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> Impending global lockdown? You might be well served from a lot less time online and more time with your fellow humans or nature. Please stop trying to gaslig

> Impending global lockdown? You might be well served from a lot less time online and more time with your fellow humans or nature. Please stop trying to gaslight people. I too would have thought such a thing impossible in 2019/early 2020, but we saw that that is not beyond our leaders. Many people in the world have a lot of trauma from the government-imposed lockdowns and subsequent seizing of basic human freedoms. Unfortunately, one is often unable to mention this trauma without being dismissed as a kook, which you are doing to OP. Please stop. Global lockdowns are now a thing that has happened and -- given the right circumstances -- may happen again. Given how recent it was, people should be cut some slack, even if you perceive them to be hyper-vigilant.

dTal 3y ago
Bit of a difference between "global lockdowns can happen" and "we can all sense the impending global lockdown coming". Could a lockdown happen again? Sure, if there were another pandemic. But "we can all sense the impending global lockdown coming" is ridiculous new-world-order conspiracy bullshit. The only surprising or novel thing about the "global lockdowns" of 2020 was the degree of international cooperation on the matter, and even that - positive though it was - left a lot to be desired. It certainly didn't signify any kind of ominous freedom-hating shadow government. Pandemic-driven quarantines, crisis-driven restrictions on movement etc are hardly unprecedented in the 20th century. "Basic human freedoms" are subject to restriction when lives are at stake, that's just a fact of life. Londoners in 1940 weren't even allowed to turn the light on.
alphabettsy 3y ago
Restrictions of civil liberties in times of crisis aren’t new, see nearly every war. There’s a very significant difference between “the coming global lockdown” and global lockdowns have happened and might happen again under the right circumstances. There is no gaslighting, a term massively overused and often wrongly, in questioning and pointing out the paranoia in the former statement. The person I was replying to seems to have a very dim view of the current and future. They reference the increase in “deaths of despair” and I think that online negativity only provide further fuel.
- anon291 3y ago
  Based on HN's demographics, i'm guessing the poster is American. In America, war (as defined by a loss in civil liberties) has not happened for over 80 years (true wars must be actually... declared by Congress). The various military engagements since then have not arisen to the same level of mobilization as an actual war. Nevertheless, COVID was not a war, and the impositions were not made after a majority vote of Congress. They were just... imposed. That is sufficiently different. Claiming that COVID lockdowns were justified because similar reductions in civil liberties have happened in war, despite COVID sharing no characteristics with a war, is the epitome of gaslighting. A pandemic does not justify the mass removal of civil liberties. Honestly, when it's been done in war, it's always been seen as a necessary evil, whereas most lockdown supporters instead seem to view the lockdowns, as you seem to do, as an unalloyed good.
  - alphabettsy 3y ago
    This won’t be productive. You’re making a strawman argument. I said there are other circumstances where civil liberties were restricted and war was a common one, not that they were justified or anything else you’ve said. Civil liberties have been restricted in past pandemics as well. I’m not going to debate the rest of what you said because it’s a response to an argument that I didn’t make, but it’s largely wrong.
    - anon291 3y ago
      > Civil liberties have been restricted in past pandemics as well. Not universally throughout the country, no. There has been none. I can't take seriously anyone who claims the COVID response was anything other than unprecedented
      - jfax 3y ago
        https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-pandemic-isnt-a-black-swan-but-a-portent-of-a-more-fragile-global-system https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-pandemic-is...

dTal 3y ago

Bit of a difference between "global lockdowns can happen" and "we can all sense the impending global lockdown coming". Could a lockdown happen again? Sure, if there were another pandemic. But "we can all sense the impending global lockdown coming" is ridiculous new-world-order conspiracy bullshit. The only surprising or novel thing about the "global lockdowns" of 2020 was the degree of international cooperation on the matter, and even that - positive though it was - left a lot to be desired. It certainly didn't signify any kind of ominous freedom-hating shadow government. Pandemic-driven quarantines, crisis-driven restrictions on movement etc are hardly unprecedented in the 20th century. "Basic human freedoms" are subject to restriction when lives are at stake, that's just a fact of life. Londoners in 1940 weren't even allowed to turn the light on.

alphabettsy 3y ago

Restrictions of civil liberties in times of crisis aren’t new, see nearly every war. There’s a very significant difference between “the coming global lockdown” and global lockdowns have happened and might happen again under the right circumstances. There is no gaslighting, a term massively overused and often wrongly, in questioning and pointing out the paranoia in the former statement. The person I was replying to seems to have a very dim view of the current and future. They reference the increase in “deaths of despair” and I think that online negativity only provide further fuel.

anon291 3y ago
Based on HN's demographics, i'm guessing the poster is American. In America, war (as defined by a loss in civil liberties) has not happened for over 80 years (true wars must be actually... declared by Congress). The various military engagements since then have not arisen to the same level of mobilization as an actual war. Nevertheless, COVID was not a war, and the impositions were not made after a majority vote of Congress. They were just... imposed. That is sufficiently different. Claiming that COVID lockdowns were justified because similar reductions in civil liberties have happened in war, despite COVID sharing no characteristics with a war, is the epitome of gaslighting. A pandemic does not justify the mass removal of civil liberties. Honestly, when it's been done in war, it's always been seen as a necessary evil, whereas most lockdown supporters instead seem to view the lockdowns, as you seem to do, as an unalloyed good.
- alphabettsy 3y ago
  This won’t be productive. You’re making a strawman argument. I said there are other circumstances where civil liberties were restricted and war was a common one, not that they were justified or anything else you’ve said. Civil liberties have been restricted in past pandemics as well. I’m not going to debate the rest of what you said because it’s a response to an argument that I didn’t make, but it’s largely wrong.
  - anon291 3y ago
    > Civil liberties have been restricted in past pandemics as well. Not universally throughout the country, no. There has been none. I can't take seriously anyone who claims the COVID response was anything other than unprecedented
    - jfax 3y ago
      https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-pandemic-isnt-a-black-swan-but-a-portent-of-a-more-fragile-global-system https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-pandemic-is...