So far we had the people that keep us from being overrun by the rat kings cohorts, the people who keep us safe from brigands and being burned alive, and the ambulances and hospitals that battle Covid-19 directly apart from all the other stuff that makes us ill. Time to open up the next box and show whom we so easily forget.
There are people out there looking after our welfare. Depending on where you live, the priorities might shift. Contrary to popular belief, electricity doesn't just materialize out of the plug, water isn't just running from the tap, and gas for cooking or oil for heating don't just rain down on us by God's grace. Al these basic items are dependent on people working out there in the pandemic. Has anyone heard Boris Johnson or any of his goons talking about them? For Joe Biden and Kamala Harris it's too early to judge.
To get electricity into our homes, we need staffed power plants, looked after power grids, and engineers that help us in an emergency. Without these people, nature would enjoy the total blackout every night. We on the other hand would say goodbye to air conditioning, electric heating, electric cookers, ovens, microwaves and generally anything that needs to be plugged in. You might think of computers, phones, or alarm systems.
And there would be no hot water from the electric boiler, either. If there was any water. Water has to be collected in reservoirs, cleaned, treated and distributed. There are people doing that for us out there. And when the plumbing goes, plumbers are most welcome. Getting water from the store or a distribution point is most annoying and heavy work; two liters or even a gallon don't get you very far. And the water has to go somewhere after we use it. More people working out there for us to make sure we don't drown in you know what.
If any part of your household is dependent on natural gas for cooking or heating, then you have to consider all the people working on drilling, pipelines, storage facilities, distribution centers, and lookin after the grid. Add the engineers that come looking after your stuff when needed.
Which brings us to the last heating possibility. If you use oil to heat your home and your water, then again you have to think about people looking after drilling, pipelines, storage, and local transport. That's only the tip of the iceberg, though. Light heating oil is identical to diesel except in color and price. It takes little imagination that we need people at gas stations to serve all the essential workers commuting by car as well as the essential services we talked about in the earlier lessons.
You might guess that all these jobs aren't excessively well paid; none of the people I mentioned in four lessons can compare to Jeff Bezos who rakes in billions a day. Yet if Jeff Bezos decided not to come to work, no one would notice; if these people decide to drop out, we would be well and truly fucked.
Further reading
Covid-19 Lesson 3
Covid-19 Lesson 2
Covid-19 Lesson 1
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