If we had a serious pandemic where dudes were dropping like flys on the street and they had horse drawn carrages stacked with bodies, I don't think many people would have an issue dealing with it. The problem with covid is our response to it was way out of line with the actual illness. People kinda have a problem being asked to make huge sacrifies for something they don't perceive to be a major problem.
That said, I think massive numbers of people (likely the majority still, although the tides seem to be shifting extremely quickly lately) would strongly disagree with us on the degree to which covid is a "major" problem. I am very worried that the inability for people to even mutually agree upon a way of discussing (let alone agreeing on anything) culture war topics, and our inability to take such phenomena seriously, is going to be a gift that keeps on giving for decades into the future (just in time for the climate change culture war).
For example, how many people know the:
- Case fatality rate of COVID-19 (in the U.S, it's 1.6%) - Infection fatality rate of COVID-19 (can only be estimated, but probably around 0.1-0.3%) - Hospitalization utilization (not just now, but also before COVID-19 so one can compare to prior flu seasons and such. Personally I have not found this data) - Demographics of those who died with COVID-19 (in the UK the median age of death is 84, above the life expectancy of 82. Most deaths are old people and/or those with co-morbidities)
Most people drastically overestimate the danger (eg. by at least 5x according to one survey) because they're bombarbed with news and government fear-mongering, forced to take vaccines and be subject to draconian restrictions, then told to shut up and "trust the experts" while being kept in the dark on the data. Even Big Tech was censoring those who questioned the mainstream narrative (eg. Chris Martenson briefly being banned on Youtube)
In any civilized democracy, the citizenry should be educated so they can make the most informed decisions. There obviously seems to be no interest in educating the people except when it serves the narratives of the elite - which right now is basically "get your shot" and do whatever it takes to reduce COVID-19 numbers regardless of any collateral damage (eg. businesses going bankrupt, people losing work/income, hospitals reducing capacity for other kinds of care, schools shutting down, mental health crisis, restriction of freedoms like movement, general fear).
> What's most shocking to me is how little interest there seems to be in educating the population.
I think it's even stranger than it seems at first glance. There is no shortage of people calling for "moar critical thinking", as in "why don't those whose job it is to teach critical thinking do a better job"....but have you ever seen the conversation go beyond that?
To me, it is clear as day that overall humanity has a very serious problem with "critical thinking", and when I say that I'm casting an extremely wide net, one that would capture not just Trump supporters, conspiracy theorists, and over-enthusiastic progressives, but also 90% of the HN userbase (an arbitrary line can be drawn anywhere according to the drawers wishes, but it is not difficult at all to draw a line that captures ~everyone, according to an explicit standard/methodology). I truly believe that things are in a far worse state than anyone realizes, and my reasoning for that is that each individual overlooks one crucial detail: critical thinking is implemented by the human mind, and the human mind is an illusion machine....and, due to millions of years of evolution, it is so good at conjuring illusions (such as each of our respective entire conceptualizations of reality) that we are unable to realize when what we're seeing is an illusion....or worse: the possibility never even crosses our mind. And, if it does, we will ask our mind "Is this an illusion?", and the answer will come: "No, it is not, this is reality", which will be enthusiastically accepted as fact. And that I propose is "how it works", and how nobody realizes what is going on. (There's more strange stuff over and above that, like if you mention this particular idea to anyone, the majority of the time they will get ~angry and insist on changing the conversation, or, engage in non-logical rhetoric, character attacks, scolding, etc etc etc - but this is the essence of the problem imho.)
That will be the fun one for sure. What I do know is the knuckleheads running the show right now up and down the west coast are the last people I’d trust to handle that correctly.
