It's virus time, guyz. Welcome to Pandemic.

[neonblack]

Woke up this morning with a sore throat and a very slight fever. More than likely just allergies or something but I'm going to get tested tomorrow.

Really not looking forward to having my brains scrambled with a q tip but it'll be good to know one way or the other.

[dubkitty]

if i were you i'd definitely go. can't hurt to take precautions. i've been going up the walls with worry for months now because since i moved to VA i developed seasonal pollen allergies or something and thus have been sniffling and coughing since the spring thaw. but i think that at this point in my life i've had common ailments often enough that i can tell between a garden-variety cold or allergy thing and a deadly disease with different/additional symptoms. i HOPE.

[PeteeBee]

Also folks may be interested to hear that the U.S. CDC just put out a statement that infections from surface contamination are basically impossible for the general public, if normal measures (don’t touch your face, wash your hands when you get home etc) are taken. It’s a respiratory disease transmitted from direct contact with a person. A lot of people are stressed out that the virus can be anywhere - and while that’s theoretically true, you’d have to touch a freshly infected surface and then rub your eye, pick your nose etc. If you wear a mask and avoid being near other people, and avoid being in enclosed spaces for extended amounts of time, you are probably safe (time of exposure and ‘dose amount’ are factors - a single coronavirus particle getting through your mask isn’t enough to infect a person, you need to get a solid dose).

The problem is that the type of situations that are recommended to be avoided are some of the most pervasive and crucial parts of society. For instance, sending kids to school or a childcare center. They're enclosed in small spaces for extended periods of time, and they touch everything and their face. Without the ability to send the kids to school/childcare, huge portions of the workforce can't work. The same thing applies to public transit and any large building, either for a big company with lots of employees, or numerous companies with fewer employees, like say a shopping mall.

[K2000]

I think you bring up a good point which is that for people with small children, they have additional concerns that child-less adults don’t have. It’s not possible to police kids behavior every moment (don’t stand so close to each other, don’t touch your face etc). And kids may not get sick at the same rate as adults, but they can transmit the disease.

[coldbrightsunlight]

Just booked an appointment to go to the grocery store in a few days. 2020 is weird...

[cosmicevan]

It would be cool if all the adults in my life could just keep it together. Wake up, wife is crying...talk to mom, she is crying...talk to friends, they are losing their grip (one of my best buddies wives thinks that Bill Gates is trying to microchip us all to track us - I say ok let them track me, don’t get why being tracked would be a problem even if those silly conspiracy theories are right, which they are not).

I can be strong through this, but not for everyone. This is it...this is life now...we can cry about what it used to be or we can make something good w what we’ve got until the next round of massive changes. I like to think about the people in Syria who had their entire towns blown up in war over the past few years and then running from country to country to be turned away...I have health, I have enough money to pay bills for a year an a half if my job goes away...but it’s still there (took a pay cut but who cares)...I really don’t have anything to complain about. Heck even my Drolo pedal from March finally arrived. Yeah this sucks but it could be WAY suckier. I am trying to be grateful and thankful for all that isn’t going wrong in my world...but there are some really rough days in there, most are good to great though.

[Schlatte]

"BilL GaTes wiLl TraCk uS wItH MiCroChIpS, HuRr DurR"
Yeah, post about that on Facebook with your Huawei Smartphone, I'm sure they don't have any data on you and are not able to track you
Seriously, why would anyone bother to "inject" you with a tracking device, if you voluntarily carry one around anyways, that you even pay money for?

[Achtane]

"Bill Gates created coronavirus so he could invent a "vaccine" that really is an injectable microchip so he and some shadowy government entities can track your every movement".
What part of their brains shuts off the "wow, when you write it out, it looks fucking crazy!" mechanism?

[Lurker13]

"Bill Gates created coronavirus so he could invent a "vaccine" that really is an injectable microchip so he and some shadowy government entities can track your every movement".
What part of their brains shuts off the "wow, when you write it out, it looks fucking crazy!" mechanism?

Since they are fucking crazy, I'm going to say the schizophrenic part that shuts off reality in favor of paranoid delusions. It all makes perfect sense to them.

[cosmicevan]

I think conspiracy theories are important, they help show us who is truly broken. That said, they are broken and no one tries to fix them. You try and shut down a flat earther convention and that actually fuels their fire. They really should round people up at those kinds of events and just get them all help.

[Blackened Soul]

I think conspiracy theories are important, they help show us who is truly broken. That said, they are broken and no one tries to fix them. You try and shut down a flat earther convention and that actually fuels their fire. They really should round people up at those kinds of events and just get them all help.

I think a lot of conspiracy theories and the like come from 2 main factors actually...
1: we all want to believe that it isn't just random that somewhere someone has a plan and pulls strings and it isn't just the chaos of the common hairless beach ape.

2: [sorry I am going there] modern [bronze age up to now] monotheistic religions on their extreme ends tend to force the idea that what was written is actual and not symbolic. And as science keeps advancing this keeps clashing with what is written and people have to choose to still believe in what is in contradiction with what they see, and this leads into a mindset of believing anything you don't like isn't real and is fake. So can we all just help them help? how? When you look at the power and sway that ol' time religion holds you can't just say these people are mentally ill, they were taught to think that way.

[TraceItalian]

"Bill Gates created coronavirus so he could invent a "vaccine" that really is an injectable microchip so he and some shadowy government entities can track your every movement".
What part of their brains shuts off the "wow, when you write it out, it looks fucking crazy!" mechanism?

I went on a full rant about the technological impossibility of an effective 24/7 tracking device, not to mention the uncomfortability of having a grain of rice implanted in you every 2 weeks, and thankfully lost 2 dozen friends on facebook as result. I think my favorite dumbass response was when one of them said she could turn off her phone to stop being tracked.

[jirodreamsofdank]

"The Paranoid Style in American Politics" gets thrown around a lot these days but the speed with which 35-45% of Americans have gone over the edge in a couple of months (after teetering on the brink for several years) is almost impossible to wrap your head around. The strains have always been there in American life (anti-science/anti-intellectualism, racism, lack of empathy) but to see so many people saying the quiet part loud all of the sudden is shocking.

I've watched supposedly Respectable Moderates (coughcough bullshit - conservatives) that I grew up with devolve into raging conspiracy nuts in just a few years - middle and upper-middle class, young enough to outwardly appear modern in most social senses, not openly racist or homophobic like previous generations - just fuckin lose it. It's hard sometimes not to see their confluence of demographic interests (economic class, whites declining in relative number and cultural influence, the 'persecution' of their religious beliefs) making them a nascent cadre of actual fascists.

[cosmicevan]

"Bill Gates created coronavirus so he could invent a "vaccine" that really is an injectable microchip so he and some shadowy government entities can track your every movement".
What part of their brains shuts off the "wow, when you write it out, it looks fucking crazy!" mechanism?

Imagine how silly you’re gonna feel when they’re proven right in the aftermath of bill gates’ passing

Meh...I've taken a way larger gamble on not believing in God. Let's see what that dumbass decision costs me on my deathbed.

Edit: buckle up hell...here comes a cryer.

[VREEEEVROOOOOW]

Hey so I don't really care about US politics or Bill Gates or whatever

BUT

We have two gigs coming up! First ones since November. We were rehearsing like crazy in Jan/Feb and were going to play our first 2020 show in Mar, but then... you know what. So it feels great to finally get going again.