Nintendo Responds To Cancellation Of E3 2020, Says It Will Consider "Various Ways" To Engage With Fans

Nintendo be like "We can still do Directs and live stream just fine!"

"We will consider various ways to engage with fans"

Just not in person.

more to share? You haven't been sharing anything yet, you are really beginning to annoy your fans and we could really all use a little less annoyance and a little more joy right now.

For those who don't know yet -
NBA - thats US pro basketball FYI - just postponed the rest of their season
Trump just banned all flights from the EU (excluding UK) so nobody was coming here for any shows anyway
Tom Hanks and his wife may have it, which is gonna freak a lot of people out

It's officially a s--tshow people. Italy on lockdown, Merkel saying 60-70% of all Germans may get it.

I've lived thru 9/11 in NY, I saw it happen live, and the financial crisis, as did all of you, and things always seem to come back to normal, but it's gonna take awhile.

And it may be too late to show a Direct now for appearances, but I'll take it.

Hope Animal Crossing gets thru the post, I sure can use the distraction.

Take your time Nintendo, we know everyone has a lot going on. We wish everyone at Nintendo the best. We don't really care about any gaming news other then Animal Crossing anyways.

Even without Direct at the moment, i have discovered some interesting upcoming Switch games. 😀

The one thing I always liked about E3 was that we were GUARANTEED a direct of some sort from Nintendo. But now we have to play the exact same waiting game we are already doing with them right now.

I still totally understand the reason why E3 was cancelled, especially because of the dangers involved with the Coronavirus, but it doesn’t make it suck any less.

@rjejr It's not the end of the world. It's not remotely that serious. But it is certainly a very real problem.

Honestly though, what scares me more than the virus are people. I'm seeing the virus become politicized massively in US politics. I read news about fake CDC people going around scamming people and robbing them. And there's people out there calling the entire thing a hoax. There's people vilifying anyone Asian and blaming them for the disease. I've even seen reports of Asian children in schools getting bullied and beaten up because of that racism.

Humans can be terrible creatures.

@Heavyarms55 Humans are the 2nd worst part of this, after the virus itself. All I can think about is the end of "Night of the Living Dead" when the 1 survivor, and African-American man, comes out and gets shot to death by a Caucasian police officer. That's how these things always seem to end. People are scary.

@rjejr Only you are annoyed. Don't tell me that "fans are annoyed" because I am a fan and I am not annoyed. Stop moaning. Your moaning is annoying. And who cares what specifically Trump says and does. He is just the leader of just one country and a not very likeable leader internationally, like it or not.

No Europeans allowed into US, how will E3 work? Ubisoft, CD Projekt Red and other Euro game companies will be absent.

Tokyo 2020 Olympics will be cancelled too. It will become Olympics Direct, streamed directly to you - no audience present.

On the bright side, the pandemic is good for the video games industry, everyone will be quarantined and playing video games at home.

(Don't forget to sanitize your joy-cons folks!)

@Heavyarms55 Or in Japan discrimination against the Chinese gets exacerbated and in China people discriminate against those from Wuhan.

One thing I would love to see them do is have every game that was going to be playable on the show floor, be given a demo on the eShop.

I see no reason why they can’t just do a Direct and a Treehouse presentation in June anyway, from their offices. E3 has been largely irrelevant for years.

What concerns me is EVERY gaming company that was attending E3 said they would consider doing a Direct style presentation in place of their E3 conference..............EXCEPT NINTENDO!!! Nintendo has said NOTHING about their yearly E3 Direct. As a matter of fact, they don't even mention Nintendo Directs at all in their statement. Instead, they just say they are thinking of ways of sharing new information over the year. What is going on, why are they backing away from Nintendo Directs so badly

@Wavey84 Did something happen with RGT85 I'm unaware of? I was just thinking the other day, I haven't seen or heard anything about his channel in probably over a year now. Wasn't sure if that was because the YouTube algorithms or what. Was there some kind of controversy?

@Cosats Honestly, he only mentioned Trump because the US had a televised Presidential Address a short while ago, in which Trump mentioned the EU travel restriction. Nothing had anything to do with anyone’s likability or lack thereof.

"Because of the COVID-19 outbreak, large industry events may be untenable for the foreseeable future." Oh Nintendo, don't say that. Hopefully Gamescom can at least bring you some spotlight.

The only thing I see affected are the game announcements. To be honest, if Nintendo were to do something in June, I would love to see something like November 2018, when they held a Treehouse broadcast on SSBU and some other upcoming games like Pokémon LGPE and Yoshi's Crafted World. I could see at least one new announcements, while the rest could be new information and gameplay on games that will be announced the months before June.

@Wavey84 I just recently subbed to SpawnWave. This is news to me, is he really that bad? Seems to just host a decent gaming news video series... maybe I’m just not seeing the ‘right’ ones?

@Wavey84 Spawnwave may have some silly things to say about the coronovirus. Not sure. But he seems to do some interesting videos every now and then.

RGT85 I haven’t watched in over a year because he just dredges up tired talking points on the internet and speeds through them at 100 mph., without an clever opinions or insight. It doesn’t surprise me he would say those things because he has just been leaching on other people’s info for a while.

@Cosats I was already annoyed by the reveal of Byleth and, frankly, the absolute radio silence beyond Animal Crossing is deafening. On top of that, we've got people defending a company that's out for nothing else but money DESPITE the care they put into products and the passionate creatives they employ.

I'll tell you like I tell the "No Bad Pokémon" crowd on Instagram:
If you've read enough complaints against your position, don't speak as if nothing's happening at all. If you haven't talked to enough people or engaged in enough dialogue that you would deny it, then you don't really have a grasp on the issue and should expect to be dismissed as such. Defending a company against the complaints of its paying customers (regardless of the number) is useless on several fronts.

Nintendo has even MORE information to share with us this year?? How is that possible??

I think the spirit of E3 could still go ahead, but through Nintendo Direct-like streams. Like all the big companies having a stream on the week E3 would of occurred and hell, maybe give out timed demos for everyone to play through downloads to play at home, our own personal E3.

Or not. Who knows, maybe having a year off for E3 might really bring a big buzz for next year's event....assuming of course this does not kill off E3 altogether.....

@Wavey84 yes, his issue is the same as ours. It's ridiculous that they havent given any news for this year! Even a tweet would be acceptable.

@KingBowser86 wait, what did they do you disapprove of? And why is it so evil for a company to make money? That's literally its purpose.

@Antraxx777 spawn wave is awesome. Whoever says otherwise doesnt know quality.

A darn Direct would be good...for a start.

Half life 3 confirmed x

Who needs E3 anyway when you have Animal Crossing, right folks.
For that matter who needs a Direct for 2020 when you have Animal Crossing. Animal Crossing is all we need.
Oh look, a new article about wearing hats in Animal Crossing.
It's a good thing Animal Crossing is the best game in the universe ever, otherwise it would be a pretty slow year for Nintendo fans right?

I always look forward to Nintendo's e3 Direct stream, as for the tree house thing, I wont miss that it the slightest.

Even if they we're playing a game that I was interested in I still found it rather boring

They could still do a E3 Direct.

@rjejr Tom Hanks getting it maybe the best thing that has happened regarding coronavirus (albeit if he and his wife fully recover of course). As this now gives it a very recognisable face and may well stop many simply assuming they won't get it and take necessary action to help protect themselves and others.

Nintendo though reveal all their games through Directs anyway these days so surely it'll make little difference to them having no shows to attend. Just give us some kind of idea what we might be able to buy (if shops are still open) after Animal Crossing or for the many who aren't that bothered about it

This whole bruhaha over this sickness is stupid. If you're sick stay home! No need to cancel these big functions if everyone would just adhere to that!

@GameOtaku
You can be sick without showing symptoms. For some time, collective events must be contained as much as possible while the virus must be understood enough, before all can return as always. I'm annoyed too by these consequences, but they make sense. And consider I'm from Italy.

Bahahaha Nintendo communicating with fans xD

It’s been a year and a half since the last Nintendo Direct ffs!!

@CooperFrank
See you actually have to be in contact with the infection. If there are no cases in a area then you not going to get sick.

@rjejr I admire your pessimistic outlook considering I’m something of a cynic myself.

@GameOtaku
Maybe I have not been clear... You can be infected, but not have symptoms. No fever, no cough, no cold. But you still can be infected, without knowing it. Lots of people resulted positive without having any symptom. So, if I am unconsciously infected and I talked to you face to face, maybe I could have transmitted the infection to you. Imagine this in a super-crowded place like the E3.

@CooperFrank
Maybe I've not been clear either. The infection started in China and has spread from person to person by those that visited there. Outside of China the infection is not growing as bad because of travel bans and quarantine of people who may have been exposed. E3 was to be in June. It could all be cleared up by then but I also understand why they would close such a event with people from all over the world interacting rather than a local events.

@Mqblank That’s a GREAT idea! They could have a special section of the store. That would be a treat and would get the games into the hands of players, pleasing the devs and fans alike.

@GameOtaku
I agree that maybe it's too early to cancel events that would happen in June, but there are probably factors linked to the organization of a such huge event (so that its fate couldn't be decided a few weeks before) and also with its worldwide audience, as you said.

@mac6375 The "ultimate goal of a company being to enrich its shareholders" mantra has some caveats and long-term issues that modern Capitalism is absolutely mowing down like a bull in a fine china store. Nintendo's no exception with Day One DLC, paying for P2P online without dedicated servers, trying to sweep the Joy-Con Drift issue under the rug instead of fixing it, etc.

Currently, I'm annoyed by the lack of news. It's not evil, just really really vexing. "But Animal Crossing is around the corner!" Do 'Kool-Aid Drinkers' who say this expect other Nintendo fans to just buy every piece of software and enjoy it? Not everyone likes every genre Nintendo puts out and that's absolutely fine. (Heck, Color Splash and Star Fox Zero had issues.) At least with BotW (overrated as it was) we knew other software was on the way. We technically know that BotW2 and MP4 are in the works but just teasers. It's lame.

But, I really shouldn't have had to explain all of these obvious things to you. If you're going to participate in comments and arguments, you might read up first and understand both sides.

@Cosats

It's really annoying when annoyed people whinge about people who are annoyed. Now I'm part of it. It like ouroboros, ffs.

I'm in the states. I care very much what Trump does. The mishandling of this situation is massive and dangerous. The administration pushed it was all a hoax and are now changing their tune. But stupidity is hard to battle. We can't believe what comes out of the White House. they are classifying what come out of meetings as claasified. Pence, in charge of it, thinks it can be prayed away.

I'm in the demographic where deaths from the virus start going up. It's worrisome.

You are living under a rock if you think others aren't annoyed at the lack of communication from Nintendo regarding games coming after ACNH. You're not. Goody for you. Many, many are.

@k8sMum
One small political rant and I'm done. Trump is not the cause of everything! Everything has to go through congress to be approved. If things aren't moving along its not the fault of one individual. The flu has already claimed more people's lives than this corona virus.

I really enjoy the treehouse presentations. I hope they invite a few gaming journalists for interactive play time for whatever is in the pipeline. I've sat through a few hours of this stuff because it's just so good.

Didn't they have a treehouse presentation once outside of E3? It was only like....maybe they could do something smaller like that this time?

@GameOtaku ok so let's unpack all of the misinformation in your latest comment. Trump dismantled the team Obama created to deal with global pandemics and didn't replace them, yes Congress is a thing but in case you hadn't noticed Moscow Mitch has everything there on lockdown because he's corrupt and won't let anything pass. McConnell is a republican and is in cahoots with Trump.

Flu does indeed kill more people than covid19, but this is only due to the higher number of infections. Flu's mortality rate is 0.002%, compare this to the estimated mortality rate of covid19 of anywhere from 1.34% up to an incredible 15%! This is all relative of course and dependent on your circumstances, but averaged out it seems to be about 3.4% of people will die from a covid19 infection. That is orders of magnitude more deadly than the flu and Trump's lukewarm reaction to it is gambling with people's lives.

@GameOtaku

The buck stops at the top. Trump is still blaming everyone/everything other than himself.. He's more concerned about the stock market and his numbers than the country.

Executive power is the strongest it's ever been. He wields more power than ever before. Trump has done what he wants throughout his time in office. They still have the majority in the senate. Ask McConnell why nothing's getting passed.

Trump refused tests from the WHO. It has set the U.S. back immensely. They've admitted they don't want real numbers of how far it's spred here as it will nail th stock market.

Please do not compare this virus with the flu. It's almost a direct quote from the WH, which even they are backing away from.

Oh boy, this comment section.

Seriously, do NOT make this political. A virus doesn't care about that. What IS important is quarantining those affected, finding a potential vaccine, and preventing the spread as much as possible. This is generally accomplished by...I dunno...working together with fellow humans regardless of their country of origin, political leanings, beliefs, etc.?

@Yorumi stop that. When bad things happen you blame THE PEOPLE IN POWER. Lordt knows the right blame the left whenever anything goes wrong in their countries, even when it's a result of neoliberal interference that caused the problem in the first place.

@Yorumi
Which facts are wrong?

@k8sMum
A virus is still a virus. It spreads because people don't take precautions like not traveling to an infected area when a advisory is in place or going to work when sick. People are dumb and politicians are people.

Health experts think the corona virus has been brewing here in the States since at least January. Many people don't know they have it and go out and about infecting others before he symptoms show up.

"going to work when sick" which, just a few days ago, is what Trump recommended. Think of the massive contact retail workers and restaurant workers have with the public. Great idea.

@ShankyMcSpanky This is as optimistic as I've ever been:

"and things always seem to come back to normal,"

@carlos82 Tom Hanks is the face now, he just is. And the US govt is getting attacked over how easily he was tested in Australia.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/12/world/australia/tom-hanks-rita-wilson-coronavirus.html

@Cosats You seem A LOT more annoyed right now than I do. Just saying.

@k8sMum Thanks for coming to my defense mum, appreciate the assist, but we can't fight them all. People defending a virus are a very strange breed. Stay safe.

Nintendo is starting to irritate me. Just make a comment. Say what you intend to do and stick to it. They're the only company with these shifty "we can't tell you, we're evolving, we'll provide details throughout the decade, but we're going to dance around the fact that we don't really intend to present anything when we would have." You're losing me Nintendo. Sony mostly lost me by skipping E3. Nintendo's losing me by skipping speaking at all. The only company left I even know what they make is Microsoft.

I get it, I think. They really have nothing to sell, Japan's been on semi-lockdown, WA is quasi-lockdown, development is probably way behind schedule on just about everything, and they don't even want to promote Switch because they can't actually get enough made to sell them to everyone who wants them. Why market when you have no software to market, and you can't produce hardware fast enough to back up your marketing?

But it's still somehow infuriating.

@GameOtaku E3 is 3 months away, but I highly doubt a virus that's been expanding for 3 months is going to vanish in 3 months. Add to that that it is set to take place in one of the biggest epicenters of the outbreak in the US, invites tons of people from 2 companies in WA where the most deaths in the US have occurred to it (Nintendo and MS), and being gaming industry centry involves tons of people from Asia, namely the two worst hit places, China and S. Korea, plus EU, the third worst, and Japan, a fringe problem that's been holding its own) all collecting them in one place..... I don't see how E3 could have actually happened. It's an event at just the wrong time in an outbreak that involves a huge number of it's participants from the centrally affected locations, and gathers them in an already problematic location at a time when authorities are trying to distance everyone to slow the spread.

Plus putting it together meant groups converting on the area a month or so prior to the event to get things set up, and people working in teams within companies in their home countries to coordinate. Plus the airport travel. I hate that there's no E3 as much or more than anyone, but I can't imagine how holding it would have even been possible let alone intelligent. If I had tix, I wouldn't go. I miss it, and summer will be depressing without it. But it really couldn't and shouldn't have happened. I doubt many conventions of any sort will be happening worldwide this year. Not even medical conferences.

@rjejr I don't think "normal" happens again after this. Everyone will become hermits. Like us for a long long time.

Think about that. We are now the new normal. How effed up does the world have to be for the world to idolize us and rebuild itself in our image? We're gods among men, my friend. Let's celebrate our deification with a nice big roll of TP.

Seriously, though, Merkel's statement is telling. What that sounds like to me is this is a new "second flu" more than a plague. Something that will hit annually from now on, and 100% of everyone will get it at some point, possibly often. Not a pretty picture considering the massive market disruption and probably follow-on recession or depression that arrives after.

But Nintendo. They've been silent all year. They're the only company that's being cryptic and mysterious about E3. Sounds like they have no intention of a June show now but they'll tell us "plans" sometime by 2021.

I'll be honest, I might become a full-on XBox enthusiast by then if Nintendo has so little to offer.

OTOH Sony's running silent too, and both Sony and Microsoft probably have nothing new in 2020 anyway. In 2 weeks the world went dark....and this is the beginning.

@HobbitGamer Thanks. It seemed relevant here as it's a UK site, and it directly affected E3 b/c even though it's still 3 months away it could just be a first step in a longer term ban. Meaning even if E3 didn't cancel itself it may have been mostly empty anyway. It was just part of a crazy night where it all came to a head.

@NEStalgia I lived in NYC during 9/11. I drove by while 1 tower was standing, the other a pile of rubble. NYC, and everyone in it, was basically in a coma for 10 years, only to be awakened out of it by the Great Recession. And a part of my town was flooded in Superstorm Sandy. And I'd say about 10 years after that things were pretty much back to normal. Sure, "back to normal" means the rich have won, racists don't hide it anymore, and women are getting denigrated on a regular basis, but it FELT like normal.

The stock market went from 6,600 to not quite 30,000. And the rate it's going 15,000 is looking possible. I was making 201k jokes in the early '90s and I've been making 301k jokes since last week.

This is a sucky time. A really sucky time. I have 10 relatives over 70 w/in a 45 minute drive. 2 of those are my parents. I didn't sleep last night. I've got 2 kids 300 miles away on a school trip that just got canceled and now they have to wait to come back b/c the bus driver needs a longer break before driving again. And I've had a chest cold since October, the good thing being since I've had it since Oct I know it isn't COVID-19. So yeah, really sucky now. And it will get worse.

But I dont' think this is the zombie apocalypse. I think once most of the US has it, and must of us survive, well maybe not me, but most of us will, things will return to what people consider to be "normal". Yes, it's going to be awhile, but this isn't the big one, that' s still coming. This is just the practice test. And we have SO screwed up the practice test we have zero chance of surviving the real thing. Unless we learn from this.

Things to learn - some people above need to read this list, not you
1. Don't fire and disband the pandemic experts
2. Don't call it a hoax, claim it's fine, say a cure is near and a miracle will make it go away
3. When it's in another part of the world, any part, assume ti's coming to your part and prepare. (It's like not a single person on the planet learned a bloody thing from the so-called "Spanish flu" of 1918. Having a kid in HS I learn stuff.)

So normal. Until the big one. Or a race war. Or WW3. Or a coup when in 6 months or 4 1/2 years he refuses to leave. But this isn't the end. 7 billion people on the planet losing 1%-4% is a rounding wont' matter. Climate change may do us in. Solar flares. The entire universe wants us dead, we're parasites.

Are we off topic enough yet? I feel like this thread became an extension of that madness from yesterday. So. Tired.

@rjejr
You shouldn't have to wait for the gov to say to prepare before you ya know prepare. A lot of folks are simply lacking common sense! If I hear a virus is going around in a foreign country I'm not going to travel there because it's contained for the time being. And look what happened! People went and got infected and brought it back. People got sick and wandered around spreading it. It's not like this is altogether new! H1N1, swine flu, Ebola, influenenza, the crud, etc. The world still kept turning. As it warms up people will get better. Do some research on viruses. It's quelled a lot of my fears.

@rjejr Well I'm not all sunshine and rainbows like you. I'm more pessimistic.

The big #1, #0 maybe takeway is something I said in another thread lately. Common sense has not caught up to the aviation age. We can now send anyone from everywhere and to anywhere in under a day. So that means we can send any disease anywhere the day it began.

When you hear of an outbreak in some town in China, that town should have been locked down at once. That country should have been cut off from people entering and leaving day one. That's not extreme, it's simple common sense. Ok, it's China. China's going to be China, and nobody can do anything about that. But OTHER countries should have stopped inbound travel from China. That includes SK, Japan, SK, Italy. Why would you let anyone in from a place where you know a virulent pathogen is spreading? yes, essiential travel - supplies, medical staff and equipment, basic functioning of the affected country. Not recreational or unessential business travel. No E3 conventions. Lock out the country, help them rectify the problem if so desired, but wait until it's resolved before resuming normal travel. It's basic sense. If you're there, you're stuck there until it gets resolved. Sucks, but such is the risk of travel.

But nobody wants to offend China, so like One China, we just accept their version of truth as valid. WHO puts on their side blinders and stares ahead. Don't want to offend anyone.

Once it spread, unaffected countries should have MASSIVELY restricted air travel in and out of the country from anywhere (because the disease could be anywhere.) But can't upset the airline/travel industry! So we'll just go as normal and hope for the best.

If you're going to have hundreds, thousands of direct pipelines to a known spreading disease coming and going daily.....why would you be remotely surprised when it arrives and spreads?

it was bad enough in the nautical age. But at least that took months to get there and slowed the mutation rates considerably. Aviation age, we want to pretend these things don't exist so we can keep business at peak and favored industries running, while not offending anyone ever, so we have 18 hour service to any destination for any contagion that ever occurs. And then we seem surprised when it happens.

The rest of the politics is monday morning quarterbacking. Failure to prevent it moving in the BEGINNING. Before March was the critical failure. After that the rest doesn't really matter. When you have Merkel up there pretty much saying "everyone's going to get it" why are we even bothering with tests and quarantines and TP runs. It's a faux show of containing a disease we're already being told isn't going to be contained anyway.

Everyone's working off different datasets because they hoped for 3 months it was going to go away because they don't actually know what to do with actual contagious diseases, and it exposes the paper tiger of the modern interconnected world: It's actually just as fragile, if not more fragile than, as the medieval world, with better window dressing. People liked believing the modern world can't have such things occur because of their magical science shield.

@GameOtaku
Just be ready for Autumn when it comes back.

@rjejr

No problem. We elites have to stick together.

The same to you and yours.

It really bugs me how people think that we deserve a direct. It really isn't a big deal. I know that you can't take a few months without a several big fat game reveals, but we got a pokémon direct in January, and an Animal Crossing direct in February. I think that we could wait until later in the year for game reveals. And if you can't, then at least keep it to yourself. No one wants to listen to you whine.

(and yes I know that I'm being a hypocrite, so don't you say anything)

@rjejr Yah, I knew where ya were coming from cuz last night from 8-930pm ET is was just bam,bam,bam.
It all needs to calm down. Folks need to wash themselves and take care of the elderly. Things folks should have already been doing. There's no shortage of regular soap, I've noticed. And no matter who is in charge of what country, state, town, province; They're not there to wash everyone. This is a civilized society in most areas that are freaking out. It's time we act civilized.

@HobbitGamer Civilized society? You haven't been up North much, have you?

@k8sMum
They'll add it to the recommended immunizations but lots will ignore them claiming it will make them sick or have autism and other defects or just outright refuse just because.

@NEStalgia amen preach it man!

@GameOtaku

I totally agree with you, except that, if we're lucky, a vaccine will be available by Autumn 2021. There's no way it will be available this year. It cannot be developed and tested that quickly.

@NEStalgia I’m a southerner, remember; we’re not allowed above the Mason Dixon.

@NEStalgia "Well I'm not all sunshine and rainbows like you. I'm more pessimistic"

You're a younger angrier smarter wordier me. Your'e me at 45.
And can ya lay off the hobbit, he's one of the few people on here I'm currently not fighting with.

@HobbitGamer "They're not there to wash everyone." Exactly.

This was the US last night, after about a month of the "virus hoax", then the NBA said "we're out of coffee".

@HobbitGamer True fact. My son Mason is named after the Mason Dixon line. When I met my wife I lived in KY and she lived in NY so it was kinda the half-way point. Our first son is named London, after the Clash song, not the city, though I suppose after the city in a round-about-way, so our 2nd son needed a landmark name as well.

So I don't really see the issue for Nintendo. I'm sure they already have their E3 Direct filmed...or planned out and they can do that from their own HQ in Japan with various voice-overs for other languages like they always do. As for the Treehouse livestreams, no reason why these couldn't be done for Nintendo America HQ and if they're doing any co-presentations with other studios, then those studios could also contribute their parts digitally either live or in pre-recorded sessions. Basically one big Skype livestream, HAHA. These things can be done no problem.

@NEStalgia "Common sense has not caught up to the aviation age."

Tell me about it. This is how the world ends.
Bootleg smartphone off a laptop screen piracy. RoTPoTA 2011

@rjejr LOL. Hermits unite! Not that close....

And yeah, that film sequence is terrifying. I don't get how people never quite grasped the problem with aviation even when it's been presented so graphically before. It's not that nobody thought of it. It's that nobody wanted to understand it. The very idea is in direct conflict with disease. And when building out aviation "because we can" nobody ever bothered to implement any kind of protocol, limit, or hamstringing of the process to ensure the already known problem of bringing disease with you on voyages, which wasn't new to humans since times before the Roman Empire remains checked. I'd have to be dragged kicking to an airport....I see them as incubators and nothing more. Even before this. And I treat anyone with suspicion that returns from overseas. Or California. Or Florida, although that's for different reasons.

It's amazing how for decades I could be "paranoid", "not with the times" and all these things, and suddenly I get proven right in vivid fashion and in 2 weeks the whole world is repeating what they mocked me for saying for decades as though they've made this discovery for themselves and need to tell the world.

@HobbitGamer You're allowed above the line. But you have to leave your guns, civility, common sense, sugary soft drinks, landmarks, social attitudes, history books, and ratified historical documents at the checkpoint before entering the Freedom Fortress of the North.

You can bring the Bourbon, though. We accept Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Jim Beam here at the Freedom Fortress.

@HobbitGamer @NEStalgia "But you have to leave your..."

You forgot fireworks, it's very important he leave behind the fireworks. B/c, ya know, reasons.

@NEStalgia You're worried about us getting our aviation act together when we can't even do MF'ing buses. Just found out my kids team bus is leaving tomorrow at noon. I know I already told you that but I was hoping I was mistaken and they'd come back today. If they left now they could be back at 9 tonight, but no, spend the night in a hotel for no reason whatsoever and come back at noon tomorrow, so they can drive thru NYC at rush hour.

Airports ain't never getting fixed.

@NEStalgia @rjejr That’s a lot of stuff I can’t bring. I think I’m good, I don’t need....uh....textiles? I’ll stay on my farm and wash my hands.

@HobbitGamer Well you're a southerner. Where are you going to get your guns and ammo if you can't pick them up cheap from the gun-free North?

@rjejr A Hotel. Sounds safe! Good plan! Way to go NY Schools! Hooray education! So glad we have professional educators of that caliber training our youth to be tomorrows WHO leaders so they can downplay and sit on crises like a pro!

I don't want the airports fixed. I want them leveled and built into theme parks. We don't need airports. We don't want airports. Airports are what started this mess to begin with, and it's stunning they didn't do it 30 years ago. They can remain freight terminals for our in-home deliveries of Soylent Blue Apron.

@HobbitGamer Ya'll need to start building a wall on the Mason Dixon line the way things are going up here.

Musical interlude just because.

@NEStalgia I like airports. If we level all the governments I think we can make airports work.

Kinda crazy how after all these generations of civilizations we can't get one that works well. Not one. Women really need a chance to be in charge and make all the males just do manual labor stuff. With all the technology available to the world, and education, it really shouldn't 'be so hard to figure out a way to make a society function, but all these rich old white men in power just wont' die. And anybody who's ruling a country as a King or Prince. I'm ok w/ the Queen, she's basically just the UK mascot anyway.

But come on already, nobody can figure this out? So wrong.

@rjejr We'll compromise. We can level the governments and airports. We'll turn the latter into luxury theme parks, and the former into wax museums. The former probably won't look very different either way.

Matriarchal societies don't work any better. Rich old women in power don't behave terribly differently from rich old men in power, and rich young men and women are even worse and more erratic. The Russians and mid-20th century Germans tried handing non-rich old and young men power and that went poorly too. I don't find it likely that non-rich old and young women would do much different.

What we need is to eliminate power itself. I'd say decentralized power, but that contributed to this in China (regional government sat on and silenced it to not upset the central government bosses. A.K.A. to help their careers. )

Nope, humans are the same. Humans with power break everyting. Maybe we need a commune, but without leaders. The communists failed because it was never a commune, it was a hierarchy that said it was a commune.

Maybe benevolent dictators are the closest we'll ever get. Long live the gender-non-specific duarch!

Or just randomly pick someone out of a lottery to be the supreme overlord. First person to retweet this is god-emperor of Earth for life.

@NEStalgia You may be right about women, but I don't think so. But even if you are, could it possibly get any worse than this debacle?

Here's a few reasons off the top of my head -
Women carry babies. They know it's their. They treat it well. Men are like - well it may be the milkman's, I'm off to play golf. And yes, even stay-at-home dad's like me will think that to get out of caring.
Women carry kids for 9 months. They sometimes nurse them. They don't want to ship them off to war for oil at 18 when they still think of them as their babies. They just dont.
Women spend about 20-30 years of their lives just trying not to be sexuality assaulted or raped. They'd still have that even in power in gov't and business. So they will ALWAYS know the fear of losing something. Men in power don't know fear, they think they're untouchable. See Trump impeachment. So women understand the powerless of nto being in power, b/c they are ALWAYS in fear of not being in power. ALWAYS.

Sure, there will alway sbe those who drown thei rkids in the tub and drive them into a lake, but those probably aren't the one sin power. Less war, less death penalty, less neglect. Less rape and sexual harassment at work. Sure, they can harass the men, men dont' fear it, even if they don't like it.

Maybe after 200 or 300 years women change, but I bet 150-200 of those years are much better than the last 3. OK, bad comparison, low hanging fruit. Better than most of the past 300. I gotta believe.

Down with e3 plz

@rjejr If i judge by the people who agree with my comment to you I would say that a lot of people here agree with me that you are constantly moaning. You better do something about it. Moaning is too passé.

@Cosats "Moaning is too passé."

How about whining?

@Yorumi don't call me a clown, I'm using the WHO's worldwide estimates for influenza. The number you quoted is for the US and given that they don't report actual infection numbers is based on statistical models, you might want to open your mind to the fact that we're not all beholden to Trump in the rest of the world.

@Yorumi Yep, that's very true. Of course that founding principle didn't even survive until the founding fathers were buried. Washington's diaries are an eye opener as to just how fast we started descending to the present from the original idea.

That said, the founding idea of the US was also one designed around remaining an agrarian/homesteading society forever. It was a very explicit tradeoff. People were supposed to maintain a simple way of life in which taking care of yourself and being responsible for yourself was entirely possible and simple. It wasn't just a product of the times, it was a necessary part of the design. People had to shun the industrial age to keep the founding principles. People were lusting for European luxuries, educations, and styles before Washington was even gone and it was clear that requirement was to fall apart.

Therein is the conundrum: You can't really have true freedom outside an agrarian society. Taking care of yourself entirely becomes impossible if not contemptible. Rural life clings to that desperately, and the industrialists always want to steamroll it to build more "infrastructure." Infrastructure is inherently incompatible with self responsibility. It's by definition dependence.

The "modern" way of life isn't actually compatible with freedom. 18th century life wasn't really compatible with freedom. That's why the founding of the US required a willingness to stick with a 17th century way of life, more or less, to make it work.

@Yorumi Somedays I feel like there's a place we should be able to rent powdered wigs for conversations here...

The founders knew that even 18th century life was to complicated and interdependent for EVERYONE to have equal freedom. That's why they established the country as more or less an agrarian society and built the systems around that concept. Once things cross a certain level of complexity a lot people can't be responsible for themselves because the complexity of being responsible for everything is too complicated and confusing. Even for the best of minds (take the average brilliant minded wealthy leader and strip them to actual solo responsibility and watch them flounder.) To be responsible you need to have CONTROL of yourself too. From food to family to everything. The more complex the society, the less control you have. The less control of your environment and position the less responsibility you can have. That was true in the founders' time. Imagine their viewpoint if they saw the complexity of today's world and complete lack of almost any control over one's own life? To be responsible you need control. To have control you need an ever increasing amount of wealth. And to gain that wealth you need to either be born brilliant or have the right family connections, or a good deal of luck. "Work hard to get ahead" died with the rise of automation. The masses can't just put their boots to the ground and make out ok. Real freedom means rolling back the industrial age. Even the founders knew that at the flashpoint of the industrial age (in Europe.)

I don't mean to go all Thoreau, but that part, at least, is true.