But tech companies aren’t the only ones with vulnerable, often low-wage workers.
Absolutely. Income inequality is a problem for our age, especially with tech facilitating it. The question is, is our country committed to helping the least of us?
Will this pandemic change how we live? Will we stop doing group activities or shopping in stores?
I don’t think that people will no longer go to work or go outside. You will go to restaurants — certain restaurants. It’s just going to accelerate trends that have already been happening.
It was hard enough already for mom-and-pop stores. I was going to go to the movies for “Top Gun” or “Mulan,” but I wasn’t going to theaters often.
What is keeping you happy right now?
I just had a baby with my girlfriend, and staring at a baby who has no idea that any of this is happening is really quite something. Watch a baby eat bananas for the first time. You will feel just fine.
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In your words
After I wrote about my challenges with living through screens, Rick Closson from Santa Barbara, Calif., wrote in:
A half-dozen of us in the Covid-vulnerable demographic usually meet on Tuesdays to “solve” the problems of our town one historic brick at a time.
The California-wide lockdown has interrupted that, and Joe’s Cafe has closed. After testing the limits of email as social discourse, we held a virtual lunch this week using GoToMeeting. It was great to see faces with voices again, and we’ll use it as long as required.
But it’s no permanent substitute for sitting shoulder to shoulder in a restaurant booth, being able to comment on the daily special or chat with the wait staff refilling iced teas. And we miss the food smells and background bustle. We’ve made offline payments to the restaurant owners for distribution to staff for missed tips and will continue as long as this quarantine lasts.
Before we go …
Hugs to this
Merriam-Webster has a running Twitter thread of beautiful but mostly useless words. “Murmuration” is my favorite so far. (Thanks to Reply All for recommending this.)