Kind words, but possibly too late, and they won't change anyones mind. Authorities have forfeited public trust by co-ordinating to decieve people, censor them, and then reward others who publicly expressed their contempt for their fellow citizens, just to maintain the leverage. I do not see the path to reconciliation yet. Destroying millions of businesses and then doubling down by attacking guarantees of freedoms (speech, movement, association, bodily integrity, etc.) will not be remembered as having been justified or proportionate.
People without a lot of dignity and integrity have underestimated what the impact of their deception has been, because, really, I don't think they were equipped to apprehend it. I know some of them personally, and they became strident promoters of narrative-right-or-wrong because of their impostor syndromes, anxiety, depression, and self loathing. They thought that by renouncing their remaining dignity and denouncing their neighbours, they could find redemption in compliance.
What surprises me most is that the rhetoric in public forums has not spilled over into significant coordinated mutual violence yet. It's all still in the provocateur stage. Whether that materializes as a pervasive low-level long term conflict over decades like The Troubles in Ireland, or accelerated conflict like that which occurred in Bosnia in the 90s, the inflection point on the path toward outcomes analogous to those appears to have already passed and I believe we're into a period of managing consequences.
At this point, the only meaningful action is to find a way to mitigate the effects of western civil conflict, and then by extension, the total world war that results as other countries rush into the power vaccuum western domestic instability creates. Maybe the article recognizing the deception will give some of these people an out where there is still a way to turn it around, but if I were a betting man, I'd find a way to get long potable water.
> will not be remembered as having been justified or proportionate.
Why not? Do you think there’s no chance that the majority of people _want_ these things and will remember them as justified and proportionate? Where do you get this confidence?
Do you think there’s a chance you have projected your own feelings about the pandemic restrictions onto others?
You’re surprised that there is no civil unrest. Consider the possibility there is no unrest because other people want the restrictions that you detest.
Americans have been largely informed by mass media and they believe covid is much more deadly than it actually is. The same mass media that has elected to make discussing a plethora of immunity-building strategies (e.g., vitamin d, losing weight, stress-reduction) verboten.
You can get the majority of people to desperately want something if you stoke their fears and do everything possible to divide them. That is, the way I see it, the great failure mode of liberal democracy--once all the major institutions are captured by the ruling class, democracy is a joke.
I love America, but when for just one example the entire crop of candidates for a federal election are absolute chucklehead clowns, none of whom is trustworthy or astute enough to be given a little league coaching job, it's pretty clear there are serious problems.
Just cause you can mindfuck millions of people into demanding authoritarian control, doesn't mean they really want it, just means you were able to coerce them into it.
Indeed, I have had to consider that, and am pretty sure I have not projected my feelings about the pandemic because I was tracking this scenario in earnest since 2012. Most people aren't nihilists, but the ones who are have managed to find each other again.
I wish I had a way to upvote this more. I never thought I'd say this, but I do think a "balkanized" North America is a very possible future - and not as far off as I would like. Maybe it's time to get a little homestead out in the woods... and learn a little Mandarin while I'm there.
So it's not misinterpreted, these are not insults, these are issues the people I know manage which are the effect of over exercised neuroticism in their personalities, a trait I personally leverage to do things like write, code, make music, be funny, creative, etc. see: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5428182/
When it becomes overemphasized, you get the issues I mentioned above.
People without a lot of dignity and integrity have underestimated what the impact of their deception has been, because, really, I don't think they were equipped to apprehend it. I know some of them personally, and they became strident promoters of narrative-right-or-wrong because of their impostor syndromes, anxiety, depression, and self loathing. They thought that by renouncing their remaining dignity and denouncing their neighbours, they could find redemption in compliance.
What surprises me most is that the rhetoric in public forums has not spilled over into significant coordinated mutual violence yet. It's all still in the provocateur stage. Whether that materializes as a pervasive low-level long term conflict over decades like The Troubles in Ireland, or accelerated conflict like that which occurred in Bosnia in the 90s, the inflection point on the path toward outcomes analogous to those appears to have already passed and I believe we're into a period of managing consequences.
At this point, the only meaningful action is to find a way to mitigate the effects of western civil conflict, and then by extension, the total world war that results as other countries rush into the power vaccuum western domestic instability creates. Maybe the article recognizing the deception will give some of these people an out where there is still a way to turn it around, but if I were a betting man, I'd find a way to get long potable water.
Dark times.