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The fact that people can be literally dying from COVID in a hospital yet still deny its existence has almost totally destroyed any faith I have in humanity.
by irrational 6y ago
The fact that people can be literally dying from COVID in a hospital yet still deny its existence has almost totally destroyed any faith I have in humanity.
- puranjay 6y agoIt's a strangely western phenomenon. People might be callous about safety measures here in India, but absolutely no one in my extended circle of friends and family has ever denied its existence or that it's something people need to be careful about.
- seventhtiger 6y agoGlobally there's far more trust for institutions and authority than in America. Cultures which respect the elderly, the professional, and the official. Even beyond respect it extends to obedience in some places. I definitely see it in my own culture, which is Arab. It's a double edged sword, and can be said to enable further oppression, but in a crisis situation it's useful.
- SoSoRoCoCo 6y agohttps://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/11/17/south-dakota-nurse-jodi-doering-covid-19-patients-denial/6330791002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/11/17/south-...
- Barrin92 6y agogood friend of mine is a nurse. She has seen people in the ER with Covid deny that it exists too. There's people currently on oxygen who go "nah that doesn't exist I don't have it, the media made that up". So yeah
- ethbr0 6y agoThankfully, life has a way of selecting against people who fail to act to preserve their own. (Said as someone whose fiance is an ICU nurse)
- rriepe 6y agoSocial Darwinism, alive and well on HN...
- ISL 6y agoThis is actual Darwinism.
- jlokier 6y agoUnfortunately that doesn't work so well for a disease whose main source of risk to each person is the behaviour of other people.
- phs318u 6y agoOn a different time scale it does. It’s selecting against groups/societies that reward, value or permit the kinds of behaviours and belief systems that allow such doggedly wilful ignorance to flourish.
- edjrage 6y agoSorry, that doesn't work when most groups/societies are heterogeneous in ideals. Even most people being reasonable isn't enough when the behavior of the few who aren't must be tolerated in the name of freedom. So natural selection alone won't actually improve anything.
- sorokod 6y agoPlace your faith in natural selection.
- Misdicorl 6y agoIn addition to being ugly, this sentiment is pretty misguided. The selection pressure is far too mild to have any evolutionary impact. To whit: covid selects primarily against individuals beyond their reproductive age, selects far too small of the population (unless we see these deaths continue for decades), and is only mildly selecting for anti mask populations.
- edjrage 6y agoMost importantly, being anti-mask can't be attributed to a clear genetic variable (although I suppose there might be some very weak correlation), and natural selection takes way, way longer than a human lifetime to create noticeable results anyway. Not even getting into the fact that there's much more to evolution than natural selection. It actually scares me that supposedly "pro-science" people have such simplified views about it.
- Misdicorl 6y agoNote that the timescale for seeing results is related to the selection pressure. You can see very fast results (e.g. a single or few generations) if the pressure is extraordinary. AFAIK this only happens via guided intervention (see humans selective breeding of crops, dogs, foxes, etc)
- rriepe 6y agoAnyone who treats science as a religion ends up with a pretty terrifying morality.
- 411111111111111 6y agoYou can remove science from that statement and it'll still be true. Whoever derives their morality from religion will at times behave pretty abhorrently. Thankfully nowadays even people claiming they do so often actually don't. I.e homosexuality is amoral according to the texts, but society moved on for the most part.
- randmeerkat 6y agoWhat helps me to keep faith in humanity is imagining being alive during Galileo‘s time. How suffocating it must have been for him to find everyone everywhere rejecting science..? Sure we have a large number of people now that don’t believe in masks, vaccines, etc.., but keep in mind that the majority of the popular vote in the US voted for someone that does believe in science. Progress is being made, just sometimes it requires a step back to see it.
- kortilla 6y ago> majority of the popular vote in the US voted for someone that does believe in science Why would Trump support accelerated vaccines if he didn’t believe in COVID and science?
- randmeerkat 6y agoWhy would Trump’s administration and Trump himself be so anti-masks if they believed in science?
- effie 6y agoBecause there is political value in supporting people's freedom to choose and rejecting totalitarian actions of political adversaries.
- Falling3 6y agoIt had absolutely nothing to do with freedom or rejection of totalitarianism. He could have easily encouraged people to wear a mask and set an example by wearing one himself. But you're right that it was about political value. Or at least perceived political value.
- effie 6y ago> It had absolutely nothing to do with freedom or rejection of totalitarianism. I don't know Trump's motives, but for many people, this is about freedom and rejection of power tripping bureaucrats and politicians.
- imperialdrive 6y agoMillions upon millions die around the world each year due to poor choices. Don't let a fraction of that amount getting a bad flu change your outlook. Humanity is doing just fine. Could be better, could be worse, but take a slow walk around the block and I think you'll agree.