I’ve had a pet theory for a long time that society loses it’s collective mind every 10ish years or so, usually starting with a good reason, but the outcome is mass stupidity followed by mass forgetting leading to a new cycle. War on terror, GFC, crypto, covid, now AI. Although the cycle does seem to be shortening.
Also we’re just so damn stupid to learn from history, or even just people 10 years older than us, that we repeat the cycle.
And there I guess is where saying a new sucker is born every minute is from.
I have a more sympathetic view, I thought covid could have been much worse. Of course there were silly moments like the existential panic from a toilerpaper shortage but it seems like the vast majority of people acted responsibly and kept their heads over the long haul. In the meantime, we developed revolutionary vaccines that solved the problem.
There's the lingering societal PTSD to consider, but I think most of the challenge in the aftermath are latent issues that preexisted covid and it just brought them to the surface. I think our world a couple decades from now will be stronger than it would have been in a universe where covid never happened, and actually has a better chance at dealing with the next covid-level threat. Perhaps that is this, in a way.
Covid proved that a healthy looking society is not always so healthy, and I think it works in reverse too. The outcome of the upcoming election will tell us something about how far we have to go.
This might be Australia specific, but I think a lot of the movement restrictions were unnecessary. And long term damaging to not just adults but there’s a whole cohort of kids/teenagers who just missed out on certain things and we’re patting ourselves on the back we survived?
The places that needed restrictions such as hospitals & nursing homes still got covid by & large. We didn’t necessarily need to close down the whole show.
I’ve had my jabs, also had covid multiple times. I’m not a disbeliever, I just think the collective reaction was completely OTT.
Kids mostly forgot and adapted back. It is adult, mostly men, who just cant get over fear of vaccines, injury of having to do something a little uncomfortable for someone else.
Trivialising this to fear of vaccines misses the point. The lack of human communication being the new normal, cut friendships and shattered communities are the real killer here. Especially for ones that didn’t have a lot of social life or family to begin with.
The lack of human connection has been a trend for many decades now, covid just accelerated it all at once. Not like there was much choice, lots of people died, we did what we had to.
The communities that did exist were always running on fumes, basically only existing due to inertia. When the inertia was cut, even if only for a couple weeks in some places, they were done. That’s it.
The social damage has been here, and we’ve been zombie-ing our way through it. Covid just let the undead stay dead, and turns out we can’t revive it.
grebc · · focus · HN ↗
Also we’re just so damn stupid to learn from history, or even just people 10 years older than us, that we repeat the cycle.
And there I guess is where saying a new sucker is born every minute is from.
doginasuit · · focus · HN ↗
There's the lingering societal PTSD to consider, but I think most of the challenge in the aftermath are latent issues that preexisted covid and it just brought them to the surface. I think our world a couple decades from now will be stronger than it would have been in a universe where covid never happened, and actually has a better chance at dealing with the next covid-level threat. Perhaps that is this, in a way.
Covid proved that a healthy looking society is not always so healthy, and I think it works in reverse too. The outcome of the upcoming election will tell us something about how far we have to go.
grebc · · focus · HN ↗
The places that needed restrictions such as hospitals & nursing homes still got covid by & large. We didn’t necessarily need to close down the whole show.
I’ve had my jabs, also had covid multiple times. I’m not a disbeliever, I just think the collective reaction was completely OTT.
watwut · · focus · HN ↗
fabioborellini · · focus · HN ↗
preg_match · · focus · HN ↗
The communities that did exist were always running on fumes, basically only existing due to inertia. When the inertia was cut, even if only for a couple weeks in some places, they were done. That’s it.
The social damage has been here, and we’ve been zombie-ing our way through it. Covid just let the undead stay dead, and turns out we can’t revive it.