179. The art of Weiqi (Go/Baduk) War (碁#20) - Coronavirus COVID-19 (1/2)

As Coronavirus COVID-19 spreads around the globe, a growing number of people can't help but wonder if the virus is man-made? So far the numbers of people directly dying from the disease has been extremely low compared to the overall world human population. And yet, the virus has managed to induce such a dramatic response that whole economies are shutting down and countries are in lockdown. On top of all that, the rhetoric used to justify these responses are starting to sound more and more like the soundbites used when a country is about to go to war with another country. Now it could be that the virus is a completely natural mutation without any man-made manipulation. That at some future point would have occurred anyway, based on statistical probability modelling. But the fact remains, if it were all natural, and I was inclined to want to conquer the world or just a neighbouring country, this virus is a gift from the gods. It would constitute a first strike without having a first strike, because in the interests of self protection we have unwittingly exposed our weaknesses and created a downward spiralling situation that few people in authority are paying attention to. While I might sound like a molehill trying to act like a mountain, this situation in its many varied forms had been played out in countless sci-fi and thriller novels of the 1980's and 1990's. With those, having read these novels, being subconsciously or unconsciously influenced enough to heed the early warning signs without realising it. So with each passing day in self-isolation, I am learning of martial artists, Weiqi players, I-Ching and Qigong masters who are starting to become aware of the hundreds of tiny changes they have been making to their lives so that they can effortlessly sail through this situation and be ready for second strike. Which is increasingly looking like third strike brought forward. Second strike was supposed to have been the collapse of the financial markets brought on by either poorly executed decisions by people infected by a virus or the system directly infected by a computer virus. Whatever the case maybe, the lessons from "The Weiqi Art of War" indicate that the Coronavirus is one of a number of forgotten stones played at the start of the game, but only comes into play when it is too late because it links enough unrelated stones nearby into one coherent front that suddenly tips the balance over ⚔️圍棋戰聖