Love, Socialism & Covid19

I’ve been thinking about the relationship between love (love in general, not romantic love), socialism/communism, and covid19/airborne viruses.  A lot of leftists have sort of given up on covid, if not straight up moved to the right/embraced the you do you personal responsibility framing. 

Socialism and communism, as well as all leftist thought, if you can forget about the economics for a second, are ultimately about humanity as a whole.  They are about life as a whole.  They are about love, for life.  Hence why it is the left who loves wolves, who loves sharks, who loves turtles, who loves snow leopards, who loves the forests and the mountains and the rain and so forth.  We are fascinated by life itself.  We appreciate a volcanic eruption, for all their destruction, because we know they create the most fertile land.  We look up at the stars, not because we dream of going to space ourselves or colonizing some earth like planet light years away, but because we are amazed.  We are in awe of the whole universe. 

Philosopher Heather Marsh has written extensively about how humans are a social species.  We all depend on others in order to both survive and thrive.  However much we try to deny it, as a species, we are co dependent.  We move in groups.  Our actions influence others, and the actions of others influences us.  We are at our very best as a species when we look out for each other, when we work together.  She, as well as recently passed away author Bell Hooks, have written about how our societies are ruled by those who do not love life.  We have classes of people who genuinely enjoy pain and suffering of others.  Life is chaos, but these sadists feel like Gods when they are able to hold so much power over who lives and dies. 

Going into year four of covid19, aka Sars Cov 2, more than one million USians have died, more than 700k Brazilians have died, more than 10 million children worldwide are orphans because they lost parents to covid.  As a leftist, as a socialist, communist, anarchist etc whatever one wants to call me, it is our utmost paramount duty, above all else, to fight for and protect life on earth.  This virus is not a cold, it is not the flu, and it is not and never will be mild.  It is a BSL 3 virus that disables those who survive the acute phase, it causes strokes, heart attacks, memory loss, type 1 diabetes, liver failure, blood clots, multi organ system failure among other things.  There is no immunity to it, no hybrid immunity, and there is zero benefit whatsoever of getting it.  None.  Nada.  Every time you get it, your chance of dying doubles.  It destroys your T Cells and white blood cells, leaving you defenseless against cancer, bacterial infections, and other viruses.  It stays in your body for months, and causes auto immunity.  The virus is airborne, meaning it floats in the air.  The WHO and U.S CDC refuse to call it airborne three years in.

That is the public education we must hammer home with the general public.  Getting infected is not inevitable.  This virus never will be endemic.  We can and must beat it, we have no other option.  Wearing an n95 mask or elastomeric respirator is not a burden.  Only a sociopath would say such a thing.  To wear a mask is to protect yourself, but to protect others, to protect society.  N95 masks are a social good, a social responsibility.  N95 masks are your way of acknowledging, as the meme goes, we live in a society.  With a variant as contagious as Omicron, two way masking with n95 masks brings the r0 number (reproduction rate of transmission) to 0.7.  That means if you have a thousand cases per day, in a week you’d have 700 a day.  In two weeks, you’d have 490 cases per day.  So every two weeks, cases would decline by half.  Within three months of n95 masking, without any lockdowns, we can reduce covid cases and deaths by nearly 98%.  Some point out as an argument against masking that people don’t wear them right or don’t have a good tight fit, but as leftists of all ideologies, as lovers of life, we can and must set up fit test centers in every community, to show and teach the public how to get a good fit with n95’s.

We love to talk about seizing the means of production, but that alone is not enough.  What we make is the most important.  Every human on this earth has a right to breathe clean air at all times, outdoors and indoors.  With six air changes per hour, we can reduce the amount of covid in the air by upwards of 80%.  We can do this with Corsi Rosenthal boxes.  Every school classroom, every restaurant, every movie theater, every bedroom, every office building.  We need not wait for state regulations.  We organize the schools, the teachers and students, we organize the work places.  We don’t need a million people working at Amazon, we need a million people making Merv 13 filters and box fans.  We don’t stop there though.  We have now entered the era of the pandemic thanks to climate change, capitalism, sprawl, industrial agriculture etc.  We need to double up, triple up everything.  Corsi Rosenthal boxes go on the ground or table tops, but we need to also mass produce and install fandaliers and far UVC lamps.  Fandeliers have two large MERV 13 air filters, one on bottom and one on top, and then many small fans going around all four sides, and it hangs from the ceiling like a basketball arena video board.  This sucks viruses and pathogens upwards, while the fans push out clean air.  Creates airflow indoors.  The other thing us as leftists need to fight like hell for and educate about is far UVC lamps.  These lamps kill viruses, and creates an air change rate upwards of 100 per hour. 

We have lived with the flu and RSV for decades, not because we had to, but because our health care industry has followed droplet dogma.  Our public health still doesn’t believe in airborne viruses.  Capitalism is ill equipped to contain or acknowledge the reality of covid, the flu, RSV and the future pandemics to come.  As socialists, communists or come what you may, all of us who genuinely love life, it is our paramount duty to confront the world as it is.  To always believe in good, to never give up on our idealism.  As cheesy as it may sound, to beat covid, to beat the flu and RSV, to beat all the future pandemics to come, requires us to love, and to love passionately, all that life is.  I am a leftist because I love life.

To end this, I will say that I’ve read public health, and science, shouldn’t be made political or ideological.  That is total bull shit.  I sit here, and I boldly and proudly claim n95 masks as part of the social commons.  I proudly claim Corsi Rosenthal boxes as part of the social commons.  I proudly claim fandaliers and far UVC lamps as part of the social commons.  As a leftist, we protect all, we take no life for granted, human or otherwise.  We’re lovers. 

Saving Star Wars

I will not get into the nitty gritty of how Disney has ruined Star Wars, because those talking points and arguments have been made a million times by others.  This will be positive, a write up of how I would save Star Wars.  So lets get to it.

The first and most important thing, before making any new movies, TV shows, video games, theme park rides, merchandise etc is to restore the Expanded Universe as the timeline, and brand the Disney timeline as the Alternative Universe.  As a fan of the SWEU, who knows the pain of having their characters, events, timeline aka canon erased, I would not desire to alienate or anger the fans that love the characters of the past ten years.  The Disney canon could continue as an AU, if writers, showrunners and so forth wish to continue it.  The only rule would be they can not lift any characters or stories from the EU that haven’t already appeared on screen in a movie or show.  All movies set in the AU must be released on Disney Plus rather than theaters.  The theaters will be reserved for movies set in the EU. 

How would I create a Star Wars movie/TV show franchise based on the EU, when the vast majority of movie going and TV show audiences have not read the books?  Great question, so lets get to that.  It would be a challenge, and a complex one.  It’d have to be carefully planned.  Star Wars has not had a movie release since 2019, and when Disney bought LucasFilm in 2012, a movie wasn’t released until 2015.  So we can assume the quickest a film could be put out is three years, so if we started an EU movie today, it wouldn’t release until Christmas of 2025 at the earliest.  Six years without a Star Wars movie is a long time, and means the next movie is guaranteed to be a huge box office, similar to The Force Awakens after a 10 year gap.  This first movie is when you take big risks, introduce new characters and a new story, rather than rehashing an old story and relying on nostalgia like TFA did.  As such, if it were up to me, the first movie should be set in the Old Republic, and be a story about the Mandalorian Wars. This movie would be the introduction of general audiences to characters such as Revan and Malak while they are still Jedis, as well as Bastila Shan and others.  This will be the beginning of their stories, setting up 10, 20, 30 however many years of stories shown in film and TV shows. 

Now that your first movie got the we miss Star Wars BO effect, your second movie needs to really be a hit in many areas to continue rebuilding the trust of the fan base, to set up future movies and shows for sustained success.  You need a great story that stands on its own while also setting up future stories/events, a healthy dose of nostalgia but not too much, and new interesting characters.  Hence why this will be the Outbound Flight movie.  Outbound Flight would suck in general audiences because they’d get to see Ewan and Haydensen as Obi and Anakin as Jedis one more time, plus Mace Windu, Padme, Palpatine, Yoda and so forth, that’s your nostalgia as bait.  Your new characters would be Thrawn, Joruus C’Baoth, the Chiss Ascendancy, and the Yuuzhan Vong.  These new characters being introduced would set up the Thrawn trilogy movies, as well as a multi year TV show on the Chiss Ascendancy, because general audiences would now be familiar with Thrawn, Joruss, and the Chiss.  While the introduction of the Yuuzhan Vong would be minor in this story, it’d be just enough for audiences to be curious about who the Vong are, which would set up a movie trilogy based on the events in their galaxy, including the Cremlevian War.  One can’t do the Vong invasion justice on screen without setting it up properly, otherwise it won’t be as epic and grand as it truly is.  It is theeeee cross over event of Star Wars.

Being that you’ve now gained a chunk of trust back with these first two movies, while having a minor but enough of an introduction of the Vong to make an audience curious, the third movie should be set in the galaxy of the Yuuzhan Vong, and be about the massive war loving droid army that invades Yuuzhan Tar.  It’d be a reprieve from the usual Jedi and Sith stuff, thus appealing to audiences that love shows such as Andor.  It’d be kind of like Captain America Civil War, in that you know this story is important because it leads into something far bigger (Infinity War).  It’d also appeal to people who love Transformers movies, as well as connect to people’s real life fears of robots and AI, because this would be a story about war loving droids vs organic life.

The fourth movie would, like the second movie, need to rely somewhat on the familiar, but not over do it.  Wedge Antilles would be the nostalgia here, and this would obviously be an X Wing movie, I’d go with the Bacta War.  In the long term, being that the X Wing series is long, it’d be a multi year hit TV show, but start it off with a movie and/or trilogy.  One of the best parts of Star Wars is the space battles, when Star Wars puts the ‘Star’ and ‘Wars’ into Star Wars.

These four movies would wrap up the first year of Star Wars return to movie theaters.  A little bit of everything mixed together, to earn back the trust of fans while creating fans of new characters, respecting the lore while telling stories that are new and good set ups for long term story telling.

The TV shows should be actual TV shows, not 6 episode shows that were just movies cut up.  Every show should be 12 episodes, enough to cover most or the entirety of books/comics they are based on.  Not every book in the EU can or should be a movie, but they are all important.  The Han Solo trilogy should be a three season TV show.  The Ascendancy Trilogy should be a three season TV show.  The Clone Wars need to have a live action TV show based on the EU, and shown accurately in their brutality, rather than with Filoni’s retcons, because not many adults watch animation plus Disney cut short season 7.  Tales of the Jedi needs to be a multi season TV show based on their EU namesake, not just Filoni stealing the name for more Skywalker era stuff.

This is not a full 10 year plan of movies and shows, that’d break my brain trying to plan because there is so much that deserves to be seen on screen.  Bane trilogy, Sith War, Great Hyperspace War, Rakata Infinite Empire, Zakuul and Eternal Empire, the Old Republic era of Malgus and Satele Shan, Tales of the Jedi, NJO and onwards.  This is just a start, a first year plan, to get Star Wars back on its feet.  Star Wars used to be the biggest movie and book franchise, and now it is limping greatly while the MCU, DC, and maybe soon Avatar, surpass it.  The EU is magical, and Star Wars deserves to never be anything less than magical.

Nationalize Alaska Airlines

Washington, Oregon, and British Columbia should nationalize Alaska Airlines.

The major airlines in the U.S have become too greedy for their own good to the point that it is now causing poor service.  The end of mask mandates has led to mass cancellation of flights due to staff being sick with covid.  It is leading to Senators like Lindsay Graham proposing to raise the retirement age of pilots from 65 to 67.  Letting covid run rampant not only cancels many flights, but endangers the ones that are able to fly, by having planes flown by pilots with brain fog from long covid, as well as lackluster maintenance.  The greed of the airlines caused the CDC to shorten the isolation period for covid as well as drop masks.  For public health and in flight safety reasons, as well as an end to corporate bailouts, it is necessary for the state to take ownership of the airlines.  Being that Alaska is primarily the domain of the Cascadia bioregion, our states must take over ownership of Alaska Airlines.

When we take over Alaska Airlines, we will implement a mask mandate immediately to stop transmission of covid on the planes.  This will ensure the safety of the staff, the passengers, and the plane itself.  Alaska Airlines under state ownership would become the safest airline to fly on in the U.S.  By protecting the staff from covid, we would have significantly fewer cancellation of flights, thus taking away customers from other airlines who continue to be plagued by covid.  The immune compromised and vulnerable would also choose to fly with us.  Within a short period of time, Alaska Airlines would gain a reputation as being the best airline in the U.S.

Under state ownership, we would also seek to make the in flight experience the best of any U.S airline, to further take away market share from the other airlines.  We would do this by increasing seat pitch, better known as legroom, to 34 inches in economy class.  This would be the best legroom in economy class on any airline.  We would also make seat width be a minimum of 18 inches.  We would pry staff away from the other airlines by doubling the salary of all on board staff and ground crew.

These moves in total would not be profitable.  However, the job of the state is not to make a profit, it is to serve and provide high quality services to its people.  It is to make people happy, to make people’s lives enjoyable.  Alaska Airlines under state ownership would serve the needs and wants of our people.  Lastly, under the ownership of Washington, Oregon and British Columbia, we would rebrand Alaska Airlines to Cascadia Airlines, to reflect that the airline is primarily the domain of our bioregion.

Seattle Covid19

Covid19 cases have doubled in Seattle in the last two weeks. Washington has a Democratic governor, and Seattle has a Democratic mayor. Cases are now higher today than they were when we first went into shelter in place (half assed lockdown), yet we are still open for some reason. This is so fucking stupid that I’m literally breaking. It’s all so much needless sickness and death. Democrats will surely cave in to Trump’s pressure to reopen the schools, because that is what capitalism demands. We are ruled by Death Eaters, in every major institution, as philosopher Heather Marsh has said.

As always, this could all be done with relatively quickly. If Seattle implemented a hard mask mandate tomorrow, meaning everyone must wear a mask at all times when they leave the house, not just for public indoor spaces but also outdoor exercise, being at the park etc, as Goldman Sachs said, the R0 would be 0.6. Cases would go up for another two weeks, then level off, probably around 100 if done tomorrow. In three weeks, just as cases have leveled off and are about to decline, impose a hard 60 day lockdown, nobody leaves their house.

With an R0 of say 0.5, cases during the first week of hard lockdown would fall to 50 per day. By the end of week two, new cases would be at 25 per day. End of week three, new cases would be at 12 or 13. End of week four, new cases are at six. End of week five, we’d be down to three new cases. Week six, one new case per day. Week seven and eight, we’d reach the magical number of zero new cases per day.

At that point, we’d be able to end the lockdown. I didn’t say reopen, I said lift the lockdown. The word reopening, even with phases, has led many to believe we are done with the pandemic. We need a different word, such as phase one recovery, or post first wave containment phase, or something. After the lockdown, people would likely be further traumatized thus there’d hopefully be higher compliance with wearing masks. Once the lockdown is lifted, implement a 90 day mask mandate where masks must be worn at all times outside of the house. Close off ¼ of all car lanes/roads to be used for pedestrians in order to maintain physical distancing of six feet. Being that a mask mandate with compliance rate of just 60% keeps the R0 under 1, with cases at zero, as a city we’d stay at zero cases for three months post lockdown while the rest of the state and country go through absolute shit.

The two month lockdown plus three month mask mandate would get us through the next five months, at which point hopefully the governors of blue states find their strength and will power to resist Trump to do what’s needed to save their own people. I don’t have much hope though, because as Heather Marsh has said, the Democrats are mostly Death Eaters too. They want more deaths because they’re capitalists, and they hope it will lead to a landslide Biden win even though that’s already baked in even if there were no more deaths starting tomorrow.

Dear Democrats, Biden is going to win. Now fucking shut your states down as hard as China did with Wuhan, for two months, and then force everyone to wear masks 24/7 for three months, so nobody else has to die you fucking assholes.

Covid Thoughts, part one million because I’m h*cking mad as hell

I’m super mad, and honestly scared. All this death is so needless. Not just here in the U.S, but in the U.K, Brazil and Russia. I’m mad at Italy, Spain, France, China and others too for their initial slow response to Covid19, but at least they have learned and have brought cases and deaths way down. New Zealand all but eliminated it, as has Taiwan, and Vietnam has zero deaths so far. This virus need not linger with us for many more months as we all suffer in anxiety waiting for a vaccine. For the one millionth time, wear masks when you leave the house.

If I am an asymptomatic carrier, and I’m wearing a mask, and you’re wearing a mask, and we stay six feet apart, your chances of catching it would be just 1.5%. Meaning if you put a line of 20 masked people six feet away from me all wearing masks, maybe one of those people catches it. The rate of transmission without masks and without physical distancing of six feet for this virus is anywhere between 2.5 and 3. If 100% of the population wore masks and did physical distancing of six feet, the rate of transmission of the virus would drop to 0.06 if taking a natural R0 of 3. For simple math purposes you could just round it up to 0.1.

If tomorrow, every last person wore masks AND did physical distancing of six feet, within three weeks the spread of the virus would fall off a cliff. U.S new cases per day is like 35k and will likely break 40k a day here soon, and only to get worse from there. Let’s say because of spread from today, in two weeks new cases reaches 50k per day. It’d likely level off for about a week, and then plummet by 90% in week four. By the end of the first month of 100% of people wearing masks AND doing physical distancing, national new cases per day would be down to 5k. At the end of the fifth week, new national cases per day would be down to 500. Week six we’d be down to 50 new cases per day, as a country. Week seven we’d be all the way down to just five new cases per day across the country. At the end of week eight, we’d be at zero new cases nationally. Keep wearing masks and staying six feet apart for weeks nine and ten, new cases stays at zero and most of the late active cases will have recovered. Continue wearing masks and staying six feet apart for weeks 11 and 12, most of the late active cases in the hospitals will have either been discharged or passed away. By the end of week 13, we will have had gone five weeks without any new cases, and we’d be at zero active cases, thus the virus would be entirely gone from humans.

Obviously this is just a dream, and it feels like asking a lot, but it’s truly not. It’s better to just sacrifice the next three months of our lives rather than risk dying or losing those we love forever. Also, the U.S has the most cases in the world, so if every country copied this at the same exact time, all other countries would beat us in eliminating the virus. This would mean that when the U.S crosses the finish line, the entire world would be Covid19 free. We’d all be done with this virus. It doesn’t mean a vaccine isn’t needed, just the opposite in fact.

By sacrificing the next three months to eliminating Covid19, we would create more time for all the vaccines being developed to undergo their normal long safety process, with years of testing to make sure the vaccine works. Also, the first vaccines, even if they work, sometimes provide shorter immunity and then later vaccines improve upon the early vaccines and provide greater and longer term immunity. By taking three months to wear masks and stay six feet apart to eliminate Covid19 in the here and now, we buy virologists the time they need to make the best possible vaccines that provide the greatest protection.

Sacrificing the next three months to eliminating Covid19 would also show humanity at its best and would be a successful trial run to show that we do know how to bring epidemics and pandemics to a screeching halt. There will be future zootonic virus outbreaks. In the last two decades alone we’ve had Covid19, Ebola, Zika, Swine Flu, SARS, MERS, Bird Flu. As deforestation continues to clear land for industrial animal agriculture and urban sprawl continues unabated, more viruses will be unleashed and with a warming climate disrupting ecosystems, virus outbreaks will happen more and more frequently. Those that are airborne viruses spread by breathing through the mouth and nose are easy for us to stop in their tracks. Masks.

The last thing I want to point out, to try and end on a good note. The economic theory of degrowth is spreading. Just as Medicare for All broke through with Bernie Sanders in 2016, the Green New Deal broke through with AOC and The Squad, and abolition of the police has finally broken through into the mainstream with the killing of George Floyd, the theory of degrowth has grown quietly but is ready for its breakthrough moment. Degrowth will prevent future pandemics by ending the causes of their outbreaks. If we can end this pandemic in the next three months, we buy critical time without more mass deaths for something or someone to cause a breakthrough moment for degrowth. So yea. Wear masks 24/7 when you leave your house, and do physical distancing of six feet apart.

Covid19 Thoughts

On Thursday, Seattle had 35 new cases of Covid19, and on Friday we had 28 new cases. Seattle and King County have just been approved to go to phase two of reopening though. Seattle has a population under 800k. Beijing throughout the past week has been experiencing roughly the same number of new cases per day as Seattle, but with a population of 21 million people. In other words, Seattle has more new cases per day per capita than Beijing by a long mile, and yet we are reopening while Beijing is shutting down. If Seattle were to be as serious about combating this virus as Beijing is, we would take the same drastic measures with 1 case for every 25 cases that Beijing has. To put it bluntly, if we really wanted to end the pandemic, we would completely shut down with no more than two new cases per day. Shutting down the city at two new cases per day would produce zero new cases within two weeks.

I understand that as we are not an island city or country, we wouldn’t be able to stay at zero even if we got there, because people from other nearby cities would bring it back in. That said, getting it to zero would allow contact tracing to be done much easier, thus ensuring new cases stays in the low single digits. At the current levels of infection in the U.S, it is impossible to successfully do contact tracing. You have to suppress it a lot with hard lockdowns to get the cases down, then mandate mask wearing in all indoor public settings.

High population density does not in itself cause huge spreading of the virus. As populated as China is compared to the U.S, its major cities are just as sprawled out as our cities. Beijing for example, has a population of 21 million people which is massive compared to Seattle, but is believe it or not only half the density. Wuhan is just a bit larger than NYC in population but much less density. We do not need to combat the virus as one whole country, but rather city by city. Unfortunately at this point, the virus is so widespread everywhere that we need to simultaneously all do a Wuhan level hard lockdown for two months to crush it. Get it to single digits if not zero city by city. Then in month three move to shelter in place, to allow the cases to keep falling. Only by month four should a partial reopening begin, with mandated mask wearing in all settings, even for outdoor exercise. By month five you can expand the reopening and just have mandated masks for all indoor public settings.

This isn’t going to happen of course. There’s zero political will, even among the Democrats, to reimpose shelter in place orders, much less lockdowns as hard as Wuhan did. Political and business leaders are willing to let USians keep getting infected and die. They don’t care about us. Only their profits.

We’re in month six and the progressive west coast governors are only now beginning to mandate mask wearing indoors. It is a shame that U.S health officials early on told people not to wear masks and that they don’t work, rather than telling people to wear masks but don’t buy the N95 ones because we need them for the healthcare workers. They hurt their credibility among the general public, thus making it harder for compliance when they later changed course and told people they should wear masks. Any person with a brain knows that masks work to prevent spread of any airborne virus, not just Covid19. People wore masks during the Spanish Flu of 1918. Healthcare workers wear them all the time because of the diseases they face in medical facilities, and they wear face shields and protective clothing. Hell, when I’ve been wearing my mask during this pandemic, it’s helped with my allergies as the mask also blocks out pollen, although I have to put my hood on/t-shirt over my hair to keep the pollen out of my hair. Even without Covid19, if people wore masks, there’d be less spread of the cold, the flu etc. When future airborne viruses come, and they will come if we keep fucking with ecosystems, wearing masks will prevent their spread too.

So yea. When you truly think about it, this virus isn’t all that hard to beat. We don’t need to wait in agony for six more months for a vaccine to be approved (one will almost surely be approved by the end of the year) or 18 months for when everyone who wants to be vaccinated is done so. We don’t need to sacrifice for two whole years just to be done with this thing, we just need to truly sacrifice three or maybe four months and then all wear masks when in public indoor settings. With hard lockdowns and universal mask wearing, you could have your sports back, your movies back, your water parks back, your first class suite flight on Emirates to Dubai to go indoor skiing in the middle of the desert and yea. Plus, if the worst case scenario is you have to wear a mask when indoors for years to come, think of how much less people will get sick every year. We’d be healthier in general. Obviously that won’t happen, so bleh.

Make Buses Sexy

Public transit has taken a hit from Covid19, at least in the U.S in terms of reputation, even though it’s not one of the most likely places for a super spreading event to occur, as people are only on the bus/train for a short period of time. We’re not even out of the first wave yet, much less the second wave, but this will pass, although the deaths to come will be catastrophic beyond belief. When it does pass, we have to invest in and ride public transit more than ever, otherwise usage of cars will make climate change worse, thus ensuring an even worse pandemic to come sooner rather than later. Public transit in the U.S is often associated with minorities, the poor, and the working class. The middle class loves their suburbs and their cars.

Buses in the U.S don’t have right of way like trains do. They for the most part don’t get their own dedicated lanes, thus they get stuck in traffic causing them to be slow. We must in a post pandemic society make literally every last god damn bus route BRT to the highest standard. Take lanes away from the cars and give them exclusively to the buses. Build and buy new buses, articulated, double talls, and bi-articulated. Run them every minute to maximize route capacity. Make the buses free to ride, permanently.

Most importantly though, we need a bus propaganda campaign, to make buses seem cool and downright sexy. Make buses sexy. That’s right. All the young handsome fellas who take the bus should take selfies at bus yards and bus stations. Take your shirt off and show your abs next to a bus. Get the bus driver to join your selfie. Strike poses. Same goes for all the women. When you go to the beach with your girlfriends, take bikini selfies next to a bus. If you see a bus driver, get them to join in the picture, because all bus drivers are pure sexy. Bus drivers are heroes. When you board a bus, tell the driver they are your hero.

We need to have social media hashtags for our bus selfies. I’m just thinking out loud here, but for the men we could use #FellasOnTheBus and for the women we could use #CutiesOnTheBus and then on top of that, everyone use #SexyBus or something like that. Also, I know this sounds really silly and stupid, but we have to set high societal standards for each other. Most everyone loves sex, I think, right? Anyways, if you have a romantic partner, get them to take the bus. So like, for the women who are with men, if you want to ride the D, you have to ride the B, #RideTheB2RideTheD. For the men who are with women, if you want some pussy as the saying goes, you have to get some bus. No bus, no pussy. Of course there should be positive encouragement too, so like in a Lesbian couple, if your partner takes the bus, you reward her by eating her out. Apply this to other LGBTQ relationships as well. Hold each other to high standards, make your loved ones take the bus, and the train too, but especially the bus. Buses can be cool and sexy, if we make riding them the cool and sexy thing to do.

Cars and freeways are ugly, buses and trains are cool and sexy.

Urban Density: Bay Area Edition

Reversing urban sprawl and abolishing the suburbs is super important for fighting climate change, making life more affordable/livable and fun, and preventing future zootonic virus outbreaks. In previous posts, I have densified the states of Oregon and Washington. Today and for the next few days, I will densify the shit out of California. California is a huge state, with nearly 40 million people, so I will do it by regions. Bay Area, Southern California, Central California, and Northern California. First up, the Bay Area!

As Always, I begin with an example city to describe what I’m doing, and then I’ll just list the changes for all the remaining cities. The Bay Area example will of course be San Francisco. San Francisco has a population of 883,305 on 47 square miles of land, a population density of just under 19k people per square mile. It is good by U.S standards, amazing actually that they have such density while being mostly single family housing. That density while being sprawled out is why San Francisco is so expensive, due to the extreme scarcity of land. By any reasonable standard though, it is mediocre density. I myself have two density standards. Barcelona/Paris level density, between 40k-60k people per square mile, and Hong Kong level density of 150k people per square mile. I usually settle for Barcelona/Paris level except cities that sit on the water with great views, in which case I roll with Hong Kong density to ensure the maximum number of people can live with great views and even more can live within walking distance of the water and views. Naturally, San Francisco will be given the Hong Kong treatment. So let’s go ahead and have me snap my fingers and bam, San Francisco now had three million people on 20 square miles of land that’s also able to feed 1.3 million people, eight square miles of vertical aquaponics to feed an additional two million people, and 19 square miles of parks, forests, wetlands, green space etc.

Most of the other cities in the Bay Area will also have Hong Kong level density, although some like San Jose that don’t have much coastline will just be Barcelona/Paris level density. San Jose has just a tad over one million people on 176 square miles of land. Paris is 41 square miles with 2.2 million people, and that includes its two large parks, each of which are twice the size of NYC’s Central Park. So we’re just going to go ahead and drop Paris into San Jose three times. San Jose now has 6.6 million people on 123 square miles of land, and has 12 Central Parks. But wait, we still have 53 square miles left to play with! Well 30 square miles of vertical aquaponics is enough to feed 7.5 million people, so now the city is all set on food. Even with the 12 Central Parks, we’ll of course make the remaining 23 square miles of land be parks, forests, wetlands etc. Close your eyes. Dream. We just made San Jose oh so beautiful. My heart. Okay, moving on. Just going to run down the rest of the Bay Area now.

Daly City: 300k people on two square miles of land and feeding 135k people, one square mile of VA (vertical aquaponics) to feed 250k, four square miles of parks and stuff.

South San Francisco: 450k on 3m feeding 200k+, 1m VA feeding 250k, 5m parks and stuff.

Pacifica: 600k on 4m feeding 270k, 2m VA feeding 500k, 6m parks and stuff.

Burlingame: 300k on 2m feeding 135k, 1m VA feeding 250k, 3m parks and stuff.

Palo Alto: 500k on 10m feeding 350k, 1m VA feeding 250k, 13m parks and stuff.

Redwood City: 400k on 8m feeding 280k, 1m VA feeding 250k, 10m parks and stuff.

Mountain View: 150k on 3m feeding 105k, 1m VA feeding 250k, 5m parks and stuff.

Sunnyvale: 350k on 7m feeding 245k, 1m VA feeding 250k, 14m parks and stuff.

San Mateo: 200k on 4m feeding 140k, 1m VA feeding 250k, 7m parks and stuff.

Santa Clara: 300k on 6m feeding 210k, 1m VA feeding 250k, 11m parks and stuff.

Milpitas: 200k on 4m feeding 140k, 1m VA feeding 250k, 8m parks and stuff.

Fremont: Just plop in Paris here. 2.2 mil on 41m, 10m VA feeding 2.5 mil, add on an additional 26 miles of parks and stuff.

Union City: 150k on 3m feeding 105k, 1m VA feeding 250k, 5m parks and stuff.

Hayward: 2.2 mil on 15m feeding 990k, 6m VA feeding 1.5 mil, 24m parks and stuff.

Oakland: 3.7 mil on 25m feeding 1.7 mil, 10m VA feeding 2.5 mil, 21m parks and stuff.

Berkeley: 450k on 3m feeding 203k, 1m VA feeding 250k, 6m parks and stuff.

Richmond: 1.8 mil on 12m feeding 810k, 5m VA feeding 1.25 mil, 17m parks and stuff.

San Leandro: 600k on 4m feeding 270k, 2m VA feeding 500k, 7m parks and stuff.

San Rafeal: 750k on 5m feeding 338k, 2m VA feeding 500k, 9m parks and stuff.

Vallejo: 1.5 mil on 10m feeding 675k, 5m VA feeding 1.25 mil, 16m parks and stuff.

Santa Rosa: 1 mil on 20m feeding 700k, 2m VA feeding 500k, 19m parks and stuff.

Petaluma: 200k on 4m feeding 140k, 1m VA feeding 250k, 9m parks and stuff.

Napa: 300k on 6m feeding 210k, 1m VA feeding 250k, 11m parks and stuff.

Fairfield: 550k on 11m feeding 350k+, 1m VA feeding 250k, 22m parks and stuff.

Vacaville: 500k on 10m feeding 350k, 1m VA feeding 250k, 17m parks and stuff.

Concord: 500k on 10m feeding 350k, 1m VA feeding 250k, 19m parks and stuff.

Walnut Creek: 300k on 6m feeding 210k, 1m VA feeding 250k, 12m parks and stuff.

Pleasanton: 400k on 8m feeding 280k, 1m VA feeding 250k, 15m parks and stuff.

Livermore: 500k on 10m feeding 350k, 1m VA feeding 250k, 14m parks and stuff.

San Ramon: 300k on 6m feeding 210k, 1m VA feeding 250k, 11m parks and stuff.

Navato: 500k on 10m feeding 350k, 1m VA feeding 250k, 16m parks and stuff.

Antioch: 1.5 mil on 10m feeding 675k, 5m VA feeding 1.25 mil, 13m parks and stuff.

Pittsburgh: 750k on 5m feeding 338k, 2m VA feeding 500k, 10m parks and stuff.

Tiburon: 150k on 1m feeding 68k, 1m VA feeding 250k, 2m parks and stuff.

Mill Valley: 150k on 1m feeding 68k, 1m VA feeding 250k, 2m parks and stuff.

So yea, that’s most of the Bay Area! I’ve now given the Bay Area region a population of 34.3 million people, or almost what all of California’s population is today. The Bay Area would now be able to house more people, it’d be more affordable, it’d use less water as it’d grow all of its own food/be able to feed itself, it’d be greener and more sustainable. San Francisco is a huge hub for U.S flights to Asia and especially India. India under Nareenda Modi has been building concentration camps for its 200 million Muslims as it seeks to establish an ethno state of Hindu nationalism. Hindu nationalism has a strong relationship to the Nazi regime in Germany during the 1930’s and 40’s and is regarded as part of the pure Aryan race. India also has a large underclass population of Dalits, whom are at the bottom of the caste system and are considered to be unpure and untouchable. With a greater population density and sustainability, the Bay Area could take in and become a loving home for millions of India’s unwanted Muslims and Dalits.

 

Seattle with Kolkota India density

Kolkota India is the most densely populated city in the world, to the extent that I know of, with a population density of 185k people per square mile. Density and abolishing the suburbs is what we need to fight climate change, and make cities more livable. Sprawled out cities creates a scarcity of land which drives up the price of housing, drives up the cost of public transit, drives up healthcare costs, increases destruction of nature leading to zootonic virus outbreaks. I previously did a post where I gave Seattle the density of Hong Kong’s most densely populated neighborhood, the Kwun Tong area of the Kowloon District, 150k people per square mile. Since then I found out Kolkota India is the best, so we shall do that.

India has prior to the pandemic finally begun its rapid growth phase to catch up to China, thus India is still quite poor from the lasting impacts of British colonialism. One estimate has the British owing around $40 trillion in reparations to India, or the size of the U.S and China economies combined. If India returns to rapid growth post Covid19 vaccine, I’d guess it’s about 20 years behind China. If left to grow without interruption from pandemics, climate change, war or other things, India is bound to catch up and surpass China, thus why China is acting now to contain India while China has the strong upper hand. Therefore, I will model Kolkota density in Seattle using modern developed means, not as a direct copy of Kolkota and its slums.

A 20 by 20 house is a comfortable one bedroom home. A 40 by 20 house is a comfortable two bedroom house. A 40 by 40 house is a comfortable three bedroom house. You build a 40 story public housing building in the shape of a plus sign. Two 40 ft by 120 ft buildings put together. 40 ft by 40 ft middle part where the two buildings meet, where the stairs and elevators would be. For every seven floors of housing, two floors would be single bedroom homes, two floors would be two bedroom homes, and three floors would be three bedroom homes. The bottom four floors of the building is for retail. Next 14 floors are for housing. Then four floors for indoor vertical aquaponics. Then another 14 floors for housing. The top four floors are for resident services, such as a resident gym, swimming pool, healthcare room, rooftop bar, small movie theater etc. The building would be able to house 400 residents.

Vertical aquaponics, with a height of ten feet per floor, would be able to feed annually 125 of the residents. The building would sit on a plot of land 220 ft by 220 ft. Using permaculture and agroforestry methods, the outside area of the building would able to produce enough food to feed another 56 residents, meaning 181 of the 400 residents, or 45%, are fed from food grown right on site. With 5280 feet in a mile, you’d be able to fit 22 x 22 for 484 such buildings in a square mile, for a population density of 194k people per square mile. Not only that, you leave 440 feet of space going north-south and east-west, enough to split into two spaces each 220 feet wide, enough for a tram line running under the shade of trees. The buildings would either have vertical vine going up their sides, or vertical gardens. The areas around the buildings are green as they are permaculture and agroforestry, meaning plenty of trees. Every square mile going both north-south and east-west would have two tram lines, with stations half a mile apart, in other words, every square mile of housing would have eight tram stations.

On 30 square miles of Seattle, you’d be able to house 5.8 million people and feed 2.6 million people. Using another 15 square miles just for vertical aquaponics, you’d be able to feed another 3.8 million people. You’d then be able to take 36 square miles and use it for parks, wetlands, forests etc. That’s a lot more than all of Seattle’s parks and golf courses combined today. Take the remaining 2.9 square miles and use it for a stadium/entertainment/factory district.

In my Hong Kong density post, I had Seattle with a population of 4.2 million people. Now with Kolkota level density, Seattle has a population of 5.8 million people with no less green space. That’s an additional 1.6 million people Seattle could house. We could support every Palestinian in the Gaza Strip, every Rohingya refugee, one million Syrian refugees, and one million Roma people in Europe. If we want to help fellow USians survive the fascist Trump regime (he won’t leave office until he dies, and even then power could be passed onto Ivanka) we could house one million LGBTQ people from around the country, two million blacks, and two million Latinos/Central & South Americans. That’s just within Seattle alone, not including the suburbs.

Urban density/climate change/the unwanted/pandemics – Oregon edition!

Portland, Oregon is three times the size of Paris France but has less than one million people. Damn urban sprawl. Let’s make Portland better! Portland isn’t on a large body of water, so it doesn’t need to have Hong Kong level density, so we’ll go with Barcelona/Paris type density. *snaps fingers* Portland now has 4.4 million people on 82 square miles, including either eight Central Parks or four Bois de Boulogne. With vertical aquaponics covering 20 square miles of land, Portland now grows enough food to feed 5 million people. Portland also an additional 31 square miles of parks/forests/wetlands/greenspace/land reparations to the indigenous.

Now let’s do Oregon’s other cities!

Hillsboro: 350k people on 7 square miles of land, 2 square miles of VA (vertical aquaponics) to feed 500k people, 13 square miles of parks and stuff.

Beaverton: 350k people on 7 square miles of land, 2 square miles of VA to feed 500k, and 11 square miles of parks and stuff.

Tigard: 200k people on 4 square miles of land, 1 square miles of VA, 7 square miles of parks and stuff.

Lake Oswego: 150k on 3 square miles, 1 mile of VA, 6 sq miles of parks and stuff.

Gresham: 400k on 8 sq miles, 2 miles of VA, 13 miles of parks and stuff.

Eugene: 1 million people on 20 sq miles, 4 miles of VA, 20 miles of parks and stuff.

Springfield: 250k on 5 sq miles, 1 mile of VA, 10 miles of parks and stuff.

Salem: 1 million on 20 sq miles, 4 miles of VA, 25 miles of parks and stuff.

Albany: 300k on 6 sq miles, 2 miles of VA, 10 miles of parks and stuff.

Corvallis: 250k on 5 sq miles, 1 mile of VA, 8 miles of parks and stuff.

Bend: 750k on 15 sq miles, 3 miles of VA, 15 miles of parks and stuff.

The Dalles: The Dalles is narrow and stretches along the Columbia River, so in order for as many people as possible to enjoy great river views, it should have Hong Kong level density, thus 300k on 2 sq miles, 2 sq miles of VA, 2 miles of parks and stuff.

Pendleton: 200k on 4 sq miles, 1 mile of VA, 5 miles of parks and stuff.

Redmond: 250k on 5 sq miles, 1 mile of VA, 9miles of parks and stuff.

St. Helens: 150k on 1 sq mle, 1 mile of VA, 3 miles of parks and stuff.

Astoria: 300k on 2 sq miles, 2 miles of VA, 2 miles of parks and stuff.

Newport: 450k on 3 sq miles, 2 miles of VA, 4 miles of parks and stuff.

Medford: 500k on 10 sq miles, 2 miles of VA, 13 miles of parks and stuff.

Roseburg: 200k on 4 miles, 1 mile of VA, 5 miles of parks and stuff.

Coos Bay: 450k on 3 sq miles, 2 miles of VA, 5 miles of parks and stuff.

Klamath Falls: 300k on 6 sq miles, 2 miles of VA, 12 miles of parks and stuff.

Milwaukie: 100k on 2 sq miles, 1 mile of VA, 2 miles of parks and stuff.

Oregon City: 150k on 3 sq miles, 1 mile of VA, 5 miles of parks and stuff.

Forest Grove: 100k on 2 sq miles, 1 mile of VA, 3 miles of parks and stuff.

Grants Pass: 200k on 4 sq miles, 1 mile of VA, 6 miles of food and stuff.

So yea, that’s not all of Oregon, but at the very least, Oregon now has a population of 13 million people, with all those cities growing their own food and having more green space, cheaper housing, less urban heat island effect and so forth. Oregon would become a more diverse state as it’d now be able to take in Syrian refugees, Tamil people from Sri Lanka, Dalits and Muslims from India and so forth. Like I outlined in my Washington post, Oregon would be able to take in some of the world’s unwanted population while also fighting climate change since densification of cities is one of the key features of a degrowth society. In my next post, I will densify and make California better!