As I noted before, pure capitalism is extremely efficient at producing large amounts of goods and services at low costs. But it’s also efficient in other ways that people, especially its proponents, tend to overlook or minimize.

Capitalism is extremely efficient at concentrating wealth and maximizing income inequality, and, without regulation, it also maximizes the costs of production placed on everyone else, from workers to the environment. These two “efficiencies” have been known for decades and resulted in a fair amount of government regulation, and, in the case of income inequality, possibly a great deal less than optimal.

But there are other downsides to this relentless efficiency. One of these occurs in the efficiencies of food production. Factory farms are efficient at producing meat at low costs, but they’re also efficient at creating and spreading antibiotic resistant bacteria quickly, not to mention the coronavirus. Pesticides and fertilizers are efficient in producing more grain and produce, but that efficiency has also been effective in creating agricultural runoff that is quite successfully making large sections of the Gulf of Mexico uninhabitable to almost any form of marine life.

Another is our efficient air traffic system which is a highly effective way of spreading the coronavirus.

And the great efficiency of just-in-time supply chains creates highly efficient slow-downs and bottlenecks, if just a single supplier fails – and that was one of the causes for the lack of PPE, the other being the unwillingness to create stockpiles because inventory is money wasted in a just-in-time economy.

And, of course, there’s the Boeing Max groundings, the result of relentless efficiency in eliminating “redundant” sensors and not wanting to conduct greater pilot training in the new systems.

Then there’s the efficiency of the part-time and “gig-economy,” which not only reduces costs for businesses, but also leaves millions without affordable health care… and that certainly increases the effectiveness of the coronavirus and other diseases in spreading.

And because of our oh-so-efficient economy, states and businesses have to open up before it’s really safe because, otherwise, the economy will totally crash and millions will go hungry… or worse…

And, in even in short run, that’s efficient?

Some people wrap gifts elaborately. Others place them in a decorated bag, perhaps surrounded with colored tissue. And others don’t bother with wrapping at all. Likewise, some gift-receivers admire well and tastefully wrapped packages and make over the wrapping. Some gift receivers even carefully remove the wrapping, trying to preserve it [believe me, some people do]. Other receivers make a comment, such as “lovely wrapping,” and then get on with unwrapping the gift or package. Still others, especially younger children, rip away the wrapping and discard it, just to get to what’s inside.

Many readers see novels as having two separate components – the core story, i.e., the package, and the wrapping, which consists of the background and the way in which the story is told. For the most part, these readers either want as little “wrapping” as possible, or at least, minimal “wrapping.” They tend to want an action- or event-driven story with obvious motivation, and when it’s done, the “present” of a clear resolution.

And, because, just as there is a range of readers, there exists a range of writers. Among those authors are those who write in the “wrapped-present” style, and in fact, I’ve been accused of that by some readers, largely because, I suspect, my protagonists are either competent or learn to be competent and because they learn from experience. Many of their antagonists don’t learn. But I really don’t write in that style because the events and environment in which the protagonists find themselves shape them and influence how they reshape or influence their world.

A “basic” wrapped-present story would be one where the author could change every background detail and those changes wouldn’t affect the characters, the plot, or the resolution.

Then there are authors where everything is so tied together that almost any change in the setting, background or culture would affect everything. In that respect, Gene Wolfe comes to my mind, as do Ursula K. LeGuin, and Sheri Tepper, and there are certainly others as well.

Most writers fall somewhere in between, and more than a few have books that differ greatly in the degree of integration of story, setting, and presentation. And often, what is one reader’s unnecessary wrapping is integral to another reader’s appreciation and understanding… as well as to the full range of what the author has set forth.

I’ve always been a big fan of facts. When I was in school, though, I often got in trouble because I didn’t apply the scientific method to so-called facts I ran across. Some of those “facts” I embraced were from extended family members and some from unreliable print sources – like the 1910 encyclopedia from my grandparents’ attic, where some facts weren’t so much wrong as outdated. As I grew older, I did learn a bit more about facts, and when it might be painful to insist on factual accuracy. For example, adults didn’t like it when interrupted with an observation that their facts were incorrect, even when a reference book showed they were nowhere close

In college I learned in depth about another way of presenting facts – statistics. Later on, as an industrial economist and as a political staffer, I learned more than a few ways of lying, or sometimes just exaggerating, with absolutely accurate statistics.

But, really, facts and accurate statistics, even accurately and objectively presented, won’t change people’s minds when they’re emotionally convinced of something.

As we all know, or should know, some deeply held beliefs aren’t rational. I have an acquaintance who is absolutely and deeply convinced that a ban on assault rifles… or even a ban on rifle magazines that hold more than 25 cartridges – will inexorably and immediately lead to the repeal of the second amendment. There are a few facts in the way of that development. First, to ban all firearms would require a Constitutional amendment, and such an amendment has to win a two-thirds vote of both Houses of Congress, and then must be ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures, meaning by 38 states. Right now, Republicans control legislatures in 31 states, and with the polarization in the U.S., there’s no way Congress, even by a simple majority, would vote to outlaw all guns, let alone thirty eight states.

Doesn’t matter. This acquaintance is absolutely convinced that any “weakness” by firearms’ rights activists will lead to the loss of all their guns. And he’s not the only one, and it’s not the only issue where people’s mindsets and what they believe have no basis in the facts.

There’s no reputable evidence or study to support the vast majority of claims by antivaxxers. Doesn’t matter. They’re not about to change.

There’s no recent evidence of massive voter fraud. The Heritage Foundation, an ultraconservative think tank, did its best to dig up voter fraud in the U.S. and documented almost 1,300 cases of voter fraud in all elections in the U.S. for more than 20 years. That sounds like a lot, but virtually all the cases involved individuals, and were spread across multiple elections in fifty states. At a minimum, that involves ten federal elections in 50 states, and with both primary and general elections, that’s 2,000 separate elections. So the average fraud level was less than one person per election. That’s an insignificant number compared to the number of voters and elections. Yet right wing conservatives are convinced massive voter fraud exists… because that’s what their emotions tell them.

So who believes all that shit? People who want to, regardless of solid facts.

The 2018 film, The Green Book , depicts a 1962 tour by Don Shirley, an extraordinary black classical and jazz pianist, who melded jazz and classical music on that tour and in the majority of his public performances. What most viewers of the movie likely didn’t know was that in terms of ability, Shirley was one of the greatest classical piano virtuosos of the 1950s and 1960s. The composer Igor Stravinsky, a contemporary of Shirley’s, said of him, “His virtuosity is worthy of Gods.”

Shirley also wrote organ symphonies, piano concerti, a cello concerto, three string quartets, a one-act opera, works for organ, piano and violin, a symphonic tone poem based on the 1939 novel Finnegans Wake by James Joyce, and a set of “Variations” on the 1858 opera Orpheus in the Underworld.

Although he performed with a number of the great symphony orchestras, including the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, and the New York Philharmonic, the majority of his income came from his classical-jazz fusion performances and recordings, because, in the 1950s, only a handful of classical pianists could make a living, and many classical venues felt that a black classical pianist would not draw audiences.

Shirley was able to stay in music because he was versatile and gifted enough to shift his focus and performance largely to jazz. It was certainly his decision to do so, but the choice he faced was whether to starve as a black classical pianist and composer or to use his talents in another musical genre. In a real sense, if he wanted to remain a musician, he had to put classical performing and composing on a back burner.

Shirley certainly wasn’t the first musician or creative artist to run into difficulties not of their own making that forced a change in career emphasis. In music, the changes in popular tastes are obvious, and popular tastes dictate who, and how many, can make a living performing or composing in a particular way or style. 1950s style rock and roll is gone. For the most part, so is the folk music of the sixties, etc. Some musicians are versatile enough to shift; others aren’t. Those who aren’t tend to be marginalized or totally unable to make a living.

In writing, times also change. How fast they change depends, from what I’ve seen, on the literary genre. What is published and “popular” in poetry has changed drastically over the past fifty years, largely, I suspect, because poetry is not commercially successful and is effectively subsidized in various ways. Because the “market” has changed, I suspect that it would be difficult, if not impossible, for a “traditional” poet, no matter how accomplished and how talented, who emphasized formal rhyme and meter to be widely published or acclaimed.

On the other hand, F&SF is a commercial marketplace, meaning that it’s big enough to support a range of subgenres, based on the preferences of readers. Even so, I’ve seen that certain of my books sell far less well than others, and that’s one reason why I don’t write many of that type, much as I enjoy writing them, but, like Don Shirley and others, I still need to make a living… and it’s the kind of choice most creative artists have to make, one way or another.

How many people in the U.S. have died of the coronavirus? According to the official U.S. death toll as I write, this, the number is 76,600. Today the Christian Science Monitor reported that, according to the latest Axios-Ipsos poll, 63% of Democrats say that number is an undercount, while a plurality of Republicans (40%) believes the figure is inflated.

Yet a wide range of studies and reports conclude that undercounting coronavirus deaths is widespread.

A New York Times study concluded that in just nine states, in March and April alone, the death undercount was close to 9,000. A study by the Yale Medical School reported in the Washington Post came to a similar conclusion.

Reports from numerous sources indicate that both the number of covid cases and deaths in Texas have been significantly under-reported, particularly among prison inmates and people in nursing homes, and Governor Abbott has refused to address the discrepancies.

According to the CDC and other health organizations, virtually all pandemics have been initially undercounted, for various reasons, partly because not all health workers recognize the signs of a new disease and then because record-keeping suffers when the health system gets overwhelmed.

So why the wide discrepancy between Democrats and Republicans?

One reason for that discrepancy is obvious. All of us tend to believe what we see around us. I live in an overwhelming Republican state with only one moderately large city and a whole lot of space elsewhere. The entire state has less than 6,000 cases, and less than 70 deaths. Needless to say, most Republicans here think the problem is overstated. Republicans tend to predominate in rural areas, and those areas generally, like Utah, are spread out more. Republicans also tend to have a greater percentage of those well-off who live in less crowded and more sanitary areas – which means they don’t see the deaths and the suffering to the same degree.

And it doesn’t help when the Republican President downplays the severity of the situation.

Democrats, on the other hand, are more likely to see the deaths or be personally affected. The coronavirus thrives best in densely populated and connected areas, which is why New York City, New Jersey, and Connecticut, as well as Detroit and Chicago and other dense urban areas, are getting hammered by the virus. In those locales, health professionals and others have been storing bodies in refrigerated trucks and makeshift morgues. New York has discovered funeral homes overwhelmed with bodies. Under those conditions, undercounts are far more likely than overcounts. And those areas are also highly Democratic in their voting allegiance.

No… the coronavirus hasn’t taken a strong hold here, and it may not, given the more rural nature of Cedar City, which so far has only had 30 cases and one death, and the folks here have a tendency to discount just how bad it can be elsewhere. But we have a daughter who’s a doctor at a major medical center in Virginia, and grown children in New York City, Boston, and the Washington, D.C., area, and everything they’re telling me is a far different story than what’s happening in Cedar City.

While we’d like to believe what we see is what the rest of the country is like…sometimes, it just isn’t, and, if you don’t see this, you should consider giving more credence to those media reports you distrust than to your own pleasant surroundings.