Thread by @rhinosoros

It's going to take years, maybe generations, for us to truly understand the devastating impact that COVID-19 has had on us even beyond the ~538,000 Americans that have died.

Our social threads have frayed in ways that can't possibly be re-assembled back to he way it was before we were all fractured.

Distance, silence, isolation, and downright loneliness are in themselves risk factors that greatly impact our physical and mental health.

In fact, some non-pharmaceutical treatments for conditions such as depression involve socialization and the breaking of patterns including solitude.

Our socialization has been limited to things we have to do out of necessity, most poignantly in America, the workplace.

The unblinking rictus of American Capitalism requires us to, above all else, go to work, no matter the danger of infections, no matter the stress and pressure to do more with less, and to do more with fewer coworkers.

Employers have laid off no fewer than about 700,000 American workers every week for the past 12 months or so.

That gives them leverage over existing workers to say "see your buddy that just got fired? You wanna be him? Hey we are gonna need you to work a double btw."

American employers in the past 20 years or so have encouraged workers to move to where the work is. This makes it more efficient for conglomerates to find economies of scale in large corporate campuses.

You moved away for the job. Now you're stuck and isolated. How do you feel?

Are you able to find connection with people? Is your community able to support you? Do you have a community?

The system of employment (which is the largest determinant of our lifestyle) thrives on our atomization, and lack of mutual solidarity.

Single adults, couples, families, all have an invisible barrier stopping each other from being able to interact in ways that would be restorative and enjoyable.

The ONE place they can't compromise on avoiding however is the workplace.

The only time that the economy nearly grinded to a halt was in the first 6 weeks or so of the pandemic.

Companies got spooked but the government reassured them that workers will still have to work, and they will be bailed out.

Yesterday, the $DJIA hit an all-time high.

Many people are still working through intergenerational trauma from WWII, Vietnam War, 9/11, 2008 Fin. Crisis, or just straight up not-being-white in America.

This event is another dark punctuation in good company with others in America's dark history.

We now watch heartbreaking videos of young families bringing their children to playgrounds, and babies staring in confused awe that other children exist.

That the socialization that in their bones they know they need could've existed all along.

Youth and adolescence robbed.

Yes. It will take years for us to fully amortize the acute trauma all of us collectively feel.

But hey, we created a hell of a lot of shareholder value along the way.