Pushing back on government BS is the only thing keeping the US a place where your taking prudent measures can actually make a difference. Just because you are happy sitting with your wife alone on Thanksgiving does not mean I should tolerate being denied seeing my grandmother by government decree.
And I am all for pushing back at Big Brother. This covid response has been a disaster. But I don't think what you have been doing here counts as pushing back against government, any more than I think the fine folks ineffectually starting fires in Portland are keeping me safe from Tyranny.
I'm sorry you can't visit your grandmother, but if she lives with my grandmother, then I agree with your oppressor, maybe you should pick up a phone.
But I get it, you have what you want, and trolling is fun.
Really, I don't think you do. This isn't trolling. This is me pointing out that you are using simple heuristics that exclude a big portion of the picture, by describing that picture.
This virus has done nothing to the economy; ineffective government attempts to control the virus have damaged the economy, but they have damaged civil society more. Some countries have eliminated the virus by using different measures, and now have economy and society back, or never lost them, but no one notices or cares.
Yeah. We have chosen the least effective, highest cost (in terms of dollars, and lives) path. I think you and I have agreed about that since April.
But we just had an election, and we have all had our entire say about what the government should do. Do you feel your advice will be heeded by our new guy/gal? Or do you think this can has been positioned nicely to be kicked down the road?
Myself, I have no confidence that the political process I saw this year is going to make anybody better off that doesn't have considerably more pull than I do. So, I stopped worrying about what the government is doing. Outside my circle of control, and looking at my voting record, clearly outside my circle of influence.
So, I did something strange. I just made sure I took the precautions that make sense to me, gave the best advice I could to friends and relatives, help where I can, and try to just stay out of the way.
But then, I live on 10 acres, on a blue rural wooded island, full of retirees. So I am sure I am in a bubble, as this is an odd combination, demographically speaking. As places to be in 2020 stand, this seems to be a good place to be. We hit zero cases for a while this summer, but nothing lasts in 2020.
My point in my previous post was that not everything is government policy. Individual choices matter now, as much or more than ever. This includes the choice to wait for a return of 2019.
At some point soon we will be back to work and those with vaccination immunity will be walking around asymptomatically spewing coronaviruses all over everyone.
Well, my friend, I think you and I are just reading different tea leaves.
As an introverted knowledge worker, covid has been a huge win for me. But I'm not ready to cast "I don't much like talking to people in person" into a virtue or some kind of thoughtful lifestyle design.
I would say that overcoming one's desire to "talk to other people in person" is where the virtue is. Respecting the other enough to not allow my own neediness to endanger them and their loved ones seems pretty basic to me.
This is what has surprised me about this community. I imagined it was mostly populated by stoic warriors brushing off whatever the world throws at them but it seems not to be the case.
Nobody is stoic all the time against everything. In particular when trying to be stoic against forces one has not anticipated. Few were prepared for the life alterations of social distancing.
I was trying to move the conversation from "we are on the worst path", to "we are on the worst path, it doesn't lead to a pass, what are we going to need when this path ends in a cliff face, and how do we get that stuff from here?".
We have a 170+ page Covid thread. It's locked. This one seemed to be following that one. So I thought I would try something different.