04-03-2020, 06:27 AM
I follow Wikipedia's deaths page, and I see many announcements showing death by COVID-19. Ordinarily one sees other causes (heart failure, cancer, vehicle mishaps, homicide); COVID-19 pops up often, especially among people 55 or older. I am taking no undue risks with a lethal respiratory disease wither to contract it or (ethically worse!) spread it. In some respects COVID-19 is worse than AIDS in that it is a relatively quick kill. If one still has an agenda such as an unfinished creative activity, then a diagnosis of AIDS still allows one to do that. COVID-19 may not allow that. To be sure, AIDS is practically a death sentence, but it at least is avoidable with either monogamy or celibacy and avoidance of IV drug use. I am guessing that people contracted COVID-19 by shopping in crowded markets, attending religious pilgrimages, traveling on cruise boats, or traveling on jetliners.
We are gregarious; we are mobile; many of us are devout in religion; we like to see the wonders of nature and human creativity for ourselves. That is normal. The usual current means of contracting and transmitting AIDS are promiscuity and IV drug use, both of which are suspect. We are being asked to deny ourselves for a considerable time much that is human. Yes, it is inconvenient at best and highly unsettling. When this is over I will want to again do much that I have enjoyed doing before this plague. For such to happen I must survive this plague. COVID-19 is killing lots of people over 55, and I have no desire to join those unfortunate people.
Of course I am 64, and every respiratory infection hits me harder every year. Unless I meet some violent ends, I expect my death certificate to include some sort of respiratory infection. Pneumonia is the coup de grace for many cancer patients.
Most people can wait out a time of deprivation necessary for some noble purpose. Most of us want to leave behind a world at least as good as they entered it. There is much that I have not yet done that I still want to do. I have n desire to throw away such an opportunity.
We are gregarious; we are mobile; many of us are devout in religion; we like to see the wonders of nature and human creativity for ourselves. That is normal. The usual current means of contracting and transmitting AIDS are promiscuity and IV drug use, both of which are suspect. We are being asked to deny ourselves for a considerable time much that is human. Yes, it is inconvenient at best and highly unsettling. When this is over I will want to again do much that I have enjoyed doing before this plague. For such to happen I must survive this plague. COVID-19 is killing lots of people over 55, and I have no desire to join those unfortunate people.
Of course I am 64, and every respiratory infection hits me harder every year. Unless I meet some violent ends, I expect my death certificate to include some sort of respiratory infection. Pneumonia is the coup de grace for many cancer patients.
Most people can wait out a time of deprivation necessary for some noble purpose. Most of us want to leave behind a world at least as good as they entered it. There is much that I have not yet done that I still want to do. I have n desire to throw away such an opportunity.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.