D&D and the rising pandemic

[abirdcall]

I don't remember seeing projections on worldometer. The projections were here:

IHME | COVID-19 Projections

Explore forecasts of COVID-19 cases, deaths, and hospital resource use.

covid19.healthdata.org

Be Safe, Be Well,
Tom Bitonti

Oh, must have had the wrong link copied. I was looking at both sites at the time.

 

[Deset Gled]

shrug. An unspecified "huge section" of humanity? We are now in the realm of speculation, and that probably should have been, "I think enough of humanity doesn't care..."

Compare the movies that win Oscars to the movies that have a highest box office numbers. The former are the ones made to be true art. The latter are just designed to be enjoyable. How many people do you know have seen Moonlight, Lala Land, and Manchester by the Sea? How about Captain America: Civil War, Finding Dory, and Deadpool? It's a gross generalization (yes, I handpicked a recent year with the really low grossing Best Picture winner), but I think it's also a pretty good approximation of the gap that Danny is talking about. The numbers support calling that a huge section of humanity.

And we can speculate more - noting that how we engage with art would likely change if we had vastly more time to study and appreciate it.

Seems to me that social distancing has given people vastly more time to engage with art. And the most popular show on Netflix is "Tiger King".

 

[tomBitonti]

shrug. An unspecified "huge section" of humanity? We are now in the realm of speculation, and that probably should have been, "I think enough of humanity doesn't care..."

And we can speculate more - noting that how we engage with art would likely change if we had vastly more time to study and appreciate it.

I’ve found that the more I try art (in my case miniature painting, or selecting frames for art, or wood staining), the more I appreciate art generally. My admiration and respect for exceptional art has increased tremendously.

Be Safe, Be Well,
Tom Bitonti

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

shrug. An unspecified "huge section" of humanity? We are now in the realm of speculation, and that probably should have been, "I think enough of humanity doesn't care..."

And we can speculate more - noting that how we engage with art would likely change if we had vastly more time to study and appreciate it.

Like a bad attorney, I’m arguing from facts not in evidence. Or more accurately, from anecdotes. I’ve personally seen/heard/read about too many people who interact with art and music purely from surfaces.

One of my friends used to be in charge of decorating buildings for a major technology company. While they definitely wanted real art on display, he was given little guidance on content beyond it being pretty and matching the color scheme of the area in general.

We acquired our first Seidler due to related circumstances- the prior owner was selling the art in a particular room because it no longer matched the furniture.

And if you’ve read ANY music press, you’d see recording lamenting about how bad popular music has become, drawing contrasts between formulaic platinum selling albums and supremely talented musicians working day jobs just to make ends meet. One could argue that vapid pop tunes* churned out year after year by groups that are visually and sonically interchangeable actually speak to the souls of the people who buy their albums, but I find that harder to believe than they’re simply just enjoying a catchy beat.

The most glaring example I ever encountered was when I tuned into an electronic music channel, and for the following 3 hours, every song included the same interrupted/accelerating rhythm break followed by some form of fanfare. It would be like turning to a blues channel and every song started with “I woke up in the mornin’...”







* don’t get me wrong, I believe there IS such a thing as meaningful pop music.

 

[abirdcall]

Several East coast states in the USA have formed an alliance and have declared that they are extending their lockdowns until at least May 15th in defiance of Trump.

Apparently West coast states are going to do something similar.

So that is good news for fighting COVID 19 in those regions which are 2 of the most populous in the country (the 3rd being Texas).

 

[MarkB]

And if you’ve read ANY music press, you’d see recording lamenting about how bad popular music has become, drawing contrasts between formulaic platinum selling albums and supremely talented musicians working day jobs just to make ends meet.

Yeah, but to be fair they've been lamenting that since at least the 80s, probably a few decades longer.

 

[NotAYakk]

(54m, 4.3 trillion GDP): New York (20m), New Jersey (9m), Connecticut (3m), Delaware (1m), Pennsylvania (13m), Rhode Island (1m), and Massachusetts (7m)

(51m, 4 trillion GDP): Washington (7m), Oregon (4m), and California. (40m)

32% of population, 38% of GDP of USA.

 

[tomBitonti]

Like a bad attorney, I’m arguing from facts not in evidence. Or more accurately, from anecdotes. I’ve personally seen/heard/read about too many people who interact with art and music purely from surfaces.

One of my friends used to be in charge of decorating buildings for a major technology company. While they definitely wanted real art on display, he was given little guidance on content beyond it being pretty and matching the color scheme of the area in general.

We acquired our first Seidler due to related circumstances- the prior owner was selling the art in a particular room because it no longer matched the furniture.

And if you’ve read ANY music press, you’d see recording lamenting about how bad popular music has become, drawing contrasts between formulaic platinum selling albums and supremely talented musicians working day jobs just to make ends meet. One could argue that vapid pop tunes* churned out year after year by groups that are visually and sonically interchangeable actually speak to the souls of the people who buy their albums, but I find that harder to believe than they’re simply just enjoying a catchy beat.

The most glaring example I ever encountered was when I tuned into an electronic music channel, and for the following 3 hours, every song included the same interrupted/accelerating rhythm break followed by some form of fanfare. It would be like turning to a blues channel and every song started with “I woke up in the mornin’...”

* don’t get me wrong, I believe there IS such a thing as meaningful pop music.

Eh, I'm tending to think that we are trending down towards Brave New World plus Fahrenheit 451, where media is created to continually overwhelm folks, where infotainment is used to infatuate and un-moor rational though.

This is a great read: Which Dystopian Novel Got It Right: Orwell’s ‘1984’ or Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’?

Huxley believed that his version of dystopia was the more plausible one. In a 1949 letter, thanking Orwell for sending him a copy of “1984,” he wrote that he really didn’t think all that torture and jackbooting was necessary to subdue a population, and that he believed his own book offered a better solution. All you need to do, he said, is teach people to love their servitude. The totalitarian rulers in Huxley’s book do this not by oppressing their citizens but by giving them exactly what they want, or what they think they want — which is basically sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll — and lulling them into complacency. The system entails a certain Trump-like suspicion of science and dismissal of history, but that’s a price the inhabitants of Huxley’s world happily pay. They don’t mourn their lost liberty, the way Orwell’s Winston Smith does; they don’t even know it’s gone.

 

[Umbran]

The former are the ones made to be true art. The latter are just designed to be enjoyable.

There is so much presumed about what constitutes "art" in this "true art" vs "enjoyable" dichotomy that I can't really respond to it in this context.

 

[Istbor]

Several East coast states in the USA have formed an alliance and have declared that they are extending their lockdowns until at least May 15th in defiance of Trump.

Apparently West coast states are going to do something similar.

So that is good news for fighting COVID 19 in those regions which are 2 of the most populous in the country (the 3rd being Texas).

The MidWest did a coalition as well.
Illinois
Wisconsin
Ohio
Indiana
Michigan
Minnesota
Kentucky

I know my state which is among them extended to the 26th of May our safer at home order.

But it also sounds like the President backed down and said it is up to the states to decide what works best for them.