Shadowstalker16: I see it all the time. The ideas don't necessarily change but the practice of those ideas have, because of covid and people being stuck inside. One of the most worrying I've noticed here is the (further) rise of ''e-learning'' where kids have lectures on their laptops/ phones/ tablets. Earlier, grade-demanding parents would just fuss over their kids and send them to a tutoring class in addition to school. Now they believe all the BS from the companies making these apps and force their kids to ''study'' even at home, because they believe everything they need is in this app on their phone. The industry has grown a lot since lockdown and is now the new normal in the filed of pushing kids to study. Ie the mindset hasn't changed but the methods have.
With some deregulation, there is hope there, though. The public education system certainly was no better, and the corporations indirectly controlled them anyway. E-learning provides an avenue for more intependent teachers and much better competition. It certainly threatens the horrors that come from the teachers unions.
While responsibility dodging is probably just as big an issue in the corporate world as outside it, I think that most of it is purely financially motivated. And there, I'd think that there is an analysis of probable consequences and then an attempt to pull enough strings so that you and your own company don't have to bear the financial burden. What I'm complaining about is people acting without thinking at all, or not thinking of the probable consequences.
Not unrelated. With corporations, due to the stock market, it becomes a moral obligation to shirk responsibility, and a legal one, oddly enough. Corporations have those extra warped incentives.
In re. the stock market, I assume you're referring to companies getting bailed out and not facing the consequences of their actions?
Not just bailed out, but feeding the system in such a way that things that potentially hurt corporations never become laws in the first place. I've seen so much obvious bullshit from our government during this pandemic that it's obvious that, democrat or republican, what they both managed to agree on was protecting the corporations. I don't know about outside the US, but i imagine it was pretty much the same.
To me, it all comes down to the human condition. Covering the nose is something people reflexively do when in the presence of bad(ie potentially infection causing) odors and wearing a mask isn't too detached from that. I'm not sure whether its been agreed upon whether covid can spread by air or not but I am sure that its accepted that it can enter through the nose or mouth; in which case wearing a mask is obvious protection.
The reason why the mask cannot adequately protect you, but protects others from you, is your eyes. Your moist eyes are like magnets for airborne particles, and your eyes drain into your sinuses (which is one of the lesser known areas where the infection can exist) and from your sinuses to your lungs. My girlfriend's covid case started in her sinuses, indicating the infection vector was most likely her eyes or nose. Because of this (and the concentration of the virus at her workplace, which is one of those things no one discusses or considers), she almost died, despite being less than 30.
But even if wearing a mask is too bothersome, why go outside and attend meetings and visit hospitals without wearing one? IMO that crosses the line of individual freedom and into harming others. eg you can like and listen to whatever music you want but you can't go out in public playing it on speaker and expect others to like it. Everyone is entitled to a vector free public area.
This is the thing i've had trouble explaining to others. For the most part, though, it does become a property rights thing, especially for facilities like stores, gyms, etc, and this is precisely where masking is most important. And, well, businesses have very conflicting incentives, so enforcing their own policies was a problem. Some areas were much better than others in this regard, though. To be honest, from what i've seen, the problem was more often the exceptions to masks, travel, etc that actually resulted in the most infections, not people failing to mask, although such behavior is indeed contemptable. Within nursing homes there were delayed policy implementations and the CDC's misinformation about COVID was not helpful at all. I'm sure the situations in prisons were similar. Simple things like a simple plastic barrier to separate quarantine zones from non quarantine zones was often delayed by what seemed to be intentionally. Staff who were known to be sick and contagious were obligated to return to work, based on CDC recommendations (i'm waiting to see the mainstream finally report that you're infectious for at least a month after recovery, but i won't hold my breath on that one). Oh, and the masking requirements for healthcare professionals always came down, and down, and down, even beyond what the CDC was suggesting, thanks to certain states wanting to protect their corporate investments.
And the worst thing is an obbious human motivation issue: a person with covid is more likely to find the mask uncomfortable than a person without covid. Ever wear a mask when you have the flu? I have. The idea tha people were going to obey this... And the wonderful idea of allowing facilities that were traditionally 24hr facilities to take advantage of this which only further concentraits people to specific hours to shop? Places like Walmart have been waiting for a while for an excuse to close at nights again without upsetting customers.
I don't think its nihilism as much as blind pursuit of pleasure / whatever is it you want. And its not exclusive to the west either. Thoughtless pursuit of pleasure knows no single country.
That's why i said hedonistic existential nihilism. It's a specific brand of nihilism, or hedonism, but it's the inevitable pairing of the two that is the problem. The blind persuit of pleasure inevitably requires that one find some sort of justification, which in turn is often existential nihilism, because what you're doing can't be wrong if it has no effect in the big picture. I see it all the time, especially in dating where "what s/he doesn't know won't hurt him/her." And, of course, what happens if you have that mentality and for reasons you also realize that your pleasure seeking is vanity? Depression, and, hey, look, it's been on the rise for a long, long time, and suicides and such (and consequently mass murder, because there's usually a suicide component to them) have been on the rise.
I didn't completely understand the last part. You were asked to work(at the packing facility) despite having a transmissible illness?
Yes, colloquially known as "stomache flu." For the most part it's harmless, but it will kill older people or people with inadequate hydration in 3rd world countries. It always haunted me that i did that, because my desire to keep my job and do as i'm told could've gotten some old jewish man or woman killed, maybe even some holocaust survivor (i worked at a kosher chicken factory, so i knew the people i was infecting were most likely jews). Of course, the SARS-CoV-2 things happens, and, well, how do you think that was handled? As i said, i know they ship at least to Israel (because when J-Post called a few times they asked me where i worked and told me they actually had that product there), and i heard Israel was trying really hard to contain it and figure out where their infections came from. Given it can survive on surfaces for a month, my guess is, given the chicken is usually packed wet, that it could survive even longer and made it's trip to Israel and anywhere else they ship to. I left that place back in 2012, but i heard some things out of the place when COVID hit. As expected, it took them a little after the first case to shut the plant down and, of course, there was a holiday comming up.
GamezRanker: (as to the rest, I agree people should be taught to treat others and the world better....etc etc)
To me, it comes down to hope. As long as you can exist there is a hope, however small, that you can upgrade yourself to having a living. If you don't exist, there is no possibility at all.
Well, that much is logically true.
