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Lockdowns were smart, but they did demonstrate that US citizens can't trust their government to help them in a crisis. Everything shutdown and many many people

Lockdowns were smart, but they did demonstrate that US citizens can't trust their government to help them in a crisis. Everything shutdown and many many people couldn't work, which meant they couldn't support themselves. In the UK people out of work were given 80% of their pay. Denmark paid people 75% of their income. The Netherlands gave their people 90% of their wages. All of this on top of their already strong social services and safety nets which helped make sure that people were taken care of. In the US we got nothing until after a lot of government fighting we were reluctantly given a couple $1,000 "stimulus" checks leaving Americans with record amounts of household debt. We're still seeing the impacts in increasing rates of utility disconnections and rising numbers of evictions and homelessness which will likely continue to get worse long before they improve.

brink 3y ago
> Lockdowns were smart This is completely subjective to someone's values. To some, living is more important than survival. Not everyone believes in courage in the sense of loving life (life as in the virtue of living, not specifically one's own life) enough to being ready to die for it. Lockdowns were smart to some, but a tyranny to others, and we are still paying dearly for them. Even those of you in bed with the green agenda should be distraught over this, the world's coal consumption set a new record in 2022, and the lockdowns are largely to blame.
- upvota 3y ago
  > the world's coal consumption set a new record in 2022, and the lockdowns are largely to blame. I‘d love to learn more about that interaction.
  - labster 3y ago
    Me too. I studied climatology and a bit of environmental policy at university, so it seems unlikely… but I’ve seen weirder feedbacks. It’s plausible. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to understand why people deny climate change, but it usually comes down to a few basic things: 1. Group membership. 2. Seeing is believing, and not having been impacted yet. 3. Having been impacted, but unwilling to admit it due to embarrassment/sunk cost fallacy. Honestly I expect that after this summer most people in cohort 2 will move to cohort 3.

brink 3y ago

> Lockdowns were smart This is completely subjective to someone's values. To some, living is more important than survival. Not everyone believes in courage in the sense of loving life (life as in the virtue of living, not specifically one's own life) enough to being ready to die for it. Lockdowns were smart to some, but a tyranny to others, and we are still paying dearly for them. Even those of you in bed with the green agenda should be distraught over this, the world's coal consumption set a new record in 2022, and the lockdowns are largely to blame.

upvota 3y ago
> the world's coal consumption set a new record in 2022, and the lockdowns are largely to blame. I‘d love to learn more about that interaction.
- labster 3y ago
  Me too. I studied climatology and a bit of environmental policy at university, so it seems unlikely… but I’ve seen weirder feedbacks. It’s plausible. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to understand why people deny climate change, but it usually comes down to a few basic things: 1. Group membership. 2. Seeing is believing, and not having been impacted yet. 3. Having been impacted, but unwilling to admit it due to embarrassment/sunk cost fallacy. Honestly I expect that after this summer most people in cohort 2 will move to cohort 3.