Indi, very well written, as always, and you are right about most things.

I think we need to try to stop beating up on people though.

We mostly white folks in the West are to blame as you say, people are people, we are not really all white, and if the boot was on the other foot, and you found yourself saddled with the same fatally structured, brutally flawed system of all things for profit, built on a base of colonialism, which is actually just more of the same, living in fear of failure, at penalty of probable early death, as we all are in the case of financial ruin in the zero-sum world, would you be acting any differently?

All of us individuals are doing pretty much the only thing we can do in that world, to avoid being trampled, we don’t seem to have much choice. We should understand people buying shares in things like covid research, for example, because if they don’t, they fear they might end up broke, with no funds even for healthcare.

The point is, it is the structure which is at fault, that is the thing we need to change.

We can even see how to change it, I’ve written much about it in my later stories. I can understand why elites might think it is a bit radical at first glance, perhaps even folk like yourself, elite perhaps in your own country, but it does lead to an infinitely better world for all.

More importantly, I don’t think we can avoid it, no matter what, as the proportion of people now out of conventional employment here is massive, compared with what it was, heavily understated, and growing with no indication of changing direction, there is no other conceivable way of keeping everyone alive, never mind in prosperity, and even rapidly paying the “Debt” of humanity back down whilst removing our burden from the environment.

That is an ever more rapidly ticking timebomb.

So, how we see the picture unfolding might be completely different from what you’ve described, if the timebomb goes off, before even the first profit driven vaccines can be deployed.

By deployed, I mean in any way which can save our economy, and in truth, although we’ve heard a lot about how “Successful” trials have been, we know deep down that these things have been absolutely rushed, the first object of the game is to get shareholders on board, then, rather than actually create a real game-stopping vaccine for covid, the highest profit outcome is that covid will be maintained forever, rather than actually be destroyed.

The shareholders will insist on that, and that is the ultimate thing that will shape the nature of the vaccine.

“Boss, we are ready to release the vaccine”

Boss: “have you fully tested it?”

“Yes boss, we are 95 percent certain it will wipe out the virus”

Boss: “No I mean have you tested it is financially viable, that the outcome meets the shareholder demands of return?”

“Sorry boss, it doesn’t do that, because the virus will be wiped out way before that”

Boss: “Well goddamn it, we can’t release that, it isn’t fit for purpose. Get back to the drawing board and redesign it!”