Article in the Spectator about the cowardice of quarantines
The base cowardice of our predicament is this: a life lost now to coronavirus is treated as more important than one lost indirectly due to our response
spectator.us
https://archive.vn/rjJ8i
I'm honestly slightly fascinated by each country's reaction to this. And specially the rhetoric of the lockdown. In fact, I'm starting to think what's driving people's cooperation the most is simple rhetoric and the small things that really shouldn't matter too much.
Like, down here in spain lockdown got real hard (british and american lockdowns are more poached if anything) but it didn't feel like it was that much worse than elsewhere, and that's probably because the cops weren't checking what you bought, only how much you were out. The narrative stayed consistent: cops are your friend. They are out there to protect the healthcare system. If people get that they cooperate. That and the cops also helped raise morale a lot with comedy and songs and shit despite how seriouly hard it got for them. Like seriously had you told me before this that I would come to respect spanish policemen I would've laughed but right now they're god damned heros to me. That aside on the politicians side too, our gov took longer than it needed to act and it overdid it, but at least they made it obvious this is an emergency situation, it's a state of alarm, it WILL go back to normal, only question is at what pace. That, again, certainly helped people understand shit. And ISCIII has done everything in their job to help people understand this in context perfectly with Fernando Simon seriously doing so much more than people would ever expect of a mere human. That man is a legend incarnate. People generally cooperate when they have information. It keeps the citizenry focused on the problem at hand.
Meanwhile sweeden claims to be listening to the scientists but their percapita far exceeds where their density and climate should've landed them, they got a ton more deaths than they should yet it's like rhetoric alone got people giving 0 fucking shits. It's like all the gov has served them is rhetoric and egostroking and god they larped it up.
In britain meanwhile your lockdown's not as severe, but with cops threatening people over twitter and literally looking on people's bags? How can people NOT get ultrapissy at that shit?! And meanwhile you got crazies talking about the "new normal" and telling you this will be forever and literally asking for more restrictive measures while the muslims are allowed to do whatever they fucking feel like. How the fuck did ANYONE EVER think THAT is a way to keep the populace calm?! It feels like I'm looking directly into a fucking esperpento made real. (Esperpento is a type of parody mixed with dark comedy, described as the literary equivalent of deforming mirrors from a circus.) It's like every libertarian estereotype of the government becomes real. Just what the fuck.
And then we get into the states and despite that lockdown being f*cking RAW. The country's setting itself on fire! And how could it not? The democrats are more focused on destroying the right to protest and sanding fucking skateboarding parks than actually doing anything necessary, the cops just said they were scared of corona and fucked off like french armymen, Cuomo literally asked for middle america to be left to die for his precious fucking cities and was overt of his hatred of rural areas, all the news care about is racial bullshit.
And again, worst part is, it's really the most unnecesary shit that triggers this shit. Checking if people are buying beer is completely unnecessary, sanding skateparks is bullshit, the changes than most impact this, are the ones that actually restrict people's movement the least. There literally is no point to this shit. All they needed to do is keep people well informed and stay friendly. And they could do so much more restrictions that way, because human beings in the end listen to reason. But instead it looks like some politicians are more preocupied with making the puritans of the 90s look fucking sane in comparison!
Dude, I'm going to be a jerk and say it: it's "aproBados", not "aprovados". How the hell did you pass Selectividad/PAU?
You know worst part is I thought about it and convinced myself it was V. God damnit. Also, the answer as to how I passed selectividad is by stuying to the point where I still got a trauma over it, drugging myself to stay awake then drugging myself more to stay relaxed, and having good luck in the philosophy and literature tests (Nietzche, fuck yes, I was so scared about that one. I got so fucking lucky I'm a ww2 nerd. Him and Ortega were the 2 I knew best. I would've been so boned with fucking descartes or socrates.)
www.theguardian.com
