for K-12 kids has been swept away by necessity. It will be near-impossible to put that genie back in the bottle in the fall, with many families finding that they prefer full or partial home-schooling or online homework. For many college students, returning to an expensive dorm room on a depopulated campus will not be appealing, forcing massive changes in a sector that has been ripe for innovation for a long time. And while not every job can be done remotely, many people are learning that the difference between having to put on a tie and commute for an hour or working efficiently at home was always just the ability to download one or two apps plus permission from their boss. Once companies sort out their remote work dance steps, it will be harder—and more expensive—to deny employees those options. In other words, it turns out, an awful lot of meetings (and doctors’ appointments and classes) really could have been an email. And now they will be.

A healthier digital lifestyle. Sherry Turkle is professor of the social studies of science and technology at MIT, founding director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self, and author, most recently, of Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age.

Perhaps we can use our time with our devices to rethink the kinds of community we can create through them. In the earliest days of our coronavirus social distancing, we have seen inspirational first examples. Cello master Yo-Yo Ma posts a daily live concert of a song that sustains him. Broadway diva Laura Benanti invites performers from high school musicals who are not going to put on those shows to send their performances to her. She’ll be watching; Lin-Manuel Miranda joins the campaign and promises to watch as well. Entrepreneurs offer time to listen to pitches. Master yoga instructors teach free classes. This is a different life on the screen from disappearing into a video game or polishing one’s avatar. This is breaking open a medium with human generosity and empathy. This is looking within and asking: “What can I authentically offer? I have a life, a history. What do people need?” If, moving forward, we apply our most human instincts to our devices, that will have been a powerful COVID-19 legacy. Not only alone together, but together alone.

A boon to virtual reality. Elizabeth Bradley is president of Vassar College and a scholar of global health.

VR allows us to have the experiences we want even if we have to be isolated, quarantined or alone. Maybe that will be how we adapt and stay safe in the next outbreak. I would like to see a VR program that helped with the socialization and mental health of people who had to self-isolate. Imagine putting on glasses, and suddenly you are in a classroom or another communal setting, or even a positive psychology intervention.

Health/Science

The rise of telemedicine. Ezekiel J. Emanuel is chair of the department of medical ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania.

The pandemic will shift the paradigm of where our healthcare delivery takes place. For years, telemedicine has lingered on the sidelines as a cost-controlling, high convenience system. Out of necessity, remote office visits could skyrocket in popularity as traditional-care settings are overwhelmed by the pandemic. There would also be containment-related benefits to this shift; staying home for a video call keeps you out of the transit system, out of the waiting room and, most importantly, away from patients who need critical care.

An opening for stronger family care. Ai-Jen Poo is director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance and Caring Across Generations.

The coronavirus pandemic has revealed gaping holes in our care infrastructure, as millions of American families have been forced to navigate this crisis without a safety net. With loved ones sick and children suddenly home from school indefinitely, they’ve been forced to make impossible choices among their families, their health and financial ruin. After all, meaningful child care assistance is extremely limited, access to long-term care is piecemeal at best, and too few workers have access to paid family and medical leave, which means that missed work means missed pay.

This crisis should unleash widespread political support for Universal Family Care—a single public federal fund that we all contribute to, that we all benefit from, that helps us take care of our families while we work, from child care and elder care to support for people with disabilities and paid family leave. Coronavirus has put a particular national spotlight on unmet needs of the growing older population in our country, and the tens of millions of overstretched family and professional caregivers they rely on. Care is and always has been a shared responsibility. Yet, our policy has never fully supported it. This moment, challenging as it is, should jolt us into changing that.

Government becomes Big Pharma. Steph Sterling is vice president of advocacy and policy at the Roosevelt Institute, and co-author of the forthcoming paper “In the Public Interest: Democratizing Medicines through Public Ownership.”

The coronavirus has laid bare the failures of our costly, inefficient, market-based system for developing, researching and manufacturing medicines and vaccines. COVID-19 is one of several coronavirus outbreaks we have seen over the past 20 years, yet the logic of our current system—a range of costly government incentives intended to stimulate private-sector development—has resulted in the 18-month window we now anticipate before widespread vaccine availability. Private pharmaceutical firms simply will not prioritize a vaccine or other countermeasure for a future public health emergency until its profitability is assured, and that is far too late to prevent mass disruption. The reality of fragile supply chains for active pharmaceutical ingredients coupled with public outrage over patent abuses that limit the availability of new treatments has led to an emerging, bipartisan consensus that the public sector must take far more active and direct responsibility for the development and manufacture of medicines. That more efficient, far more resilient government approach will replace our failed, 40-year experiment with market-based incentives to meet essential health needs.

Science reigns again. Sonja Trauss is executive director of YIMBY Law.

Truth and its most popular emissary, science, have been declining in credibility for more than a generation. As Obi-Wan Kenobi told us in Return of the Jedi, “You’re going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.” In 2005, long before Donald Trump, Stephen Colbert coined the term “truthiness” to describe the increasingly fact-lite political discourse. The oil and gas industry has been waging a decades-long war against truth and science, following up on the same effort waged by the tobacco industry. Altogether, this led to the situation in which the Republicans could claim that the reports about the coronavirus weren’t science at all, but mere politics, and this sounded reasonable to millions of people. Quickly, however, Americans are being reacquainted with scientific concepts like germ theory and exponential growth. Unlike with tobacco use or climate change, science doubters will be able to see the impacts of the coronavirus immediately. At least for the next 35 years, I think we can expect that public respect for expertise in public health and epidemics to be at least partially restored.

Government

Congress can finally go virtual. Ethan Zuckerman is associate professor of the practice in media arts and sciences at MIT, director of the Center for Civic Media and author of Digital Cosmopolitans: Why We Think the Internet Connects Us, Why It Doesn’t, and How to Rewire It.

Coronavirus is going to force many institutions to go virtual. One that would greatly benefit from the change is the Congress. We need Congress to continue working through this crisis, but given advice to limit gatherings to 10 people or fewer, meeting on the floor of the House of Representatives is not an especially wise option right now; at least two members of Congress already have tested positive for the virus.

Instead, this is a great time for congresspeople to return to their districts and start the process of virtual legislating—permanently. Not only is this move medically necessary at the moment, but it has ancillary benefits. Lawmakers will be closer to the voters they represent and more likely to be sensitive to local perspectives and issues. A virtual Congress is harder to lobby, as the endless parties and receptions that lobbyists throw in Washington will be harder to replicate across the whole nation. Party conformity also might loosen with representatives remembering local loyalties over party ties.

In the long run, a virtualized Congress might help us tackle one of the great problems of the contemporary House of Representatives: reapportionment and expansion. The House has not grown meaningfully in size since the 1920s, which means that a representative, on average, speaks for 770,000 constituents, rather than the 30,000 the Founding Fathers mandated. If we demonstrate that a virtual Congress can do its job as well or better using 21st-century technologies, rather than 18th-century ones, perhaps we could return the house to the 30,000:1 ratio George Washington prescribed.

Big government makes a comeback. Margaret O’Mara is a professor of history at University of Washington and author of The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America.

The battle against the coronavirus already has made government—federal, state and local—far more visible to Americans than it normally has been. As we tune in to daily briefings from public health officials, listen for guidance from our governors, and seek help and hope from our national leaders, we are seeing the critical role that “big government” plays in our lives and our health. We also see the deadly consequences of four decades of disinvestment in public infrastructure and dismissal of public expertise. Not only will America need a massive dose of big government to get out of this crisis—as Washington’s swift passage of a giant economic bailout package reflects—but we will need big, and wise, government more than ever in its aftermath.

Government service regains its cachet. Lilliana Mason is an associate professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland, College Park, and author of Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity.

The Reagan era is over. The widely accepted idea that government is inherently bad won’t persist after coronavirus. This event is global evidence that a functioning government is crucial for a healthy society. It is no longer “terrifying” to hear the words “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.” In fact, that is what most people are desperately hoping to hear right now. We will see a rebirth of the patriotic honor of working for the government.

A new civic federalism. Archon Fung is professor of citizenship and self-government at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Just as the trauma of fighting World War II laid the foundations for a stronger American government and national solidarity, the coronavirus crisis might sow the seeds of a new civic federalism, in which states and localities become centers of justice, solidarity and far-sighted democratic problem-solving. Many Americans now bemoan the failure of national leadership in the face of this unprecedented challenge. When we look back, we will see that some communities handled the crisis much better than others. We might well find that success came in states where government, civic and private-sector leaders joined their strengths together in a spirit of self-sacrifice for the common good.

Consider that the virology lab at the University of Washington far surpassed the CDC and others in bringing substantial COVID-19 testing early, when it was most needed. Some governors, mayors, education authorities and employers have led the way by enforcing social distancing, closing campuses and other places, and channelling resources to support the most vulnerable. And the civic fabric of some communities has fostered the responsibility and altruism of millions of ordinary citizens who have stayed home, lost income, kept their kids inside, self-quarantined, refrained from hoarding, supported each other, and even pooled medical supplies and other resources to bolster health workers. The coronavirus is this century’s most urgent challenge to humanity. Harnessing a new sense of solidarity, citizens of states and cities will rise to face the enormous challenges ahead such as climate change and transforming our era of historic inequality into one of economic inclusion.

The rules we’ve lived by won’t all apply. Astra Taylor is a filmmaker and author of Democracy May Not Exist, but We’ll Miss It When It’s Gone.

America’s response to coronavirus pandemic has revealed a simple truth: So many policies that our elected officials have long told us were impossible and impractical were eminently possible and practical all along. In 2011, when Occupy Wall Street activists demanded debt cancellation for student loans and medical debt, they were laughed at by many in the mainstream media. In the intervening years, we have continued to push the issue and have consistently been told our demands were unrealistic. Now, we know that the “rules” we have lived under were unnecessary, and simply made society more brittle and unequal.

All along, evictions were avoidable; the homeless could’ve been housed and sheltered in government buildings; water and electricity didn’t need to be turned off for people behind on their bills; paid sick leave could‘ve been a right for all workers; paying your mortgage late didn’t need to lead to foreclosure; and debtors could’ve been granted relief. President Donald Trump has already put a freeze on interest for federal student loans, while New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has paused all medical and student debt owed to New York State. Democrats and Republicans are discussing suspending collection on—or outright cancelling—student loans as part of a larger economic stimulus package.

It’s clear that in a crisis, the rules don’t apply—which makes you wonder why they are rules in the first place. This is an unprecedented opportunity to not just hit the pause button and temporarily ease the pain, but to permanently change the rules so that untold millions of people aren’t so vulnerable to begin with.

Revived trust in institutions. Michiko Kakutani is author of the 2018 bestseller The Death of Truth and former chief book critic of the New York Times.

The coronavirus pandemic, one hopes, will jolt Americans into a realization that the institutions and values Donald Trump has spent his presidency assailing are essential to the functioning of a democracy—and to its ability to grapple effectively with a national crisis. A recognition that government institutions—including those entrusted with protecting our health, preserving our liberties and overseeing our national security—need to be staffed with experts (not political loyalists), that decisions need to be made through a reasoned policy process and predicated on evidence-based science and historical and geopolitical knowledge (not on Trump-ian “alternative facts,” political expediency or what Thomas Pynchon called, in Gravity’s Rainbow, “a chaos of peeves, whims, hallucinations and all-round assholery”). Instead of Trump’s “America First” foreign policy, we need to return to multilateral diplomacy, and to the understanding that co-operation with allies—and adversaries, too—is especially necessary when it comes to dealing with global problems like climate change and viral pandemics.

Most of all, we need to remember that public trust is crucial to governance—and that trust depends on telling the truth. As the historian John M. Barry wrote in his 2004 book The Great Influenza—a harrowing chronicle of the 1918 flu pandemic, which killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide—the main lesson from that catastrophe is that “those in authority must retain the public’s trust” and “the way to do that is to distort nothing, to put the best face on nothing, to try to manipulate no one.”

Expect a political uprising. Cathy O’Neil is founder and CEO of the algorithmic auditing company ORCAA and author of Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy.

The aftermath of the coronavirus is likely to include a new political uprising—an Occupy Wall Street 2.0, but this time much more massive and angrier. Once the health emergency is over, we will see the extent to which rich, well-connected and well-resourced communities will have been taken care of, while contingent, poor and stigmatized communities will have been thoroughly destroyed. Moreover, we will have seen how political action is possible—multitrillion dollar bailouts and projects can be mobilized quickly—but only if the cause is considered urgent. This mismatch of long-disregarded populations finally getting the message that their needs are not only chronically unattended, but also chronically dismissed as politically required, will likely have drastic, pitchfork consequences.

Elections

Electronic voting goes mainstream. Joe Brotherton is chairman of Democracy Live, a startup that provides electronic ballots.

One victim of COVID-19 will be the old model of limiting voting to polling places where people must gather in close proximity for an extended period of time. We have been gradually moving away from this model since 2010, when Congress passed a law requiring electronic balloting for military and overseas voters, and some states now require accessible at-home voting for blind and disabled voters. Over the long term, as election officials grapple with how to allow for safe voting in the midst of a pandemic, the adoption of more advanced technology—including secure, transparent, cost-effective voting from our mobile devices—is more likely. In the near-term, a hybrid model—mobile-phone voting with paper ballots for tabulation—is emerging in the 2020 election cycle in certain jurisdictions. We should expect that option to become more widespread. To be clear, proven technologies now exist that offer mobile, at-home voting while still generating paper ballots. This system is not an idea; it is a reality that has been used in more than 1,000 elections for nearly a decade by our overseas military and disabled voters. This should be the new normal.

Election Day will become Election Month. Lee Drutman is a senior fellow at New America and author of Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: The Case for Multiparty Democracy in America.

How do we hold an election in the time of coronavirus? By making it easier to vote when citizens want and where they want, so that Election Day doesn’t become a health risk of big crowds and long lines. The change will come through expanded early voting and no-excuse mail-in balloting, effectively turning Election Day into Election Month (or maybe months, depending on the closeness of the election and the leniency for late-arriving ballots postmarked on Election Day). This transition requires considerable thought and planning to ensure that all communities are treated equally, and to prevent fraud. But facing the prospect of crowded polling places staffed by at-risk poll workers (who tend to be older), states will come under tremendous pressure to develop plans so that the election can go on regardless. This will mark a permanent change. Once citizens experience the convenience of early voting and/or voting by mail, they won’t want to give it up. More convenience will generate higher voter turnout, potentially transforming partisan competition in America.

Voting by mail will become the norm. Kevin R. Kosar is vice president of research partnerships at the R Street Institute.

To date, five states—Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland and Ohio—have postponed their presidential primaries. More states may well follow. But these elections cannot be put off indefinitely. Parties need to hold their conventions and select a presidential nominee before the autumn general election. The coronavirus might, according to some reports, continue to menace Americans through June or even the end of summer. In most states, this means elections policy is inviting an electoral train wreck. The clock is ticking.

Fortunately, there is a time-tested means for the country to escape the choice between protecting public health and allowing voters to exercise their right to vote: voting by mail. Military members overseas have voted by mail for decades. Some states, such as Washington, Oregon and Utah, already let everyone vote at home. They send every voter a ballot and then let them choose to cast it either via mail or at a polling place. Unfortunately, most states have set the toggle to voting in-person and requiring individuals to request to vote by mail. Voters already receive registration cards and elections guides by mail. Why not ballots? Given the risks that in-person voting poses, states now have urgent cause to move immediately to modernize their hidebound systems—and we should soon expect them to.

Dale Ho is director of the Voting Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union.

The COVID-19 pandemic poses an unprecedented threat to the way that most people vote: in person on Election Day. But there are several obvious steps we can take to ensure that no one has to choose between their health and their right to vote.

First, every eligible voter should be mailed a ballot and a self-sealing return envelope with prepaid postage. All ballots postmarked by Election Day should be accepted and counted. Ballots cast by mail should not be discarded based on errors or technicalities without first notifying voters of any defects and giving them an opportunity to correct them. At the same time, states can preserve in-person voting opportunities for people who need them—such as voters with disabilities, with limited English proficiency, with limited postal access or who register after mail-in ballots have been sent out.

Elections administrators should receive extra resources to recruit younger poll workers, to ensure there and in-person voters’ health and safety, and to expand capacity to quickly and accurately process what will likely be an unprecedented volume of mail-in votes. Moreover, states should eliminate restrictions prohibiting elections officials from processing mail-in ballots until Election Day (15 states currently have such restrictions). And the media should help set public expectations that, in an environment with record levels of mail-in voting, tabulating results and forecasting winners may take longer than we have grown accustomed to.

If a state cannot do all of the above, it should take as many of these steps as possible. The current crisis makes these changes all the more necessary—and all the more likely to happen.

The Global Economy

More restraints on mass consumption. Sonia Shah is author of Pandemic: Tracking Contagions From Cholera to Ebola and Beyond and the forthcoming The Next Great Migration: The Beauty and Terror of Life on the Move.

In the best-case scenario, the trauma of the pandemic will force society to accept restraints on mass consumer culture as a reasonable price to pay to defend ourselves against future contagions and climate disasters alike. For decades, we’ve sated our outsized appetites by encroaching on an ever-expanding swath of the planet with our industrial activities, forcing wild species to cram into remaining fragments of habitat in closer proximity to ours. That’s what has allowed animal microbes such as SARS-COV2—not to mention hundreds of others from Ebola to Zika—to cross over into human bodies, causing epidemics. In theory, we could decide to shrink our industrial footprint and conserve wildlife habitat, so that animal microbes stay in animals’ bodies, instead. More likely, we’ll see less directly relevant transformations. Universal basic income and mandatory paid sick leave will move from the margins to the center of policy debates. The end of mass quarantine will unleash pent-up demand for intimacy and a mini baby-boom. The hype around online education will be abandoned, as a generation of young people forced into seclusion will reshape the culture around a contrarian appreciation for communal life.

Stronger domestic supply chains. Todd N. Tucker is director of Governance Studies at the Roosevelt Institute.

In the ancient days of 2018, the Trump administration was panned by experts for imposing tariffs on imported steel on a global basis for national security reasons. As the president tweeted at the time, “IF YOU DON’T HAVE STEEL, YOU DON’T HAVE A COUNTRY!” But to most economists, China was the real reason for disruptions in the metal market, and imposing tariffs additionally on U.S. allies was nonsensical, the argument went: After all, even if America lost its steel industry altogether, we would still be able to count on supplies from allies in North America and Europe.

Fast forward to 2020. Just this week, U.S. allies are considering substantial border restrictions, including shutting down ports and restricting exports. While there’s no indication that the coronavirus per se is being transmitted through commerce, one can imagine a perfect storm in which deep recessions plus mounting geopolitical tensions limit America’s access to its normal supply chains and the lack of homegrown capacity in various product markets limits the government’s ability to respond nimbly to threats. Reasonable people can differ over whether Trump’s steel tariffs were the right response at the right time. In the years ahead, however, expect to see more support from Democrats, Republicans, academics and diplomats for the notion that government has a much bigger role to play in creating adequate redundancy in supply chains—resilient even to trade shocks from allies. This will be a substantial reorientation from even the very recent past.

Dambisa Moyo is an economist and author.

The coronavirus pandemic will create move pressure on corporations to weigh the efficiency and costs/benefits of a globalized supply chain system against the robustness of a domestic-based supply chain. Switching to a more robust domestic supply chain would reduce dependence on an increasingly fractured global supply system. But while this would better ensure that people get the goods they need, this shift would likely also increase costs to corporations and consumers.

The inequality gap will widen. Theda Skocpol is professor of government and sociology at Harvard.

Discussions of inequality in America often focus on the growing gap between the bottom 99 percent and the top 1 percent. But the other gap that has grown is between the top fifth and all the rest—and that gap will be exacerbated by this crisis.

The wealthiest fifth of Americans have made greater income gains than those below them in the income hierarchy in recent decades. They are more often members of married, highly educated couples. As high-salary professionals or managers, they live in Internet-ready homes that will accommodate telecommuting—and where children have their own bedrooms and aren’t as disruptive to a work-from-home schedule. In this crisis, most will earn steady incomes while having necessities delivered to their front doors.

The other 80 percent of Americans lack that financial cushion. Some will be OK, but many will struggle with job losses and family burdens. They are more likely to be single parents or single-income households. They’re less able to work from home, and more likely employed in the service or delivery sectors, in jobs that put them at greater danger of coming into contact with the coronavirus. In many cases, their children will not gain educationally at home, because parents will not be able to teach them, or their households might lack access to the high-speed Internet that enables remote instruction.

Lifestyle

A hunger for diversion. Mary Frances Berry is professor of American social thought, history and Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.

Some trends already underway will probably accelerate—for example, using voice technology to control entryways, security and the like. In the short term, universities will add courses on pandemics, and scientists will devise research projects to improve forecasting, treatment and diagnosis. But history suggests another outcome, as well. After the disastrous 1918-19 Spanish flu and the end of World War I, many Americans sought carefree entertainment, which the introduction of cars and the radio facilitated. Young women newly able to vote under the 19th Amendment bobbed their hair, frequented speakeasies and danced the Charleston. The economy quickly rebounded and flourished for about 10 years, until irrational investment tilted the United States and the world into the Great Depression. Probably, given past behaviour, when this pandemic is over, human beings will respond with the same sense of relief and a search for community, relief from stress and pleasure.

Less communal dining—but maybe more cooking. Paul Freedman is a history professor at Yale and author, most recently, of American Cuisine: And How It Got This Way.

For the past few years, Americans have spent more money on food prepared outside the home than on buying and making their meals. But, now, with restaurants mostly closed and as isolation increases, many people will learn or relearn how to cook over the next weeks. Maybe they will fall back in love with cooking, though I won’t hold my breath, or perhaps delivery will triumph over everything else. Sit-down restaurants also could close permanently as people frequent them less; it is likely there will be many fewer sit-down restaurants in Europe and the United States. We will be less communal at least for a while.

A revival of parks. Alexandra Lange is the architecture critic at Curbed.

People often see parks as a destination for something specific, like soccer fields, barbecues or playgrounds, and all of those functions must now be avoided. But that doesn’t make the parks any less valuable. I’m sheltering in place in Brooklyn with my family, and every day, the one time we go outside is to walk a loop north through Brooklyn Bridge Park and south down the Brooklyn Heights Promenade. I’m seeing people asking Golden Gate Park to close the roads so there’s even more space for people. In Britain, the National Trust is trying to open more gardens and parks for free. Urban parks—in which most major cities have made significant investments over the past decade—are big enough to accommodate both crowds and social distancing. It helps that it is spring in the northern hemisphere.

Society might come out of the pandemic valuing these big spaces even more, not only as the backdrop to major events and active uses, but as an opportunity to be together visually. I’ve been writing a book about shopping malls, and I would certainly not recommend a visit right now (all those virus-carrying surfaces). But, in suburban communities, malls have historically served the same function: somewhere to go, somewhere to be together. What we have right now is parks. After this is all over, I would love to see more public investment in open, accessible, all-weather places to gather, even after we no longer need to stay six feet apart.

A change in our understanding of ‘change.’ Matthew Continetti is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

“Paradigm shift” is among the most overused phrases in journalism. Yet the coronavirus pandemic may be one case where it applies. American society is familiar with a specific model of change, operating within the existing parameters of our liberal democratic institutions, mostly free market and society of expressive individualism. But the coronavirus doesn’t just attack the immune system. Like the Civil War, Great Depression and World War II, it has the potential to infect the foundations of free society. State and local government are moving at varying and sometimes contrary speeds to address a crisis of profound dimensions. The global economy has entered the opening stages of a recession that has the potential to become a depression. Already, large parts of America have shut down entirely. Americans have said goodbye to a society of frivolity and ceaseless activity in a flash, and the federal government is taking steps more often seen during wartime. Our collective notions of the possible have changed already. If the danger the coronavirus poses both to individual health and to public health capacity persists, we will be forced to revise our very conception of “change.” The paradigm will shift.

The tyranny of habit no more. Virginia Heffernan is author of Magic and Loss: The Internet as Art.

Humans are not generally disposed to radical departures from their daily rounds. But the recent fantasy of “optimizing” a life—for peak performance, productivity, efficiency—has created a cottage industry that tries to make the dreariest possible lives sound heroic. Jordan Peterson has been commanding lost male souls to make their beds for years now. The Four-Hour Workweek, The Power of Habit and Atomic Habits urge readers to automate certain behaviours to keep them dutifully overworking and under-eating.

But COVID-19 suggests that Peterson (or any other habit-preaching martinet) is not the leader for our time. Instead, consider Albert Camus, who, in The Plague, blames the obliteration of a fictional Algerian town by an epidemic on one thing: consistency. “The truth is,” Camus writes of the crushingly dull port town, “everyone is bored, and devotes himself to cultivating habits.” The habit-bound townspeople lack imagination. It takes them far too long to take in that death is stalking them, and it’s past time to stop taking the streetcar, working for money, bowling and going to the movies.

Maybe, as in Camus’ time, it will take the dual specters of autocracy and disease to get us to listen to our common sense, our imaginations, our eccentricities—and not our programming. A more expansive and braver approach to everyday existence is now crucial so that we don’t fall in line with Trump-like tyrannies, cant and orthodoxy, and environmentally and physiologically devastating behaviors (including our favorites: driving cars, eating meat, burning electricity). This current plague time might see a recharged commitment to a closer-to-the-bone worldview that recognizes we have a short time on earth, the Doomsday Clock is a minute from midnight, and living peacefully and meaningfully together is going to take much more than bed-making and canny investments. The Power of No Habits.

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[flintagonist]

How to be a Local Wizard

The term “local,” or colloquially, “hedge,” wizard is a kind of combination of scientist, technician, holistic researcher, spiritual healer, therapist, and deliberate coincidental bystander. The rare wizard of this caliber is fully aware of his humanity and the realization that everything humans set their hands to they can improve a thousandfold, including horror, and that humans and the things they do are natural and part of nature. If you are familiar with Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey, at some point the hero meets a wizard who gives a magical item or advice that’s indispensable. These types of wizards take many forms, can be any gender, and some may not even know that they are wizards. Some may serve the purpose of wizard for a moment in someone else’s quests and never know the purpose they served. The Local wizard is someone who fills this role purposely and with benevolent aforethought.

The term “wizard” is a late Middle English word meaning someone who was practiced in wisdom, and were likely deeply educated people whose advice was highly sought after. However, often overlooked is that the suffix -ard usually denotes words having a depreciatory sense, such as ‘drunkard.’ The conclusion may be tentatively drawn that the word may have been used in a derogatory fashion, and indeed may be the precursor word to “wise mouth,” or “wise ass.”

Personalities vary wildly among local wizards, but there are some commonalities of behavior and interests. Here is a general description of the traits you’ll want to have or cultivate to be a local wizard.

Be a Hermit - It’s not that you don’t like people, well, yeah it kinda is. Just be available because at some point someone will need their wizard and you’ll be there. Have peculiar hobbies and read a lot. Hardly anyone ever comes around so you’ll have a chance to get VERY weird after only a few short years.

Become part of local folklore, be aware of the impression this has on people in that environment, and invent some more. Think about what it would have been like for you to grow up with a local wizard. Well, here’s your chance to be that in other peoples’ environments, even if they don’t want you to! Break conventional social norms but only so slightly that it makes people uncomfortable, but never enough to openly denounce you. Accept and even invite ridicule. The more and wilder stories about you the better, especially the sooner you hit a community, so you can have a history for people to misconstrue as quickly as possible.

Understand power is the manipulation and control of energy, have immense personal power, and choose not to use it for personal gain. Wizards seeking personal power never seek to become local wizards, they are drawn to boardrooms and cities and places of a different kind of power. Cultivate laziness in using power and utilize the Butterfly Effect; never put forth more effort than you need to and see the greater power in the softer touch.

Be genuine, honest, and adhere to your word like iron.

Practice a religion no one has ever heard of or make one up, that way no one can say you’re doing it wrong. Be openly obscure if you want to be, but clarify any genuine questions. Constantly question the validity of your own beliefs from quarks to cosmos, argue with yourself and lose, change your beliefs, keep arguing. Argue out loud as often as possible, especially if you live alone.

Be a storyteller. If you have a tendency to yammer, lecture, or wax eloquent, with a point… usually, wizarding may be for you. If you find yourself teaching through story or explaining via your own history, this may be a part of your calling.

Be wrathful - show moral outrage quickly. Defend those weak or in need, always step up to bullying, speak up about non consensual touching.

Align yourself to a zodiac sign that you don’t believe in and call yourself by that title. Call the closest people to you members of a group formed by these creatures. Like “The Lion,” and “The Pride.” Let the people in your group know they’re in it because they’re special to you in a way that makes them question whether or not they want to be and perhaps worry at times.

Be generally chaotic, mostly harmless, and trustworthy.

Practice some form of magic - Clarke’s 3rd Law states that “Any significantly advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Technology is any tool created to increase the use of some energy (heat, physical touch, electricity, kinetic energy, nuclear, etc), including codes. Create a form of magic individual to you. Also, have some traditional arcane items, or at least some inexplicably complex items on display at all times. It’s not that you’re a slob, you’re showing off! Leave any odd hobby items in full view of any visiting company. Extra points if you leave something out that bubbles by itself.

Wear a robe sometimes. Not only are they terribly comfortable, but they really pull you into a mindset. Clothes have their own power and like when in a lab a lab coat is worn, so to when a wizard is performing his psuedo-religious observations he wears a robe to help get into the paradigm. Also, it’s a handy backup for when you need to do laundry. Try not to forget that you need to wash it, too.

Know what you’re talking about or admit you don’t. You’re a wizard, act like one.

Be seen or let it be known that you walk around naked at home to discourage visitors or nosy window snoopers. Whenever possible describe your body to people who don’t want to hear it in terms of it’s translucent pinkness, flabbiness, and/or pimples and blemishes. Do not ever try to be fully groomed or attractive in any way in order to lower expectations. Try not to smell badly; unless that’s part of your hermit persona, then rock it.

Apologize quickly, thoroughly, and genuinely, or hold your tongue.

Do not ever accept a compliment or praise willingly, but grump and scoff and deny, do your best to hide your pleased smile, and turn away before anyone notices it. Invest in scowls. If someone gives you a gift, no matter what it is or for whatever reason, realize they could have given you nothing, or even tried to take something, but instead chose this. Practice gratitude and smile when receiving a gift, but try to remember to scowl as quickly afterward as possible because now you have to find a place for it.

[harmonyresonant]

That crave for affection. The menial nature of it.

Interesting people interest us. A sensitive person - sensible. Insensible. I take enough drugs to make a horse feel sick - my battle is to reduce - not to accelerate. Defined. - This is my new theme, I guess my new word. My style is discipline, calculation, precision of execution. Preparation loves victory. I am waiting. Though I am able to rmeind myself I shouldn’t be waiting for the validation. I shouldn’t be waiting for someone to sweep me off my heavy memories and appreciate me. Unfortunately - those in my situation are unlikely to make it. They are far more likely to recluse and die, or atrophy into a holding pattern to rectify their mistakes, I suppose it all depends. There is little room for assumptions in my world - and even less room for judgement. It’s not that judgement has become anything less important. It remains paramount to stabilising my lifes ongoing work. It’s just that a lot of the time I would judge to calculate things based on fear. The idea that I would be left alone, abandoned at the sight of my true nature. It took a long time to be able to trust myself both on and off my medication. A long time. Some part of me - still holds on. It wants that security, to know, not to want. To have instead of desire, but I find increasingly that having is something that I never really wanted in the end. What I wanted was companionship. A group of friends that can trust me, and who I can hang around without feeling compromised - or disrespected. I think that word - Respect. Means something else to me than it did before. To me I command it. I command it from Darren. From Renee. From Sarah. From Terry. No one is above it. It’s a command that has it’s roots in what I know I’m willing to do for loyalty. The sacrifice I’m willing to make. I know I can kill, because I have killed myself. A steady hand. Steady breathes. Fear and Anxiety are trivialities. I said I was willing to become homeless instead of burden myself with the bullshit of the world. That seems to have remained a truth when tested. I dreamed of riding a sports bike with boardies and a t-shirt - I did that. I did it illegally a lot as well. Trouble with the police. High quantities of illegal drugs in my backpack. No licence for 6 months - just haven’t told anyone except Jackson. The knife-edge is sometimes a bit too thick for the thrill. So I find myself wanting in the mornings. In the evenings. Craving novel. Different to the original. Different to the original idea of what will make me happy - what will reinvigorate my soul. But I know the truth about my soul. So does my sister. There is an emptiness there. Biological. Psychological. Electromagnetic. It’s a failure of propogation. I absorb the chaos of the external world and give out nothing. It is swallowed into an endlessness. A flow - unlike gas or fluid. It is a movement of death. I don’t understand yet how that can be helpful. Perhaps - in the way that my presence here under immense pressure has been helpful, I am not care-free, but I do not longer care. Psychological processes take time to reorientate. CBT done spontaneously with precision. They will reflect my new attitude. Perhaps I just never had to tjhink about validation when I was younger. I never wanted it. At least consciously. When Mum died I was happy. And her crushing burden lfifted to allow me to be free and ignore the world. It became my playground. BUt i was unhelpfully shielded. As such - what happened afterwards cost. I haven’t been raped. Or sent to jail. I haven’t killed. I am kind. I am these things because I am not stupid enough to get raped or sent to jail. I haven’t killed because I can engineer people out of my life. I am kind because others have been cruel. This is the respect I demand. It’s a capacity for violence which I’ve seen let go only once. Everyone living their perfect lives. I no longer want perfect. I want my life. I have seen beauties, scenes, people, ideas, conflict, war, destruction, solutions, hypocrisy, tales, romance, love, hate, kinship, comradering, languages, hopes, failures, dreams, realisations, progressions, regressions. There is a...vastness. I used to believe this vastness was a reason to feel...in control - that through learning and knowledge progressive - I would understand the nature of all things - know and grow to learn and understand the truth of the reasons why I was experiencing what I was experiencing. I identify hope and capitalise on joy where I found it but I found little joy where I wanted to. I found joy in the little things. Little things I could only dream of having. Relationships I would never have and stories that would never be my reality. I realised more and more that I was alone - and that unbenownst to me - my desire to Know - had led me to a set of truths which confronted me with little else besides one solution. Tolerate your mind. So that your mind and body might be of help. There is nothing redeeming or joyful about the cosmos or the universe. It is a plague on the way our minds are built - concepts such as space - time - infinity - finite numbers - dimensions - quantum physics - black holes - humanity - green planets - solar systems - the big bang - entropy - the unnecessary need for men - or their greed. The reality of the imbalance of powers. The limitations of cognition. General IQ. Social structures and the necessary bottom-end chaos/regulation needed to maintain them. Social mobility - economic structures. Human impulse. Sex. Over-population, fisheries depletion, ecosystem degradation, extinction rates. Artificial Intelligence. Big data - Cyber-security. FIAT money. Geology. Aqua tables - imperfect evolution - change. Systems theory. Chaos theory. Heuristics. Medicine. Curiosity. Nuclear weapons. I dont trust anyone who doesn’t recognise the flawed nature of themselves. Nearly all guys wont. It’s against their neural code. Most women wont, because to appear weak is against the social norm now. Judgement. and so I am here. Experimenting with truly not processing the world around me. I’m too over caring, wanting, hating, jealousy, sadness. These things don’t help. I always could do what others wouldn’t let alone - couldn’t. I don’t give a fuck because I don’t have to. And because frankly I don’t want to. It truly is baffling to wake to the same scenery each day - it’s progressive changes over time. Green is beginning to seed back. There is a slowness - a rhythm - marked by the sunset and sunrise - the clouds - the swap of trees - the rush of waves crashing - the reasons - the growth - the death. Each it’s own a part of the harmony. Though life is no easier at this pace. It makes more sense and it feels less delicate.

[thinkdash]

Few days are worse than a day when you hear the words, “I’m sorry, you have cancer.” Fear of the unknown, fear of pain, and fear of death all attend the moment when you learn the news, and nothing can prepare you for the shock of learning that your body has betrayed you. It can be difficult to know there’s something growing inside you that shouldn’t be there, and the urge to get it out can be overwhelming.

Sometimes there are surgical options, other times not. But eradicating the tumor is not always the job of a surgeon. Up to 60% of cancer patients will be candidates for some sort of radiation therapy, often in concert with surgery and chemotherapy. Radiation therapy can be confusing to some people — after all, doesn’t radiation cause cancer? But modern radiation therapy is a remarkably precise process that can selectively kill tumor cells while leaving normal tissue unharmed, and the machines we’ve built to accomplish the job are fascinating tools that combine biology and engineering to help people deal with a dreaded diagnosis.

Controlled Killing

Simply defined, radiation therapy is the application of specific kinds of ionizing radiation with the intent to treat a disease, which is usually but not always cancer. This differs substantially from using radiation to gather diagnostic information, as in the case of medical X-rays, CT scans, and nuclear medicine. All ionizing radiation has the potential to cause cellular damage, but in diagnostic radiology, doses are kept as low as possible to protect against cellular damage while still getting the diagnostic information needed. Radiation therapy, however, uses doses of ionizing radiation with the express intent of killing cells in as controlled a manner as possible.

To understand how radiation therapy works, it’s important to know a few simple facts about cancer. Cancer is not one disease, of course, but all cancers share a trait: uncontrolled cell growth. Cancer cells divide more or less continually and proliferate, often forming solid masses called tumors. Cancer cells also tend to be relatively undifferentiated cells; that is, they lack the specialized structure and function of normal cells.

These characteristics provide weaknesses that can be exploited for therapies. For cells to divide they must replicate their DNA, and while DNA is replicating, it’s particularly vulnerable to damage. Damage can come from powerful drugs like those used in chemotherapy, or by exposure of the cells to ionizing radiation. Damage the cell enough and it dies. Damage enough cells and the tumor starts to shrink.

Cancer cells are more vulnerable to damage from drugs and radiation because they are replicating more rapidly than the surrounding normal cells. But the normal cells are replicating too, and can incur collateral damage while the tumor cells are being targeted. Being able to spare the surrounding tissues from damage while killing the tumor is the goal of any cancer treatment, and this is where radiation therapy shines.

High Energies

Radiation treatment works by forming a very precisely shaped beam of ionizing radiation that can illuminate a tumor without exposing the surrounding tissue. The problem is that bodies are three-dimensional structures, and no matter which way you aim a beam, normal tissue will be either above or below the tumor, and will get dosed. Luckily, cells are sensitive to accumulated doses of radiation, so it’s possible to deliver a partial dose from multiple angles, limiting the damage to structures above and below the tumor. This is accomplished by precisely rotating the therapy beam axially around the patient with the tumor at the focus. Over time, the tumor builds up enough of a dose to start dying, while the surrounding normal tissues are spared lethal doses.

The machines used to deliver external beam radiation therapy can be immensely complicated. Not only do they have to generate extremely powerful beams of ionizing radiation, they have to control, filter, and shape the beam. They’ve also got to position the beam with extreme precision so that the treatment plan developed by the radiation oncologist and the medical physicist is correctly executed. On top of that, the machine has to have multiple redundant layers of safety interlocks to protect the patient and technicians from potentially lethal exposures.

Options for sources of ionizing radiation vary, with different sources offering different therapeutic options based on the energy of the photons they produce. Orthovoltage X-ray machines are essentially high-power X-ray tubes that generate beam energies in the 200 to 500 kiloelectron volt (keV) range. Like diagnostic X-ray tubes, orthovoltage X-ray tubes work by accelerating electrons into a tungsten target to create powerful beams of photons.

Further up the energy scale are the linear accelerator machines, or linacs. These can provide either X-ray beams or electron beams in the 4 to 25 Megaelectron volt (MeV) range. Where the electron source in diagnostic and orthovoltage X-ray tubes is generally a simple hot cathode design, linac electron beams are produced by injecting electrons from a tungsten filament into a long waveguide. A magnetron produces a standing RF wave inside the waveguide which accelerates the electrons to huge kinetic energies. The electron beam can be used directly, or the beam can be used to strike a tungsten target to produce a high energy beam of X-rays.

Staying in Shape

One of the most interesting parts of a radiation therapy machine is the collimator. Collimation controls the shape of the beam and limits unwanted exposure. A diagnostic X-ray machine’s collimator is simple — two sets of lead or tungsten leaves set 90° to each other can be moved in or out of the beam and produce a rectangle of various sizes. A radiotherapy beam needs to be able to match the irregular profile of a tumor, so a multileaf collimator (MLC) is used instead. An MLC has a large number of tungsten plates that can be moved in and out of the beam to control its size and shape. The MLC is set to project a beam based on the two-dimensional profile of the target tumor as seen from a certain angle, which changes as the beam is rotated around the patient.

MLCs are highly engineered mechanisms. Not only must every leaf be precisely and accurately positioned to match the therapeutic plan, it must do so while being bathed in high-energy photons. The leaves have to interlock and overlap so there’s no leakage between leaves, but thermal expansion must not be allowed to jam the leaves. The leaves also have to be thin enough that the “pixelation” of the edge of the beam is minimized.

These aren’t the only therapeutic modalities available for radiation therapy, of course. Some external beam therapies use a fixed radioisotope source like cobalt-60 rather than an accelerator, and some therapies use beams of particles like protons to kill cancer cells. But no matter the physics behind the treatment, the engineering that goes into controlling beams of lethal radiation to kill only what needs killing is something to admire.

[Featured images source: Varian Medical Systems]

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