Are People Intelligent or Stupid in this Pandemic Situation
The people above are workers at the Mootown Creamery near Cleveland and this is some of the text that accompanied it on Facebook:
I've been trying not to say anything, but it is getting out of control. STOP!! Stop yelling at these young girls. Stop slamming doors. Stop swearing at them and making a scene. STOP!! These girls are wearing masks for your protection. They are required by the state to wear them, and they do so with a smile because they care about you and your safety.
The rest of the world is aware of this phenomenon in some places in America I am sure. The people taking the hostile attitude are not really libertarians or conservatives as much as they are Trumpists! This is the stupidity at times of the Trump base. Why on Earth would you possibly object to someone trying to make sure you do not get disease in the middle of a global pandemic? Why, because your leader doesn't wear a mask, wants to see his audiences at rallies not wearing masks. It is very macho!
The American people in general are not following this self destructive behavior. The unfortunate part of the Covid pandemic is that a very few people being unintelligent can endanger a great many others. A new study shows that 10% of people infected spread 80% of the infection to others. It is a super spreader disease. One asymptomatic young person can give it to person after person after person, all of whom feel invulnerable to it and one or more of those recipients, again the minority of the infected, will spread it to a large number, probably at a family gathering or at a bar or at church.
In a society led by a leader who does not like Science or facts because they interfere with his political propaganda - and also because, well, he never really understood that stuff in school anyway - we will ultimately face the facts of this virus that couldn't care less about politics. Science continually gathers information, continually gets a more accurate and complete picture. It doesn't try to answer every philosophical question, but a virus ravaging the countryside is not being philosophical. Ultimately, the virus is quite as solidly grounded in factuality as the empirical data of disaster it leaves behind.
So, in answer to the question of intelligence or stupidity in the pandemic situation, I feel many people in the world have been quite intelligent and their numbers show it. Unfortunately, it requires a solid chain of cooperative effort to accomplish this and that means a few rogue, stupid individuals scattered through a population of people mostly being intelligent makes the overall situation a failure, for the chain is not stronger than the weakest link.
For the first time, yesterday America recorded over 50,000 NEW cases of Covid-19 in a 24-hour period. According to Dr. Anthony Fauci, unless we change, we are headed to twice that rate. That to me is the empirical evidence of just enough stupidity to bring our society to its knees!
Silly man - using science when we all know it is fake news. Damn that Fauci anyway. Now about that Russian bounty - clearly we need to focus on somethong beside the damn Pandemic.
ReplyDeleteI know. Science is so 20th century.
DeleteOne might argue, for the sake of it and whether with conviction or not, to go with the flow. The flow of humankind and its limitations. In the olden days we were asked to build an ark but only take two by two of each species; we turned into a column of salt just by dint of looking back at Sodom and Gomorrah, and, some centuries later, lived with pestilence and its fallout.
ReplyDeleteWhy not just let ourselves burn out. Let mankind go to their self created future hell. After all, Konrad, who will miss us? Most certainly not the tree in the forest which doesn't care whether it makes a sound when it falls and WE can't hear it.
U
Indeed, a path of possibility in our time. But ... never underestimate our capacity for mediocre survival.
DeleteI hope that you do not mind me not commenting on your society. Mine is no better but, has not received the bad publicity that yours has. Here, things have been worse in many ways and there is a communal element as well which is politically incorrect to talk about. People everywhere are reacting to the pandemic in their own ways stupid, or otherwise.
ReplyDeleteI likewise do not speak of yours for the same reasons. We all have gardens and weeds of our own to tend.
Deleteyou and Shackman can be co-president in my estimation.
ReplyDeleteI feel like Olivia de Haviland in the old movie The Snake Pit.
a friend told me to try to look at all of it as a socialistic study.
to become detached.
I'm trying. I'll report back here later.
in the meantime... it so wonderful to have access to THINKING minds!
I would need to be VP, for he is larger and has more hair. But, until we are elected, thank you for the kind words!
DeleteThe U.S. has been dumbing down for quite awhile. The difference now is that we have a President who has emboldened the dumbed down to believe that they are brilliant and to speak loudly about their many insights, as well as to treat those with intelligence and scientific wisdom with complete and utter disrespect.
ReplyDeleteIt really has, painfully so, dumbed down. I do hope these are growing pains.
Delete