Comment by ToucanLoucan | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ToucanLoucan | Hacker News Reader

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The politicians (and more directly, their corporate sponsors) stoked that opinion. It didn't come from nowhere. From day 1 of the pandemic the reactionary media ecosystem would not shut the fuck up for even a MOMENT about the unnecessary "draconian" "authoritarian" lockdowns and how bad they were. Why? Because said corporate masters were losing shitloads of money because it was dangerous for customers to go shopping, and it was even more dangerous for people to go to work. But we can't possibly pump the brakes on the economy, even for a moment! Lines have to go up, no matter how many millions of lives it costed.

Yes, the people demanded it, but that demand itself was a created thing. Sure we would've had our vaccine deniers and other assorted cranks, we always have and will, but we had an entire sector of the mass media pouring gasoline on that fire as fast as they fucking could to manage exactly what fucking happened.

And like, even if you want to say the above is tinfoil hat shit: Okay, then the Governments job in this situation would be to defer to experts and figure out public policies that would keep people safe. Which we did, kind of, for awhile. But like if public opinion is screeching so loud for lockdowns to end, the government should fucking say NO. That's their JOB.

Again, “People I disagree with have no agency” is a really unfortunate cognitive failure mode.

Agency occurs in individuals who operate within systems and Americans are some of the most propagandized people on the face of the Earth, and some of the worst educated in the global north. Average reading level is 6th grade. Critical thinking is in the shitter. "I did my own research" is specifically a cultural meme describing how piss poor Americans and many other overseas in the same global north are at both obtaining rigorous sourced information and using it to make decisions. COVID was a demonstration of all of these issues brought to a scale where it became impossible to ignore.

I blame systems more than people because systems should know better, and they largely did, but their ability to act has been hamstrung by one of our political parties holding the line on the notion that "Freedom" means ignorant dipshits with ignorant dipshit opinions should get to weigh in with equal credibility to people who actually understand things, which is a large part of why our government can no longer function apart from passing more fucking tax breaks for people who don't need them while our infrastructure rots and the wife of the owner of WWE dismantles the department of education.

The main reason I don't buy "agency" here is because ultimately the agency of covidiots shouldn't have been a factor either way. We have law enforcement supposedly, I'm told, to ensure the safety of the public. So do it then. Nations the world over that would be characterized as "free" managed to restrict the flow of people and goods in such a way to ensure safety much, much better than we did. Saying "well the people wanted lockdown to end" is fucking pathetic excuse-making on the part of the powerful. Of course people wanted lockdowns to end, they fucking sucked. I too missed restaurants. I too missed shopping. I too missed haircuts. But if it wasn't time yet it wasn't time, and when it was time should've been determined by people in the health sciences who study pandemics, not dipshits from flyover states.

I'm genuinely sorry that a huge chunk of our populace that lives in places with poor economic opportunities and low social mobility get their fee fees hurt when people who study shit for a living say "you're wrong about this" but that's simply a lower-tier issue than the broad strokes health of the country. If the mere notion that someone else who you may not respect knows more than you and is therefore being asked before you sends you into a mental health spiral, may I suggest therapy?

The sanctimonious arrogance from the left is a thrill to read about.

From a simple thing, the downside of covid lockdowns are not about missing your favorite restaurants or a "haircut" or some other casual hobby. It was the difference between working and getting money to feed your kids and not doing that. Because believe it or not, some people have to go do real work everyday.

You, as a member of the laptop class, simply have no idea what that is about. Saying people should be locked down, even when we have vaccines/treatments for something comparable to the flu is embarrassing.

GP didn't say that, though.

Agency isn't some magical axiomatic property where if you exercise it you're the sole contributing factor to your actions. Exercising agency, like making any other choice, is a decision whose inputs include your circumstances, history, etc.

Consider someone who quit smoking cigarettes in the 1950s. That was a time when cigarette smoking was common and not widely considered unhealthy. That person exercised agency. Now consider someone who quit in the 2020s, when cigarette smoking is widely warned against. That person exercised agency, too. More people quit smoking in the 2020s than the 1950s, by any measure. Does that mean people had less agency in the 1950s? No, it means the inputs to their decision-making on how to exercise their agency were different.

Sorry, nobody serious actually thinks the lockdowns were too short. Only the laptop class who were insulated from the economic effects. Once the vaccines were available there was no rational purpose for any lockdown. Even authoritarian China had to relent once it was proven they simply don't work.

People who post lot on hacker news during the work day aren't "working class", nor do their politics align with a low/middle income worker, at all. This is like the DSA claiming they are fighting for the "working class". It's laughable.

What fantasy world is this in which a government is able to keep every human locked in their house for 5 years? What are you smoking lol.

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