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Comment by Ghjklov | Hacker News Reader

What are you even saying? A lot of those people forced to "sit home on their ass all day" will be the ones who primarily work in service jobs that have been greatly impacted by the virus due to companies downsizing or worse, shutting down completely in response to less foot traffic and demand. They cannot remote into their cafe and make coffee for anyone. Actually, a good number of them might not even have a home after this. They are not going to suddenly be able to start working or volunteering for free(lmao) to "make and deliver food".

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What are you saying?

How many people are going to sit at home for a year without food?

Someone's going to have to make and deliver the food. If food manufacturers and distributers lack people to do it, then someone will have to step up to the plate and help them or we'll all starve.

Yes, people have been told to stay home, but at the cost of starvation? I don't think so.

>Someone's going to have to make and deliver the food. If food manufacturers and distributers lack people to do it, then someone will have to step up to the plate and help them or we'll all starve.

>This machinery has to be operated by somebody, and people can be trained to do it. It takes people willing and able to do it, however.

Sure, but it's on the companies to make the move and hire people, not the people to go and beg to volunteer for them. This isn't the old days where you walk into a factory and give the manager a firm handshake and then you get the job.

If a company is willing and happy to train anyone who is up for these jobs and will pay them properly, then there will be people who will do it. But if they are still going to reject people based off credentials or experience like usual, then that's their problem if no one wants to do the work in a crisis like this.

You don't understand. One way or another this has to get done. We as a society have to make it work or we die.

If the people who run the manufacturing companies aren't doing what has to be done we as a society have to step in and do it. There's only so long we can wait for others to fix the problem when there's no food.

Money will have to take a back seat to necessities like food. This society will have to face this fact if things get bad enough.

You know what else is a necessity? A roof over your head. And people need money to pay rent, utilities, etc. to live. As far as the government and companies are concerned, the virus is no excuse to skip on your bills. Like I said, the ball is in the company/government's court. If they think it's so important to have x done, they are the ones who have the power to make anything happen at scale.

Maybe society does have to go through something like this to realize their mistakes.

Unlike the making and distribution of food, nothing special has to happen for the roof that's over your head now to continue to be there all through this epidemic.

In fact, the government has to actively take steps to evict people if they are unable to pay their rent. I wouldn't put it past the current government to actually do that, but they could if they wanted to provide relief for people unable to pay their rents or pass laws freeing them from that responsibility.

The making and distributing of food is really non-negotiable, however. Unlike money, we actually need food. You can't eat a stack of dollar bills, and plenty of landlords are going to be just as screwed as their renters if there's no food. The only people safe are the tiny percentage of survivalists who managed to stock up a year or two worth of food. The rest will have to get food one way or another.

Unfortunately, plenty of governments have caused or allowed famines through inaction, malice, or incompetence. We can hope they won't let a famine happen this time, but hope and a couple of bucks will buy you a cup of coffee... or maybe not for long.

Again, I have to ask how long people will sit around watching their food stocks dwindle and hope someone else fixes their problem.

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