• chris@lemmy.zip
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    8 days ago

    What strikes me about the covid epidemic was how obedient people were. It showed that it was possible to shut down whole societies on a global scale. It was a real crisis that provided an unexpected opportunity for mass propaganda. Political strategists surely took notice. It must have looked possible then to submit a whole population into fascism and that’s what we’re seeing now. Real power is with the people though. It lays dormant and it merely needs to be awakened by a timely spark.

    • AlexLost@lemm.ee
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      8 days ago

      What? The fact people are willing to protect themselves from a harmful disease is evidence we can be brainwashed? Brains got washed, but they are not the ones you think that got “cleaned”. You think it is strange that people followed guidelines put out by professionals in their fields as some form of brainwashing? That’s funny, and sad. It’s why we put those people in those positions, unlike now, where you have people going against experts and governing by “feelings”. This is such a fucking terrible timeline…

      • chris@lemmy.zip
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        8 days ago

        I wrote that it was a real crisis and I didn’t use the term “brainwash”. The fact that people complied to official guidelines is of course a good thing in the event of a pandemic. But there was also overshooting. Not everything made sense. And there was definitely a lack of critical thinking and an absence of open debate. But my point is that it was apparently possible to create a high degree of conformity from above, a useful insight when you’re trying to eradicate democracy and supplant it by fascism. How else would you explain the ease of what has been described as a coup for the past 5 months?

        • drhodl@lemmy.world
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          8 days ago

          A life threatening, highly contagious epidemic, is NOT the time for “open debate”! Sheesh, this wins today’s “Stupidest comment on the Internet” award.

          • chris@lemmy.zip
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            8 days ago

            A life threatening, highly contagious epidemic, is NOT the time for “open debate”!

            Of course it is, unless you advocate authoritarianism

            Sheesh, this wins today’s “Stupidest comment on the Internet” award.

            I didn’t realize it’s ok here to insult people

            • theluckyone@discuss.online
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              8 days ago

              My gf at the time spent a month in bed as a result of COVID. She was hallucinating about dead family members for a week in the middle. Fuck off with your “fat or had pre-existing conditions, most of which are fully controlled by diet or exercise.” She’s certainly not overweight and had no pre-existing conditons, nor was she elderly. Go fuck yourself until you have worn your fuck stick down to a nub and have no more fucks to give, you ignorant piece of shit of a person.

            • squaresinger@lemmy.world
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              8 days ago

              You just proved why “an open debate” and “critical thinking” among people who have no clue at all are pretty bad ideas during a pandemic.

            • drhodl@lemmy.world
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              8 days ago

              Early on, when the disease was just starting to spread, an absolutely critical time during a pandemic, nobody knew whether any of the crap you just spouted, was applicable. Just the people who gained their medical qualifications from Fox News, and thought they knew more than the actual experts, were excreting your kind of argument. NOBODY had been “exposed and recovered” at that time, fool. Conspiracy theorists have NO place in public health discourse. You, and your ignorant ilk, are the reason so many people died unnecessarily.

            • petrol_sniff_king@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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              8 days ago

              Oh my god, do we get to bully a covid denier in the year of our lord, 2025? That shit is old news, man. You’re like 4 years out of date.

              Getting the vaccine if you are able is your civic duty. Not to your country, but to your fellow people. Your grandmother. The fact that you’re scared of a needle I think just kinda makes you a coward. Where is your bravery? You’re not getting any more apple tarts if you let your grandma die.

    • Ferrous@lemmy.ml
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      8 days ago

      You must have not experienced covid in the United States. All I saw here was a hectic shitshow full of scores of people utterly rejecting any semblance of disease guidance - going so far as doing the opposite of whatever the institutions recommended. Then there were a few redeeming groups who decided to play ball - not out of obedience, but out of love and respect for vulnerable groups.

      • chris@lemmy.zip
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        8 days ago

        I am indeed from Europe, where streets were at times completely empty and at other times you had to walk in designated lanes. Mask mandates everywhere and unvaccinated people were ostracized.

        • squaresinger@lemmy.world
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          8 days ago

          If such a tiny thing like wearing a mask is too much to ask from you, your opinion is not worth shit in this debate.

          It means you can’t even accept minor inconveniences to save the lives of yourself or others.

          If you are so incredibly egotistic, and so incredibly short sighted that you can’t even do that, your opinion is obviously garbage and not worth listening to.