I remember going to the grocery store on my lunch break on March 10th to store up on canned goods and stuff like that. No problems getting any of it, not really any crowds. Same store after work on the 11th, mostly empty shelves and the store was packed. Shows you how truly on the edge the capitalist system is at all times.
I also remember being the only one (along with my radlib brother) who was saying COVID was going to be really serious all through late Feb/early Mar, while pretty much everyone else in my friend group (broadly center-right to right) figured it would be no worse than the flu and nbd. Things changed immediately once the NBA canceled games and some universities closed up. It was only "shocking" to the public because no one wanted to pay attention or consider something bad was on the horizon.
Yeah, basically every vital system in this country is operating on the bleeding edge of total collapse because warehouses are an expense. Power, Internet, Water/Sewer, Grocery, Healthcare, etc. All are 2 days max from total collapse if their supply chains are interrupted.
There is no national reserve of transformers in chase of a major grid collapse like we had in 2003 or almost had in Texas last year.
There's no backups for water infrastructure as we've seen with Flint.
Major ISPs all use the same backbones that were put in decades ago by the government and use minimal equipment and keep poorly maintained service maps of their infrastructure.
Grocery stores everywhere are totally reliant on weekly shipments to keep shelves stocked and keep minimal backroom stock. The primary method used now during shortages is hiring an extra employee to to more shelf fronting to make the shortage seem less bad.
If any one of these systems goes down, the others will likely follow (with Power being the most important). The lack of stock and understaffing of these industries also means that the institutional knowledge needed to jumpstart them after they shut off isn't there. Which means compounding problems that lead to compounding problems. A feedback loop of collapse.
But yeah, just insane that all it takes to grind all of modern society to a halt is a couple strategically placed drones with copper wires and a transport strike (which is about to happen with the railworkers)
I dunno their music was sucky but I doubt they commited any serious crimes