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90% economy, 120% gastronomy: Covid-19 seems to have changed lifestyles for good

economist.com

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Re: 90% economy, 120% gastronomy: Covid-19 seems to have changed lifestyles for good

#71

Post by blaser-waffle »

NoOneNew wrote: post #27
rossdavidh wrote: post #24

"Covid-19 seems to have changed [x] for good" is not worth reading, for all values of x, until we have gotten to a post-pandemic environment. It's like saying, in the seconds or even days after a car crash, that the car crash has changed your driving styles for good. Wayyyyyy too early to say.

Yea, was going to say the same. I'm personally sick and tired of hearing "the new normal". No, it's temporary, get over the doomsday fetish. I swear this is worse than those hardcore preppers who pray for an apocalypse. Every person that goes, "the end is near" over every damn thing is literally the least or naively prepared person for such a thing. It's just a fetish developed by people unable to cope with any state…

> They just think that if no one is doing well, then they're equal with everyone else.

A great deal of human existence is comparing yourselves to others, and exalting youself over everyone else when possible. If you can't be better than them at least you can take consolation they're equally miserable.

Re: 90% economy, 120% gastronomy: Covid-19 seems to have changed lifestyles for good

#72

Post by rossdavidh »

Jedd wrote: post #55
rossdavidh wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not saying "not true for all values of x", I'm claiming "not worth reading for all values of x", because it's way too soon to make predictions about what will stick and what won't. I could imagine that _something_ will stick, I just don't think the Economist or anyone else is going to be any good at predicting what.

I guess TFA doesn't think there's a constraint on how soon they can offer up some predictions based on google search words. > I just don't think the Economist or anyone else is going to be any good at predicting what. So your early prediction is that their early predictions are going to be wrong? ; )

Ha! Yes, although technically I'm just saying "frequently wrong", for example maybe half of them, and thus not worth reading.

Re: 90% economy, 120% gastronomy: Covid-19 seems to have changed lifestyles for good

#73

Post by ggggtez »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #43

Seems like it would be pretty easy to game this sort of conclusion-making based on Google search terms. For example, let's say I control a popular app which installed on people's devices -- thousands of developers/corporations/other entities are in this position. I insert some new code in the app (perhaps via an automatic update) that sends a Google query for some search term from a pool of similar terms I have chose…

Your fake example is more convoluted (and less profitable) than just using ads, fake news, and viral marketing to sway opinions.

And don't forget that Google has a vested interest in identifying fake searches, so any large scale attack like you're describing would likely result in your app traffic getting flagged as fake.

Besides, if you really had the ability to push code to millions of devices, and don't mind "being evil", there is a lot more profitable things you could be doing with that influence.

Re: 90% economy, 120% gastronomy: Covid-19 seems to have changed lifestyles for good

#74

Post by Jedd »

tdeck wrote: post #67
Jedd wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your point is true for some, but I dispute 'all values of x'. Post-pandemic, yes, some items from that page are going to return to pre-pandemic numbers, I'm sure - hangover, restaurant, ticket, etc. But for people who've discovered that stuff they grow at home - from herbs on the balcony to tomatoes in the yard - taste much better, are unlikely to just forget that. Similarly people discovering this year that they enj…

I don't know. I just listened to this great podcast [1] about victory gardens during WW1 and WW2. Many of them were set up all across the US, but after the war ended people pretty much abandoned them. Turns out growing food is hard work and most people don't want to do it, even as a supplement. That said I'm definitely making it a goal to never buy green onions again - it's so easy to regrow them. [1]: https://gastro…

Understood, but I suspect some of that may be cultural (allotment gardens in the UK are extremely popular with lengthy waiting lists), and synchronised with the push in the USA during the 1940's and 1950's towards suburbanisation and consumerism.

My gut feel is that because there was already a popular trend to 'getting your fingers in the soil', as well as the slow food movement, that combined with the forced rethink of how we spend time, effort, and money, we will see some longer lasting effects.

Re: 90% economy, 120% gastronomy: Covid-19 seems to have changed lifestyles for good

#75

Post by therealcamino »

abraxas wrote: post #57
Barrin92 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, some of these predictions are outright comical. "has covid ended handshakes forever" or "will we ever go back to bars?". Bars and handshakes have survived thousands of years of pandemics. I get that people always tend to think their moment in history is particularly special, but I'm just gonna say if the black death didn't do something in this won't either

I'm not sure bars existed in the times of Black Death. I learned recently that a sit down restaurant with a menu is a relatively new thing. Two hundred years or so. Plus minus a few decades. Your point still stands though. I just thought I would point that out as I found it somewhat interesting because for a long time I had assumed that restaurant business was much older than that.

This article kind of fudges the Black Death and an Italian plague 300 years later, but there were "wine windows" to allow serving without physical contact, and some have been recently put back into service:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2020/08/10/restaurants...

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