The Reason I Worry Covid Theater Will Become Permanent

Let’s see if we can break down how control grids work.

1. Some event happens in which the official story seems off.

2. Proposed solutions to this problem do not make sense. They almost always involve increased restrictions, added regulations, consolidating control, enriching insiders and generally spreading misfortune and suffering to the many while consolidating power to the few.

3. These temporary solutions to the problem become permanent with rolling waves of legislation. At some point they become normalized reactions which always only rachet up in intensity.

4. The fact that the solution was ineffective, fraudulent, or did not address the original issue is forgotten. The (fake) reason the rules were put in place to begin with is discarded. We’ve always been wearing facemasks.

5. The big players move onto a new grift while keeping all of the old ones in place. Nobody knows or cares why we are bombing Yemen or taking off our shoes in airports anymore. In a few years you won’t remember why you need a negative Covid test to visit your dying loved one in the hospital.

6. A lot of bullshit jobs are created by this grift. TSA inspectors and contact tracers and quarantine compliance officers are needed. So are newly jabbed nurses to make up for all of the ones that refused the vaccine or got permanently injured by it. You don’t bite the hand that pays you and tend to internalize the ideology behind your job’s existence.

   

   I don’t think enough people pay attention to that last point. What percentage of people are employed in some sort of bureaucratic administrative function that involves enforcing compliance with something? It has steadily expanded with each new law, rule or restriction. It is also a cancer on the productive which eventually grows too big for its host.

   Earlier today I had to go to Phuket Town, a 20 mile one hour drive each way, for one of those standard compliance rituals: every 90 days I am supposed to report my address, which has not changed in years. It doesn’t serve any great purpose. In theory it’s redundant because if I moved that landowner is supposed to report that a foreigner is living on their property.

   Almost every regular expat living in Thailand long term complains about the hassle of the 90 day reports. So they decided to set up an online reporting system, which was broken forever, but seemed to be working last week. Hooray I don’t have to drive 20 miles one hour each way to Phuket Town just to inform immigration that I still live at the same place!

   Except they didn’t send me the print out for my passport, just a receipt of my online form. So I called them to ask if I still had to come to Phuket Town or not. To me the primary purpose of doing this online was to avoid an unnecessary long trip. I got put on hold by the first woman, who spoke very poor English and did not seem to understand what I was talking about. I understand that I am in Thailand but if I’m hiring people to work at a customer service counter for expats living in Thailand I’m going to want them to be able to converse in the most common second language about what I am sure is a commonly asked question. After 10 minutes I got through to somebody, who explained that there could be errors so I’d better come down to Phuket Town. So I had to take hours out of my day to drive down there, but on the plus side I got some salmon from sister Pla.

   Look at all the jobs created or maintained by this. They hired somebody to make a faulty online link, leading to a call to someone in customer service who put me on hold for another person in customer service. I had to make the same trip to Phuket Town anyways.

   If you think it’s better in the United States, it’s not. My mom has to renew her driver’s license and car registration. The old Nissan won’t pass smog due to a faulty computer sensor which due to regulations can only be put in by a licensed technician at a cost of $1200. Instead, Mom can pay a licensed dealer $450 to NOT fix the car and get an exemption. Because my mother is over 70 and her license had not been renewed in a timely manner, she needs to retake her driving exam. Look at all those jobs created or maintained.

   My fear is that Covidiocy will get a life of its own through all of the grift. Mask checkers and contact tracers and quarantine compliance officer and ArriveCan app developers and temperature scanners and negative Covid test results here vendors will not want this to go away. Where else would they work?

   I think a great deal of these vexxing issues could be very solvable. It’s too bad solving problems doesn’t pay anywhere near as much as creating them does…

   Help Me Feed My Pets