The conventional wisdom is that Sweden would suffer just as badly economically as its peers by not imposing the severe lockdowns the other countries did. However, the conventional wisdom appears to be completely wrong:

Sweden’s economy actually grew in the first quarter after it opted against a full virus lockdown.

Meanwhile, Norway took a huge hit.

The Norwegian economy contracted 1.9% in the first quarter, the biggest drop since the 2008 financial crisis, and will shrink even more in the second quarter after efforts to halt the novel coronavirus outbreak brought many industries to a halt.

And though Finland doesn’t appear to have released Q1 numbers yet, it looks like they will suffer something even worse.

Finland’s economy will contract between 5% and 13% this year due to the coronavirus outbreak, according to Bank of Finland’s updated estimate, its governor Olli Rehn’s presentation to the government showed on Tuesday.

Of course, Sweden paid a price in the highest per-capita death rate of any country. Was it worth it? That’s a moral question that can’t be answered with these numbers. However, the expert consensus that Sweden’s economy would be just as destroyed as its peers despite no imposed lockdown seems to be completely wrong.

(I didn’t agree with these experts, needless to say.)

Why is that leftists/liberals have such a visceral and irrational hatred of space exploration and anything to do with that?

I have zero insight into that and it bothers me. Usually I have at least some gloss for why people think like they do, but for that I got nothing.

Was just thinking about this time some woman sent me a bunch of bikini photos on my phone. Wrong number.

Her last message was, “What do you think?”

And I said, “I can’t deny that you’re very attractive, but I also have no clue who you are.”

Of course she said, “OMG” and apologized and I told her not to worry about it and that I was deleting the photos, which I did. Strange how much we’re willing to disperse into the ether, not knowing where it’ll end up or how it’ll be used.

I’m not criticizing her or this tendency. We all do it. But that we do it at all compared to how the world used to be is…strange.

A summer of street level chaos combined with COVID guarantees that there won't be an economic recovery.

We're locking in a Depression.

— John Robb (@johnrobb) May 31, 2020

Already locked in. Now it’ll just be worse. No matter how much money printer goes brrrrr, powder keg goes booooom.

You're killed in something like a car accident or random shooting. You feel ___ about the idea of footage of your death being viewed by a lot of people on the internet

— Aella (@Aella_Girl) May 30, 2020

Do not give a single fuck.