6 ms·

Anyone who went thru went felt like a life changing (and life challenging) event, like the pandemic, is not going to behave in the same way people used to (befo

by Aloha 3y ago

Anyone who went thru went felt like a life changing (and life challenging) event, like the pandemic, is not going to behave in the same way people used to (before they had those experiences). Because of social media, and the media - people felt, quite acutely - the very real risks of COVID - basically people felt (with some truth) that they were lucky to escape the pandemic alive, and because of this, are acting in a YOLO way - you saw people behave the same way 100 years ago from the combined effects of the 1918 Flu Pandemic and World War 1 - all over the world, but particularly in the United States. I dont think we're really fundamentally understanding the real world psychological effects of the Pandemic and the psychological effects of feeling like we were living in an emergency for 18-24 months - and I think it'll likely take a decade or more to really analyze and process this.

salynchnew 3y ago
Underrated comment. You hear constantly about how people in the USA who went through the Great Depression became lifelong hoarders, etc. The idea that folks who went through a massive global pandemic (which, unlike the Spanish Flu, was liberally reported on in the media) wouldn't realize that their life is short and act accordingly is... funny.
- coffeebeqn 3y ago
  I mean the next 20 decades weren’t great for Europe after the Spanish flu. Hope it’s not that
  - Aloha 3y ago
    America had a boom then, and arguably so did europe in culture at least certainly. That said, much of europes economic generation, was the flower of whole nations youths being stolen by flanders fields - either literally in death or psychologically. Nevermind the social and political upheavals seen in around half of europe from WWI - Britain which escaped more unfazed than most of europe from physical damage, still had a mix of cataclysmic change and steady social progress (unwinding of the values and cultural norms of the victorian/edwardian era) - and also suffered vast amounts of deaths. National identities were formed too, Australia, Canada and New Zealand all or in part formed their national identities out of the cataclysm of WW I. This doesn't even account for the new nations formed all over Europe, The Middle East, and Africa because of The Great War.
- Aloha 3y ago
  I have heard so many people say "life is short, why wait?" in the last 18 months, maybe before that - I've seen people quit jobs, relocate, buy houses - do all sorts of things they wanted to do that made them feel more fulfilled, or just happier. I've even made choices of my own with a very big eye on mortality. We might have been waiting before, but as I said elsewhere in thread, I've experienced three once in a lifetime type events since a turned 18 - why should I wait? I want to live the life I want to live. Pandemic for me tamped down any FOMO I might have, but did not tamp down the YOLO - because of that, why wait?, do the things you want now, while you can, bring joy and warmth into your life, experience new things - because you never know when the bottom might fall out again.
  - unethical_ban 3y ago
    Didn't read the article, only this thread. It's a lack of hope. There is no signal in sight that housing will go back to the affordability it had five years ago. The fed and corporations are making inflation worse, and while the government spending of the pandemic seemed wise to keep the circulation flowing while we were on pause, it does seem to have screwed the little guy with no house or stocks. So if this is as good as it gets, why save or have hope? People getting by will just keep getting by. At least that's my take.
    - Aloha 3y ago
      I see some of that, but I don't think it's all that, there is a lot of YOLO too.
    - jpetso 3y ago
      Inflation isn't great for people with stocks, and high interest rates are the main thing that can apply downward pressure to housing prices. People with lots of debt have it rough right now. The little guy with no house or stocks, but no debt, however, has more of a chance to catch up when hard-earned assets depreciate via inflation and high interest.
      - Aloha 3y ago
- Whoppertime 3y ago
  If the great depression lead to hoarders what will Covid lead to? Lifelong TP Hoarders?
  - rpgwaiter 3y ago
    I haven't interacted with another human being face-to-face without a good n95 on since 2019, so probably stuff like that
Spivak 3y ago
And the fact that the disease itself was mild for most people didn't change the fact that people's lives were put on hold for 2 years. Even if you didn't feel like you "survived" it still put front and center that our current way of life isn't a given.
- Aloha 3y ago
  Yeah, you're capturing my perspective exactly. It was arguably the psychological impact of the on hold feeling that did more to explain now, than anything about the disease itself - though the pandemic did make me personally acutely aware of my own mortality - and I dont think I'm the only one.
cjohnson318 3y ago
I appreciate your perspective, but I'd like to provide an alternative viewpoint. I think only a minority of Americans were really effected by the pandemic in the way you're describing. Many Americans did not believe a pandemic was happening, or had ever happened. Many believed the pandemic was real, but worked through it anyway because they had no choice. Only a minority of Americans believed the pandemic was real, and could afford to rearrange their whole life accordingly. I think there's a lot of reasons for runaway spending, from feeling overly optimistic about the economy, to feeling overly pessimistic about the economy, like the extravagant spending of Russian nobility on the eve of the February Revolution of 1917. It can even be the case that multiple groups are spending a ton for different reasons.
- demosthanos 3y ago
  Everyone was affected by the pandemic. Red state, blue state, service worker or constant zoom meetings, everyone was impacted. Local government, personal political views, socioeconomic status and everything else had an impact on how people experienced the pandemic and for how long (in some places things went back to more-or-less normal sooner), but there's no question that the entire world felt the impact intensely.
  - cjohnson318 3y ago
    I think the thing that matters is how people perceive it now. If the US went through another epidemic with a similar mortality rate, I think that there would be greater resistance to masking. I think that people would compare it to Covid-19, say "we already did this once," and just skip it.
    - Aloha 3y ago
      How they perceive of it now, and how it effected them psychologically are not the same.
- Aloha 3y ago
  I'm sorry, you're wrong - and I dont say that lightly. My roommate worked a service job during the pandemic, went to work every day. He couldn't go shopping at a store for 6 months, he couldn't go out to eat for a similar length of time - there was social pressure on him to not do these things even once they reopened for fear of harming others. Social Media was acidic, and the mainstream media was.. upsetting, to put it politely. I'd also note that we are in Texas, which didn't keep its restrictions as long as NY or CA, and it was still traumatic. All but the most crazy anti-vax nut jobs believe the pandemic happened, I know folks who would otherwise lean very conservative take it quite seriously - do you know why? they saw the morgue trailers. I know others folks who didn't who behaved the same way after watching a loved one die. The folks who didn't believe are not a small number, I'll admit - around 15% of the country - but polling backs up people believing the illness was real, and that it was dangerous - the level of danger however did vary in intensity by partisan paring.

by Aloha 3y ago

salynchnew 3y ago

Underrated comment. You hear constantly about how people in the USA who went through the Great Depression became lifelong hoarders, etc. The idea that folks who went through a massive global pandemic (which, unlike the Spanish Flu, was liberally reported on in the media) wouldn't realize that their life is short and act accordingly is... funny.

coffeebeqn 3y ago
I mean the next 20 decades weren’t great for Europe after the Spanish flu. Hope it’s not that
- Aloha 3y ago
  America had a boom then, and arguably so did europe in culture at least certainly. That said, much of europes economic generation, was the flower of whole nations youths being stolen by flanders fields - either literally in death or psychologically. Nevermind the social and political upheavals seen in around half of europe from WWI - Britain which escaped more unfazed than most of europe from physical damage, still had a mix of cataclysmic change and steady social progress (unwinding of the values and cultural norms of the victorian/edwardian era) - and also suffered vast amounts of deaths. National identities were formed too, Australia, Canada and New Zealand all or in part formed their national identities out of the cataclysm of WW I. This doesn't even account for the new nations formed all over Europe, The Middle East, and Africa because of The Great War.
Aloha 3y ago
I have heard so many people say "life is short, why wait?" in the last 18 months, maybe before that - I've seen people quit jobs, relocate, buy houses - do all sorts of things they wanted to do that made them feel more fulfilled, or just happier. I've even made choices of my own with a very big eye on mortality. We might have been waiting before, but as I said elsewhere in thread, I've experienced three once in a lifetime type events since a turned 18 - why should I wait? I want to live the life I want to live. Pandemic for me tamped down any FOMO I might have, but did not tamp down the YOLO - because of that, why wait?, do the things you want now, while you can, bring joy and warmth into your life, experience new things - because you never know when the bottom might fall out again.
- unethical_ban 3y ago
  Didn't read the article, only this thread. It's a lack of hope. There is no signal in sight that housing will go back to the affordability it had five years ago. The fed and corporations are making inflation worse, and while the government spending of the pandemic seemed wise to keep the circulation flowing while we were on pause, it does seem to have screwed the little guy with no house or stocks. So if this is as good as it gets, why save or have hope? People getting by will just keep getting by. At least that's my take.
  - Aloha 3y ago
    I see some of that, but I don't think it's all that, there is a lot of YOLO too.
  - jpetso 3y ago
    Inflation isn't great for people with stocks, and high interest rates are the main thing that can apply downward pressure to housing prices. People with lots of debt have it rough right now. The little guy with no house or stocks, but no debt, however, has more of a chance to catch up when hard-earned assets depreciate via inflation and high interest.
    - Aloha 3y ago
Whoppertime 3y ago
If the great depression lead to hoarders what will Covid lead to? Lifelong TP Hoarders?
- rpgwaiter 3y ago
  I haven't interacted with another human being face-to-face without a good n95 on since 2019, so probably stuff like that

Spivak 3y ago

And the fact that the disease itself was mild for most people didn't change the fact that people's lives were put on hold for 2 years. Even if you didn't feel like you "survived" it still put front and center that our current way of life isn't a given.

Aloha 3y ago
Yeah, you're capturing my perspective exactly. It was arguably the psychological impact of the on hold feeling that did more to explain now, than anything about the disease itself - though the pandemic did make me personally acutely aware of my own mortality - and I dont think I'm the only one.

cjohnson318 3y ago

I appreciate your perspective, but I'd like to provide an alternative viewpoint. I think only a minority of Americans were really effected by the pandemic in the way you're describing. Many Americans did not believe a pandemic was happening, or had ever happened. Many believed the pandemic was real, but worked through it anyway because they had no choice. Only a minority of Americans believed the pandemic was real, and could afford to rearrange their whole life accordingly. I think there's a lot of reasons for runaway spending, from feeling overly optimistic about the economy, to feeling overly pessimistic about the economy, like the extravagant spending of Russian nobility on the eve of the February Revolution of 1917. It can even be the case that multiple groups are spending a ton for different reasons.

demosthanos 3y ago
Everyone was affected by the pandemic. Red state, blue state, service worker or constant zoom meetings, everyone was impacted. Local government, personal political views, socioeconomic status and everything else had an impact on how people experienced the pandemic and for how long (in some places things went back to more-or-less normal sooner), but there's no question that the entire world felt the impact intensely.
- cjohnson318 3y ago
  I think the thing that matters is how people perceive it now. If the US went through another epidemic with a similar mortality rate, I think that there would be greater resistance to masking. I think that people would compare it to Covid-19, say "we already did this once," and just skip it.
  - Aloha 3y ago
    How they perceive of it now, and how it effected them psychologically are not the same.
Aloha 3y ago
I'm sorry, you're wrong - and I dont say that lightly. My roommate worked a service job during the pandemic, went to work every day. He couldn't go shopping at a store for 6 months, he couldn't go out to eat for a similar length of time - there was social pressure on him to not do these things even once they reopened for fear of harming others. Social Media was acidic, and the mainstream media was.. upsetting, to put it politely. I'd also note that we are in Texas, which didn't keep its restrictions as long as NY or CA, and it was still traumatic. All but the most crazy anti-vax nut jobs believe the pandemic happened, I know folks who would otherwise lean very conservative take it quite seriously - do you know why? they saw the morgue trailers. I know others folks who didn't who behaved the same way after watching a loved one die. The folks who didn't believe are not a small number, I'll admit - around 15% of the country - but polling backs up people believing the illness was real, and that it was dangerous - the level of danger however did vary in intensity by partisan paring.