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It’s not just that the political leadership was lacking; our media and the people of the US also collaborated in this failure. There is no sense of community or

It’s not just that the political leadership was lacking; our media and the people of the US also collaborated in this failure. There is no sense of community or duty amongst our people, only selfishness.

ryandrake 6y ago
I mentioned in another thread [1] that COVID-19 was a gigantic game of Prisoner's Dilemma, where cooperation meant staying at home and wearing a mask when you go out, and where defection meant going out and horsing around, and we utterly failed the game. Since, I don't know... WW2, we seem to no longer have the ability as a country to act in coordinated cooperation for some greater good. It's all individualism, now. It's all about me, me, me! My rights! My need to go shopping! My desire to eat at Olive Garden! Other people are dying? Fuck em... I'm going to enjoy my life and not let "the man" tell me what to do! Wait, I got the disease?? Well, crap! Who could have predicted it? God certainly works in mysterious ways. 2020 has pretty much robbed me of what empathy I had left. It's insane how selfish we have become. 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25577270 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25577270
- cmurf 6y ago
  You forgot the part where the selfish and decadent, upon becoming sick, demand not only the right to health care services, but the right to cutting in front of the line merely because they paid extra for the VIP health care plan. This is not a civil society. It is a caste system.
- pbourke 6y ago
  > 2020 has pretty much robbed me of what empathy I had left. It's insane how selfish we have become. When I start thinking along these lines, I consider the doctors and nurses, firefighters/EMS, vaccine researchers, food bank volunteers, grocery store workers, open-source data volunteers, ... “Look for the helpers,” as Mr. Rogers said. I think that many people have been conscientious during the pandemic. They aren’t visible - they only show up in year-over-year measures of reduced traffic, etc. None of this obviates my frustration at the political and cultural response to the pandemic. Covidiots and maskholes still piss me off, but I don’t think they’re the whole story.

ryandrake 6y ago

I mentioned in another thread [1] that COVID-19 was a gigantic game of Prisoner's Dilemma, where cooperation meant staying at home and wearing a mask when you go out, and where defection meant going out and horsing around, and we utterly failed the game. Since, I don't know... WW2, we seem to no longer have the ability as a country to act in coordinated cooperation for some greater good. It's all individualism, now. It's all about me, me, me! My rights! My need to go shopping! My desire to eat at Olive Garden! Other people are dying? Fuck em... I'm going to enjoy my life and not let "the man" tell me what to do! Wait, I got the disease?? Well, crap! Who could have predicted it? God certainly works in mysterious ways. 2020 has pretty much robbed me of what empathy I had left. It's insane how selfish we have become. 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25577270 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25577270

cmurf 6y ago
You forgot the part where the selfish and decadent, upon becoming sick, demand not only the right to health care services, but the right to cutting in front of the line merely because they paid extra for the VIP health care plan. This is not a civil society. It is a caste system.
pbourke 6y ago
> 2020 has pretty much robbed me of what empathy I had left. It's insane how selfish we have become. When I start thinking along these lines, I consider the doctors and nurses, firefighters/EMS, vaccine researchers, food bank volunteers, grocery store workers, open-source data volunteers, ... “Look for the helpers,” as Mr. Rogers said. I think that many people have been conscientious during the pandemic. They aren’t visible - they only show up in year-over-year measures of reduced traffic, etc. None of this obviates my frustration at the political and cultural response to the pandemic. Covidiots and maskholes still piss me off, but I don’t think they’re the whole story.