ari_ormstunga (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ari_ormstunga) wrote2022-02-25 07:04 am
ari_ormstunga) wrote2022-02-25 07:04 am
Another Day, Another Crisis
One thing that is sort of a relief is that, in an era of cascading crises, our broader society has also developed tunnel vision and an extremely short attention span. I used to lament this fact; in fact I recently had a conversation with a member of Gen Z who said she could no longer focus on a seven minute Youtube video because it was too long; she only watches TikTok videos on her phone. I'm surprised she had the attention span to focus on our two minute conversation long enough to complete it. I'd like to think she was kidding, but I'm not really sure.
A benefit of this is that, with the Ukraine invasion and it's assorted hoopla, COVID has at last taken a backseat to one of the other bubbling crises of our time. Since it has always been a hyped up, overblown event in terms of the actual disease and its severity, I'm personally happy to see it begin to recede into the past.
Oh, I have vague feelings of disquiet about how crappy and authoritarian many of the political class turned out to be, and vague feelings of contempt at how cowardly and yellow-bellied many of my countrymen proved to be in the face of this manufactured crisis. I also suspect that the side effects of the great medical experiment of the 2020's aren't going anywhere; in fact I think that as the distraction Russia's aggression presents dominates the headlines, the side effects will be quietly acknowledged in the media, although they will still downplay them as much as possible for as long as possible. Creating a population with tunnel vision and short attention spans has it's advantages for the top of the social hierarchy, no doubt.
America still faces grave challenges, and I have no illusions about it; I will still be caught up in the tides of change and slow collapse. There will be no escaping it, for any of us. But I seem to have dodged the forced inoculations our hapless, dying elite class were planning on pushing, and that's victory enough for now.
I had a few reasons for writing extensively about the virus panic, both magical and mundane. When I started this blog, it wasn't really meant to be a series of musings about current events, but the Coronapanic was so all-encompassing and unavoidable that it was probably inevitable that I spent a fair amount of time writing about it.
I guess this is my long and roundabout way of announcing to anyone who may happen to read this that, provided the mandates are indeed dead, I'm not really planning on writing about the pandemic very much any more, at least publicly. Since I don't have any kind of truly informed opinion about foreign policy, I'm also keeping my half formed, peasant opinions about the Ukraine and foreign affairs private as well. I'm going to start writing about the things I am passionate about as opposed to the things I hate; politics is an interest of mine but certainly not a passion.
I thought about making private or deleting the bulk of my posts; this was my first attempt at writing anything for public consumption and some of my prior posts are pretty raw. After some reflection, I've decided to let them exist, "warts and all", as they say.
I reserve the right to change my mind about any of this, of course.
A benefit of this is that, with the Ukraine invasion and it's assorted hoopla, COVID has at last taken a backseat to one of the other bubbling crises of our time. Since it has always been a hyped up, overblown event in terms of the actual disease and its severity, I'm personally happy to see it begin to recede into the past.
Oh, I have vague feelings of disquiet about how crappy and authoritarian many of the political class turned out to be, and vague feelings of contempt at how cowardly and yellow-bellied many of my countrymen proved to be in the face of this manufactured crisis. I also suspect that the side effects of the great medical experiment of the 2020's aren't going anywhere; in fact I think that as the distraction Russia's aggression presents dominates the headlines, the side effects will be quietly acknowledged in the media, although they will still downplay them as much as possible for as long as possible. Creating a population with tunnel vision and short attention spans has it's advantages for the top of the social hierarchy, no doubt.
America still faces grave challenges, and I have no illusions about it; I will still be caught up in the tides of change and slow collapse. There will be no escaping it, for any of us. But I seem to have dodged the forced inoculations our hapless, dying elite class were planning on pushing, and that's victory enough for now.
I had a few reasons for writing extensively about the virus panic, both magical and mundane. When I started this blog, it wasn't really meant to be a series of musings about current events, but the Coronapanic was so all-encompassing and unavoidable that it was probably inevitable that I spent a fair amount of time writing about it.
I guess this is my long and roundabout way of announcing to anyone who may happen to read this that, provided the mandates are indeed dead, I'm not really planning on writing about the pandemic very much any more, at least publicly. Since I don't have any kind of truly informed opinion about foreign policy, I'm also keeping my half formed, peasant opinions about the Ukraine and foreign affairs private as well. I'm going to start writing about the things I am passionate about as opposed to the things I hate; politics is an interest of mine but certainly not a passion.
I thought about making private or deleting the bulk of my posts; this was my first attempt at writing anything for public consumption and some of my prior posts are pretty raw. After some reflection, I've decided to let them exist, "warts and all", as they say.
I reserve the right to change my mind about any of this, of course.