When I was younger, I loved learning, and I enjoyed visiting college campuses. I thought these institutions were about Learning and The Life of the Mind and so on and so forth, and it made me happy to see these grand old buildings, all dedicated to a higher purpose.

Part of why I had such a rough time at Harvard was because I kept thinking it was about The Life of the Mind, whereas in many ways it was A Prestige and Capital Accumulation Factory with a Small Sideline in Classroom Instruction:

I was trying to learn things that would enrich me for life, while the school was trying to teach me exactly what I would need to work 100 hours a week for McKinsey & Co without complaint, and no more.

While there were of course individual teachers, departments and so on dedicated to a higher purpose, if a student such as myself was unfortunate enough to slam head-on into the undiluted “vibe” of the university, the vibe was “Fuck You, Peon.”

Anyways. Covid has shown me that I’ve made the same mistakes in my assumptions about other institutions. Take the institution of Medicine. It is not, as I previously thought, about Healing the Sick With the Power of Reproducible Science. Instead, medicine is apparently a Prestige-and-Money Factory with an Occasional Sideline in the Scientific Method (once all other methods are exhausted).

This is why, for example, you see photos of doctors at Infectious Disease conferences where none of them are wearing masks. “But,” you think, “They are literally doctors in Infectious Disease?! Gathering in-person, unmasked, during an airborne plague? Either I am having a psychotic break or something is very very wrong?”

If you think of them as “Doctors of Science” then of course none of their behavior makes sense. But if you think of Doctoring as a kind of big club, where you go to a club meeting and say “Heeeyyyy, Jack, how’s that golf game going? Let me slap you upon the back and we shall revel in our elevated status, together! Ho Ho!” then of course it makes sense. For them, going to medical school was just paying their dues to get into the club, and once they’re in the club they care mostly about staying in the club and not much else.

The problems arise of course when foolish people such as myself naively believe that a Doctor of Science must be interested in Science, that institutions that teach philosophy must be interested in Truth and Justice, that large religious organizations that follow the teachings of Jesus must be interested in the Poor, and so forth and so on.

Oops!

In short, in every institution, there are the people who are there because of the institution’s higher or abstract ideals such as Learning, Music, Jesus, Sports, Science, etc. etc., and then there are the people who are there to leverage their abilities to gain power inside the institution and then leverage the institution to gain power in the world at large.

And there’s always some of each, but I always thought of the latter as the minority, but now I am not so sure.

Of course, it was ever thus. The hounding and ridicule that poor Ignatz Semmelweiss received for daring to suggest that perhaps when delivering babies, one should first wash one’s hands after Fun Cadaver Time, is legendary and disheartening. But this story used to be taught as, “Ha ha, see how ignorant and clubby doctors were *back then*, not like we are now in our advanced modern age!”

I guess we are all still prestige-seeking people looking for an in-group to belong to, and occasionally doing something great along the way, in spite of it all.

Going through old journals, I found an entry from December of 2017. At that point my health was already quite poor, I was missing so many days of work, but I was still trying to hang on.

I wrote,

I feel like Sappho, only a few best fragments are left, everything else is burned.

Everyone is talking about how kids are now behind in their education. But compared to today’s adults, in many ways they are ahead.

Here are the lessons they’ve learned thoroughly, that will seed their decisions for the rest of their lives, and possibly help them save humanity’s future:

1. If we want to conquer big problems in the world, we’re going to have to work together

2. Listen to science, or a lot of people will suffer and die

3. Pandemics spread if even a minority of people lack adequate healthcare

4. Pandemics spread if even a minority of people lack adequate housing

5. In short, building up wealth while ignoring the poor is woefully short-sighted — like building your mansion on top of a toxic waste dump

6. If even one country is run by a maniac, it can threaten the entire world*

7. In short, today’s youth have learned in their material lives what most previous generations only learned as vague spiritual niceties:

• No One Will Be Free Until All of Us Are Free

• No One Will Be Safe Until All of Us Are Safe

• No One Will Be Healthy Until All of Us Are Healthy

I think instead of worrying about what the kids have lost, we should ask what we adults should incorporate from the foundational lessons our children are learning.

After all, it’s kind of unfair to ask our kids to save the world, when maybe we could learn these lessons, too.

Theoretically, we’re smarter and more mature than children.

*Right now, one rogue nation can cause unchecked viral spread and subsequent resistant mutations. In the future, the threat might be C02 emissions, nuclear fallout, cyber-terrorism, or some as-yet-unknown threat. The point is that it’s asymmetrical — you can’t just ignore a far-off dictator and expect to be ok in your own distant country. Not anymore.

Just read this article on long-term Covid effects. There are plenty of other similar articles.

I think when it all shakes out, we’ll realize that not only is Covid not “just the flu,” but its impact on society is more like polio. Kills some, disables many. I wish the disability aspect of it were publicized more, I think it would help encourage the more reckless to mask up. (I also wish they’d talk more about how it may cause infertility and painful testicular swelling in men. A lot of young guys feel invincible but if you say “this will mess up your ability to get laid” they might actually listen.)

We’re going to be left with hundreds of thousands of disabled people due to this disease, and I’m not sure the world is going to be up for this challenge. In particular I worry about the lung damage. There are lots of illnesses and problems that you can ignore for part of your day. Breathing though…when you can’t breathe, that’s all you can think about.

The science fiction / dystopian part of my brain says that there will be a massive criminal enterprise where, due to the ravages of Covid, gangs of marauders will kidnap people and harvest their lungs and other organs for wealthy post-Covid sufferers. Or the Uighurs stuck in China’s concentration camps will become the new “lung donors.”

Grim.

Having severe OCD during a plague is a little hard.

On the other hand, it’s giving me great insight into why OCD has stayed in the gene pool.

I have to admit that, before the plague, I was a little confused about that last point. Up to now, I was always like, “Why, God? What possible good does it serve for me to be like this?!?”

But now I see that being hyper-hyper-vigilant about contamination can really serve folks well during disease outbreaks. And most of human history has been “during disease outbreaks.”

Note that “serve folks well” = “keeping people from death.” It does not mean “make people happy.” Nope. Uh-uh. Hypervigilance is not the key to emotional success. But (I guess?) you live another day, and in that future day…you can go to therapy.

I’m cleaning out all the irritating little receipts from my wallet today, and it’s weird what’s making me nostalgic.

“Two steak tacos” says one receipt. Now, part of the nostalgia is because the receipt is from TacoDeli, a place that is ½ restaurant and ½ religion for me. But the real pang was just…oh look. A restaurant. Remember when I could go to restaurants?

I continue on through each crumpled piece of paper: unremarkable chains like Costa Vida, special occasion dinners at Lucky Fins, overpriced hippie shit at Wild Root. Each one is a marker of a thing I was able to do. I was disabled then too, but even so I could occasionally go out. My life was so limited even before. But at least my fears were only about me. “If I walk downtown, will I have such a bad energy crash I won’t be able to make it back? If I commit to a dinner, will I have to cancel?” Now I’m afraid of everything.

You would think that well, at least this time I have company. Before, I was sick and nobody cared. Now everybody’s sick and everybody cares — except the people who have the power to do something about it.

Is it better? No, not really, it is not better.

The last few days I’ve been totally freaking out. We had a flood in our kitchen that overflowed into the living room. Normally this would be really irritating and inconvenient. But now? It’s a choice between keeping the wet carpet, that might develop mold and mildew and make me sick — or having maintenance in to fix it, and risking catching Covid-19. So a bad night with a little bad luck becomes a crisis.

Last week Wil’s car died. He had to have AAA come to the garage to jump it. We aired out the garage, but I still didn’t go down there for days. Too afraid.

Today we were in the garage with the door open. I heard a neighbor talking outside nearby. How far is she? I wondered. I can’t see her. Is she 10 feet? 20 feet? Is she upwind? Is she wearing a mask? 

I just panicked and left.

My husband doesn’t understand. Rationally, he said, we’re safe. But then he panics in other ways, that seem irrational to me.

I just want to deal with the stresses of me being disabled and my spouse being unemployed without also knowing that at least 5% of Boise is actively infected with a deadly virus, right now. I feel like disability and job-searching are enough, thanks, but hey maybe that’s just me.

Back when we had it under control in Idaho, I could almost handle it. But now that the plan seems to be, “Let them all die and let God sort it out,” I just can’t. There is no plan. There is no strategy. Insane protesters show up without masks at health board meetings. We’re just supposed to let the state burn.

I don’t think people know what it’s like to get sick from something, and just never get better. You don’t die all at once, but a little at a time, over years. There’s the year I realized I was never going to be well enough to have children. There’s the year I had to give up my music career. There’s the year I have to give up being able to function consistently enough to hold any job. And so many other daily disappointments and heartbreaks, until you think you just can’t bear it anymore.

People don’t understand that death isn’t what they need to be afraid of. Sure, the death rate is low. But it’s causing strokes, lung fibrosis, kidney failure, and so much more.

The young just don’t get it. So they’re cavalier.

I was cavalier once, too.

Not anymore.

Here, now, in the middle of a sunny summer and heading into fall, is where the darkest days and the truth will out.

I know I’ve said this before, and I know it is hard to grasp, but Trump et. al. are not simply slow, venal, corrupt and incompetent. They are actively trying to kill us. 

“Why would Trump hold a mask-free rally in a state where there’s a rise in cases?”

→ He’s actively trying to kill us

“Why wouldn’t Trump use the Defense Production Act to increase mask manufacture? Why would he use it to force high-density meatpacking plants to stay open?”

→ He’s actively trying to kill us

“What’s with Trump hating masks?”

→ He’s actively trying to kill us

“Why is Trump pressuring the CDC to change its school reopening guidelines?”

→ He’s actively trying to kill us

See?

The folks asking those questions are on the right track — his actions do indeed make No Sense — unless — work with me here — he’s actively trying to kill us.

~ Here beginneth the Question-and-Answer Portion of this essay, posted in red and green, like Atreyu and Bastian in The Never-Ending Story.

Because if any year feels Never-Ending, it’s fucking 2020 ~

Q: But Sofia, we know he’s bad, but he’s not like, bad-bad, right?

A: As has been thoroughly documented elsewhere, he’s a pedophile rapist who hangs out with international mafiosi. He’s bad-bad.

Q: Ok, but even if he’s a bad guy, even “bad” guys don’t just kill people for the heck of it.

A: Hitler did. Stalin did. Lots of other bad guys did. He has the same personality type.* 

Q: Oh, but I don’t believe he’s as bad as Hitler!** Sure, over 130,000 Americans have died so far, but he did it…by…accident?

He didn’t mean to. He’s just inexperienced.

I bet he’ll stop accidentally killing people sometime soon?

A: Look. I’m sorry. I feel for you. It’s hard when your entire innocent worldview comes crashing around down your ears. It’s hard recognizing that there are super evil people in the world, and it’s harder when you realize you are potential collateral damage to their dreams of empire. Ok. 

I will humor your reasoning. He’s not as bad as Hitler, he’s a better person than Hitler, he would only murder people by neglect if he had a very good reason. 

Ok. So here’s your reason: 

Trump is the Chaos Bringer. His method of getting out of trouble is to insert so much chaos into situations that only he, a man whose elemental self is pure chaotic evil, will be able to navigate the chaos and win. 

Trump’s poll numbers are plummeting. The American people despise him. If we get COVID under control by November, that means a lot of people who hate Trump will safely leave their houses, go to the polls, and vote him out of office. Sure Putin can attack our voting machines, but his methods are not foolproof. Otherwise, why did the Dem’s take the house in 2018?

Putin may be able to hack a close election but not a landslide.

So: how to attack the election?

Letting the virus run amok is the attack on the election.

Because what happens if the virus runs amok? Polling places are shut down. High-risk folks — including many Democrats — stay home. Voting by mail gets denied in Republican strongholds. Mail-in ballots are “lost.”

The whole. Voting. System. Breaks. Down. 

Donald Trump wins again. 

And if a few hundred thousand Americans have to die to get him there, well, that’s just a happy accident as far as he is concerned. 

You know how folks have been protesting in the streets against state-sponsored murder?

We need to do more of it.

I can’t do anything as I’m too disabled. I can only write these essays where I scream into the void.

But you can do something. You can leave your home. You can wear a mask. You can protest. You can demand better action.

Protest. Shout. Rage. YOU ARE BEING MURDERED. SPEAK UP NOW BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE.

The election depends on you. 

* The psych term for it is “malignant narcisissm.”

**According to his first wife Ivanka, he kept a copy of Hitler’s speeches by his bedside. This, from a guy who struggles to read, so it must have been very important to him. But sure, ok. He’s totally not into Hitler.

Well, we’re in the thick of it now. America has neither returned to normal, nor have we remained in a safe lockdown. Rather, we’re now in this liminal space, filled with cheerleading denial about how we’re “reopening!” and “the economy is coming back!” Meanwhile, in truth, nobody knows what the heck is going on.

However, there is a functional middle ground between complete lockdown and what we have now, which is a devil-may-care complacency about the deaths of 1,000 people a day.

The functional middle ground lays in stacking enough safe behaviors together that the actual risk actually ends up being near zero, and we can get back to normal activities, with precautions in place.

Let’s use sexual behavior in HIV/AIDS prevention as an example:

OPTION #1: ZERO RISK: Abstinence

OPTION #2: LOWER RISK: condoms OR monogamy OR getting HIV status tests

OPTION #3: LOWEST RISK: testing AND condoms AND monogamy

Why is Option #3 better than Option #2? After all, if both partners test negative, you don’t need the other two interventions…right?

It all comes down to probability. Nothing besides abstinence is zero risk. Tests can come back with a false negative. Condoms can break. Partners can cheat.

But if you stack all three risk-reducing behaviors together, your chances of contracting HIV plummet to almost (but not quite) zero. And since life is inherently dangerous, and living without sex forver is unacceptable for most of the population, almost zero is good enough.

Now, I’m going to take a short detour into math to show what almost zero looks like.

Let’s say you flip a coin. What are the chances it turns out heads? 1 in 2, or .50.

Let’s say you throw a die. What are the chances you roll a 6? 1 in 6, or ~.17.

Now draw a card. What are the chances you pick the Ace of Hearts? 1 in 52, or .019.

If your life depended on one of these games of chance, you’d probably sit the game out. One in 52 is improbable, but it’s still highly possible.

But let’s say your life depends on just making sure you don’t get all three simultaneously? That is to say, you’ll be fine unless you get heads AND you roll a 6 AND you pick the Ace of Hearts?

Chance of getting heads:

.50

Chance of getting heads AND rolling a 6:

.50 * .17 = .0085

Chance of getting heads AND rolling a 6 AND picking the Ace of Hearts?:

.50 * .17 * .019 = .0001615

In other words, if you combine the somewhat-low risks of each option, the final risk ends up being .0001616, or roughly one in 6,000.

To put that in perspective, the death rate in 2013 for car crashes was about 1 in 10,000. And we all still decide to get in cars. We’ve decided that the benefits of driving are worth the 1 in 10,000 risk. Not only that, there are risks of not driving, such as being unable to get to jobs, food, healthcare — and they also mean that the benefits are worth more than the risks.

At a certain point, every choice has some risk, so as long as you keep the downside to a manageable number, it’s acceptable.

So let’s look at Covid-19. Right now, we have no silver bullets. We don’t have any drugs like the HIV drug Truvada, which reduces viral load and makes it very hard to pass on the illness. And we don’t even have an effective, available, affordable barrier to contagion that’s as effective as a condom. PPE is in short supply, and even hospital workers who wear it regularly are getting sick.

But what we do have is stacked probabilities. Now, since we don’t have the data yet, I’ll be using “X” and “Y”, but I hope you’ll still be able to see how this works. Remember, the more 0’s after the decimal point, the safer you’ll be:

Chance of contracting Covid in normal interactions: .0X

Chance of contracting Covid when everyone is wearing a mask: .0Y

Chance of contracting Covid when everyone stays 6 feet apart: .0Z

Chance of contracting Covid when avoiding indoor air (outdoors only): .0A

TOTAL CHANCE OF CONTRACTING COVID: .000XYZA

And now let’s look at schools:

Here are some lower-risk changes we can use simultaneously to multiply safety:

• Fewer kids in classrooms
• Better ventilation. During temperate weather, keep all windows open, use box fans to circulate air at all times.
• Better air filtration. Some high-end filters can filter out viruses. It is 100%? No, but one would imagine it’s going to help.
• Testing as much as possible. If we can test kids / staff on Friday night, we can get results for PCR testing by Monday morning. Even weekly testing would GREATLY reduce risk and spread, so long as it was universal and accurate.
• Grouping kids into cohorts to keep spread to a smaller potential group.
• Strategizing about which things really NEED in-person class time. Maybe a teacher can make a video for easy things, and have in-person class for harder things.
• Allowing kids to learn some subjects remotely, depending on ability. Regular testing to see if they’re keeping up.

I hope we can come up with creative, healthy ways to get schools up and running again. The thing is, all of the best ideas are going to take money. If we teach half the students, we need twice the teachers. If every student is remote half the time, we need money for equipment. If school schedules are constantly changing, then parents can’t work, and they need money to live.

So, we as a community need to push for some of those federal emergency billions to go to the real crisis — education.

Today I left the apartment for the first time in 2 months. The reason: to go get a very important blood draw.

I agonized about whether the benefit of this test was worth it for weeks. But last week, the number of new diagnosed Covid cases fell to about 1/10th of what it had been in the beginning of April. Meanwhile, our lockdown was about to expire. So I figured that around now would be possibly the most optimal time for the next few months to Not get infected.

Planning my blood draw was like a scene from The Martian. First I tried in vain to find a home health aide or mobile blood draw that would do it. Covid appears to spread mostly in indoor spaces, so if somebody could come here and stand outside, that would be safer. No dice. So then I did it like this:

• Found local clinic with the least traffice
• First patient of the day
• Wore my Cambridge Mask I’d originally bought for the wildfires
• Wore Wil’s swim goggles and protective glasses over them
• Put a button-down shirt and a skirt over my clothes, then shucked them off after my blood draw
• Took a shower as soon as I got home

I was in and out in under 5 minutes, praise be to God.

It’s a very strange thing to go outside when you haven’t been able to. As someone dealing with multiple health problems, it’s certainly an experience I’ve had before, but of course, never like this.

As we drove through Boise, I saw the following:

• Construction workers downtown, working on a hospital building, standing close together, with no masks on
• Other construction workers, outside with no masks, talking closely x 2
• People walking without masks
• People jogging without masks
• People biking with masks

The only place I saw masks were at the doctor’s office. I saw ZERO people wearing masks otherwise.

Idaho is stuck in its “Freedom” kick, and I guess nobody is going to legislate wearing masks. If that’s how it’s going to be for the foreseeable future, then I want to get the heck out of any place w/ population density. Which means not living downtown anymore, and maybe even not living in any apartment complex. I can’t deal with this much stupid.

All this education I had, all these facts and figures and logical reasoning, and nobody said anything about Power.

Nobody said, “Of course, if you’re poor, researching the proper treatment for your medical condition won’t save you, because you won’t be able to afford treatment.”

Nobody said, “Of course, being the smartest person in the room won’t get you the promotion if you’re a woman or a person of color.”