A very guilty pleasure ...

A very guilty pleasure indeed if ... you're safe and free of the virus and ... the web works. If so, you can do nothing and sit on your ass without a care in the world as long as you are financially secure. This dark but accurate take is rarely expressed but Wired's piece rings true without issue.

To whit ...

HERE’S A LITTLE secret about the coronavirus crisis: If you and your loved ones are healthy and financially secure—for now—then some not-so-small part of you might just be enjoying this whole thing. Lazy days at home, ALL CAPS headlines, desolate parking lots, that warm-and-fuzzy-end-of-the-world feeling. The turmoil is thrilling from afar. The internet works just fine. And, let’s be honest, you needed a break from the daily grind.

Postapocalyptic stories have long shown the lighter side of disaster. In the 1970s, science-fiction writer Brian Aldiss coined the term “cozy catastrophe” to describe a fictional plot in which a bourgeois protagonist finds pleasure while the world goes to shit. “The essence of cozy catastrophe is that the hero should have a pretty good time (a girl, free suites at the Savoy, automobiles for the taking) while everyone else is dying off,” Aldiss wrote. He was writing in reference to the postapocalyptic landscapes of John Wyndham, author of The Day of the Triffids, a bio-disaster novel in which, as Aldiss saw it, the narrator not only survives but thrives. 

BRT has talked about disruption and how good can come from it if we have the courage to make it so. Glad to see yours truly is not alone on this thought as well.

Less forebodingly, there’s a political element to our enchantment with catastrophe. Every MAGA Trumper and Bernie Bro agrees, albeit for very different reasons, that American society is fundamentally broken. People are exhausted, overworked, and world-weary. Like draft day for a suffering sports team, our response to the pandemic represents a rebuild opportunity, and many commentators—see: a recent piece at Politico featuring the predictions of 34 “big thinkers”—are casting the aftershocks of coronavirus as potentially chaotic good. Best of all, like John Lennon’s revolution from bed but with a Slack-connected laptop, Americans can overturn the system while wearing their PJs. A different kind of change is in the air. (So are contagious respiratory droplets; please, stay at home.)

Dr. Strangelove also applies if you're connected. Black humor has a role, just ask Moliere, Carlin and Chevesky about this if you would. :)

Be well and ... be safe in these most uncertain times.