COVID-19 Aftermath: What will change?

That’s one thing about this place @flyingcheesehead that makes it good to me. I’ve never really had any reasonable requests turned down other than one, and that’s spending the big bucks on a building generator. I get it. It’s expensive. But eventually it will bite us. Maybe not hard enough it justifies the expense though. It’s an edge case.
 
denverpilot said:
That’s one thing about this place @flyingcheesehead that makes it good to me. I’ve never really had any reasonable requests turned down other than one, and that’s spending the big bucks on a building generator. I get it. It’s expensive. But eventually it will bite us. Maybe not hard enough it justifies the expense though. It’s an edge case.
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Cool. I, likewise, have a job where I'm trusted to spend the company's money smartly and I have never been turned down for a purchase. It's SOOO nice to be somewhere where I can make things happen rather than have additional obstacles put in my way.

Unfortunately, the number of companies where that's the case is vanishingly small. And the ones who don't plan well... Well, they're the ones asking for bailouts now!
 
azure said:
That scenario explains how a wave of panic buying gets sustained, but how does it start? And I mean, for items for which there is no logical reason to expect a shortage. Take toilet paper, for example, as you mentioned... I can see one or two people getting this hare-brained idea that there is going to be a shortage... but for the phenomenon to take root over a wide area, lots of people in different parts of the country have to get the same idea, seemingly at the same time. Where is this notion coming from? Is there some source of disinformation out there flooding the internet with fake warnings about TP shortages?
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Herd behavior. My finance professor once told us that two things govern all market interactions: greed and fear. Really, most human behavior can be distilled down to this, and we are prone to lemming behavior. I once read an article on why people drive like morons on the highway (staying in your blind spot, speeding up if you try to pass them, clumping together, tailgating but not passing) and it said that humans, being socially wired animals, are programmed to engage in herd bahavior like cows or lemmings. If we see others doing something we feel the need to do the same. The author meant it in terms of driving the same speed as someone else or maintaining relative road position, but our buying habits do the same thing. Advertisers take advantage of this instinct all the time. One of us gets spooked and starts a behavior, the rest see it and unconsciously assume that this is a survival behavior in response to a stimuli. Instead of stampeding, though, we buy 20 gallons of milk. One flighty, panicky person (the kind of person who calls the cops on kids in parking lot listening to loud music in their cars) hears the word "crisis." They respond by buying up things that they can't imagine living without. It's not a rational behavior. It's irrational, but someone else sees our lemming number 1 running towards the cliff and assumes that they must know something, so they do the same. Now the behavior is becoming normalized and we are off to the proverbial races.
 
LoLPilot said:
Herd behavior. My finance professor once told us that two things govern all market interactions: greed and fear. Really, most human behavior can be distilled down to this, and we are prone to lemming behavior. I once read an article on why people drive like morons on the highway (staying in your blind spot, speeding up if you try to pass them, clumping together, tailgating but not passing) and it said that humans, being socially wired animals, are programmed to engage in herd bahavior like cows or lemmings. If we see others doing something we feel the need to do the same. The author meant it in terms of driving the same speed as someone else or maintaining relative road position, but our buying habits do the same thing. Advertisers take advantage of this instinct all the time. One of us gets spooked and starts a behavior, the rest see it and unconsciously assume that this is a survival behavior in response to a stimuli. Instead of stampeding, though, we buy 20 gallons of milk. One flighty, panicky person (the kind of person who calls the cops on kids in parking lot listening to loud music in their cars) hears the word "crisis." They respond by buying up things that they can't imagine living without. It's not a rational behavior. It's irrational, but someone else sees our lemming number 1 running towards the cliff and assumes that they must know something, so they do the same. Now the behavior is becoming normalized and we are off to the proverbial races.
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Of course, I understand herd / lemming behavior. I was wondering how so many people got the same idea across the entire country. Most of them didn't see the result of the first person's panic, but the first ones in their region had the same idea, at nearly the same time. Can't be independent thoughts, but what is the common source? Conspiracy theorists? Russian disinformation campaign on FB? That's what I'm wondering about.

Edit for clarity: I'm not talking about things like hand sanitizer and rubbing alcohol. I'm talking about stuff that no thinking person would expect a shortage of in this crisis, like toilet paper... or Orville Redenbacher popcorn (yes! the local Shaw's was completely cleaned out of it on Saturday).
 
azure said:
Of course, I understand herd / lemming behavior. I was wondering how so many people got the same idea across the entire country. Most of them didn't see the result of the first person's panic, but the first ones in their region had the same idea, at nearly the same time. Can't be independent thoughts, but what is the common source? Conspiracy theorists? Russian disinformation campaign on FB? That's what I'm wondering about.

Edit for clarity: I'm not talking about things like hand sanitizer and rubbing alcohol. I'm talking about stuff that no thinking person would expect a shortage of in this crisis, like toilet paper... or Orville Redenbacher popcorn (yes! the local Shaw's was completely cleaned out of it on Saturday).
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All it takes is a few posts on FB/Twitter/etc. posted by people with a large following, and a few videos/pic of store shelves emptied out, to have it spread like wildfire. Then the local news media pick it up and start adding publicity to it and "boom" you have a run on absurd commodities. (I need someone famous to post a tweet about gasoline/fuel shortages so people will make a run and drive oil prices back up ;) ) It's like eating Tide pods, and Kiki challenges, and doing parkour on the edges of skyscrapers . . . people get hurt/die doing things that make no sense because they go "viral" online (pun intended).

FlySince9 said:
parents realize they can work from home, educate their kids the way they want, not sit in traffic for 2 hours daily, and save 2k month on childcare.
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I dunno, while I think my wife and I could educate my children pretty well, I don't think I could do it while also working as productively from home. There's simply not enough time to manage a school curriculum (especially for multiple children of different ages) and be able to get the same amount of work done. I'll happily keep paying to have someone educate my children to a given standard and let me supplement with more in-depth knowledge and life skills. We'd have to change the expectations of daily workload for that to become the business/social norm in the US.
 
SoonerAviator said:
All it takes is a few posts on FB/Twitter/etc. posted by people with a large following, and a few videos/pic of store shelves emptied out, to have it spread like wildfire. Then the local news media pick it up and start adding publicity to it and "boom" you have a run on absurd commodities.
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Maybe... but it seems to me it happened simultaneously all over the country, too quickly to be explained by people seeing the results of other people's panic, even on social media. Maybe I just didn't notice it until the craze was well under way.
 
Unfortunately given our track record of ignoring the lessons of history, I suspect a few of us will pay attention and learn but our leaders and large percentage of population will not learn or change 1 iota. Hate to say that but that has been our historical reaction.
 
azure said:
or Orville Redenbacher popcorn (yes! the local Shaw's was completely cleaned out of it on Saturday).
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They were just stocking up to spend some time reading threads on PoA or Farcebook.
 
Hopefully it will highlight the importance of having a cash reserve...

I know it's good for the economy for people to spend, spend, spend; but not so much for the individual until you have the excess cash above your reserve.
 
Based on the foot traffic at Lowe's today, many 'honey do' lists are getting crushed.
 
weilke said:
Based on the foot traffic at Lowe's today, many 'honey do' lists are getting crushed.
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I can tell you, my chainsaw has been seeing a lot of action it wouldn't have otherwise... At least, not this early in the season. We make it a point to go outside as a family every day, and while that usually starts with getting the mail and playing with stomp rockets in the driveway, I start seeing things that need to be done and so I start doing them.

Depending on how long this goes, I might even get the garage cleaned! :rofl:
 
Think we’ll reassess that TSA is now the most dangerous place in any airport, and a larger threat than any possible terrorist act?

If not, you think they’ll still touch our junk? LOL.
 
I was surprised at how many families I saw outside this afternoon while I was driving home. Families walking, riding bikes, playing football, whatever they could do to spend time together out of the house. It helped that we finally had a dry day, the sun was out, and the temps hit the low 70s. It was a perfect day to be outside and a lot of people took advantage of it.

Maybe people will have rediscovered family time.
 
Matthew said:
I was surprised at how many families I saw outside this afternoon while I was driving home. Families walking, riding bikes, playing football, whatever they could do to spend time together out of the house. It helped that we finally had a dry day, the sun was out, and the temps hit the low 70s. It was a perfect day to be outside and a lot of people took advantage of it.

Maybe people will have rediscovered family time.
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Have noticed the same thing working from the house this week. Yesterday and today have been really nice weather days, and I have seen increased activity from my home office window for people walking dogs and taking the kids for a stroll. It could be going on every day and I’m not aware of it since I’m normally not working from home, but I think people are trying to get out a bit more to enjoy the outdoors while they can. Definitely good to see.
 
NoHeat said:
A detail in that page that surprised me:

TSA is allowing one liquid hand sanitizer container up to 12 ounces per passenger in carry-on bags until further notice. ​

I wonder what TSA is thinking. Sanitizer is flammable. It's hazmat, for the postal service - you can't mail it. And there was a recent fatal fire when somebody made a molotov cocktail with a bottle of it.
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Yeah, but there probably more Air Marshals than planes flying now. Who’s gonna try to hijack a plane full of five passengers?
 
SoonerAviator said:
Hopefully they shorten the season to 120 games or less by that point. I love baseball, but the number of games is ridiculous.
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I'm anticipating a short season. They've done that in other years with strikes.

I guess I'm a purist, I like the long season. But I don't like the long post-season. The original point of the long season was to have league champions, and then division champions. Now, everyone wants the extra revenue of more post season games so wild-cards have been added and now the post season goes on too long.
 
Matthew said:
I'm anticipating a short season. They've done that in other years with strikes.

I guess I'm a purist, I like the long season. But I don't like the long post-season. The original point of the long season was to have league champions, and then division champions. Now, everyone wants the extra revenue of more post season games so wild-cards have been added and now the post season goes on too long.
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The number of games is about the only thing I'm not "purist" about. Most of the games have a sparse crowd, especially day games. You can play a best-of-3 game series home/away with every team in your league (90 games), then do the post season division, league champ, and world series. Cutting out 1/3 of the season would likely increase attendance, reduce injuries, and allow for better pitcher rest.
 
SoonerAviator said:
The number of games is about the only thing I'm not "purist" about. Most of the games have a sparse crowd, especially day games. You can play a best-of-3 game series home/away with every team in your league (90 games), then do the post season division, league champ, and world series. Cutting out 1/3 of the season would likely increase attendance, reduce injuries, and allow for better pitcher rest.
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1961 the AL went from 154 to 162 games.
1962 the NL went to 162.

Divisional play started in 1969, and added a single round of playoffs between the top finishers in each division.

I'm not sure when the "season is too long" arguments started, but they've been around for a while. Average game times have gone from about 2:30 to just over 3 hrs in the same period of time we've had 162 games. I think the longer games tend to drag out, and people lose interest, and that makes the whole season seem way too long. I try to get to a couple games a year, and most nights I'll either have the car radio on or the TV on in the background and listen in. Baseball is a long season, but it's just a part of the way I spend my summers (and spring, and fall)

https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/misc.shtml

The stats on that page claim average attendance per game last year was 28,000, not much different for the last 20-30 years. In KC, they tried moving game times around so more kids could get to the games - they started an hour earlier until the end of the school year when they went back to their normal starting time.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/2019-misc.shtml

Last year the Miami Marlins averaged 10,000 per game. My local team, the Royals, averaged 18,000.

And those hot August day games when it's 104 and there is crappy pitching and a lot of pitching changes, and the bats are quiet so it's a 1-0 game that has absolutely no action and your team is already 16 games out, yeah, those are no fun. I've sat through 1-0 games that are at both extremes of the fun:not-fun scale.
 
asicer said:
Speaking of, interesting that skyvector is displaying stadium TFRs for baseball.
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And since the season wouldn't even have started until early April anyway, it's probably just a generic stadium TFR location marker.
 
asicer said:
View attachment 83949
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Ahh, yeah, they did hope to start the season earlier this year. I think they started early last year, then had to make up a bunch of those games because of wx.

edit:

I wonder how long that schedule is going to remain in that TFR database? Probably until some time after a revised schedule is released.
 
Matthew said:
1961 the AL went from 154 to 162 games.
1962 the NL went to 162.

Divisional play started in 1969, and added a single round of playoffs between the top finishers in each division.

I'm not sure when the "season is too long" arguments started, but they've been around for a while. Average game times have gone from about 2:30 to just over 3 hrs in the same period of time we've had 162 games. I think the longer games tend to drag out, and people lose interest, and that makes the whole season seem way too long. I try to get to a couple games a year, and most nights I'll either have the car radio on or the TV on in the background and listen in. Baseball is a long season, but it's just a part of the way I spend my summers (and spring, and fall)

https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/misc.shtml

The stats on that page claim average attendance per game last year was 28,000, not much different for the last 20-30 years. In KC, they tried moving game times around so more kids could get to the games - they started an hour earlier until the end of the school year when they went back to their normal starting time.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/2019-misc.shtml

Last year the Miami Marlins averaged 10,000 per game. My local team, the Royals, averaged 18,000.

And those hot August day games when it's 104 and there is crappy pitching and a lot of pitching changes, and the bats are quiet so it's a 1-0 game that has absolutely no action and your team is already 16 games out, yeah, those are no fun. I've sat through 1-0 games that are at both extremes of the fun:not-fun scale.
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I'm a Royals guy, too. I know that the league has been going with 162-game seasons since before I was born, I just think it's too many and doesn't serve much purpose in determining who should get to go to the post-season or who is a better team, ~100 games still serves that purpose. I'd think a better metric for attendance would be the median/mode attendance. The night games and and weekends will certainly pull up the mean from the weekday afternoon games. Those mid-summer double headers aren't going to bring people out in droves, lol.
 
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