Mysterious origins of Universe’s biggest black holes

The mysterious origins of Universe's biggest black holes Most observations of this type rely on ground-based telescopes that use a technology called "adaptive optics". Observers analyse a bright star (or human-generated laser beam) to measure atmospheric distortions that would otherwise reduce image quality. Computer controlled signals correct for these distortions through tiny adjustments to the physical shape of the telescope's mirror. The results are precise observations of the hearts of galaxies billions of light years away, and a wealth of data on their supermassive black holes. Neumayer was one of the first scientists to use adaptive optics to study galactic cores. "It was just mind-blowing that you could have better resolution from the Earth than from the Hubble Space Telescope," she says. "I worked on measuring specific black hole masses. There is a tight correlation: the more mass a galaxy has, the more massive its central supermassive black hole is. Somehow these objects grow in step." Despite this correlation, there's no clear evidence that massive galaxies create massive black holes, or vice versa. They are connected, but the nature of that connection remains a mystery. One piece of the explanation might involve collisions between galaxies. Most of the observable Universe's two trillion galaxies are accelerating away from one another, but many collisions occur, creating opportunities for two very large central black holes to merge into something even bigger. Some scientists believe this could be how the truly monstrous supermassive black holes are formed. When comparatively tiny stellar black holes collide, they release huge amounts of energy for a fraction of a second, producing a flash so bright that it briefly outshines everything else in the sky. If we were to see a similar event involving supermassive black holes, it would be one of the most cataclysmic events to be detected in the night's sky. But, while scientists suspect mergers between supermassive black holes do occur, they may be made less common due to another problematic aspect of black hole dynamics. Black holes on a collision course spin around one another with increasing speed as they draw closer. But very large black holes reach a point at about one parsec (3.26 light years) apart where their orbital velocity starts to balance out gravitational attraction. The decay of their orbits would happen so slowly that the actual merger could not happen within the current age of the Universe.

The human right that benefits nature

The human right that benefits nature For instance, in a high-profile climate lawsuit in Norway, environmental groups argued that allowing oil drilling in the Arctic was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court ruled that the state did in fact have an obligation to protect citizens from environmental harm. However, the court ruled that drilling permits still didn't infringe on the right, in part because the state shouldn't be responsible for emissions from oil it exports. France, however, has taken a step further. The "duty of vigilance" law, introduced in 2017, holds companies responsible for preventing human rights or environment violations throughout their whole supply chains, explains Sebastién Mabile, an environmental lawyer with the Paris-based legal services firm Seattle Avocats. Evidently, the right to a healthy environment requires a few extra ingredients to work well, not least the will to enforce it and judicial systems that are free of political influence – things that not all 110 countries with the right enjoy. Human rights are most effective when they're coupled with other constitutional rights and laws that make it easier for people to go to court and get information on their rights, Jeffords adds. And environmental protection has to go hand in hand with other human rights, Moodley adds, pointing towards governments that have evicted indigenous communities out of protected areas in the name of conservation. Yet when used properly, such as in Latin America, constitutional rights can protect human rights as well as nature – and without hampering economic development; Costa Rica is considered an upper-middle-income country, relying on electronics, software, and ecotourism as its major exports. More countries are considering adopting the right to a healthy environment soon, either in their constitutions or general legislation, including Algeria, The Gambia, Chile, Canada and Scotland. But some of the world's richest – like the UK, United States, China and Japan – have yet to officially consider it. Meanwhile, Boyd still advocates for recognition at the UN level, which could compel more countries to recognise and strengthen it and create ways of holding countries accountable on the international stage. It is often said that human rights have their roots in wrongs. The UN Declaration on Human Rights in 1948 emerged out of the ashes of World War Two. Back then, its authors couldn't foresee a global environmental crisis, nor a wealth of scientific research demonstrating nature's importance to human wellbeing. But such documents are arguably meant to evolve forwards and adapt to new threats to the people they govern. "If we continue down the path we're on, then we're in deep trouble from a human rights perspective," Boyd says. "If we don't step up and actually take the actions that we know are necessary and feasible to protect and restore this beautiful planet of ours."

1177 BC

'Unprecedented' new crisis coming: Covid-19 pandemic could be a warning for civilisation 28 Dec, 2020 06:10 AM 13 minutes to read Play Video A look back at the highs and lows of 2020. Video / NZ Herald news.com.au By: Jamie Seidel 9 Think 2020 was bad? 1177BC was worse. That was the year a civilisation collapsed. Now historians are warning that – if we don't heed the warning signs – 2077 may bring the same fate. Like our own, the Bronze Age civilisation survived many crises in the century before 1200BC. But, then – all of a sudden – it fell apart. It took just 30 years for seven centuries of world building to come apart at the seams. Historians have a favourite saying: History doesn't repeat – but it does often rhyme. ADVERTISEMENT Advertise with NZME. And its tune can be telling. Mostly, it offers an opportunity to drown out partisan politics by dubbing the past over our future. And the result sounds bleak. War. Climate emergency. Economic disruption. Famine. Pandemic. Refugees. Sound familiar? A similar convergence of calamities occurred 3200 years ago. The outcome was Biblical – both in the figurative and literal sense. Now archaeology is providing us with a rough idea of how things panned out. Related articles WORLD South Africa on verge of new virus rules as it hits one million cases 28 Dec, 2020 07:00 AM Quick Read BUSINESS Steven Joyce: Covid, border controls and economic hangover. Buckle in for 2021 25 Dec, 2020 05:00 PM Quick Read WORLD One Covid vaccine side effect - global economic inequality 26 Dec, 2020 12:15 PM Quick Read ENTERTAINMENT Beyoncé to donate more than $700,000 to people in need 27 Dec, 2020 03:38 PM Quick Read Priests suddenly lost their appeal. Kings were brought low by war and revolution. Trade routes unwound and economies collapsed. Meanwhile, a mysterious militarised force roamed the Mediterranean. Collectively called the Sea Peoples, this rag-tag assortment of pirates looted cargoes, sacked cities and built colonies. "You reach a point in the Bronze Age where it could no longer deal with the catastrophes that were happening, so it falls," says Professor Louise Hitchcock. "Then it emerges as something else 600 years later." ADVERTISEMENT Advertise with NZME. Medical workers of a COVID-19 intensive care unit (ICU) in Italy. Photo / Getty Medical workers of a COVID-19 intensive care unit (ICU) in Italy. Photo / Getty The scenario isn't just an academic exercise. It's reflected in the United Nations' 2020 Human Development Report. It warns humanity faces an "unprecedented moment". It warns civilisation's – and the planet's – "pressures have grown exponentially over the past 100 years". It also makes one salient point: "Humanity's future is largely within humanity's control". The coming century of crises needn't be Armageddon, Professor Hitchcock notes. But that depends on how we recognise the rhyme of history. FUTURE FOUNDATION ADVERTISEMENT Advertise with NZME. Isaac Asimov explored the idea of "psychohistory" in his famous Foundation series of science fiction novels. It was a science of predicting the future. Of determining the fall of empires. Of charting the reconstruction of civilisation. The current state-of-the-art is nothing so grand. But its equations are producing disturbing results. "I use a scientific model called self-organised criticality," the University of Melbourne School of Historical and Philosophical Studies professor says. Civilisation, the theory postulates, is like a pile of sand. Grain after grain of troubles can be heaped on each other to form a growing pile. ADVERTISEMENT Advertise with NZME. Occasionally, a little avalanche cuts loose as it self-corrects for stability. "Eventually you reach a point where instead of having one or two avalanches, you have cascading avalanches. And then the system collapses." You can't be sure which grain of sand is the one that causes the cascade. "But it comes at the point where every grain is disrupting the system, and the system has no choice but to collapse," Hitchcock says. The hourglass of our future, she says, is yet to run empty. But the grains of disruption are falling fast on our global society. ADVERTISEMENT Advertise with NZME. "Does the ship right itself or doesn't it? Does it keep going steadily down? What happens when the automated economy hits? What happens if populism takes hold?" she asks. Unless you've heard it before, it's part of a historical rhyme you're not likely to notice – until it's too late. Iron ore and oil are the equivalents of copper and tin in the Bronze Age. Photo / Supplied Iron ore and oil are the equivalents of copper and tin in the Bronze Age. Photo / Supplied PROSPERITY TRAP Professor Hitchcock's internationally renowned research explores the Bronze Age civilisation collapse. Naturally, she has a tendency to compare then with now. But the 2020 pandemic took the professor by surprise. "I was predicting political populism as the next major disrupter," she said in an interview for news.com.au. "I believed we were on the verge of a tipping point from our economic automation, the impact of the internet and smartphones – not some pandemic." ADVERTISEMENT Advertise with NZME. Just as we're impressed by the power of silicon, the ancients were in awe of bronze. Everything revolved around its production and use. "The Bronze Age and a lot of globalisation was being driven by the metals trade," Hitchcock says. The oil and iron of the 13th Century BC was copper and tin. Put together in controlled quantities, and you get glittering bronze. The strength of this alloy made soldiers almost untouchable – except to others also armed with bronze. Its expense and complexity put it out of reach for all but the extremely wealthy. So metal magnates quickly became warlords and kings. These soon started accumulating prestige goods, like ivory, to broadcast their wealth. Gold was imported from Egypt. Strong cedar woods from Lebanon. Middle-men also began to grow rich. International trade boomed. Middle classes of artisans, scribes, technicians and skilled trades arose. ADVERTISEMENT Advertise with NZME. There was no network of trade treaties as we'd recognise now, Hitchcock says. "It was what you'd call an international brotherhood of kings. They would exchange elite objects with each other that they could display to impress their retinues and subjects. They probably had more in common with each other than with their own people." This produced diplomacy: Kings would ask each other for help in the face of famine or attack. But it was a short-lived utopia. At some point in the 13th Century BC, Mediterranean palaces and temples began to sprout walls. Towns began moving off the coast to more defensible hills. Everywhere in the archaeological record are signs of war. The COVID-19 pandemic is another trouble heaped on top of climate change, economic destruction and famine. Photo / Getty The COVID-19 pandemic is another trouble heaped on top of climate change, economic destruction and famine. Photo / Getty PRICE OF PROGRESS History teaches us the only certainty is change. ADVERTISEMENT Advertise with NZME. This fate eventually befell the Mediterranean's bronze magnates. The specialisation that transformed Bronze Age economies brought about dependence on distant supplies. This ultimately proved vulnerable to the weather, coercive diplomacy – and piracy. It's another rhyme. "I'm a big believer in globalisation and free trade," Professor Hitchcock says, "but to outsource the manufacturing of things like PPE (personal protective equipment) or critical drugs – it's not so bright." Bronze Age metal magnates found themselves similarly out on a limb. The supply lines of materials for their exclusive alloy were disrupted. Deposits were mined out. Monopolies were overturned. ADVERTISEMENT Advertise with NZME. On top of all this, another winning innovation emerged: Adjustable sails. This soon fell into the hands of pirates. "A brailed sail has rings on it so you can easily turn it about to sail in directions that you couldn't before," Hitchcock says. "But pirates would actually take any ship they could capture and use." The pressures of progress, however, is not uncommon. The horse-and-cart underwent a transition to the combustion engine and car. The industrial revolution was wildly disruptive. But civilisation didn't collapse in AD1977. So, like the Bronze Age, there must be more to the story. PESTILENCE ADVERTISEMENT Advertise with NZME. "It's possible the Bronze Age Collapse had plague as well," Professor Hitchcock says. "I used to sort of dismiss the idea because why would people go around destroying things if they're hungry? But watching what coronavirus has done, I can see it hurts certain communities and classes more than others." Transportation. Living conditions. Overcrowding. This made some communities susceptible. It also determines the speed any plague spreads. It's another rhyme. COVID-19 was carried around the world in a matter of weeks by airliners and cruise ships. We know a devastating plague was carried through Europe in the 14th Century AD by sail. ADVERTISEMENT Advertise with NZME. "There was a mouse found on the 14th Century BC Uluburun shipwreck off southwestern Turkey," Hitchcock says. "A mouse itself doesn't cause illness. But if you had mice, you could have had other things as well – like fleas. These could have brought viruses or bacteria to various centres, causing weaknesses in supply chains." The evidence of a global Bronze Age pandemic remains indirect and inconclusive. There are Hittite records of plague leading to the death of a king. The Amarna tablets of Pharaoh Akhenaten's era talk of epidemics. There are hints of a rise in disease-related deities. Some changes in burial customs also suggest health fears. But no discovery as yet incriminates pestilence for bringing the Bronze Age to its knees. Instead, the professor says it most likely added yet another destabilising pressure on the already strained, fast-paced, high-density international network. The pro-Trump hat was burned in front of protestors. Photo / Brayden Jones The pro-Trump hat was burned in front of protestors. Photo / Brayden Jones POLITICS ADVERTISEMENT Advertise with NZME. The Bronze Age gave rise to two great superpowers: Egypt and the Assyrians. Egypt was isolationist. "They kept to themselves because one of the worst things that could happen to you if you were an Egyptian would be to die outside of Egypt," says Professor Hitchcock. It also had an internal power play between the Pharaohs and the priesthood. "This is why Akhenaten created a monotheistic religion, to deny the priesthood of Amun some of its wealth and power". But the distribution of wealth was likely a fundamental issue. All through the ruins of this ancient world are signs of violent struggle. But not all match the profile of an outside invader. Some ruined cities reveal deliberate destruction in the palace and merchant districts. But not the suburbs. The cause, Hitchcock says, could have been civil unrest. ADVERTISEMENT Advertise with NZME. Disrupted international trade had up-ended local economies. Unemployment was added to the growing toll of disaster, migration and hunger. Soon after, elites failed to deliver their side of social contracts. It was a scenario faced by Bronze Age priests and kings throughout the Mediterranean and the Middle East. They found linking their wealth and power to divine providence came with a steep price: "If the elites weren't able to deliver on their promises, it could be a reason for revolt". "The most important thing the Egyptian King had to do every year was to deliver the flooding of the Nile," Hitchcock says. "That's why they developed astronomy. But if they didn't predict its arrival correctly, the king might be overthrown." It's another rhyme echoing through society now. Even before the pandemic, people in the service industries had been losing jobs to automation at an alarming rate. ADVERTISEMENT Advertise with NZME. The result, Hitchcock says, is social disruption and even greater concentration of wealth. And that's in a context of global unrest, political discontent, fire, flood, famine and migration. Migrants from Eritrea hold their children after been rescued from a crowded wooden boat as they were fleeing Libya. Photo / AP Migrants from Eritrea hold their children after been rescued from a crowded wooden boat as they were fleeing Libya. Photo / AP FLEEING FOR SAFETY The UN warns some one billion people may be on the move by 2050. No one factor will be the cause. It will likely involve a mix of catastrophes. It's something history has seen before. And once on a potentially similar scale. Some researchers have pointed to possible mass migration out of Europe at the end of the Bronze Age. Indications are the continent was undergoing a century-long drought brought on by volcanic activity in Greenland and Iceland. ADVERTISEMENT Advertise with NZME. Echoes of war across the Bosphorus between Greece and Turkey hint of this human tide. But there's also the longstanding mystery of the "peoples of the sea". The popular narrative talks of this assembly of tribes rampaging across the Mediterranean, sacking cities as they went. Eventually, the Sea People were fought to a standstill at the mouth of the Nile by Pharaoh Ramesses III in 1177BC. But Professor Hitchcock says the term falsely implies co-ordination and unity. Instead, they were likely a diverse collection of cultures that happened to sometimes share common goals. "They might have joined together in a single attack, but that doesn't mean they were all working together all the time," Hitchcock says. They may have been pirates. They might have been refugees. Most likely, they were a combination of both. "I think some of them are refugees because anybody can row a ship," Hitchcock says. "But to be a warrior takes a certain amount of skill that you need to develop from an early age." ADVERTISEMENT Advertise with NZME. Another rhyme can be seen in the mass migration out of Syria into Europe. "People rarely migrate to a place they don't already have some kind of prior connection to," Hitchcock says. Trade and pilgrim routes left multicultural communities across the map. Stories of brave new worlds filtered their way back home. "It's quite likely that some of these different tribes of Sea Peoples that settled in the Levant or Cyprus had prior links to these places because some sites are destroyed, but not all sites are destroyed". A masked Somali pirate stands near a Taiwanese fishing vessel that washed up on shore after the pirates were paid a ransom and released the crew in 2017. Photo / AP A masked Somali pirate stands near a Taiwanese fishing vessel that washed up on shore after the pirates were paid a ransom and released the crew in 2017. Photo / AP PIRACY "What you have at the end of the Bronze Age is that the sea lanes start to become less secure," Professor Hitchcock warns. International relations were deteriorating. Outlaws became increasingly bold. ADVERTISEMENT Advertise with NZME. Ultimately, this up-ended everything and little could be done to stop it. "Pirates tend to engage in hit-and-run attacks where they go in and burn a village at night rather than engaging in direct warfare," Hitchcock says. "This left organised armies unable to respond effectively". Eventually, however, indications are these marauders became a powerful force. "I think what you have with the Sea Peoples is that you have a small amount of piracy going on at the start. But, then, as they sack more cities, they attract more and more followers." Hitchcock says a rhyme can be seen in the 13th Century AD Barbary Pirates of the Mediterranean and again in the 18th Century North Atlantic corsairs of popular culture. "There you had just two original ships," she says, "and from taking on more ships and followers, they eventually grew to be 3500 pirates". That's yet another historical rhyme: Piracy is catching. ADVERTISEMENT Advertise with NZME. "The Cilician pirates were big in the era of the late Roman Republic," Hitchcock says. "There were like 10,000 of them, but they could not have all come from Cilicia. Cilicia didn't have a big enough population." In every case, social circumstances were ripe for revolt. The crews of the British Royal Navy, for example, were poorly paid and harshly treated. Ships of the Crown were minimally crewed and fed cut-price rations. So they eagerly jumped ship. "With the pirates, their ships had more people carrying the workload. Everything was shared equally. So you might have had a short life as a pirate, but you had a better life." It's a similar story now off Somalia. Fishers there lost their livelihoods when poorly-policed local waters were stripped bare by illegal international trawlers. Civil war raged across their land. Now they're swapping nets for Kalashnikovs in the hope of a rich bounty. ADVERTISEMENT Advertise with NZME. RHYME TIME? "When we look at the Bronze Age Collapse, we tend to say 'oh, what terrible things happened'," Professor Hitchcock says. "Eventually complexity re-emerges, and you get the Assyrian Empire, you get the Greek city-states, and then you get the Roman Empire. "If you didn't have all the inventions of the Bronze Age – like domesticated agriculture, agricultural surplus irrigation, writing, contracts, private property, maritime navigation, metallurgy, ceramics – you wouldn't have had the basis for the world that followed where philosophers debated what the ideal state would be." But the new world was born from the wreckage of the old. And foreseeing the future of this world isn't easy. "I've largely been socially isolated since mid-February. But I still get a paycheck," Hitchcock says. "I bought a new bicycle and a bunch of nice new clothes. I go out with my dogs. I write my articles. We order Uber many nights. The garbage gets collected. So life hasn't really changed." ADVERTISEMENT Advertise with NZME. But it's not that way for everybody. The world is awash with woes. And, as history teaches us, we'll likely not recognise the last grain of sand that brings everything tumbling down. "Maybe it's time to look at where the economy's going instead of trying to bring it back to where it was," Hitchcock says. Her key takeaway lesson from the Bronze Age Collapse? "Don't be elite. I would not want to be a leader of any sort, to tell you the truth."

Why you should ignore all that Cotonavirus

Show more sharing options Why You Should Ignore All That Coronavirus-Inspired Productivity Pressure By Aisha S. Ahmad MARCH 26, 2020 GettyImages-1207986265web APU GOMES, AFP, GETTY IMAGES Update: Please join the author of this article, Aisha S. Ahmad, and other guests for a free interactive forum on faculty work/life balance. Sign up here to watch on demand. Among my academic colleagues and friends, I have observed a common response to the continuing Covid-19 crisis. They are fighting valiantly for a sense of normalcy — hustling to move courses online, maintaining strict writing schedules, creating Montessori schools at their kitchen tables. They hope to buckle down for a short stint until things get back to normal. I wish anyone who pursues that path the very best of luck and health. Yet as someone who has experience with crises around the world, what I see behind this scramble for productivity is a perilous assumption. The answer to the question everyone is asking — “When will this be over?” — is simple and obvious, yet terribly hard to accept. The answer is never. Coronavirus seen under electron microscope Coronavirus Hits Campus As colleges and universities have struggled to devise policies to respond to the quickly evolving situation, here are links to The Chronicle’s key coverage of how this worldwide health crisis is affecting campuses. Here’s Our List of Colleges’ Reopening Models The Year That Pushed Higher Ed to the Edge Live Coronavirus Updates: Here’s the Latest Global catastrophes change the world, and this pandemic is very much akin to a major war. Even if we contain the Covid-19 crisis within a few months, the legacy of this pandemic will live with us for years, perhaps decades to come. It will change the way we move, build, learn, and connect. There is simply no way that our lives will resume as if this had never happened. And so, while it may feel good in the moment, it is foolish to dive into a frenzy of activity or obsess about your scholarly productivity right now. That is denial and delusion. The emotionally and spiritually sane response is to prepare to be forever changed. The rest of this piece is an offering. I have been asked by my colleagues around the world to share my experiences of adapting to conditions of crisis. Of course, I am just a human, struggling like everyone else to adjust to the pandemic. However, I have worked and lived under conditions of war, violent conflict, poverty, and disaster in many places around the world. I have experienced food shortages and disease outbreaks, as well as long periods of social isolation, restricted movement, and confinement. I have conducted award-winning research under intensely difficult physical and psychological conditions, and I celebrate productivity and performance in my own scholarly career. ADVERTISEMENT I share the following thoughts during this difficult time in the hope that they will help other academics to adapt to hardship conditions. Take what you need, and leave the rest. Stage No. 1: Security Your first few days and weeks in a crisis are crucial, and you should make ample room to allow for a mental adjustment. It is perfectly normal and appropriate to feel bad and lost during this initial transition. Consider it a good thing that you are not in denial, and that you are allowing yourself to work through the anxiety. No sane person feels good during a global disaster, so be grateful for the discomfort of your sanity. At this stage, I would focus on food, family, friends, and maybe fitness. (You will not become an Olympic athlete in the next two weeks, so don’t put ridiculous expectations on your body.) Next, ignore everyone who is posting productivity porn on social media right now. It is OK that you keep waking up at 3 a.m. It is OK that you forgot to eat lunch and cannot do a Zoom yoga class. It is OK that you have not touched that revise-and-resubmit in three weeks. Ignore the people who are posting that they are writing papers and the people who are complaining that they cannot write papers. They are on their own journey. Cut out the noise. ADVERTISEMENT Know that you are not failing. Let go of all of the profoundly daft ideas you have about what you should be doing right now. Instead, focus intensely on your physical and psychological security. Your first priority during this early period should be securing your home. Get sensible essentials for your pantry, clean your house, and make a coordinated family plan. Have reasonable conversations with your loved ones about emergency preparedness. If you have a loved one who is an emergency worker or essential worker, redirect your energies and support that person as your top priority. Identify their needs, and then meet those needs. No matter what your family unit looks like, you will need a team in the weeks and months ahead. Devise a strategy for social connectedness with a small group of family, friends, and/or neighbors, while maintaining physical distancing in accordance with public-health guidelines. Identify the vulnerable and make sure they are included and protected. The best way to build a team is to be a good teammate, so take some initiative to ensure that you are not alone. If you do not put this psychological infrastructure in place, the challenge of necessary physical-distancing measures will be crushing. Build a sustainable and safe social system now. Stage No. 2: The Mental Shift ADVERTISEMENT Once you have secured yourself and your team, you will feel more stable, your mind and body will adjust, and you will crave challenges that are more demanding. Given time, your brain can and will reset to new crisis conditions, and your ability to do higher-level work will resume. This mental shift will make it possible for you to return to being a high-performance scholar, even under extreme conditions. However, do not rush or prejudge your mental shift, especially if you have never experienced a disaster before. One of the most relevant posts I saw on Twitter (by writer Troy Johnson) was: “Day 1 of Quarantine: ‘I’m going to meditate and do body-weight training.’ Day 4: *just pours the ice cream into the pasta*" — it’s funny but it also speaks directly to the issue. Now more than ever, we must abandon the performative and embrace the authentic. Our essential mental shifts require humility and patience. Focus on real internal change. These human transformations will be honest, raw, ugly, hopeful, frustrated, beautiful, and divine. And they will be slower than keener academics are used to. Be slow. Let this distract you. Let it change how you think and how you see the world. Because the world is our work. And so, may this tragedy tear down all our faulty assumptions and give us the courage of bold new ideas. Stage No. 3: Embrace a New Normal On the other side of this shift, your wonderful, creative, resilient brain will be waiting for you. When your foundations are strong, build a weekly schedule that prioritizes the security of your home team, and then carve out time blocks for different categories of your work: teaching, administration, and research. Do the easy tasks first and work your way into the heavy lifting. Wake up early. The online yoga and crossfit will be easier at this stage. ADVERTISEMENT Things will start to feel more natural. The work will also make more sense, and you will be more comfortable about changing or undoing what is already in motion. New ideas will emerge that would not have come to mind had you stayed in denial. Continue to embrace your mental shift. Have faith in the process. Support your team. Understand that this is a marathon. If you sprint at the beginning, you will vomit on your shoes by the end of the month. Emotionally prepare for this crisis to continue for 12 to 18 months, followed by a slow recovery. If it ends sooner, be pleasantly surprised. Right now, work toward establishing your serenity, productivity, and wellness under sustained disaster conditions. None of us knows how long this crisis will last. We all want our troops to be home before Christmas. The uncertainty is driving us all mad. Of course, there will be a day when the pandemic is over. We will hug our neighbors and our friends. We will return to our classrooms and coffee shops. Our borders will eventually reopen to freer movement. Our economies will one day recover from the forthcoming recessions. Yet we are just at the beginning of that journey. For most people, our minds have not come to terms with the fact that the world has already changed. Some faculty members are feeling distracted and guilty for not being able to write enough or teach online courses properly. Others are using their time at home to write and report a burst of research productivity. All of that is noise — denial and delusion. And right now, denial only serves to delay the essential process of acceptance, which will allow us to reimagine ourselves in this new reality. On the other side of this journey of acceptance are hope and resilience. We will know that we can do this, even if our struggles continue for years. We will be creative and responsive, and will find light in all the nooks and crannies. We will learn new recipes and make unusual friends. We will have projects we cannot imagine today, and will inspire students we have not yet met. And we will help each other. No matter what happens next, together, we will be blessed and ready to serve. ADVERTISEMENT In closing, I give thanks to those colleagues and friends who hail from hard places, who know this feeling of disaster in their bones. In the past few days, we have laughed about our childhood wounds and have exulted in our tribulations. We have given thanks and tapped into the resilience of our old wartime wounds. Thank you for being warriors of the light and for sharing your wisdom born of suffering. Because calamity is a great teacher.

Coronavirus: Mindfulness is useless in a pandemic

1843 magazine - section CORONAVIRUS Mindfulness is useless in a pandemic Living in the present has never felt more overrated 1843 magazine Nov 27th 2020 BY CATHERINE NIXEY I’d been looking forward to the meal for weeks. I already knew what I was going to eat: the rosemary crostini starter, then the lamb with courgette fries. Or maybe the cod. I planned to arrive early and sit in the window at the cool marble counter and watch London go by. In the warm bustle of the restaurant, the condensation would mist the pane. As a treat, I would order myself a glass of white wine while I waited for my friend. It won’t surprise you to hear that the meal never happened. Coronavirus cases started rising exponentially and eating out felt less like indulgence and more like lunacy. Then it became illegal to eat together at all. Soon it became illegal even to eat at a restaurant by yourself. Then everything shut. The cost of these lost lunches has been totted up many times: the trains not taken, the taxis not flagged down, the desserts not eaten, the waiters not tipped. Then there is the emotional toll, too. Spirits are flagging, the lonely are getting lonelier, the world is wilting. Covid has already disrupted so much of how we live. It has altered something else, as well – time itself. Not so long ago, we had merely months and years. Things happened in November or in December, last year or this. Some events are so big that they divide the world into before and after, into the present and an increasingly alien past. Wars do this, and the pandemic has, too. Coronavirus has cut a trench through time. The very recent past is suddenly another country. Now, amateur archaeologists of our own existence, we sort through our possessions and stumble on small relics from “then”, that strange place we used to live: a bus pass, a lipstick, a smart watch, a pair of shoes with the heels worn down, work clothes that, after just six months in stretchy active-wear, feel as stiff and preposterous as whalebone. News of vaccines fills us with hope. But the timing, the take-up, the roll-out to ordinary souls remain unresolved. The actual future still lies drearily in front of us, with the prospect of further lockdowns, overcrowded hospitals and ever greater financial losses. Days stretch on, each much the same as the last. One week blends into the next. ADVERTISING Amid these cancellations something else has also been lost. It won’t appear on any spreadsheet because it is not quantifiable. But it matters. So much of life, big and small, is about fleeting moments filled with hope. The prospect of an exciting Friday evening or Saturday afternoon used to make a dismal Tuesday morning bearable. So, too, did browsing online for your future self: the top that you’d always feel good in, the bag that would take both your laptop and book. Soon it became illegal even to eat at a restaurant by yourself. And then everything shut Hope hung everywhere in the old world, hovering in our peripheral vision – on the billboard that made us ponder our next holiday or reminded us to dig out dark glasses and sun cream; among the spices in the supermarket that conjured a conversation over curry with friends, chatting about things that didn’t feel like life and death. Many moments of happiness are about anticipation, the joy of the imagined future – and distracting ourselves from the tedious, exhausting or difficult present. Yet even our small consumer choices or our musings about what to do this weekend now bring us back to the big, overpowering reality of the pandemic. We cannot escape it. Our daydreams have come crashing back to earth: 2020 is the year that the future was cancelled. In recent decades the present has become rather more fashionable than the future. Living in the moment, being present in our present, is the desired mind-state of our age. There’s nothing new about the idea, of course – it forms the basis of Buddhism and there are elements of it in many religions. Long ago Horace commanded us to “carpe diem” and Seneca exhorted that the present is all we have: “All the rest of existence is not living but merely time.” Hope hung everywhere in the old world, hovering in our peripheral vision Over the past ten years the once-niche idea of “mindfulness” has gone mainstream. It has become an aspiration, an advertising opportunity and an overused adjective. You can practise not only mindful meditation but mindful breathing, mindful eating, mindful drinking, mindful walking, mindful parenting, even mindful birth. (As if childbirth were something that you might miss if you weren’t paying close enough attention.) It isn’t always clear quite what mindfulness is. Despite its promise of mental clarity, its own origins are decidedly foggy. It seems to be a translation of a Buddhist term, sati, which itself is tricky to define – its meaning lies somewhere between memory and consciousness. The English version is neither a very good translation nor a particularly helpful word. The longer you think about it, the stranger the word “mindful” seems: that puzzling “-ful” feels odd when talking about emptying your thoughts. (And is its opposite “mindlessness”?) If the definition of mindfulness is elusive, the practice is even more so. Its aim is to empty your mind by using your mind; to liberate it by restraining it. It is a puzzling and paradoxical thing, the mental equivalent of climbing up a ladder and removing it at the same time. Why let such finicky problems get in the way? After all, the present seems to be the gift that keeps on giving. In recent years many clever companies have found a way to empty our wallets along with our minds. You can now buy “gratitude” and “well-being” journals, and “positive year-planners”. In 2015 adult colouring books became a surprise hit: some 12m volumes were sold in America alone, according to Nielsen Bookscan. These days there are mindful guides to everything from anger to recruitment. There are even mindfulness advent calendars (who needs chocolate when you can feed your soul?). Like selling sand to the Sahara, these all pitch to us the ability to live in the “now”. It may be profitable but it flies in the face of thousands of years of evolution. Animals are hardwired to react to the future, says Sir Colin Blakemore, a neuroscientist at Oxford University and City University of Hong Kong. Expectation is integral to survival and is seen in even the most underwhelming creatures. Consider the sea slug. Touch one and it will withdraw. Keep touching it and it will soon become fed up, in as much as a sea slug can, and stop withdrawing. This is habituation, says Sir Colin, and it’s a “form of prediction about the future”. Many clever companies have found a way to empty our wallets along with our minds Babies, slightly more sophisticated than sea slugs, also do this. A game like peepo makes them laugh, but playing it also helps them learn that when something disappears behind an object, it will reappear. As the baby becomes habituated, the laughter fades. In a small way babies are learning to predict and anticipate the future. You can see similar responses throughout the animal kingdom. Give a chimp a raisin and its reward neurons fire. Teach a chimp that pressing a button will bring a raisin, and the chimp’s brain starts to react to the button as if that were the reward. “The process of getting the reward itself becomes rewarding,” says Sir Colin. The future is invading the present in a measurable physiological way. “It is well documented that the paraphernalia of drug taking,” says Sir Colin, “the syringes, the crinkled foil – those things themselves become desirable.” Planning is key to our physical survival. It’s also central to our emotional wellbeing. One dull autumn day earlier this year an aeroplane taxied along the tarmac at Hong Kong airport. The mood aboard was one of excitement. As a flight attendant started to walk to the back of the plane, there was a burst of applause. Unexpectedly, the attendant also applauded. Welcome, she said, to your flycation. A strange word. She went on: “Flight time will be about one hour and 15 minutes.” Cameras clicked as she spoke, and there was more clapping. The pandemic has reminded us that the joy we take in planning is as valid as the event itself The flight was going to the clouds and back. The individuals on board had bought tickets, been through airport security, queued and put up with the usual discomforts of waiting in an airport, only to land back on the same runway. The destination wasn’t the point: passengers had paid to experience the excitement of travel, the muscle memory of anticipation. Daydreaming, or mind-wandering, as the wonks call it, is part of universal human experience. In 2008 one Harvard study found that people spent nearly half of their waking hours mind-wandering – often about good things. Imagining a positive outcome is a popular technique to build resilience and confidence in everything from sport to job interviews. Teachers may tell pupils off for daydreaming in lessons but studies show a link between daydreaming and creative thought. When the future does arrive it is usually a let-down: an underwhelming meal, a rainy beach holiday, a weekend full of chores. That’s not the point. It’s our dreams that feed us. We are hardwired to anticipate the future and, with all due respect to the philosophers, to thrill to it. Whether your pleasure was once drinking in the pub or going on mini-breaks, cooking dinner for friends or going to the cinema, the joy they gave was almost certainly partly about the expectation: putting a date into your diary, packing your bag or hitting “order now” on a crucial missing item. As with the chimp, this pleasure was not illusory but real. The pandemic has reminded us that the joy we take in planning is as valid as the event itself. When the present is crushing – when lives and economies are being ruined – our imagination offers us a welcome escape Philosophers and Silicon Valley mindfulness gurus are advocates for the present partly because they tend to have rather a nice one (Seneca was one of the richest men in Rome and regularly threw dinner parties for 1,000 guests). For most people, daily life is more dreary. Would it be so very bad to be absent when stacking the dishwasher, to imagine yourself swimming in the sea off Croatia instead? When the present is crushing – when lives and economies are being ruined – our imagination offers us a welcome escape. The mind, as Milton put it, is its own place: it can make a hell of heaven, or a heaven of hell. Perhaps we should let it.■

Where will we be...?

theconversation.com March 30, 2020 11.26am BST Yi Xin/EPA-EFE Where will we be in six months, a year, ten years from now? I lie awake at night wondering what the future holds for my loved ones. My vulnerable friends and relatives. I wonder what will happen to my job, even though I’m luckier than many: I get good sick pay and can work remotely. I am writing this from the UK, where I still have self-employed friends who are staring down the barrel of months without pay, friends who have already lost jobs. The contract that pays 80% of my salary runs out in December. Coronavirus is hitting the economy badly. Will anyone be hiring when I need work? There are a number of possible futures, all dependent on how governments and society respond to coronavirus and its economic aftermath. Hopefully we will use this crisis to rebuild, produce something better and more humane. But we may slide into something worse. I think we can understand our situation – and what might lie in our future – by looking at the political economy of other crises. My research focuses on the fundamentals of the modern economy: global supply chains, wages, and productivity. I look at the way that economic dynamics contribute to challenges like climate change and low levels of mental and physical health among workers. I have argued that we need a very different kind of economics if we are to build socially just and ecologically sound futures. In the face of COVID-19, this has never been more obvious. The responses to the COVID-19 pandemic are simply the amplification of the dynamic that drives other social and ecological crises: the prioritisation of one type of value over others. This dynamic has played a large part in driving global responses to COVID-19. So as responses to the virus evolve, how might our economic futures develop? From an economic perspective, there are four possible futures: a descent into barbarism, a robust state capitalism, a radical state socialism, and a transformation into a big society built on mutual aid. Versions of all of these futures are perfectly possible, if not equally desirable. You can listen to the audio version of this article. What might our future hold? Jose Antonio Gallego Vázquez/Unsplash Coronavirus, like climate change, is partly a problem of our economic structure. Although both appear to be “environmental” or “natural” problems, they are socially driven. Yes, climate change is caused by certain gases absorbing heat. But that’s a very shallow explanation. To really understand climate change, we need to understand the social reasons that keep us emitting greenhouse gases. Likewise with COVID-19. Yes, the direct cause is the virus. But managing its effects requires us to understand human behaviour and its wider economic context. Tackling both COVID-19 and climate change is much easier if you reduce nonessential economic activity. For climate change this is because if you produce less stuff, you use less energy, and emit fewer greenhouse gases. The epidemiology of COVID-19 is rapidly evolving. But the core logic is similarly simple. People mix together and spread infections. This happens in households, and in workplaces, and on the journeys people make. Reducing this mixing is likely to reduce person-to-person transmission and lead to fewer cases overall. This article is part of Conversation Insights The Insights team generates long-form journalism derived from interdisciplinary research. The team is working with academics from different backgrounds who have been engaged in projects aimed at tackling societal and scientific challenges. Reducing contact between people probably also helps with other control strategies. One common control strategy for infectious disease outbreaks is contact tracing and isolation, where an infected person’s contacts are identified, then isolated to prevent further disease spread. This is most effective when you trace a high percentage of contacts. The fewer contacts a person has, the fewer you have to trace to get to that higher percentage. We can see from Wuhan that social distancing and lockdown measures like this are effective. Political economy is useful in helping us understand why they weren’t introduced earlier in European countries and the US. Lockdown is placing pressure on the global economy. We face a serious recession. This pressure has led some world leaders to call for an easing of lockdown measures. Even as 19 countries sat in a state of lockdown, the US president, Donald Trump, and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro called for roll backs in mitigation measures. Trump called for the American economy to get back to normal in three weeks (he has now accepted that social distancing will need to be maintained for much longer). Bolsonaro said: “Our lives have to go on. Jobs must be kept … We must, yes, get back to normal.” In the UK meanwhile, four days before calling for a three-week lockdown, Prime Minister Boris Johnson was only marginally less optimistic, saying that the UK could turn the tide within 12 weeks. Yet even if Johnson is correct, it remains the case that we are living with an economic system that will threaten collapse at the next sign of pandemic. The economics of collapse are fairly straightforward. Businesses exist to make a profit. If they can’t produce, they can’t sell things. This means they won’t make profits, which means they are less able to employ you. Businesses can and do (over short time periods) hold on to workers that they don’t need immediately: they want to be able to meet demand when the economy picks back up again. But, if things start to look really bad, then they won’t. So, more people lose their jobs or fear losing their jobs. So they buy less. And the whole cycle starts again, and we spiral into an economic depression. The City of London, empty. Yui Mok/PA Wire/PA Images In a normal crisis the prescription for solving this is simple. The government spends, and it spends until people start consuming and working again. (This prescription is what the economist John Maynard Keynes is famous for). But normal interventions won’t work here because we don’t want the economy to recover (at least, not immediately). The whole point of the lockdown is to stop people going to work, where they spread the disease. One recent study suggested that lifting lockdown measures in Wuhan (including workplace closures) too soon could see China experience a second peak of cases later in 2020. As the economist James Meadway wrote, the correct COVID-19 response isn’t a wartime economy – with massive upscaling of production. Rather, we need an “anti-wartime” economy and a massive scaling back of production. And if we want to be more resilient to pandemics in the future (and to avoid the worst of climate change) we need a system capable of scaling back production in a way that doesn’t mean loss of livelihood. So what we need is a different economic mindset. We tend to think of the economy as the way we buy and sell things, mainly consumer goods. But this is not what an economy is or needs to be. At its core, the economy is the way we take our resources and turn them into the things we need to live. Looked at this way, we can start to see more opportunities for living differently that allow us to produce less stuff without increasing misery. I and other ecological economists have long been concerned with the question of how you produce less in a socially just way, because the challenge of producing less is also central to tackling climate change. All else equal, the more we produce the more greenhouse gases we emit. So how do you reduce the amount of stuff you make while keeping people in work? Proposals include reducing the length of the working week, or, as some of my recent work has looked at, you could allow people to work more slowly and with less pressure. Neither of these is directly applicable to COVID-19, where the aim is reducing contact rather than output, but the core of the proposals is the same. You have to reduce people’s dependence on a wage to be able to live. We could be in for some long-term changes. EPA-EFE/Mahmoud Khaled The key to understanding responses to COVID-19 is the question of what the economy is for. Currently, the primary aim of the global economy is to facilitate exchanges of money. This is what economists call “exchange value”. The dominant idea of the current system we live in is that exchange value is the same thing as use value. Basically, people will spend money on the things that they want or need, and this act of spending money tells us something about how much they value its “use”. This is why markets are seen as the best way to run society. They allow you to adapt, and are flexible enough to match up productive capacity with use value. What COVID-19 is throwing into sharp relief is just how false our beliefs about markets are. Around the world, governments fear that critical systems will be disrupted or overloaded: supply chains, social care, but principally healthcare. There are lots of contributing factors to this. But let’s take two. First, it is quite hard to make money from many of the most essential societal services. This is in part because a major driver of profits is labour productivity growth: doing more with fewer people. People are a big cost factor in many businesses, especially those that rely on personal interactions, like healthcare. Consequently, productivity growth in the healthcare sector tends to be lower than the rest of the economy, so its costs go up faster than average. Second, jobs in many critical services aren’t those that tend to be highest valued in society. Many of the best paid jobs only exist to facilitate exchanges; to make money. They serve no wider purpose to society: they are what the anthropologist David Graeber calls “bullshit jobs”. Yet because they make lots of money we have lots of consultants, a huge advertising industry and a massive financial sector. Meanwhile, we have a crisis in health and social care, where people are often forced out of useful jobs they enjoy, because these jobs don’t pay them enough to live. Bullshit jobs are innumerable. Jesus Sanz/Shutterstock.com The fact that so many people work pointless jobs is partly why we are so ill prepared to respond to COVID-19. The pandemic is highlighting that many jobs are not essential, yet we lack sufficient key workers to respond when things go bad. People are compelled to work pointless jobs because in a society where exchange value is the guiding principle of the economy, the basic goods of life are mainly available through markets. This means you have to buy them, and to buy them you need an income, which comes from a job. The other side of this coin is that the most radical (and effective) responses that we are seeing to the COVID-19 outbreak challenge the dominance of markets and exchange value. Around the world governments are taking actions that three months ago looked impossible. In Spain, private hospitals have been nationalised. In the UK, the prospect of nationalising various modes of transport has become very real. And France has stated its readiness to nationalise large businesses. Likewise, we are seeing the breakdown of labour markets. Countries like Denmark and the UK are providing people with an income in order to stop them from going to work. This is an essential part of a successful lockdown. These measures are far from perfect. Nonetheless, it is a shift from the principle that people have to work in order to earn their income, and a move towards the idea that people deserve to be able to live even if they cannot work. This reverses the dominant trends of the last 40 years. Over this time, markets and exchange values have been seen as the best way of running an economy. Consequently, public systems have come under increasing pressures to marketise, to be run as though they were businesses who have to make money. Likewise, workers have become more and more exposed to the market – zero-hours contracts and the gig economy have removed the layer of protection from market fluctuations that long term, stable, employment used to offer. Deliveroo workers from Belgium and Netherlands protest against their working conditions, January 2018. Stephanie Lecocq/EPA-EFE COVID-19 appears to be reversing this trend, taking healthcare and labour goods out of the market and putting it into the hands of the state. States produce for many reasons. Some good and some bad. But unlike markets, they do not have to produce for exchange value alone. These changes give me hope. They give us the chance to save many lives. They even hint at the possibility of longer term change that makes us happier and helps us tackle climate change. But why did it take us so long to get here? Why were many countries so ill-prepared to slowdown production? The answer lies in a recent World Health Organisation report: they did not have the right “mindset”. There has been a broad economic consensus for 40 years. This has limited the ability of politicians and their advisers to see cracks in the system, or imagine alternatives. This mindset is driven by two linked beliefs: The market is what delivers a good quality of life, so it must be protected The market will always return to normal after short periods of crisis These views are common to many Western countries. But they are strongest in the UK and the US, both of which have appeared to be badly prepared to respond to COVID-19. In the UK, attendees at a private engagement reportedly summarised the Prime Minister’s most senior aide’s approach to COVID-19 as “herd immunity, protect the economy, and if that means some pensioners die, too bad”. The government has denied this, but if real, it’s not surprising. At a government event early in the pandemic, a senior civil servant said to me: “Is it worth the economic disruption? If you look at the treasury valuation of a life, probably not.” This kind of view is endemic in a particular elite class. It is well represented by a Texas official who argued that many elderly people would gladly die rather than see the US sink into economic depression. This view endangers many vulnerable people (and not all vulnerable people are elderly), and, as I have tried to lay out here, it is a false choice. One of the things the COVID-19 crisis could be doing, is expanding that economic imagination. As governments and citizens take steps that three months ago seemed impossible, our ideas about how the world works could change rapidly. Let us look at where this re-imagining could take us. To help us visit the future, I’m going to use a technique from the field of futures studies. You take two factors you think will be important in driving the future, and you imagine what will happen under different combinations of those factors. The factors I want to take are value and centralisation. Value refers to whatever is the guiding principle of our economy. Do we use our resources to maximise exchanges and money, or do we use them to maximise life? Centralisation refers to the ways that things are organised, either by of lots of small units or by one big commanding force. We can organise these factors into a grid, which can then be populated with scenarios. So we can think about what might happen if we try to respond to the coronavirus with the four extreme combinations: 1) State capitalism: centralised response, prioritising exchange value 2) Barbarism: decentralised response prioritising exchange value 3) State socialism: centralised response, prioritising the protection of life 4) Mutual aid: decentralised response prioritising the protection of life. The four futures. © Simon Mair State capitalism is the dominant response we are seeing across the world right now. Typical examples are the UK, Spain and Denmark. The state capitalist society continues to pursue exchange value as the guiding light of the economy. But it recognises that markets in crisis require support from the state. Given that many workers cannot work because they are ill, and fear for their lives, the state steps in with extended welfare. It also enacts massive Keynesian stimulus by extending credit and making direct payments to businesses. The expectation here is that this will be for a short period. The primary function of the steps being taken is to allow as many businesses as possible to keep on trading. In the UK, for example, food is still distributed by markets (though the government has relaxed competition laws). Where workers are supported directly, this is done in ways that seek to minimise disruption of normal labour market functioning. So, for example, as in the UK, payments to workers have to be applied for and distributed by employers. And the size of payments is made on the basis of the exchange value a worker usually creates in the market, rather than the usefulness of their work. Could this be a successful scenario? Possibly, but only if COVID-19 proves controllable over a short period. As full lockdown is avoided to maintain market functioning, transmission of infection is still likely to continue. In the UK, for instance, non-essential construction is still continuing, leaving workers mixing on building sites. But limited state intervention will become increasingly hard to maintain if death tolls rise. Increased illness and death will provoke unrest and deepen economic impacts, forcing the state to take more and more radical actions to try to maintain market functioning. This is the bleakest scenario. Barbarism is the future if we continue to rely on exchange value as our guiding principle and yet refuse to extend support to those who get locked out of markets by illness or unemployment. It describes a situation that we have not yet seen. Businesses fail and workers starve because there are no mechanisms in place to protect them from the harsh realities of the market. Hospitals are not supported by extraordinary measures, and so become overwhelmed. People die. Barbarism is ultimately an unstable state that ends in ruin or a transition to one of the other grid sections after a period of political and social devastation. Could this happen? The concern is that either it could happen by mistake during the pandemic, or by intention after the pandemic peaks. The mistake is if a government fails to step in in a big enough way during the worst of the pandemic. Support might be offered to businesses and households, but if this isn’t enough to prevent market collapse in the face of widespread illness, chaos would ensue. Hospitals might be sent extra funds and people, but if it’s not enough, ill people will be turned away in large numbers. Potentially just as consequential is the possibility of massive austerity after the pandemic has peaked and governments seek to return to “normal”. This has been threatened in Germany. This would be disastrous. Not least because defunding of critical services during austerity has impacted the ability of countries to respond to this pandemic. The subsequent failure of the economy and society would trigger political and social unrest, leading to a failed state and the collapse of both state and community welfare systems. State socialism describes the first of the futures we could see with a cultural shift that places a different kind of value at the heart of the economy. This is the future we arrive at with an extension of the measures we are currently seeing in the UK, Spain and Denmark. The key here is that measures like nationalisation of hospitals and payments to workers are seen not as tools to protect markets, but a way to protect life itself. In such a scenario, the state steps in to protect the parts of the economy that are essential to life: the production of food, energy and shelter for instance, so that the basic provisions of life are no longer at the whim of the market. The state nationalises hospitals, and makes housing freely available. Finally, it provides all citizens with a means of accessing various goods – both basics and any consumer goods we are able to produce with a reduced workforce. Citizens no longer rely on employers as intermediaries between them and the basic materials of life. Payments are made to everyone directly and are not related to the exchange value they create. Instead, payments are the same to all (on the basis that we deserve to be able to live, simply because we are alive), or they are based on the usefulness of the work. Supermarket workers, delivery drivers, warehouse stackers, nurses, teachers, and doctors are the new CEOs. It’s possible that state socialism emerges as a consequence of attempts at state capitalism and the effects of a prolonged pandemic. If deep recessions happen and there is disruption in supply chains such that demand cannot be rescued by the kind of standard Keynesian policies we are seeing now (printing money, making loans easier to get and so on), the state may take over production. There are risks to this approach – we must be careful to avoid authoritarianism. But done well, this may be our best hope against an extreme COVID-19 outbreak. A strong state able to marshal the resources to protect the core functions of economy and society. Mutual aid is the second future in which we adopt the protection of life as the guiding principle of our economy. But, in this scenario, the state does not take a defining role. Rather, individuals and small groups begin to organise support and care within their communities. The risks with this future is that small groups are unable to rapidly mobilise the kind of resources needed to effectively increase healthcare capacity, for instance. But mutual aid could enable more effective transmission prevention, by building community support networks that protect the vulnerable and police isolation rules. The most ambitious form of this future sees new democratic structures arise. Groupings of communities that are able to mobilise substantial resources with relative speed. People coming together to plan regional responses to stop disease spread and (if they have the skills) to treat patients. Volunteers shop for groceries during the lockdown, in Arese, Italy, March 24 2020. Sergio Pontorieri/EPA-EFE This kind of scenario could emerge from any of the others. It is a possible way out of barbarism, or state capitalism, and could support state socialism. We know that community responses were central to tackling the West African Ebola outbreak. And we already see the roots of this future today in the groups organising care packages and community support. We can see this as a failure of state responses. Or we can see it as a pragmatic, compassionate societal response to an unfolding crisis. These visions are extreme scenarios, caricatures, and likely to bleed into one another. My fear is the descent from state capitalism into barbarism. My hope is a blend of state socialism and mutual aid: a strong, democratic state that mobilises resources to build a stronger health system, prioritises protecting the vulnerable from the whims of the market and responds to and enables citizens to form mutual aid groups rather than working meaningless jobs. What hopefully is clear is that all these scenarios leave some grounds for fear, but also some for hope. COVID-19 is highlighting serious deficiencies in our existing system. An effective response to this is likely to require radical social change. I have argued it requires a drastic move away from markets and the use of profits as the primary way of organising an economy. The upside of this is the possibility that we build a more humane system that leaves us more resilient in the face of future pandemics and other impending crises like climate change. Social change can come from many places and with many influences. A key task for us all is demanding that emerging social forms come from an ethic that values care, life, and democracy. The central political task in this time of crisis is living and (virtually) organising around those values

COVID Antibodies “fall rapidly after infection”

ADVERTISEMENT Covid: Antibodies 'fall rapidly after infection' By James Gallagher Health and science correspondent Published2 days ago Related Topics Coronavirus pandemic Person in facemask IMAGE COPYRIGHTGETTY IMAGES Levels of protective antibodies in people wane "quite rapidly" after coronavirus infection, say researchers. Antibodies are a key part of our immune defences and stop the virus from getting inside the body's cells. The Imperial College London team found the number of people testing positive for antibodies has fallen by 26% between June and September. They say immunity appears to be fading and there is a risk of catching the virus multiple times. The news comes as figures from the Office for National Statistics show that the number of Covid-19 deaths in the UK rose by 60% in the week of 16 October. The ONS figures suggest there have now been more than 60,000 deaths involving Covid-19 in the UK. More than 350,000 people in England have taken an antibody test as part of the REACT-2 study so far. In the first round of testing, at the end of June and the beginning of July, about 60 in 1,000 people had detectable antibodies. But in the latest set of tests, in September, only 44 per 1,000 people were positive. It suggests the number of people with antibodies fell by more than a quarter between summer and autumn. How close are we to a coronavirus vaccine? How worried should we be about Covid? "Immunity is waning quite rapidly, we're only three months after our first [round of tests] and we're already showing a 26% decline in antibodies," said Prof Helen Ward, one of the researchers. The fall was greater in those over 65, compared with younger age groups, and in those without symptoms compared with those with full-blown Covid-19. The number of healthcare workers with antibodies remained relatively high, which the researchers suggest may be due to regular exposure to the virus. Antibody IMAGE COPYRIGHTGETTY IMAGES image captionY-shaped antibodies stick to the surface of viruses to stop them infecting the body's cells Antibodies stick to the surface of the coronavirus to stop it invading our body's cells and attacking the rest of the immune system. Exactly what the antibody drop means for immunity is still uncertain. There are other parts of the immune system, such as T-cells, which may also play a role, directly killing infected host cells and calling to other immune cells to help out. However, the researchers warn antibodies tend to be highly predictive of who is protected. Prof Wendy Barclay said: "We can see the antibodies and we can see them declining and we know antibodies on their own are quite protective. "On the balance of evidence, I would say it would look as if immunity declines away at the same rate as antibodies decline away, and that this is an indication of waning immunity." There are four other seasonal human coronaviruses, which we catch multiple times in our lives. They cause common cold symptoms and we can be reinfected every six to 12 months. Many people have mild or asymptomatic coronavirus infections. Two out of every three people who tested positive for coronavirus in a study published today by the Office for National Statistics experienced none of the main symptoms of coronavirus. Separate figures from the ONS today showed that Covid-19 deaths in the UK increased from just under 500 to just over 750 in the week to 16 October, pushing the total number of deaths 6% over the level expected for this time of year. The ONS figures suggest that more than 60,000 deaths in the UK have involved coronavirus so far this year. By 16 October, more than 59,000 of these deaths had happened and, since then, a further 1,200 people have died within 28 days of a positive test for coronavirus. Ninety per cent of these deaths happened before the end of June. There have been very few confirmed cases of people getting Covid twice. However, the researchers warn this may be due to immunity only just starting to fade since the peak infection rates of March and April. The hope is the second infection will be milder than the first, even if immunity does decline, as the body should have an "immune memory" of the first encounter and know how to fight back. The researchers say their findings do not scupper hopes of a vaccine, which may prove more effective than a real infection. One of the researchers, Prof Graham Cooke, said: "The big picture is after the first wave, the great majority of the country didn't have evidence of protective immunity. "The need for a vaccine is still very large, the data doesn't change that." Professor Paul Elliott, director of the REACT-2 study, said it would be wrong to draw firm conclusions from the study about the impact of a vaccine. He said: "The vaccine response may behave differently to the response to natural infection." But he said it was possible that some people might need follow-up booster doses of any vaccine that became available to top up fading immunity over time. Banner image reading 'more about coronavirus' LOCKDOWN LOOK-UP: The rules in your area THREE TIERS: How do latest rules affect you? SOCIAL DISTANCING: Can I give my friends a hug? PAY-PACKET SUPPORT: What do chancellor's plans mean for wages? Banner Commenting on the findings, Prof Jonathan Ball from the University of Nottingham said: "This study confirms suspicions that antibody responses - especially in vulnerable elderly populations - decrease over time." However, he said it was still important to get a better overall view of "what protective immunity looks like". Prof Eleanor Riley, from the University of Edinburgh, said it would be "premature" to assume immunity did not last, but "the data do lend weight to the concern that antibodies induced by natural infection may be short-lived, as is the case for other seasonal coronaviruses."