This was just what I needed.
Author Archives: Steve Mays
Yuval Noah Harari: COVID-19’s Impact on Humankind
I’ve read all three of Yuval Noah Harari’s books and found them… interesting, to say the least. I’ve been eager to hear his take on COVID-19 and was a little surprised to get it from an interview by James Corden, who I think of as a late-late-night comedian. But his questions were brief and to the point and he allowed his guest to answer the questions without interrupting.
“ambulatory sacks of virus”
“Anyone else getting a bit … relaxed about all this? I say this as someone who washes his hands after reading about COVID-19, because all hypochondriacs know you can get something just by perusing a list of symptoms. But have we become, let’s say, slightly less alarmed? You keep your distance from the other ambulatory sacks of virus, previously known as “people,” and you don’t feel all that anxious.”
“Of course, that’s the last thing we should be. We should be determined to hunker as long as it takes.”
Mean Motor Scooter
Mr. Wolf reports: “I went to Santa Cruz last night to buy a very cool old motorcycle for a customer; my first social distancing vehicle purchase. A 1963 Puch SGS (aka Allstate). It’s a mechanically interesting bike. A “split single” two stroke. Two pistons going up into one combustion chamber!”
The same thing at the same time
“There’s never been a time in modern human history when every person is seriously worried about the same thing at the same time. And there’s never before been a ubiquitous threat that can be so instantly broadcast to a world of 7.8 billion people.”
— David Ropeik, consultant on risk management and former instructor in risk communication at the Harvard School of Public Health