JMG on Hermitix discussing Coronavirus

[ecosophia]

Podcast fans may be interested to know that I'm the featured guest on a new episode of the Hermitix podcast. The subject is the current CoVID-19 coronavirus outbreak -- well, that's where the conversation begins and ends, but if you've listened to my other podcasts at Hermitix you already know to expect a lot of strange territory in the middle, and you won't be disappointed in that expectation. Enjoy! 

Comments

Link

[(Anonymous)]

Here's a direct link to it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15_TDknimTI

[fringewood]

https://hermitix.podiant.co/e/coronavirus-and-collapse-with-john-michael-greer-384de0a522dc44/ the link😉

[(Anonymous)]

is there a transscript for those who cannot afford the bandwidth for streaming?

[fringewood]

you can download it here https://media.podiant.co/spoke/hermitix/episodes/384de0a522dc44/primary/1584822595.mp3

[(Anonymous)]

If you go to the YouTube version there is an auto generated transcript on the three dot button menu on the lower right corner of the video screen. I’ve used that before and it is tolerable though it gets some words wrong. It’s funny sometimes.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not sure where to post this, it's just for your information.

The main blog was linked in this article:
https://guerrilla-capitalism.com/articles/welcome-to-the-jackpot/

Podcast

[jeffinwa]

Thanks for this; always a pleasure. Your interviews are as satisfying as your writings to a mind hungry for quality discourse.
By the end of April; from your lips to the Gods' ears!

[ecosophia]

Okay, clearly I was a little distracted last night and forgot to include the link. A thank you to those who posted it; I've added it to the original post.

[ecosophian]

It was a pleasure to listen to.

I dutifully added it to the list of your interviews on my page.

When do you expect the quarantines will end?

[ecosophia]

Depends on whether the current large-scale clinical trials of hydroxychloroquine turn up the same extremely good results as the first pilot study. (20 out of 20 patients recovered promptly and were virus-free in 6 days.) If that turns out to be generally true, it'll be over by the end of April. If not, another month or two after that.

[(Anonymous)]

Do you have a particular place online where you're tracking the results of these clinical trials?

[jpc2]

Ah, guess I didn't connect that. Had to listen in two settings. Was wondering why you thought around the end of April.

So, time to break out that fine old British remedy - the Gin and Tonic! :-) Although I doubt it would really work since they probably use a a synthetic quinine flavor now.

[(Anonymous)]

Looking closer at the paper, there were 3 people who did not recover from the drug and were transferred to the ICU in which the trial did not continue.

Some other researchers have done a bayesian analysis of the numbers and they are still promising in terms of rates of good versus bad outcomes.

Still not good... but a ray of hope.

resistance

[claire_58]

That approach doesn't sound like it will be very lucrative for the drug companies. Do you think there will be resistance to using an existing drug? I'm already seeing media pooh-poohing it mainly because your fearless leader mentioned it.

Re: resistance

[ecosophia]

I think that's where most of the resistance comes from -- that, and people who want the epidemic to be as bad as possible for political reasons.

why people bought all the pasta sauce and broth

[deborah_bender]

JMG, I listened to the first seventeen minutes of your interview and began wishing it were a call in show (I actually dislike call in shows). You and your host were expressing puzzlement over why people were buying up the instant rice and pasta sauce and clearing out the broth. The reasons seemed perfectly obvious to me.

1. When I'm sick, if I have any appetite at all, opening a can of chicken noodle soup and pouring it into a saucepan is the limit of my ambition. If I have to feed a family while feeling rotten, convenience food is my friend.

2. Some folks eat most of their meals out and aren't accustomed to cooking for themselves. Some folks hate to cook. With many restaurants closing for the duration or only selling take out, those people are going to buy what's uncomplicated. If the hot dogs and ramen noodles are sold out, instant rice and a jar of pasta sauce will do.

3. Parents who have to work at home and also provide all day childcare for children who would normally be at school or daycare are busier than usual, and their home situation is more chaotic than usual. They are having to provide breakfast, lunch and dinner every day on top of that. Preparing three meals a day for a family was a grind for the 1950s stay at home housewife. That's why TV dinners were such a hit.

4. If you are stocking up on dried legumes and grains that don't spoil, you have to flavor them somehow. Maybe there is no fresh meat available to throw into the pot, or no aromatic vegetables, or you aren't used to cooking brown rice and lentils from scratch. A box of shelf stable stable broth saves a lot of trouble.

5. Maybe you think that the pandemic is only the beginning of a general disruption of utilities and services. If there is a fuel shortage, you won't be boiling beans unless you have a pressure cooker.

You have often written about the importance of knowing how to cook from scratch, but it's equally important to be able to throw together a meal under less than ideal conditions.

Re: why people bought all the pasta sauce and broth

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, I had the same reaction at about minute 18. For one thing, the poorest people in my town live in rundown apartments where there is no stovetop range, oven or full size fridge included with the rent. All they have to cook with is a microwave. Maybe a toaster oven if the electrical wiring is not so dodgy that you have to watch it every minute to avoid burning the house down. Some of these younger people have never cooked a scratch meal in their lives, nor seen anyone else do so. Don't expect them to boil a pot of chicken or beef bones for two hours on a stove to get their own broth. They don't have a stove and there is no butcher to supply them with bones or cheap organ meats. For the same reason they turned down 20 lbs of free split peas at the food pantry. Peas take 12 hours of soaking and 4-6 hours of cooking on a stove they don't have. No fridge big enough to hold the peas in water. Leave out a bowl of split peas in the room overnight and expect to find rats and roaches all over it in the morning. So you're pregnant, with morning sickness, and you have to feed the kids and Granpa who is so demented he can't be trusted to turn off the toaster oven when the wall heats or the sparks fly, so you grab the microwave rice and packaged broth. Simple explanation when you use your imagination.

[peter_van_erp]

I just listened to a BBC interview with an Italian doctor from Bergamo.
One of the points he made is that: at the beginning of the epidemic in Bergamo, anyone with any symptoms went to the hospital, regardless of severity. In consequence, they managed to turn the hospital into a vast petri dish of Covid19, with the result that the virus spread rapidly through the rest of patients, plus went home with all the staff. As the doctor said: next came the Covid19 bomb, with many of the ill dying off rapidly, (the deaths are all attributed to the virus, of course, not to the original reason they were in the hospital).
Can we extrapolate that the reason people with symptoms fled to the hospital was the hyping from the media? It would be irresponsible not to.

[(Anonymous)]

Interesting the host kept saying CoVID-19 has a 3-4% mortality rate. Here in the US at least it's way lower...currently 1.28%. Of course, among the elderly it will be higher, but I think that when all is said and done the CMR will be at or under 1%. And thank you JMG for using the more accurate Spanish Flu CMR of over 10%. Many news outlets are falsely saying it was 2.5%, which almost no one bothers to fact check. Anyway good to hear your take on all this JMG! I'm a student of your books and will create a Dreamwidth account so I can participate in the comments more often. -Chris

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you for this interview. My husband is generally made nervous by my occult philosophy studies (one of those atheist Buddhist types ;-)) but he overheard parts while I played it during my workout* and laughed out loud or said "that's true!" so I figured it passed the sneaky test and shared it on Facebook. A couple people have been grateful to listen and square that this is catastrophic, AND life will go on differently, rather than the binaries of doom or 'this is the universal change in consciousness we've been waiting for' (another third option - that this is catastrophic BUT everything will go right back to normal has its cheerleaders too, of course).

I have been struggling mightily with my own resistance to the way I can see what seems to be a pressure cooker building, and wanting to object some caution into local discourse as a result. The coming flaspoint I can see is typified by this echo of past deplorable blunders from the elite; when a German politician was asked about the Texas Governor suggestion that the economy the young will inherit should not be overly damaged for the sake of saving the old such as himself, his response was, "that makes me shudder. It's utterly cynical and indefensible and I am very glad to live in a country where such opinions have no relevance". They have literally explicitly told everyone Good People should take to social media to shame those who ignore them throughout the entire west.

But, my divinations are very strenuous that I'm just supposed to sit here in uncertainty and inaction at this time, and not try to think my way out of it or get wedded emotionally to any outcome at all. The energy of Teth is at play, and one does not approach that directly, especially if one can't actually see above the veil. To be silent, to suspend will, to dare not, to rest in not knowing!

*For anyone else still looking for a physical culture practice, I recommend Five Factor Fitness (obligatory diet included in program, not awful but can be ignored, of course). A 25 minute 5 day a week weight routine with cardio that can easily be done with household weight and chairs (bench is better). Do your cardio with stair runs, yard sprints or jumping jacks as space allows. Kid life compatible.