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.
I live in a relatively wealthy town and most people here had a pretty safe series of lockdowns (bit hair-raising for me as a freelancer but ehh). We are collectively massively pro-vaccine; I know only two people who loudly resisted (and one of them nearly died in hospital from COVID).
But I can tell you that our collective sense of (unusually strong) community has taken six years since the first lockdown (four and a half years since the end of mask restrictions) to truly return to what it was before.
So even in this quite cushioned place I think we didn't really return to a sense of proper ordinary community positivity for quite a long time (it helps that we had a pretty great summer). Last summer things still felt very disjointed.
Kids, young adults, I can assure you, resent what happened and how poorly we managed it.
In other towns where community was weak, a lot of damage has been done, and you can see that in how little collective spirit there is in dealing with new challenges. Even around where I live, things like reduced footfall and contribution shortages in community services have been used as a pretext to cut them entirely. We have done damage to young people by simply deleting community things we benefited from that they no longer will.
Kids here don't resent covid happened. If they resent it at your place, it is on adults. But of course it is not exactly the same as before, people adapted and carried some adaptation with them. I work a lot from home and I am not giving it up unless I really have to for example.
For years now, kids go to school as before, they go to do sports as before and those whose parents dont allow unlimited gaming meet each other in person.
> In other towns where community was weak, [...] things like reduced footfall and contribution shortages in community services have been used as a pretext to cut them entirely
That has nothing to do with covid or covid handling. This is about your community not wanting to pay community services regardless of covid.
> If they resent it at your place, it is on adults.
Isn’t that exactly what I said? I mean, who else would it be on?
> That has nothing to do with covid or covid handling. This is about your community not wanting to pay community services regardless of covid.
No, it’s the result of cynical regional government exploiting how long communities took to bounce back from a series of mismanaged lockdowns to claw back some money. But that is not the point. The point is it is another reason young people resent how adults handled COVID and direct consequences. These systems needed time to recover footfall. Instead adults fucked it up gor kids.
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 ↗
dofm · · focus · HN ↗
But I can tell you that our collective sense of (unusually strong) community has taken six years since the first lockdown (four and a half years since the end of mask restrictions) to truly return to what it was before.
So even in this quite cushioned place I think we didn't really return to a sense of proper ordinary community positivity for quite a long time (it helps that we had a pretty great summer). Last summer things still felt very disjointed.
Kids, young adults, I can assure you, resent what happened and how poorly we managed it.
In other towns where community was weak, a lot of damage has been done, and you can see that in how little collective spirit there is in dealing with new challenges. Even around where I live, things like reduced footfall and contribution shortages in community services have been used as a pretext to cut them entirely. We have done damage to young people by simply deleting community things we benefited from that they no longer will.
watwut · · focus · HN ↗
For years now, kids go to school as before, they go to do sports as before and those whose parents dont allow unlimited gaming meet each other in person.
> In other towns where community was weak, [...] things like reduced footfall and contribution shortages in community services have been used as a pretext to cut them entirely
That has nothing to do with covid or covid handling. This is about your community not wanting to pay community services regardless of covid.
dofm · · focus · HN ↗
Isn’t that exactly what I said? I mean, who else would it be on?
> That has nothing to do with covid or covid handling. This is about your community not wanting to pay community services regardless of covid.
No, it’s the result of cynical regional government exploiting how long communities took to bounce back from a series of mismanaged lockdowns to claw back some money. But that is not the point. The point is it is another reason young people resent how adults handled COVID and direct consequences. These systems needed time to recover footfall. Instead adults fucked it up gor kids.