Coronavirus Will Change The World Permanently. Here’s How.

[oscar1]

Maybe a few more people will finally understand the importance having an emergency fund!

 

[walkinwood]

Here in Washington state we have vote by mail. It is just terrible. When I moved here and got a new drivers license I was automatically registered. A couple of weeks before an election I get a ballot in the mail, a prepaid postage envelope to mail it back in and a voters guide listing all the candidates and other ballot initiatives. I check the boxes and drop it in the mail box and never stand in line nor take time off other activities to vote. If there is any question about the results, all of the hard copies are right there and can be counted.

Its really terrible.

+1
Its the same here in Colorado. We even have ballot boxes all over the city (monitored by cameras). Absolutely terrible that we can take the time to research the candidates while filling in the ballot. The worst part! 62% of the electorate voted in the 2018 mid-terms (only behind MN in participation rate)

Its not like other states have to start from scratch. They can learn from our terrible experiences.

 

[oscar1]

Here's one none of those macro thinkers came up with. Since the vast majority of COVID deaths occur in people with serious underlying health issues, MAYBE Americans will start to embrace healthier lifestyles? A dream, I know.



For example, Type II diabetes is a completely preventable disease via elimination of excess sugar/carbs. It's been proven. How many deaths could we prevent if Americans embraced more of a keto based diet? How much could we bend the health care cost curve downward? I suspect the results would be astonishing.

It’s going to take way more than a virus outbreak to start to correct American non-healthy eating and exercising culture. This is really an inequality issue. Those that have the means realize eating and exercising saves vast Amounts of money downstream in treatments of other things diabetes, etc.). But when 80% of the population keeps watching 1,000 calorie, $.99 cent burger commercials from 5:00pm -10:00pm every night of the week, our little brains can’t seem to figure out why everyone is so fat.

 

[jollystomper]

Maybe a few more people will finally understand the importance having an emergency fund!

As well as if you call yourself FIRE, and are getting income doing something you enjoy, and the market falls and that source of income dries up, and it puts you in financial difficultly, you are not really FIRE, and have more work to do to get there.

 

[statsman]

In the US, with the federal government supposedly one of Constitutionally limited powers, issues of public health and safety have traditionally been viewed as coming within the purview of the state government. However, the federal government has for the past 100 years or so leaned heavily on the Commerce Clause and Necessary and Proper Clause to insinuate itself in that sphere.

So, we're actually doing it right for a change, or at least under the guidelines set forth in the constitution? I'm to guess that the consensus here is No to the first part. Not sure about the latter part of my question.

 

[Chuckanut]

Consistent with the '12 to 18' months that's been widely published.

+1

My doctor reminded me that vaccines are usually given to otherwise healthy people who are not suffering from the disease, yet. The standards of safety are much higher compared to giving a new medicine to somebody who is terminal or whose suffering is great.

 

[rk911]

Here in Washington state we have vote by mail. It is just terrible. When I moved here and got a new drivers license I was automatically registered. A couple of weeks before an election I get a ballot in the mail, a prepaid postage envelope to mail it back in and a voters guide listing all the candidates and other ballot initiatives. I check the boxes and drop it in the mail box and never stand in line nor take time off other activities to vote. If there is any question about the results, all of the hard copies are right there and can be counted.

Its really terrible.

you made my point for me. washington state started vote by mail in 1983 and so has had 37-years to improve the system, correct problems, improve security. election day 2020 is just 207 days from now. govt is not a speedboat...it's more like an aircraft carrier. it takes time to do anything.

 

[MichaelB]

you made my point for me. washington state started vote by mail in 1983 and so has had 37-years to improve the system, correct problems, improve security. election day 2020 is just 207 days from now. govt is not a speedboat...it's more like an aircraft carrier. it takes time to do anything.

Wouldn't that mean other states could learn from those mistakes and roll out the more refined process currently being used by Washington?

 

[davebarnes]

100% vote-by-mail is far from the answer. states that have embraced this method have had decades to work out the kinks and pitfalls.

Not true.
Colorado went to vote by mail in November 2013.
Our 2016 elections worked quite well.
Our problems have been close to zero. Only a minuscule number of loonies have complained.

 

[travelover]

you made my point for me. washington state started vote by mail in 1983 and so has had 37-years to improve the system, correct problems, improve security. election day 2020 is just 207 days from now. govt is not a speedboat...it's more like an aircraft carrier. it takes time to do anything.

That's the can-do spirit I like to see.

 

[pb4uski]

We have amazing resilience, fabulous ingenuity, and a tremendous ability to adapt and persevere. I am both hopeful and optimistic for the US and the world.

+1 but some things will be different

 

[pb4uski]

Maybe a few more people will finally understand the importance having an emergency fund!

I would like to see that happen but don't get your hopes up. We're only 12 years past the Great Recession and it was clear that one needed an emergency fund when you saw what some government employees went throught during the recent government shutdown.

With all that we spend on education in this country people seem pretty stupid.

 

[pb4uski]

you made my point for me. washington state started vote by mail in 1983 and so has had 37-years to improve the system, correct problems, improve security. election day 2020 is just 207 days from now. govt is not a speedboat...it's more like an aircraft carrier. it takes time to do anything.

Ok... you're right... forget mail in voting.

Just require that everyone vote by absentee ballot since there is a well established system for absentee ballots that works. As a snowbird, I've been doing it for years... call the town clerk's office and they mail me an absentee ballot... I fill it out, sign it and mail it back to them.

Works perfectly!

 

[ejman]

Here in Washington state we have vote by mail. It is just terrible. When I moved here and got a new drivers license I was automatically registered. A couple of weeks before an election I get a ballot in the mail, a prepaid postage envelope to mail it back in and a voters guide listing all the candidates and other ballot initiatives. I check the boxes and drop it in the mail box and never stand in line nor take time off other activities to vote. If there is any question about the results, all of the hard copies are right there and can be counted.

Its really terrible.

Same here in Oregon. Really awful system. I'd much rather go back to Texas and stand for hours waiting to vote as I did before moving to Oregon many moons ago. NOT!

 

[rk911]

Ok... you're right... forget mail in voting.

Just require that everyone vote by absentee ballot since there is a well established system for absentee ballots that works. As a snowbird, I've been doing it for years... call the town clerk's office and they mail me an absentee ballot... I fill it out, sign it and mail it back to them.

Works perfectly!

i never said forget about it. i said i doubt it can be done in 207, er, 206 days. yes, we're snowbirds, too. big difference in dealing with a relatively smaller segment of the voter database vs everyone. it is an idea worth pursuing but i don't see it happening this election cycle.

 

[Midpack]

I must be naive, but with all the sensitive online transactions we all make every day, I can’t see why we couldn’t implement an online voting system that virtually eliminates voter fraud.

https://www.verifiedvoting.org/resources/internet-voting/internet-voting-outside-the-united-states/

A dozen nations have explored the use of online voting since 2000 and we profile the experience of six countries on this page: Australia, Canada, Estonia, Finland, France and Norway. These examples are often presented as reasons why the United States should be able to deploy Internet voting – “if they are doing it, why aren’t we?” It is worth noting that while some of the countries using the technology believe it has been successfully deployed, this may be due to an abundance of optimism about the challenge of securing such elections. Computer technology lends itself to undetected subversion and where problems have been too obvious to ignore some countries have discontinued piloting or using online voting for the present.

 

[USGrant1962]

I must be naive, but with all the sensitive online transactions we all make every day, I can’t see why we couldn’t implement an online voting system that virtually eliminates voter fraud.

https://www.verifiedvoting.org/resources/internet-voting/internet-voting-outside-the-united-states/

I'm not opposed to secure online voting, but I have cancelled two credit cards in the last year due to fraud, so "all the sensitive online transactions" aren't necessarily a good model.

 

[Nemo2]

If you think you have it bad:

 

[Chuckanut]

With all that we spend on education in this country people seem pretty stupid.

The First Law of Human Stupidity:

"Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation."

 

[garyt]

I'm not opposed to secure online voting, but I have cancelled two credit cards in the last year due to fraud, so "all the sensitive online transactions" aren't necessarily a good model.

My thoughts exactly

 

[garyt]

If you think you have it bad:

How sad

 

[Lewis Clark]

I must be naive, but with all the sensitive online transactions we all make every day, I can’t see why we couldn’t implement an online voting system that virtually eliminates voter fraud.

https://www.verifiedvoting.org/resources/internet-voting/internet-voting-outside-the-united-states/

Sounds great in theory. But with all the hacking of allegedly secure web sites that are too numerous to mention, and the allegations of foreign interference in the 2016 election, it would take a lot to make me confident in the security of such a system.

 

[harllee]

Last year North Carolina's absentee ballot voting was a mess--fraud in one county where one political party was filling out and signing ballots in someone else's name in a Congressional race. The whole election was thrown out in court and we had to have a new election. So North Carolina made absentee ballots harder to do--now they have to be notarized or you have to have 2 witnesses so that is going to do a problem going forward with the virus.

 

[ncbill]

Last year North Carolina's absentee ballot voting was a mess--fraud in one county where one political party was filling out and signing ballots in someone else's name in a Congressional race. The whole election was thrown out in court and we had to have a new election. So North Carolina made absentee ballots harder to do--now they have to be notarized or you have to have 2 witnesses so that is going to do a problem going forward with the virus.

I usually vote early at a city recreation center literally across the street.

But after all this I would much rather be able to vote by mail.

 

[harllee]

I usually vote early at a city recreation center literally across the street.

But after all this I would much rather be able to vote by mail.

But under the current NC rules for vote by mail you have to have either 2 witnesses or a notary