Tag: Opinions

What will happen in the future?

I don’t think anyone can predict the future, not anymore, and definitely, now it is a distinct possibility that someone can create a virus that will in essence shut down the whole world, and quite possibly destroy it

This is patently clear after the recent troubles with COVID 19 and although a remedy has been found, it is not a perfect solution, or a means of eradicating it. It has shown that while we might be able to combat one version of it, it’s the mutations that will throw up questions about ever getting back to some sort of normal.

And that begs the question, what is, or was, normal?

It’s been a year or more, and I think we’ve forgotten. What we have discovered, though, is the disparate states of the various nations and ethnic groups, and how they have fared in the wake of the pandemic.

It has highlighted systemic problems the world over, problems that have always been there but simmering below the surface. Problems that could be resolved, but perhaps will not.

But as a first-world nation, we have not been immune to external forces, forces that have tried to break us while reeling from the ravaging of a virus that was brought here, and through no fault of our own.

But from the outset, we seem to have been in a different bubble here.

I will admit that I live in a country with about 26 million people whereas the United States has about 330 million, there is a significant difference in numbers, whereas the US is only 1.3 times larger in size.

All this means that the US has a much larger problem in containing the COVID 19 virus, and probably why, down here, we are having a lot more success in getting the infection rates under control.

One thing we have all learned in the last month or so is that lockdowns, such as those hated by, and rallied against in the US, do actually work when you have much less population to deal with. This is why the actions taken by smaller populated countries such as Australia and New Zealand have been so successful.

Yes, we have had outbreaks, but it has been proved these can be contained. We have rigidly been adhering to the science, and the advice of our medical specialists without political interference, to keep the infection rates down.

Yes, we have limited freedom, but nearly everyone, except those from overseas who came here as immigrants and refuse to accept any form of ‘control’, has adhered to the medical-based requests. Those that don’t, those that have railed against the rules, they are predominantly people who have come here from other countries.

I’m happy for anyone to come here and get away from whatever horrors they leave behind, but only on the condition they leave those horrors behind and try in some small way to assimilate with us, without having to give up their cultural and religious beliefs. When they use that as an excuse for their bad behavior, they should be sent home. Obviously, this country isn’t good enough for them.

We are an island, so it is much easier to guard our borders. No one can get into this country without going through quarantine, and that who try to lie their way in are promptly returned on the next plane out. We cannot leave without a valid reason, and if we do, when we come back, we have to spend a fortnight in quarantine, guarded by the defense force personnel.

For countries like the US, it is so much harder to maintain borders. There will be problems in the future with travelers coming from overseas, especially if the science behind the vaccines being touted doesn’t stand up to a very high standard. I suspect that anyone claiming to have a vaccine and using it as an excuse to re-enable overseas travel will find their pleas falling on deaf ears.

That’s because, as we are learning, vaccines are not infallible, there will be the transmission, and not everyone will be willing to have a vaccine, so even here, as anywhere else, we will not be rid of the scourge for a long time. Travel might be possible, but who will want to take a risk going to another country where it’s not completely under control?

I guess, at this time of our lives, our chance to see the rest of the world is over, and it’s time to tour our own country.

Whether we live long and prosper, well, that’s a story for another day.

Car parks are like watching dodgem cars

Many years ago I always wanted to drive a dodgem car but for some reason my parents would never let me.

It would have been fun, deliberately crashing into other drivers, or bouncing of the side walls. Not so much, I suppose, if everyone decided you were the target.

Many years later I got the chance. Grown up and having had a license to drive for some years I thought the practical experience would help.

It didn’t.

Nor did I realise just how painful it was when someone else crashed into you, especially if you were not expecting it.

I was reminded of this experience recently when having to try and find a parking space at a hospital car park at the wrong time if the day.

There were no spaces available.

This meant I had to keep moving while my wife went in for her appointment.

Thus begun an hour and a half of ducking and weaving, dodging reversing cars, and witnessing the very worse of mankind, stealing parking spaces from those who had been patiently waiting.

It happened to me three times, being caught on the wrong side of the car reversing out, only to watch another slip in.

They knew I was waiting, but ignored etiquette.

Calling them out got me a stream in foul language that brought my heritage into question, some doubt about whether my parents were married at the time of my conception, and words that I wouldn’t use myself, even under my breath.

And these from people driving very expensive cars and for all intents and purposes, people my father would say were my betters.

They were not.

Having money and displayable wealth, I have learned, does not make you a better person.

But, sadly, in this car park, there seems to be an extraordinary large concentration of them.

By the third occurrence, I did the unthinkable. I drove strait at the offending car and blocked its way, almost getting crashed into, dodgem style.

I was banking on the fact that posh person didn’t want to dent their lovely posh car and I was right.

Parking space secure, but at the cost of having my heritage and birth status impugned yet again, I felt an odd sense of victory.

Car parks are like watching dodgem cars

Many years ago I always wanted to drive a dodgem car but for some reason my parents would never let me.

It would have been fun, deliberately crashing into other drivers, or bouncing of the side walls. Not so much, I suppose, if everyone decided you were the target.

Many years later I got the chance. Grown up and having had a license to drive for some years I thought the practical experience would help.

It didn’t.

Nor did I realise just how painful it was when someone else crashed into you, especially if you were not expecting it.

I was reminded of this experience recently when having to try and find a parking space at a hospital car park at the wrong time if the day.

There were no spaces available.

This meant I had to keep moving while my wife went in for her appointment.

Thus begun an hour and a half of ducking and weaving, dodging reversing cars, and witnessing the very worse of mankind, stealing parking spaces from those who had been patiently waiting.

It happened to me three times, being caught on the wrong side of the car reversing out, only to watch another slip in.

They knew I was waiting, but ignored etiquette.

Calling them out got me a stream in foul language that brought my heritage into question, some doubt about whether my parents were married at the time of my conception, and words that I wouldn’t use myself, even under my breath.

And these from people driving very expensive cars and for all intents and purposes, people my father would say were my betters.

They were not.

Having money and displayable wealth, I have learned, does not make you a better person.

But, sadly, in this car park, there seems to be an extraordinary large concentration of them.

By the third occurrence, I did the unthinkable. I drove strait at the offending car and blocked its way, almost getting crashed into, dodgem style.

I was banking on the fact that posh person didn’t want to dent their lovely posh car and I was right.

Parking space secure, but at the cost of having my heritage and birth status impugned yet again, I felt an odd sense of victory.

What will happen in the future?

I don’t think anyone can predict the future, not anymore, and definitely, now it is a distinct possibility that someone can create a virus that will in essence shut down the whole world, and quite possibly destroy it

This is patently clear after the recent troubles with COVID 19 and although a remedy has been found, it is not a perfect solution, or a means of eradicating it. It has shown that while we might be able to combat one version of it, it’s the mutations that will throw up questions about ever getting back to some sort of normal.

And that begs the question, what is, or was, normal?

It’s been a year or more, and I think we’ve forgotten. What we have discovered, though, is the disparate states of the various nations and ethnic groups, and how they have fared in the wake of the pandemic.

It has highlighted systemic problems the world over, problems that have always been there but simmering below the surface. Problems that could be resolved, but perhaps will not.

But as a first-world nation, we have not been immune to external forces, forces that have tried to break us while reeling from the ravaging of a virus that was brought here, and through no fault of our own.

But from the outset, we seem to have been in a different bubble here.

I will admit that I live in a country with about 26 million people whereas the United States has about 330 million, there is a significant difference in numbers, whereas the US is only 1.3 times larger in size.

All this means that the US has a much larger problem in containing the COVID 19 virus, and probably why, down here, we are having a lot more success in getting the infection rates under control.

One thing we have all learned in the last month or so is that lockdowns, such as those hated by, and rallied against in the US, do actually work when you have much less population to deal with. This is why the actions taken by smaller populated countries such as Australia and New Zealand have been so successful.

Yes, we have had outbreaks, but it has been proved these can be contained. We have rigidly been adhering to the science, and the advice of our medical specialists without political interference, to keep the infection rates down.

Yes, we have limited freedom, but nearly everyone, except those from overseas who came here as immigrants and refuse to accept any form of ‘control’, has adhered to the medical-based requests. Those that don’t, those that have railed against the rules, they are predominantly people who have come here from other countries.

I’m happy for anyone to come here and get away from whatever horrors they leave behind, but only on the condition they leave those horrors behind and try in some small way to assimilate with us, without having to give up their cultural and religious beliefs. When they use that as an excuse for their bad behavior, they should be sent home. Obviously, this country isn’t good enough for them.

We are an island, so it is much easier to guard our borders. No one can get into this country without going through quarantine, and that who try to lie their way in are promptly returned on the next plane out. We cannot leave without a valid reason, and if we do, when we come back, we have to spend a fortnight in quarantine, guarded by the defense force personnel.

For countries like the US, it is so much harder to maintain borders. There will be problems in the future with travelers coming from overseas, especially if the science behind the vaccines being touted doesn’t stand up to a very high standard. I suspect that anyone claiming to have a vaccine and using it as an excuse to re-enable overseas travel will find their pleas falling on deaf ears.

That’s because, as we are learning, vaccines are not infallible, there will be the transmission, and not everyone will be willing to have a vaccine, so even here, as anywhere else, we will not be rid of the scourge for a long time. Travel might be possible, but who will want to take a risk going to another country where it’s not completely under control?

I guess, at this time of our lives, our chance to see the rest of the world is over, and it’s time to tour our own country.

Whether we live long and prosper, well, that’s a story for another day.

I should not be reading posts…

Today as I always do, I go through the last 100 or so posts that turn up in my WordPress reader, and read what are generally some of the most interesting items that will brighten up my day.

Then I find others that, well, are quite frankly disturbing.

My problem might be that I am so far removed from the situation that my perspective is different, tempered perhaps by the fact we get news from a great many different sources, and not from only a few, and some, in a way, quite radicalised in getting their message across.

The news can be black or white with no shades in between. And that sort of news, or opinion, can be damaging, especially if the reader is continually bombarded with a specific message that purports to be ‘right’ to the detriment of all else.

They say the two subjects that should never be spoken about are religion and politics. They’re right, whoever they were, because both a polarising, and both find their proponents with views that are quite strong. And they will argue that your opposing view is wrong, wrong, and wrong, because your sources are ‘radical’ and ignore the ‘truth’.

When the same message comes from both sides of the street, how did you get an informed view?

So, in my infinite wisdom, I bit. I had to say something, and I know I will get a blast, from a pile of people who radically oppose everything I’ve said. In a society that extolls free speech, I expect that. We all have a right to an opinion. The day we don’t, well, let’s not go there, that’s just fuel for the fire of both sides arguments against the other.

But one thing I did say, rather than sign petitions to muzzle or get rid of big tech, whatever big tech is, I thought a more radical approach was necessary.

Let’s get right of computers altogether.

Then I realized the folly of my statement. That meant I would not have this medium to extoll my, sometimes idiotic, notions of how to make the world a better place.

Thinking about it a little more, other than the fact I would lose my platform to speak about this that and the other, it’s not as daft as it sounds.

Computers have done nothing but cause trouble since the day they were invented. Yes, they have advantages, but think of the job losses, think of the crime, think of the scams, think of the cyber bullying, think of the government control over us, the list would go on forever, and we would all eventually be struggling to find a reason why computers were so good.

It’s a silly idea. No one will ever decided to remove computers from the face of the earth.

But you can’t attack a problem without going to the source. Big tech is not the problem, the computer is. It’s like guns, yes, another very touchy subject like religion and politics, except there’s not a simple solution for that problem either. A gun is just a means to do something that can be done a dozen other ways.

So is a computer. Perhaps the answer is not to connect them to each other. After all the original computers were not, and as such fulfilled a lot of the the potential they were designed for. It’s only after they started talking to each other, that a whole host of other unforeseen problems arose. Or maybe they were, and were purposely ignored.

To me, the answer to the problem is far more complex, and, at the moment, far beyond our capacity to understand and resolve. Much like cancer. And, dare I say it, much like the current coronavirus.

Sadly, though, one thing will not change, I will keep reading and commenting, and sometimes make a horse’s ass of myself in the process. After all, I’m only human.