Unfair or Ironical?

Sometimes things play out in a way that, depending on your perspective, are either ironical or totally unfair. For example, Western countries are colder places. Unsurprisingly then, as Ed Yong wrote:

“In response to the global energy crisis of the 1970s, architects made structures more energy-efficient by sealing them off from outdoor air, reducing ventilation rates.”

A totally unintended side-effect of that?

“Pollutants and pathogens built up indoors, “ushering in the era of ‘sick buildings’ .”

Which, of course, is the worst setup when you’re trying to deal with a pandemic:

“The indoor spaces in which Americans spend 87 percent of their time became staging grounds for super-spreading events.”

 

Here’s another example. Remember those “ghost towns” of China? It refers to entire cities built in China that remain uninhabited. Did the government miscalculate/mis-build? Or does China keep activities going because, hey, economic growth can never stop, even if it leads to unnecessary construction at times? Capitalism, we are told, doesn’t work that way. It is supposed to remove inefficiencies. But what if inefficiencies in certain fields are a good/necessary thing, like saving for a rainy day? That is what the West is increasingly discovering during the pandemic:

“American hospitals operate on a just-in-time economy. They acquire the goods they need in the moment through labyrinthine supply chains that wrap around the world in tangled lines, from countries with cheap labor to richer nations like the U.S. The lines are invisible until they snap. About half of the world’s face masks, for example, are made in China.”

To cut down cost-inefficiencies, outsourcing has been commonplace:

“About 40 percent of critical-care drugs, including antibiotics and painkillers, became scarce because they depend on manufacturing lines that begin in China and India.”

 

Like I said, it can all feel totally unfair or ironical, depending on your point of view.