This is a reflective post sharing a Dark humour message about rational risk assessment, led by tested evidence and (good) science.

“Jump Back in: WE INSIST! RIGHT AWAY! We all need to Feed and Grow”. Some have to Go. It was ever Thus.

BUT: Feel as if you are being pushed back in? If so: How, and Why?

Who gets to play God; and exactly what is their mandate and merit to do so?

The best of all messages are delivered with humour at the plight of someone else. The more abstracted, the easier on the conscience

Not just words, but a single well chosen picture serves nicely.

So I wont be in the least bit put out if you read no further, Stop, and consider what it conveys to you, in your own situation. Your interpretation and first thoughts need not mirror my own. Nor should they, unless there be some random coincidence.

This image became a favourite screensaver. While listening to radio news items, and various political advisors expounding their views, it seemed to provide a compassionate guide to challenge the more willfully skewed presentations from people that were seriously maladjusted in exercising judgement with an undisclosed agenda that really needed full exposure. I certainly broke concentration more with some particularly crafted statement or point of view likely to become policy, unchallenged, when it was expounded with a measure of devious detachment and pomposity.

The Penguin.
Computer Geeks will recognize the other dimension that appeals to me. Trying to build resilient and secure systems in a Corporate and Political Environment where they are a nuisance to many, and should be quietly re-engineered to serve some greater purpose best not made a matter for close public attention in any liberal democracy.

Fingerprints with unique identifiers all over the place, at best. Worse case: a trained leopard seal ready to dive in and swallow an easily identified individual at a moments notice. I do have technology and legislative candidates for the latter worst case, but leave that discussion to the reader, to limit the options to those seizing any flame war diversionary topics from this piece: No peace!

Pure Darwinian evolution. No Quarter for the slow, or unlucky in life. Nature in the Raw. We Humans once organized for the greater good of the many. In an evolutionary sense. But perhaps not in other ways that required revolutionary changes to societies.
Also at great cost in lives, living standards, and government treasury.

Us Humans, we have the capability, with compassion, to “Do Better”, sustainably.
Those most likely to be be making the greater sacrifice should attract the resources needed to support them without fuss.
For the most part, they have made a lifetime of contributions to the Society they turn to in the late Autumn and Bitter Winter years of their lives.
The occasional freeloader hits even the very best of parties. It does not, nor should it, define them (the parties!). Recreational, or Political.

There are (now) accurate actuarial statistics based upon the real world experiences from many Nations. Including the origins of the Pandemic. What we DO NOT need is willful misinterpretations, and bad science selective modelling by Machiavellian types with some hidden agenda. Insurers MUST have good data. They go out of business FAST if their modelling is incorrect, or politically biased. Compassion has nothing to do with it. A happy coincidence in a Corporate Capitalist system that has lost the ability to make decisions based upon enlightened Self-Interest. Greed is Good, and a notable exception for one market sector that must promote on merit the best statistical modelling disciplines.

Example? The risk of dying from contracting this disease doubles for every 5 years of age over the age of 35. Across the entire set of properly selected data. A very nasty power law exponentiation you may face at each and every Birthday in later life.

If you feel sorry about the campaign scars and losses everyone must face beyond middle-age: think again. They are a badge of honour that deserves some respect from the rest of society. After all, its better than the alternative: No More birthdays to celebrate, alone or with friends. Its an improvement over complete extinction!

As the anxiety of the unknown reached its peak this picture encapsulates the mixed feelings of the equally mixed-up messages coming from our government representatives. After just a few weeks of trying to create processes with the best balance of maintaining an Economy, Tax revenues, and the price in lives lost that would occur if poor decisions with inability to recover errors of judgement were made.

The only traffic visible from my upstairs rural view window were ambulances plying a narrow B road route between the Hospital to the North, and a Town 20mins walk away to the South, at all hours. Many of them ominously slow, Northbound, as souls within were being kept where they belonged, in very sick, failing, bodies. Mostly older, with a “limited value”. As defined within a short term profit led Corporate World operating services at least possible cost. Excess capacity perceived as waste; rarely as a sensible contingency insurance investment.
Paramedics fighting to stabilize those whose first effective medical intervention was little or nothing short of centralized Hospital admission. Where the limited testing we had was the only game – always an Away game. Due to decades of cost cutting.

As with most things medical, early intervention usually reduces fatal outcomes.

Lots of people going away that did get to come back. The survivors? Only as an infection vector planted directly back among the very people it was most likely to kill. Negligence, or unspoken design to adjust the demographics? Probably the former; we do not have any great love of fascism in the UK. For good reasons. That needs continual vigilance and testing. Just like in a viral Pandemic. Ideas can kill more effectively than any virus when maladjusted ones gain superiority to govern events.

The worst was seeing the parked ambulances – and backup emergency vehicles serving less desperately ill transport needs, outside of every single care home I jogged past on an exercise day out. At the peak of the community infection rate. The best, was returning past a feisty if ancient neighbour, venturing a cheery wave. Alive because she had stubbornly resisted all growing family pressures to sell up the family home and downsize to move the capital around to a younger next generation.

Stay Safe. Protest when necessary, and Survive. Pursue Self Interest but Enlightened. And with the Lightest of Touch as a first choice. Vigilance and early constructive criticism for the best of outcomes at least cost.

Too much to ask of some, in positions of power, it would seem. Wherever you may live in this World.

• KG