I keep sayin’, ‘Hey China? Next time you engineer a viral bio-weapon could ya’ mix a little hemorrhagic fever into it so we’ll take it a little more seriously?’
And that’s not really surprising. Historically, people have always behaved the same way during major disease outbreaks. Some take it seriously and do what they can and others throw caution to the wind.
We really hoped that improved scientific knowledge and technology would somehow alter human nature so we’d take the measures we know work against disease, but that was a pipe dream. Technology improves but human nature stays the same.
Let’s not fall into the trap of blaming a culturally specific inability to control widespread antisocial selfishness on “human nature” in general. There are plenty of societies that have done and are doing a far better job than the US at putting improved scientific knowledge and technology to work effectively, with massively better results in terms of avoiding infections and deaths, while simultaneously respecting individual rights.
Yes, there are always going to be some individual stupidheads in every society who throw tantrums about sensible public-safety restrictions and refuse to comply with them. But not every society is condoning and even encouraging the behavior of those stupidheads the way a major chunk of the US is currently doing.
[slapstick] Indeed, the sum total deaths attributed to Hitler, Stalin, and the Spanish Flu pale in comparison to the devastation of Covid vaccination projected by the prescient anti-vaxxers. [/slapstick]
I would add: There are many people who want all the benefits of living in a society, but are unwilling to follow the rules that society has created in order to benefit all. In other words, they are selfish freeloading, free-riding pricks, who have no sense of responsibility to others. They are the “takers” in society. They pretend to themselves that they are rugged individualists, who have done everything themselves with no help from anyone else. They delude themselves.
It is already plainly the case that we wouldn’t be.
Cross posted in the Stupid Mother Fucker thread
Sturgis Rally. Seven day Covid average rate increases 3400 per cent.
This exponential growth in cases is likely attributable to the 81st Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, which drew an estimated half a million visitors to Meade County and its environs from Aug. 6 through 15, potentially acting as a superspreader event.
Who woulda thunk of it??
Oh, yeah. Everyone who has a working brain.
My grand daughter is pregnant with my first great grand daughter. Her husband’s family has had very little to say about this. His mother even suggested that her son was not the father of this child. The other day my grand daughter put out a bit of information that has his family up in arms. She announced that unless you are fully vaccinated, you are not to be anywhere near her and you will not be allowed to see or hold the baby. The first event that this will be put to the test is next week, a 3D ultrasound for family and friends. This will be fun.
Somehow, the last line of your post dropped off. I’ll fix that for you. “They are Trumpers.”
I’ve mentioned the keyboard study (very short PDF) several times. It shows an innate difference between how liberals and conservatives process change.
Without excusing the anti-vaxxers in any way, for me, this does give me some visibility into why they may think as they do.
It’s been a tumultuous 20-ish months, to say the least.
And – again: without deriding the scientists – the Best Available Evidence has (understandably) shifted more than a time or two since it all began.
As has the common ‘enemy,’ itself, shape-shifted.
And the hit to daily lives. And the hit to the economy, etc., etc. And the loved ones lost or critically ill.
The amount of uncertainty has been tremendous for many, and probably unimaginable for some.
If you’re one of those people who doesn’t do change well, this all must just be Hell (considering that some of the things that draw many toward religion are stability, consistency, and certainty).
It’s also why that same demographic tended to support the Cheeto-Faced Shit-Gibbon: much as was often said about GW Bush, CFSG was often wrong but never in doubt.
This pandemic has been the Super Bowl of Cognitive Dissonance for people who are torn asunder by chaos.
Midst the fear, they again seek the comfort of solid ground. And it won’t have a lot of science to it, nuance to it, or [wait for it] the support of pointy-headed liberals behind it.
This doesn’t make me okay with the old, dear friend that I recently lost to COVID at age 58, who chose not to get vaccinated.
Neither does it make me okay with my brother and SIL who won’t get vaccinated.
But it may make it easier to temper my tendency toward anger with something more like compassion.
We need to organize a reckoning for those who have made disinformation their livelihood. That gambit has to have a negative expected value.
How can we make this happen?
Here’s a start: the main spreaders of disinformation are having their outlets for spreading disinformation curtailed.
That will affect their future bottom line for this particular con. That is not quite what I am looking for.
What they are to stupid to realize is that they are the ongoing cause of of all this uncertainty. Yes, society at large took a few body blows in the spring, summer, and fall of 2020 that required shutdowns. That time has passed. Modern science has given us vaccines that are largely safe and effective. If they followed the advice of the experts, this shit would end quickly. Count me in with those who have run out patience with those who don’t realize that.
In response to a pandemic that has killed over 600,000 americans, some Red states have stopped regular reporting of COVID statistics.
Hmm. Perhaps a consequence of no federal aid or out of state medical support for states that don’t report stats?
That’s reasonable. We have a few relatives that we know haven’t vaccinated and have an aversion to masks and we haven’t allowed them in our house. Our child can’t be vaccinated yet so we’re taking no chances with her. (Our kid is 7, not a baby, but the principle applies.)
My sister’s sister in law has decided she will not be vaccinated, because there’s microchips in it or the media is paid off or something. All the information about how it makes you less likely to die? Media’s paid off.
Her mother, my sister’s mother in law, is immunocompromised and lives with my sister. CSIL (Crazy Sister In Law) has decided that if that means she can never again see or mother in law, or her brother, or her two nieces, well fine, because Bill Gates microchips. Apparently her husband’s family is also horrifed, and she’s saying well I guess I won’t visit you either. (Her husband is vaccinated.) So her buying into vaccine conspiracy idiocy might well end her marriage and is crushing her relationships with all her relatives.
…yeah, but microchips…
We could raise the vaccination rate considerably if microchips were handed out with every shot.