If there is indeed something called Black Swan events, they would have looked to 2020.
No one could have foreseen an epidemic like covid-19 to becoming a worldwide pandemic in 2020, with more than 1.8m death, out of reported infection cases of 82mso far. I became aware of covid-19 when the news started circulating in China and Hong Kong in Nov/Dec 2019. People starting panic-buying face masks, hand sanitizer, toilet papers, food, emptying out shelves in supermarkets. The issue was still considered "local" and scarcely anyone outside of those areas paid much attention to it. Familes started accelerating their plans to send their kids out of Hong Kong and China. If ever there is something called a "peacetime war," it would have looked like this.
China always does everything with a sledgehammer, not only in suppressing any news of covid-19 infections, but also criticism on the government's handling of the epidemic within its own border. People were jailed (for reporting the news, or just raising concerns), news and social media were muffled. Wuhan - the place where covid-19 was originated - was suddenly put into lockdown. For a city of 11m people, the heavy-handed approach was highly effective. People were locked inside their own homes, with doors chained from the outside to prevent them from getting in/out.
And then, infection cases started showing up in Europe (Italy, Spain, elsewhere, and then UK) when finally in Jan 2020, infection started showing up in US. Covid-19 has suddenly become a useful political weapon for Trump to blame everything on China (rightly or wrongly). When Trump announced the travel ban from China into US in late Jan, it was billed as racist and discriminatory. Now, one year on, it is used as the first tool of almost all governments and countries to curb international travel (and spread of covid-19). Idiotic as he is, Trump has stumbled onto something that is much more meaningful than he truly realized.
I followed all the covid news closely. After some six months into it, I begin to tune out. There's so much repetition. Borders have to be closed, economic activities have to be shut down, there's much suffering (mostly economic but medical as well), no one can provide a more conclusive overview of where the medical research has been, White House has totally abdicated the leadership (worse yet, Trump is actively UNDERLMINING the efforts to make things better, with so much junk and fake news coming from his filthy mouth). Yet, I can't believe people took him seriously when he said maybe people can inject bleach in themselves or use ultraviolet light on themselves to rid the virus from their body. I mean, seriously? I thus don't give a flying fuck when news came out that he was infected. I was only hoping that he should die sooner (given his ripe age of 70s), yet the idiot lived. There is saying that cockroaches are the hardest to kill, I can certainly see much truth in it.
There's much ado about federal stimulus assistance to prop up the economy. Trump never helped much, yet every time when he signed the bill (eg. CARES Act) into law, even without doing anything (in fact he did much to undermine the efforts), he loudly took credits for what others (eg. Democrats in Congress who did all the pushing) had done. What a fucking useless peacock.
Perhaps not so curiously, covid-19 only amplifies the widening inequality in society. When retail shops are falling (and closing) like flies, when people who live hands-to-mouth are getting desperate (losing their jobs, livelihood, potentially getting evicted), stock market is flying high. 2020 is also a banner year for IPO, and rookie retail traders are crowing about stock trading gains using Robinhood. (I still don't see what's so special about Robinhood as a brokerage.) But when the federal and state governments are stuffing money into people's pocket, regardless of whether they need it or not, there'll likely be tons of money wasted along the way.
Internationally, WHO is missing in action. Much like White House leading from behind, the credibility of organizations like WHO and agencies like CDC has been thrashed, thanks to Trump. I'm not sure how long it'll take for them to rebuild their reputation.
Now that vaccines are out (thanks to Pfizer and Moderna, among others), I surely hope that the curious case of this 2020 pandemic will come to past. That being said, I wouldn't take the vaccines from China or Russia, even if someone pays me. How could anyone take it seriously, for China to start vaccinating people when it doesn't even have the clinical trial data to back up its claim?
Amidst all these hoopla, my life is curiously serene and "normal." I still work from home (as I've always been for the past 18+ years). Wearing face masks is perhaps the only thing that I've done extra. (I always washed hands anyways, though I'm washing hands a few more times now.) I could not have done anything any differently now than I used to be doing, with or without covid. This is perhaps the main reason I'm tuning out all the covid news. I've heard enough.
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And then, of course, there is the US election. As if Trump isn't enough reasons to make this election more consequential than any other, covid has forced so many rules change and consumer behavior. Suddenly, everyone is working/learning remotely. (In the years past, telecommuting has only been confined to the lucky few.) Suddenly everything has to be done with social distancing. Mail-in ballots are in, voting in-person is out.
I've become so tired of the two extreme ends of the political spectrum, with Trump cheering on the far-right to disregard the government that Trump himself should've been leading, and far-left progressives like AOC and Bernie Sanders bashing everything as "not enough." No one gives Joe Biden enough credits for being a "known quantity," so much so that he was able to win this election by a wide margin and impressive fund raised, all without all campaigning or fundraising. Obama didn't even help Biden much throughout 2019, and it was only in the final couple of weeks before Nov 2019 that Obama came out swinging for Biden when it's not even needed. Obama, in short, is only interested in maintaining his legacy, rather than helping Biden. As it goes, if Biden has lost the election, it would have been a voter repudiation of Obama's policy. As it turns out, this election is really what voters doesn't want (Trump), rather than what they do want. To be sure, I don't think anyone wants to go back to the good old days. Big trade deals like TPP (championed by Obama but killed by Trump) or NAFTA (championed by Bill Clinton but reneg'ed by Trump) are no longer in vogue since they are really predicated on the backs of the working class. Yet, this will only push the rest of the world into the arms of China who continues to push for this type of big trade deals, given that China (being No.2 in world economy) has become sufficiently large enough to make the access to its domestic market indispensable.
The Nov election came and went. With the exception of the 2000 election (between Bush v Gore), no one could have imagined a scenario when election results will get challenged every step of the way. Trump and his cronies threw up so many nonsensical and frivolous lawsuits that are nothing more than a joke. Yet, here we are, less than one month before inauguration, after all 50 states have certified their election results (rendering the casting of the electoral votes all but a formality), this symbolic step suddenly becomes yet another roadblock for Trump challenge the reality. This is all while so many of Trump's appointees in courts up and down the judiciary (all the way to SCOTUS) have refuted his claims that have no supporting facts or evidence.
It is thus that I've been ignoring all these news as well. It's just inconsequential, mere white noise from Trump. He can start his own reality show to do that, but not in my very real world. I have also stopped reading all those news about Trump doing this or that idiotic things (eg. his whining about fashion magazines not putting his wife on their covers often enough). Trump, in short, is just old news.
Still, Trump continues to weaken the US civic establishment, granting pardon to all those who lied and cheated for him. THIS is something that needs to be reined in, for all future presidents.
About the only thing that Trump is still doing meaningful work, is the signing of the laws that curb the spread of China's powers (banning Huawei from 5G rollout, banning CCP officials that are linked to suppression in Xinjiang and Hong Kong, boosting support to Taiwan, in particular). I sure hope Biden is not naive enough to think that US can "negotiate" its way with China and make CCP more civil. Has CCP had that inclination, it can roll back its aggression in the South China Sea, which I doubt will ever happen. The world is seeing China's aggression as it is. The Five Eyes are banning together, with Japan, India, and South Korea in tow. Yet, the trade deal with China that EU unanimously agreed to this week only shows how weak EU really is. China is going break EU's back, one member country at a time.
Looking at Biden's administration lineup, it looks like the tougher stance against China will stand. The only question is, will Biden stand tall? Or, will he fold?
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Brexit is finally done, four years in the making. All the scary talks, all the huffing-and-puffing, all the posturing, it all comes down to fishing rights (in the UK territorial waters). The UK parliament finally approved the EU deal, less than a day before the no-deal deadline happens on 12/31/2020.
Things won't be as convenient, or easy, or straightforward. There'll be less trade. People will need visa (as it was in decades past) to work or travel. But that's hardly the end of the world that economists and politicians had made it out to be, all those talks just feel like "whiny babies" to me. I'd say, Get Over It, The Deal Is Done.
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The curtain is finally falling in Hong Kong. There is no longer any more pretense about the One-Country-Two-Systems, no more No-Change-For-50-Years (from 1997). It's all just a facade, a mirage that wasn't meant to be. China has pushed through the National Security Law in Hong Kong, started arresting opponents like Jimmy Lai, threatening all those protesters in exile, even putting up scary talks like banning people from leaving Hong Kong using BNO.
Ultimately China doesn't give a damn about anyone leaving Hong Kong (as long as they don't take their money with them). CCP simply wants everyone to kowtow to its whim. China thinks that it can buy allegiance with its money and economic power, even to the extent of demanding public gratitude from European countries when China "donated" PPE (personal protective equipments) in the early days of covid, and the chinese vaccine to third-world countries (who can't afford to get their hands on the Pfizer or Moderna or AstraZeneca vaccines, effectively turning themselves into the beta-testers for China's vaccine in "live" clinical trial). Put it another way, EVERYTHING from China comes with tha string attachd. It's a faustian bargain that sooner or later, dues will have to be paid.
It is for this exact reason why China will NEVER be the true leader that CCP so desperately wants to be, it is also why China's "soft power" is so damn weak, no matter how much money it's amassed.
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On a more personal note, there are changes too. My parent has passed away (unrelated to covid). The extended families had originally planned to have big gathering, but was forced to cancel due to border closure of covid, robbing us of the one last chance to meet. The only silver lining, if one has to be found, is that there was no suffering. My mother had lived a long and full life, she had said more than once that she feared no death, her passing would have been what she had wanted. I do admire her religious faith that has sustained her all these years. I do have some faith but am mostly agnostic to religion, though I doubt if I could ever attain that kind of unquestionable faith as she had.
My health scare last year has subsided, though my mindset has shifted. I'm increasingly less interested in doing the work at work, then to do something else. On the subconscious level, I know that I'm mentally preparing for retirement, even though I haven't found the next interest/hobby that I'd like to do yet. 2021 looks set to be another year of my soul-searching.
Oh, I've recently bought a FitBit (Inspire 2), and love it. With the health data, I've committed to do more physical exercise some more. It also reminds me to drink more water too (which I'm consistently lagging). Given the the food details (calories and macronutrients allocation), I can't bear myself to eat junk food anymore, particularly on those days when my calories burnt is also lagging behind the intake. This is decidedly a good thing which I plan to keep going.
