Open (More or Less) Post on Covid 97
Jun. 13th, 2023 01:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)

So it's time for another open post. The rules are the same as before:
1. If you plan on parroting the party line of the medical industry and its paid shills, please go away. This is a place for people to talk openly, honestly, and freely about their concerns that the party line in question is dangerously flawed and that actions being pushed by the medical industry et al. are causing injury and death. It is not a place for you to dismiss those concerns. Anyone who wants to hear the official story and the arguments in favor of it can find those on hundreds of thousands of websites.
2. If you plan on insisting that the current situation is the result of a deliberate plot by some villainous group of people or other, please go away. There are tens of thousands of websites currently rehashing various conspiracy theories about the Covid-19 outbreak and the vaccines. This is not one of them. What we're exploring is the likelihood that what's going on is the product of the same arrogance, incompetence, and corruption that the medical industry and its tame politicians have displayed so abundantly in recent decades. That possibility deserves a space of its own for discussion, and that's what we're doing here.
3. If you plan on using rent-a-troll derailing or disruption tactics, please go away. I'm quite familiar with the standard tactics used by troll farms to disrupt online forums, and am ready, willing, and able -- and in fact quite eager -- to ban people permanently for engaging in them here. Oh, and I also lurk on other Covid-19 vaccine skeptic blogs, so I'm likely to notice when the same posts are showing up on more than one venue.
4. If you don't believe in treating people with common courtesy, please go away. I have, and enforce, a strict courtesy policy on my blogs and online forums, and this is no exception. The sort of schoolyard bullying that takes place on so many other internet forums will get you deleted and banned here. Also, please don't drag in current quarrels about sex, race, religions, etc. No, I don't care if you disagree with that: my journal, my rules.
With that said, the floor is open for discussion.
The End of Reliable Services
Date: 2023-06-14 07:02 pm (UTC)Have also heard myriad complaints in the same vein from family and friends: can no longer contact tech support on the phone, can't get a rep on the phone who knows anything (maybe can't get through the telephone tree at all, and often voicemail boxes are full), the local branch office still exists, and still has employees, but now their lobby is locked and there are no in-person services.
I don't know if that represents a labor shortage, or if there's more to it. TBH, I think there's a bigger-picture thing going on that we are just seeing little glimpses of-- I wonder if it is related to the news items popping up, with companies like Budweiser, Target, Cracker Barrel, etc going and willingly alienating large portions of their customer base by swearing public fealty to wokedom. It's like the entire mega-corporate world, that seemed like an un-stoppable juggernaut back in the 80s and 90s when it was all "main street/mom and pop" Davids vs. the Big Box Goliaths. And now... something freaky is happening with the Goliaths. They're not invincible after all. Are they sappuku-ing themselves? Are they rotted in the trunk and sprouting mushrooms? Are they forest bears who've contracted rabies and are going irrational before dying? It feels like some clearings are about to open up in the commercial landscape.
At any rate, I've maintained an account with my hometown credit union since I was a child. And even though I have to do any banking with them by mail, in the slowest most low-tech possible way, because they have no branch locations where I live... I've always been able to reach an actual person in the actual bank, on the phone, when I needed to. And that person probably knows my mom. That is becoming more valuable every day, and from what I hear, more and more people are seeking out such institutions and are willing to pay more to deal with them, because everything else has become some kind of electronic purgatory when anything goes wrong.
Re: The End of Reliable Services
Date: 2023-06-15 08:51 am (UTC)As to hanging on for dear life to any service that still has "faces" involved in its delivery - gosh, yes!
Re: The End of Reliable Services
Date: 2023-06-15 11:13 am (UTC)Yeah, FUBAR* customer service, medical "experts" who are usually wrong, my new fridge that doesn't work right; all these things seem to rhyme.
That's why I don't buy the conspiracy theories about the recent madness. Everyone's putting all their chips on hypercomplex systems that break down in ways that afford no explanation. Of course the result is a pandemic response that just makes everything worse!
Sawdust
*I think this term comes from WWII; it's probably a general property of complex systems, which we just have so much more of nowadays.
Re: The End of Reliable Services
Date: 2023-06-15 01:54 pm (UTC)https://bigchill.com/collections/retro.aspx
There's also a growing market for actual antique appliances that've been repaired, repainted, and restored, like these:
https://www.retrostoveandgasworks.com/for-sale
Re: The End of Reliable Services
Date: 2023-06-15 11:51 pm (UTC)Of course, we all want Amazon, Google et al monitoring our conversations and controlling our homes - progress at its finest!
Anyway, Alexa heard him say something that it interpreted as racist, so it shut down his whole home.
Cracked me up.
Re: The End of Reliable Services
Date: 2023-06-17 01:46 pm (UTC)Re: The End of Reliable Services
Date: 2023-06-17 06:22 pm (UTC)The grinch will be very happy this Christmas in Ireland, due to all the chimneys that have been blocked off and or removed entirely, as part of "environmental retrofitting" policies. Although it does make sense to add insulation to houses to stop heat escaping to save energy waste, it does not make sense to take out stoves and fireplaces on the basis that electricity will *always* be available to provide heat with.