Winners And Losers In The Pandemic

It is a new world that is emerging from this pandemic, and there will be winners and losers.

WINNER: RURAL AREAS.  LOSER:CITIES

Plainly and simply, having millions of people close together is an invitation to disaster when it comes to a pandemic of contagious disease. No matter how convenient it is to be close together in cities, this pandemic will work against the decades-long trend of urbanization. The reason for urbanization is that, while population and technology is increasing, fewer people are needed to work in agriculture. But that means property values will be lower away from cities, and the pandemic has gotten millions of people working from home.

WINNER: DICTATORSHIP. LOSER: DEMOCRACY

There is no doubt that the more control a government has over it's people, the better it has managed this virus. Countries where people value freedom and don't like to be told what to do by their government, like the U.S. and Britain, have suffered the worst. Although I am sure that countries are not counting deaths by anywhere near the same standards. The true figure is anyone who died who wouldn't have died if not for Covid, whether or not they actually had Covid, which is difficult to determine. Many countries are only counting those that actually states "Covid" on the death certificate.

WINNER: SOCIALISM.  LOSER: CAPITALISM

Capitalism is supposed to be based on merit, people earn according to the value of the work that they do. But it is not a worker's fault if they cannot work because of this virus. Not paying workers who cannot work through no fault of their own curtails consumer spending and risks economic collapse. It is in everyone's interest to get people tested and treated as soon as possible if they have the virus, and that is not going to happen if everyone does not have medical coverage.

WINNER: DRONES.  LOSER: CONVENTIONAL GROUND FORCES

One thing that the virus has accomplished is that there has only been one brief war since it began, between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Having many soldiers in close quarters is an invitation to disaster, as it was with the Spanish Flu a century ago. But pilotless drones are the ideal tool for the time. Drones really showed their potential in the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan. I have a feeling that drones are going to make the next war really nasty.

WINNER: CASHLESS TRANSACTIONS.  LOSER: CASH

We are so glad to have a bunch of it that we rarely stop to think how absolutely filthy it is. What I am referring to, of course, is cash. Paper money is absolutely ideal for spreading a pandemic. The virus must value cash even more than we do. The obvious solution is cashless transactions. There is only one problem with cashless transactions, everything that we do can be monitored. The pandemic is also certainly giving a boost to cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.

WINNER: GOD AND BIBLE PROPHECIES.  LOSER: FAITH IN THE WORLD

The Bible prophecies of the Last Days have the world under the control of a dynamic leader, who seems to have all the answers, known as the Antichrist. To have such control the government of the Antichrist will have to be able to closely monitor the people. Could it be that the bringing of so much of what we do online, including cashless transactions, is setting the groundwork for the Antichrist's control? Not to mention that the national governments that have more control have handled the pandemic much better.

For the majority of people who are not blatantly sinful I see the greatest barrier to a relationship with God as putting our faith in the world. The Bible instructs us to put our faith in God. Nowhere does it tell us to have faith in the world or in ourselves. The Bible has a rather dim view of both the world and human nature. Could it be that God allowed this virus, which so easily shut down the world, to get us to put more of our faith in Him?

Just a thought about the biblical Tribulation of the Last Days. The single most important place to the internet is Silicon Valley. So much of the internet is based there. But it is an area that is vulnerable to severe earthquakes. The Gospels foretell earthquakes in the Last Days. What if this pandemic gets us even more dependent on the internet than we already are, but then it is brought down by a cataclysmic earthquake?

WINNER: INTERNET.  LOSER: PRE-INTERNET WAY OF LIFE

If we weren't in the Internet Age before we certainly are now. This lockdown is moving everything online that can possibly be moved there. Can anyone even remember what it was like before the internet? The most obvious winner, at this point, seems to be Zoom, but this applies to just about everything about the internet.

WINNER: CARS. LOSER: PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION

This has got to be one of the best things that ever happened to the auto industry. Being alone, or with a very few people, in your own car is safer than riding with numerous strangers on public transportation.