2020 Wrap up

Many people have been surprised and unprepared by the events in 2020. If you’ve been reading this blog, you would’ve been fine cause Pup’s been telling you about this for a while now. While Pup’s been known to be overly pessimistic about humans, 2020 has gone a long way in proving him right in a lot of ways. So a few things we’ve learned this year.

There is massive, institutionalised racism in the US (and around the world). Once again it came to a boiling point with the completely unjustified death of several innocent men and women of color. And just like clockwork, there were mass protests and there will be no one held accountable for these murders. The African American community just has to learn to live with it. Just imagine this was happening to white suburb people. Trying to send the message that Black Lives Matter has only been faced with more violence from the police and the state. Think about that for a minute. While a group is pleading with the police to not randomly kill them, the police reacts violently in full riot cosplay gear. 

This stayed on the news for a few weeks, but like before, nothing significant will be done. Those in power will do a few token things and pat themselves on the back, but none will make the hard decisions to do anything that will prevent unnecessary violence by the police to minorities. We will continue to live in a 2-class citizen system in the US.  

While it wasn’t the zombie apocalypse, a global pandemic is probably the next closest thing. At the writing of this post, there are over 19.5 Million cases of Covid-19 in the US and 337k Americans have died. To put it more simply, 1 in 1000 Americans have died and 1 in 30 have Covid-19. When we lost 2606 people during 9/11, we spent trillions of dollars and killed hundreds of thousands of people to quench our thirst for vengeance. We are having a 9/11 event everyday now, and this administration and Republicans still refuses to do anything to help this country. It didn't have to be this bad. We have the resources and we could've been a global leader in not only saving our own citizens, but those around the world. No, we didn't do any of that. We let the virus win. This is what it looks like for conservative man-children to be in power.    

There has always been this notion that even though we disagree, when the chips are down, and American lives are at stakes, the country would pull together. 2020 and Covid-19 has shown that this is no longer the case. There is a large portion of the population who doesn’t care about the country or their fellow Americans anymore. They have been indoctrinated by a conspiracy, fake information, death spiral cult that has become the most destructive force against the US. This is a problem that must be eradicated. There are no middle ground when one side is looking to take the country into fascism.

During the beginning of the pandemic, there was a rally cry that 'we're all in this together'. What utter bullshit. While the majority of people suffered, there are a lot of people that has done really well during this time. Million and Billionaires grew their wealth to obscene levels while lines for food banks drags miles long. Like other recessions, the rich concentrated their wealth further with govt back welfare (i.e. one of the first acts of the govt is to give the rich and major corporations a major $1.3 Trillion blank check). Meanwhile, conservatives are arguing that $600 over the last 6 months is too much.  

It’s been pretty quiet on the personal front this year. There were plans for a European and US trip, but of course that wasn’t possible. There have been a few local trips which has been nice. The lockdown here in Australia has been probably one of the toughest in the world. State borders are closed and even visiting regional areas have been difficult. This tough lockdown might be the reason the Covid-19 rates are so incredibly low. We’ve seen from other countries (e.g., US, UK) who have refused to lock down and what has happened this year.

Now that there are multiple vaccines out there, there is hope that we might be turning the tide. Even if we do, there’s been so much damage done in 2020. There is so much crap to sort out in 2021. It’s not going to be easy and we won’t go back to normal anytime soon. I would also argue that a lot of things shouldn’t go back to normal. We need new ideas and new ways of working. A silver lining from 2020 is that it’s given us an opportunity to try something new, something different, and move on from many of our antiquated ways.

On the positive side of things, I'm very excited about the Zoomer population. These kids (they're prob not kids anymore, but I'm super old) seem to have a fire and sense of urgency to fix this world. I'm really rooting for them as our generation and the millennials have failed miserably to turn back the doomsday clock that the boomers have accelerated. 

Will we step up and make these changes? Or will we simply go back to how we were, living as drones in an aimless world? Time will tell. 

Don’t ask Pup though, you won’t like his answer. 

Rethinking candidate requirements during elections

If we are going to elect a president, PM or a public official that will have power over significant parts of our lives and the country, I think it is reasonable to test how they would respond in certain situations before an election. 

With social media, elections have devolved into nothing more than popularity and PR competitions. There's rarely anything of substance to judge a candidate. It's time to rethink what we need to see from a candidate before an election. 

Instead of listening to prepared speeches or listening to debates full of empty words, we need a way to show these politicians in action. More specifically, what they would do in certain situations, how would they work with their team, how would they lead, how would they think through the situation. 

In the corporate world, assessment centres have been used to assess if a person is ready for a more senior position. An assessment centre is where person go through ‘a day in the life of’ (generally of a position more senior) to see how they handle the situations and issues that are commonly faced by someone in that position. In the military, assessment and running through different scenarios is common in testing the preparedness of an individual. I think it's time we incorporate this for our elections to ensure that we know the capabilities of these candidates.

So this is what it would look like:

Each candidate will assemble small teams based on specific areas that the country wants to see them demonstrate their skills in. For example, the economy, healthcare, education, foreign relations. Candidates will be given scenarios, data, and role players that they can work with to come up with a solution. A possible scenario could be something like a foreign nation just attacked and taken over a US consulate with hostages. Or perhaps like a major bank has collapsed and sending Wall Street in a free fall. Let's see how the candidates would go about handling these issues.

This assessment will let us (voters) see how the candidate work with their teams and the quality of the solution that they come up with. We will see how they during a crisis. We will get to see their leadership qualities (or lack of). With this, voters will be better be able to judge who they should vote for.

One thing that Covid-19 has shown is that all these (usually men) who talks a big game have no clue how to lead during an actual crisis. They’re all mediocre used car salesmen who can charm you with their words, but have no capacity to lead or know what to do.  

What do you think?

The New Covid World

I recently helped someone in the family set up a blog and I was telling him about my experience writing this blog. I can’t believe I started this over 16 years ago. The world sure has changed over these years.

I was looking back at the earlier posts and it puts a smile on my face. Things seem so innocent back then. The posts were light, a few drunken posts and a few rants here and there. As the years went on, there seemed to be more rants, less light and fun posts. I don’t think the drunkenness stopped, but staying up to write about it certainly did.

I’m not sad about the changes. I have been lucky and live an amazing life today. It’s been quite a journey to get here.

So 2020 came and with it a pandemic. Not sure 2004 me would’ve guess that. Although to be fair, I was all about a zombie apocalypse and this is probably the closest it’s going to get (let’s see how well that sentence ages). It was interesting to see how different countries reacted to this crisis. I think there are 3 general groups. Countries that are sensible and listened to health advisors to shut down to stop the spread. Countries that would like to be sensible, but doesn’t have the resources to actually shut down. Finally, there are the countries that are led by incompetent conman who doesn’t lift a finger while the disease destroy its citizens.

The world is about 5 months into this crisis, and the results are starting to show. Viruses doesn’t care about your politics. Viruses certainly doesn’t care if you believe it exists or not. As I type this post, there are 4.4 Million confirm cases with 300k deaths around the world. These figures are probably 30-50% lower than actual numbers with the US leading the way (by a long shot) in both categories.

I might have a separate post dedicated to Covid-19, but for now, I’m expecting a 2^nd wave that should be worst than the first wave as countries are opening up. Just as the infection rates are increasing. People are going to die. A lot of people, but hey, the economy is more important right?

I switch between sad and angry during this period. There is a class of people who have never experienced any type of inconvenience feels as they’re being oppressed. Those who work to comfort this class are being force to go to work, and doing so, endangering their family and their own lives through infections. There’s this spin out there that they are essential workers. They’re not. They’re hostages. You get to work from the comfort of your own home. They have to go out there to work or their family will starve. Face the virus or face starvation. Your choice. Isn’t having freedom in a capitalistic society great?

While we’re in lockdown, I hope to get back into these posts. Maybe I’ll even get a few drunk ones on here.