11 ms·

I don't know if it's still a crisis, but I think America is saying it isn't, because it's tired of the fight. No matter which side you're on (real or not, overb

by kemiller2002 5y ago

I don't know if it's still a crisis, but I think America is saying it isn't, because it's tired of the fight. No matter which side you're on (real or not, overblown or not, etc.), America has been at war with itself for 2 years. People have given up trying to convince the other side who's right and who's wrong. Family's don't see each other, friends don't talk. I think everyone is realizing that's the amount of energy to continue is just too great, so people have become apathetic to whatever the outcome is.

0xy 5y ago
The media and politicians are saying it's over because mid-terms are approaching and lockdowns are extremely unpopular (they destroy businesses, jobs, lives, etc). The measures were always driven by polling numbers and political sentiment alone. Many of the measures had absolutely no basis in science (wearing a mask in a restaurant then sitting down and taking it off is pure political ideology with zero basis in scientific reality).
- VikingCoder 5y ago
  - colpabar 5y ago
    This is an odd reply - you're claiming someone is wrong by showing them that someone else on this website was also wrong. The commenter specifically mentioned the silly way we have to wear masks while being seated but can then take them off, even if we are less than six feet from the nearest table with other unmasked people. A LOT of people have this exact same complaint, and to write it off because those people are not "experts" is just ridiculous. How does it make any sense??
    - VikingCoder 5y ago
      They're not saying "I don't think it makes sense," they are making the much stronger claim that there's "zero basis in scientific reality." Both claims were made, without any evidence, by commenters on HN. I really wish people would be much more cautious in their pronouncements. Especially if they have zero expertise in the relevant fields.
      - colpabar 5y ago
        Okay, I'll bite. Is there any basis in scientific reality? Where is the science that says the six foot rule is not necessary for humans eating and drinking in restaurants?
        VikingCoder 5y ago
        That's a great question. One that I bet very few people on HN are at all qualified to answer. I get similarly tired when I watch my non-technical friends on FB make pronouncements about technology. If someone says "I believe X" or "I don't believe Y," or "I saw an article about X which convinced me," that's great. But please, don't don the mantle of expertise and make pronouncements, especially in areas you have no understanding of. It's exhausting.
        colpabar 5y ago
        I mean this is a forum on the internet, it's not a peer reviewed medical journal. People come here to talk about stuff. Sure, there are guidelines that encourage thoughtful, well written comments to foster an actual discussion, but there's no requirement of being an expert in anything. I don't think you should be "exhausted" by people making claims on the internet. Just insert the words "I think" in front of any comment that does not already include that, because that is what every comment already means.
        VikingCoder 5y ago
        There's no accountability for spreading misinformation. Or for spreading opinions and casting them as facts. There are no retractions. There are no apologies. There's no value. Making claims without evidence, especially pretending you have expertise when you do so, decreases the signal to noise ratio on HN. And yes, it's exhausting to watch. I wish we would hold each other to a higher standard.
        colpabar 5y ago
  - zaroth 5y ago
    You’re not reading what 0xy wrote, so you’re just arguing against yourself. An appeal to authority isn’t convincing when the authorities themselves have been utterly clueless and entirely politicized. 0xy say many measures were essentially nonsensical and non-scientific, and then gave a perfect example of restaurant masking which is perhaps the pinnacle of COVID absurdity. Wearing masks outdoors is another great example of something where the science was unequivocal, and yet the politicians persisted. Non-N95 masks being worn improperly (which is essentially all of non-professional masking) was even declared by the CDC as ineffective so I think it’s safe to say the mitigations were not only deeply unpopular but also unscientific.
    - VikingCoder 5y ago
      "authorities themselves have been... entirely politicized" I'm honestly curious what you think the word "politicized" means. Politicized: "(of an activity or event) made political in character." Political: "relating to the government or the public affairs of a country." So, to be clear, you think it's a problem that "authorities" have made assertions about the public affairs of a country? I get that you think they've been utterly clueless, and if that's true, of course I think that's a problem. But I'm focusing on the second part of what seemed to bother you. That, people with authority, have made assertions about how public affairs should be handled? That's a problem, to you? What would have been better, in your mind?
  - anamax 5y ago
    How cute - you think that "long covid" is something specific to covid-19. One thing that covid-19 has shown is that the public health community hasn't bothered to work on flu since the 1940s, even though it kills 35-75k Americans a year and has so for decades if not longer. You remember the flu. It's an essential part of the "you have to give us lots of money so we're ready for something like the Spanish flu" and yet, when covid-19/sars2 came long (a couple of years after sars1), "we" didn't know anything useful about coronavirus transmission. One of the "Spanish Flu" stories told by the public health community is that one of the major outbreaks happened when a city had a parade to celebrate "beating" the flu. So, guess what the public health community said was a good thing during height of the pandemic. (To be fair, only the parades and demonstrations that the PHC liked were safe.) Of course, the public health community's first instinct is to lie. They started with "masks aren't necessary for ordinary people" and then pivoted even though there was no new data either way. (And there's also the whole "vaccines can't be delivered in a year" thing.) Note that the pre-Covid recommendation from WHO was no masks and no general lockdowns, but instead, "protect vulnerable subpopulations", which we knew at the beginning. Contrast that with what the public health community talked about. And no, there wasn't new data.
    - briffle 5y ago
      I firmly believe that the whole "masks aren't necessary for ordinary people" was not based in any science at all, but because they were next to impossible to find, and they didn't want a panic. In my midsize town, with a 600 bed hospital, people (staff, patients, etc) were walking through the ER, and stealing whole boxes of N95 masks off of shelves. The hospital had to move them all to locked cabinets along with the addictive painkillers. They were almost completely out, and not able to get any more. There were literally states/hospitals organizing a purchase (at insane prices) only to have the feds come and seize the masks and end up with nothing.
      - anamax 5y ago
        Yes, medical folk wanted to get masks for medical folk (some of whom even know how to wear them) but "they didn't want a panic" is self-deception. They may have wanted that effect but that was not the likely result of such an announcement. That's because the public health community has been incompetent at best and typically self-defeating at messaging for decades. Unfortunately, pretty much everything other than self-evident statements out of the public health community has been good reason to think that the exact opposite is the right response. In this case, "don't panic" was best interpreted as "things are likely to go south, so urgent action is probably a good idea". "hey, don't hoard masks, we don't have enough for medical personnel" would have been more effective. As to the feds seizing masks, that was mostly the public health community doing the seizing.
  - FpUser 5y ago
    >"So, now I see your comment, and I get to try to evaluate it. Are you a virologist? " You come into restaurant and wear that mask for 10 min and then you sit for an hour without mask. Sorry one does not have to be an "expert in the field" to see through this bullshit. >"And now here we are, learning more about Long Covid every day." Totally irrelevant to particular case
    - VikingCoder 5y ago
      Or, maybe, there could be trials where we experiment and find out? Or we could analyze past data, to see if counties where people worse masks in the lobby of restaurants had lower transmission of Covid than counties where they didn't? If I go into a crowded restaurant and wait for 30 minutes for my table, I come within about 6 feet of about 30 people. When I sit at my table for an hour, I come within about 6 feet of about 3 people (server, and the person who brings drinks, and the person who brings food.) Especially if there are dividers between tables. I'm not claiming wearing a mask in the lobby reduces transmission to zero. But I can easily imagine how it reduces transmission some. And yet, others are claiming that no one could possibly imagine how wearing masks in the lobby of a restaurant could possibly reduce transmission. You and I can talk about whether we believe wearing masks in the lobby reduces transmission. I'm tired of people claiming there's "no scientific basis" (or something similar) for masks helping, or for there to be long-term implications of Covid, or anything else, really - especially when they're not an expert.
      - FpUser 5y ago
        >"If I go into a crowded restaurant and wait for 30 minutes for my table, I come within about 6 feet of about 30 people. " I do not remember ever waiting for 30 min in the lobby with 30 people. But I guess I just do not visit places where I have to waste so much time.
nkozyra 5y ago
> I don't know if it's still a crisis, but I think America is saying it isn't, because it's tired of the fight. There's no way a collective can stay on alert for years. My reaction was "well deaths are way down" but then I looked and we recently had a spike of deaths as big or larger than the initial wave. So I think - if I'm being honest - it's as much a crisis as it ever was, we're just finding a way to live with it, no pun intended.
- rory 5y ago
  To be fair, it's roughly the same death count now with most people barely (if at all) paying attention, versus the first wave when most people were locking down and wouldn't even go to the park. Part of the "crisis" feeling of the first wave was the unknown (and likely much higher) death count that could arrive if we didn't take action.
  - zaroth 5y ago
    See my take-away from your first paragraph is quite different from your second paragraph. The point isn’t to argue about who’s counter-factual is right or wrong, it’s impossible to say. At this point everyone has taken a position as to whether the “mitigations” were ethical, legal, effective, or not. There’s no point discussing it anymore unless or until people in power try to re-impose them.
    - rory 5y ago
      I think it's clear avoiding the park, in retrospect, was unnecessary. I'm just describing the feeling at the time, which I believe was shared by the vast majority of people for at least those first few weeks. I could be wrong though.
  - nkozyra 5y ago
    > Part of the "crisis" feeling of the first wave was the unknown (and likely much higher) death count that could arrive if we didn't take action. Maybe. To me 800-1,000/day was in itself a crisis and pretty frightening. The fact that we didn't get to 2,000+/day is ... better? but in the moment of April 2020 there was plenty of imminent fear versus fear of worsening.
specialp 5y ago
Or it could be that if something goes on long enough it becomes life. There are a lot of things in our lives that if they just popped up suddenly in utopia, it would become a crisis. COVID will never go away completely. Responsible people did what they could to mitigate it as best as possible (Lockdowns to start, vaccines, masks, vaccines). Now we live in a world where it is one more thing that can kill you out of the many in our lives that are 100% fatal in the end. Most people I think just want to return to "normal". We live in a new normal, but we can't live in crisis forever. I don't think that is necessarily apathy it is adapting.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
> America has been at war with itself for 2 years It has been longer than two years. Prior to the pandemic we were subject to a wave of blatantly divisive rhetoric that seemed intent on driving us to civil war. The 'post-truth' era hit us hard for years before COVID-19 showed up and became just another weapon toward that end. Yeah, we're tired of it. It is difficult to care anymore, honestly. A lot of Americans are going to die, a lot of them are going to be economically ruined, everything that made this country worth anything is going to be dismantled by fascism and plutocracy, and you know what? I think we've earned it.
ericmay 5y ago
> No matter which side you're on (real or not, overblown or not, etc.) One thing we need to step away from is this framing that there are "sides" to be on. Allowing for there to be these separate "sides" just invites conflict and allows people the opportunity to create an identity around something they have no business having an identity about. There are people who are anti-vax now (and weren't before) for example, but that's not a "side" anymore than being for or against bandaids would make sense to have "sides". Framing this as though there are sides also has the effect of legitimizing indefensible things, like being anti-vax. As an example, are there two sides to the flat earth debate? If you say yes, then you're admitting that people who think the earth is flat have an equal standing with someone who knows that the earth is round. But these do not have equal standing, so it shouldn't be legitimized as a "debate" where there are "sides". Something like private versus public (to oversimplify) healthcare is worthy of two sides and a debate. Broadly speaking there are two defensible and respectable opinions.
- bequanna 5y ago
  How you choose to see what separates the two "sides" is quite interesting. You'll in fact find that it is not Vax/Anti-Vax but: 1. a group that needs the comforting reassurance of authority for security vs. 2. a group who regard their autonomy as paramount and see no need to have arbitrary rules forced on them.
  - ericmay 5y ago
    > a group that needs the comforting reassurance of authority for security And I assume you say this when someone is getting surgery, buys ibuprofen, or gets a splint as well? > a group who regard their autonomy as paramount and see no need to have arbitrary rules forced on them In the specific context of vaccines at least in America, nobody is forcing anyone to take a vaccine so the position wouldn't make any sense. Maybe you want to clarify what you mean here? As an aside, this idea of autonomy here is a psychological reflex to control something about a situation that you have absolutely no control over. But it's really just an illusion. They're not more autonomous than anyone else is. A vaccine wouldn't make a difference in your autonomy, and in a really bad pandemic ala The Stand (Stephen King novel) you'd be forced at gunpoint to take a vaccine and you'd happily comply. It's all just lifestyle and cosplay at this point.
beefbudd69 5y ago
>America has been at war with itself for 2 years. more like 8 years aka. the ramping up of identity politics and other cultural marxist shenanigans
- kevinh 5y ago
  Identity politics has been around and salient for a lot longer than eight years. McCarthyism. Slavery/Jim Crow. The Southern strategy. Women not being allowed to vote. Those all had pivotal effects on politics in the United States.
- _moof 5y ago
  "Cultural Marxism" is an antisemitic conspiracy theory.
  - beefbudd69 5y ago
    how so? i mean its no secret that jewish people are over reprersented when it comes to government, banking, media, pharma, judicial institutions etc.(and thats okay and understandable but i digress) but "cultural marxism" has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with injecting communist values in cultural avenues so that they can slowly make communism acceptable in the minds of us unwashed plebians.
stuntkite 5y ago
Couldn't have ever said it better myself. That is exactly how I feel and what I believe I'm seeing in the country. Fuck it... Drink paint. I don't have the energy to fight a culture war. I'm vaxxed, my friends that have radically different views that I find really offensive. Fuck it. I hope I can help keep them safe and I hope they are doing things in a way that they think keeps me safe. I do not want to fight my neighbor, I'm so tired, the world is so messed up. I want to make art and do business and just enjoy the time I have when I have it with the least amount of war I can experience.

0xy 5y ago

The media and politicians are saying it's over because mid-terms are approaching and lockdowns are extremely unpopular (they destroy businesses, jobs, lives, etc). The measures were always driven by polling numbers and political sentiment alone. Many of the measures had absolutely no basis in science (wearing a mask in a restaurant then sitting down and taking it off is pure political ideology with zero basis in scientific reality).

VikingCoder 5y ago
- colpabar 5y ago
  This is an odd reply - you're claiming someone is wrong by showing them that someone else on this website was also wrong. The commenter specifically mentioned the silly way we have to wear masks while being seated but can then take them off, even if we are less than six feet from the nearest table with other unmasked people. A LOT of people have this exact same complaint, and to write it off because those people are not "experts" is just ridiculous. How does it make any sense??
  - VikingCoder 5y ago
    They're not saying "I don't think it makes sense," they are making the much stronger claim that there's "zero basis in scientific reality." Both claims were made, without any evidence, by commenters on HN. I really wish people would be much more cautious in their pronouncements. Especially if they have zero expertise in the relevant fields.
    - colpabar 5y ago
      Okay, I'll bite. Is there any basis in scientific reality? Where is the science that says the six foot rule is not necessary for humans eating and drinking in restaurants?
      - VikingCoder 5y ago
        That's a great question. One that I bet very few people on HN are at all qualified to answer. I get similarly tired when I watch my non-technical friends on FB make pronouncements about technology. If someone says "I believe X" or "I don't believe Y," or "I saw an article about X which convinced me," that's great. But please, don't don the mantle of expertise and make pronouncements, especially in areas you have no understanding of. It's exhausting.
        colpabar 5y ago
        I mean this is a forum on the internet, it's not a peer reviewed medical journal. People come here to talk about stuff. Sure, there are guidelines that encourage thoughtful, well written comments to foster an actual discussion, but there's no requirement of being an expert in anything. I don't think you should be "exhausted" by people making claims on the internet. Just insert the words "I think" in front of any comment that does not already include that, because that is what every comment already means.
        VikingCoder 5y ago
        There's no accountability for spreading misinformation. Or for spreading opinions and casting them as facts. There are no retractions. There are no apologies. There's no value. Making claims without evidence, especially pretending you have expertise when you do so, decreases the signal to noise ratio on HN. And yes, it's exhausting to watch. I wish we would hold each other to a higher standard.
        colpabar 5y ago
- zaroth 5y ago
  You’re not reading what 0xy wrote, so you’re just arguing against yourself. An appeal to authority isn’t convincing when the authorities themselves have been utterly clueless and entirely politicized. 0xy say many measures were essentially nonsensical and non-scientific, and then gave a perfect example of restaurant masking which is perhaps the pinnacle of COVID absurdity. Wearing masks outdoors is another great example of something where the science was unequivocal, and yet the politicians persisted. Non-N95 masks being worn improperly (which is essentially all of non-professional masking) was even declared by the CDC as ineffective so I think it’s safe to say the mitigations were not only deeply unpopular but also unscientific.
  - VikingCoder 5y ago
    "authorities themselves have been... entirely politicized" I'm honestly curious what you think the word "politicized" means. Politicized: "(of an activity or event) made political in character." Political: "relating to the government or the public affairs of a country." So, to be clear, you think it's a problem that "authorities" have made assertions about the public affairs of a country? I get that you think they've been utterly clueless, and if that's true, of course I think that's a problem. But I'm focusing on the second part of what seemed to bother you. That, people with authority, have made assertions about how public affairs should be handled? That's a problem, to you? What would have been better, in your mind?
- anamax 5y ago
  How cute - you think that "long covid" is something specific to covid-19. One thing that covid-19 has shown is that the public health community hasn't bothered to work on flu since the 1940s, even though it kills 35-75k Americans a year and has so for decades if not longer. You remember the flu. It's an essential part of the "you have to give us lots of money so we're ready for something like the Spanish flu" and yet, when covid-19/sars2 came long (a couple of years after sars1), "we" didn't know anything useful about coronavirus transmission. One of the "Spanish Flu" stories told by the public health community is that one of the major outbreaks happened when a city had a parade to celebrate "beating" the flu. So, guess what the public health community said was a good thing during height of the pandemic. (To be fair, only the parades and demonstrations that the PHC liked were safe.) Of course, the public health community's first instinct is to lie. They started with "masks aren't necessary for ordinary people" and then pivoted even though there was no new data either way. (And there's also the whole "vaccines can't be delivered in a year" thing.) Note that the pre-Covid recommendation from WHO was no masks and no general lockdowns, but instead, "protect vulnerable subpopulations", which we knew at the beginning. Contrast that with what the public health community talked about. And no, there wasn't new data.
  - briffle 5y ago
    I firmly believe that the whole "masks aren't necessary for ordinary people" was not based in any science at all, but because they were next to impossible to find, and they didn't want a panic. In my midsize town, with a 600 bed hospital, people (staff, patients, etc) were walking through the ER, and stealing whole boxes of N95 masks off of shelves. The hospital had to move them all to locked cabinets along with the addictive painkillers. They were almost completely out, and not able to get any more. There were literally states/hospitals organizing a purchase (at insane prices) only to have the feds come and seize the masks and end up with nothing.
    - anamax 5y ago
      Yes, medical folk wanted to get masks for medical folk (some of whom even know how to wear them) but "they didn't want a panic" is self-deception. They may have wanted that effect but that was not the likely result of such an announcement. That's because the public health community has been incompetent at best and typically self-defeating at messaging for decades. Unfortunately, pretty much everything other than self-evident statements out of the public health community has been good reason to think that the exact opposite is the right response. In this case, "don't panic" was best interpreted as "things are likely to go south, so urgent action is probably a good idea". "hey, don't hoard masks, we don't have enough for medical personnel" would have been more effective. As to the feds seizing masks, that was mostly the public health community doing the seizing.
- FpUser 5y ago
  >"So, now I see your comment, and I get to try to evaluate it. Are you a virologist? " You come into restaurant and wear that mask for 10 min and then you sit for an hour without mask. Sorry one does not have to be an "expert in the field" to see through this bullshit. >"And now here we are, learning more about Long Covid every day." Totally irrelevant to particular case
  - VikingCoder 5y ago
    Or, maybe, there could be trials where we experiment and find out? Or we could analyze past data, to see if counties where people worse masks in the lobby of restaurants had lower transmission of Covid than counties where they didn't? If I go into a crowded restaurant and wait for 30 minutes for my table, I come within about 6 feet of about 30 people. When I sit at my table for an hour, I come within about 6 feet of about 3 people (server, and the person who brings drinks, and the person who brings food.) Especially if there are dividers between tables. I'm not claiming wearing a mask in the lobby reduces transmission to zero. But I can easily imagine how it reduces transmission some. And yet, others are claiming that no one could possibly imagine how wearing masks in the lobby of a restaurant could possibly reduce transmission. You and I can talk about whether we believe wearing masks in the lobby reduces transmission. I'm tired of people claiming there's "no scientific basis" (or something similar) for masks helping, or for there to be long-term implications of Covid, or anything else, really - especially when they're not an expert.
    - FpUser 5y ago
      >"If I go into a crowded restaurant and wait for 30 minutes for my table, I come within about 6 feet of about 30 people. " I do not remember ever waiting for 30 min in the lobby with 30 people. But I guess I just do not visit places where I have to waste so much time.

nkozyra 5y ago

> I don't know if it's still a crisis, but I think America is saying it isn't, because it's tired of the fight. There's no way a collective can stay on alert for years. My reaction was "well deaths are way down" but then I looked and we recently had a spike of deaths as big or larger than the initial wave. So I think - if I'm being honest - it's as much a crisis as it ever was, we're just finding a way to live with it, no pun intended.

rory 5y ago
To be fair, it's roughly the same death count now with most people barely (if at all) paying attention, versus the first wave when most people were locking down and wouldn't even go to the park. Part of the "crisis" feeling of the first wave was the unknown (and likely much higher) death count that could arrive if we didn't take action.
- zaroth 5y ago
  See my take-away from your first paragraph is quite different from your second paragraph. The point isn’t to argue about who’s counter-factual is right or wrong, it’s impossible to say. At this point everyone has taken a position as to whether the “mitigations” were ethical, legal, effective, or not. There’s no point discussing it anymore unless or until people in power try to re-impose them.
  - rory 5y ago
    I think it's clear avoiding the park, in retrospect, was unnecessary. I'm just describing the feeling at the time, which I believe was shared by the vast majority of people for at least those first few weeks. I could be wrong though.
- nkozyra 5y ago
  > Part of the "crisis" feeling of the first wave was the unknown (and likely much higher) death count that could arrive if we didn't take action. Maybe. To me 800-1,000/day was in itself a crisis and pretty frightening. The fact that we didn't get to 2,000+/day is ... better? but in the moment of April 2020 there was plenty of imminent fear versus fear of worsening.

specialp 5y ago

Or it could be that if something goes on long enough it becomes life. There are a lot of things in our lives that if they just popped up suddenly in utopia, it would become a crisis. COVID will never go away completely. Responsible people did what they could to mitigate it as best as possible (Lockdowns to start, vaccines, masks, vaccines). Now we live in a world where it is one more thing that can kill you out of the many in our lives that are 100% fatal in the end. Most people I think just want to return to "normal". We live in a new normal, but we can't live in crisis forever. I don't think that is necessarily apathy it is adapting.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago

> America has been at war with itself for 2 years It has been longer than two years. Prior to the pandemic we were subject to a wave of blatantly divisive rhetoric that seemed intent on driving us to civil war. The 'post-truth' era hit us hard for years before COVID-19 showed up and became just another weapon toward that end. Yeah, we're tired of it. It is difficult to care anymore, honestly. A lot of Americans are going to die, a lot of them are going to be economically ruined, everything that made this country worth anything is going to be dismantled by fascism and plutocracy, and you know what? I think we've earned it.

ericmay 5y ago

> No matter which side you're on (real or not, overblown or not, etc.) One thing we need to step away from is this framing that there are "sides" to be on. Allowing for there to be these separate "sides" just invites conflict and allows people the opportunity to create an identity around something they have no business having an identity about. There are people who are anti-vax now (and weren't before) for example, but that's not a "side" anymore than being for or against bandaids would make sense to have "sides". Framing this as though there are sides also has the effect of legitimizing indefensible things, like being anti-vax. As an example, are there two sides to the flat earth debate? If you say yes, then you're admitting that people who think the earth is flat have an equal standing with someone who knows that the earth is round. But these do not have equal standing, so it shouldn't be legitimized as a "debate" where there are "sides". Something like private versus public (to oversimplify) healthcare is worthy of two sides and a debate. Broadly speaking there are two defensible and respectable opinions.

bequanna 5y ago
How you choose to see what separates the two "sides" is quite interesting. You'll in fact find that it is not Vax/Anti-Vax but: 1. a group that needs the comforting reassurance of authority for security vs. 2. a group who regard their autonomy as paramount and see no need to have arbitrary rules forced on them.
- ericmay 5y ago
  > a group that needs the comforting reassurance of authority for security And I assume you say this when someone is getting surgery, buys ibuprofen, or gets a splint as well? > a group who regard their autonomy as paramount and see no need to have arbitrary rules forced on them In the specific context of vaccines at least in America, nobody is forcing anyone to take a vaccine so the position wouldn't make any sense. Maybe you want to clarify what you mean here? As an aside, this idea of autonomy here is a psychological reflex to control something about a situation that you have absolutely no control over. But it's really just an illusion. They're not more autonomous than anyone else is. A vaccine wouldn't make a difference in your autonomy, and in a really bad pandemic ala The Stand (Stephen King novel) you'd be forced at gunpoint to take a vaccine and you'd happily comply. It's all just lifestyle and cosplay at this point.

beefbudd69 5y ago

>America has been at war with itself for 2 years. more like 8 years aka. the ramping up of identity politics and other cultural marxist shenanigans

kevinh 5y ago
Identity politics has been around and salient for a lot longer than eight years. McCarthyism. Slavery/Jim Crow. The Southern strategy. Women not being allowed to vote. Those all had pivotal effects on politics in the United States.
_moof 5y ago
"Cultural Marxism" is an antisemitic conspiracy theory.
- beefbudd69 5y ago
  how so? i mean its no secret that jewish people are over reprersented when it comes to government, banking, media, pharma, judicial institutions etc.(and thats okay and understandable but i digress) but "cultural marxism" has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with injecting communist values in cultural avenues so that they can slowly make communism acceptable in the minds of us unwashed plebians.

stuntkite 5y ago

Couldn't have ever said it better myself. That is exactly how I feel and what I believe I'm seeing in the country. Fuck it... Drink paint. I don't have the energy to fight a culture war. I'm vaxxed, my friends that have radically different views that I find really offensive. Fuck it. I hope I can help keep them safe and I hope they are doing things in a way that they think keeps me safe. I do not want to fight my neighbor, I'm so tired, the world is so messed up. I want to make art and do business and just enjoy the time I have when I have it with the least amount of war I can experience.