Synchronicity

As the Ebola outbreak has made obvious to anyone, we live in a very interconnected world. Nothing happens anywhere without the potential to drastically affect people far removed. This isn't just true in terms of physical space, it's true in all sorts of ways.

When you pedal a bicycle, say a one-speed beach cruiser, whatever the ratio of pedal rotations to tire turns is all there is. If it takes two trips of your feet to turn the tires one rev, that's it, and if you want to go faster, you have to pedal faster. A ten- or twelve-speed bike can get you to where one trip for your feet translates to multiple turns for the big wheels on the bike, but there are still only two gears involved.

So what?
Well, for Ebola, look at a how many gears are in play.

Ebola is contagious, virulent, and lethal.
Okay, so don't play with Ebola.
And the population it shows up in is illiterate and superstition-driven.
Okay, worse.
And their leaders are both corrupt and incompetent.
Yikes.
And they're the ones in charge of nipping the repeated outbreaks in the bud.
Not good.
And their countries are impoverished.
Really not good.
And our government isn't that bright either.
Downright horrible.
Even demonstrably maliciously incompetent.
Stop!
But they think they're jetfuel geniuses with magic wands.
Really, STOP!
And we have airplanes coming from there to here, daily, 7 months into this latest outbreak, which has predictably spiraled beyond the worst of every other outbreak combined.
STOP NOW!
And our government thinks that our healthcare system is prepared, apparently in the main because we have indoor plumbing.
Why are you still talking to me?!?
But in fact they're totally untrained, unequipped, and not even thinking about this in most of the country, and haven't for 40 years despite numerous sentinel events.
I'm ignoring you now!
And the civil authorities on city, county, and state levels are even less well-prepared than the medical ones, and even more maliciously incompetent than the feds.
La-La-La-La-La-I-Can't-Heeeeaaaarrrr-You!
And the media is too busy buffing the government's knob and repeating the local authorities platitudes to care, and too stupid to notice.
Aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!
It's just as bad with every other government on the planet.
Please, Mommy, make the bad man stop!
Have I mentioned that we've essentially stopped all border and immigration enforcement for months leading up to this current crisis?
Waaah!Waaaaaahhhhhh!WAAAAHHHHHHHH!
Should I mention that they think they've solved the whole Islamic terrorists who want to kill us all Problem, and think it doesn't exist any more?
Uncle! Uncle! I give up! Please, no more!!!
How about noting that their previous forays into government healthcare have been forcing computer charting, designing ObamaCare, making the website for it, and running the VA?
Where is the International Red Cross? This is torture worse than waterboarding!!
That's synchronicity, for this particular problem.

One turn of the outbreak pedal, like Thomas Duncan, gets you chaos, panic, and disorder, which is then answered by claims that everything is fine, when it's clearly not.

Like skydiving with two already-shattered femurs, this isn't going to end well.

Every gear on this thing speeds up the wheels, which increases the impact, meaning more bad things happen faster, harder, and with greater damage effects. And the response from the people nominally in charge of fixing things is always to pedal faster.

Because when banging your head into a stone wall doesn't work at all, what you really want to do is load yourself into a cannon and light the fuse.

And we all know what's pulling into the center ring after that:

 

More government "help".

To fix the problems they created in the first place.

Because that's worked out so well for us so far.

 

If you like your epidemic, you can keep your epidemic.