Social media has only emboldened the feeble minded.
Able to find cohorts who agree with them, people expound on
vaccine efficacy on Facebook with the epidemiological pedigree of a 6th
grader only with far more conviction. Some, who have been twice vaccinated,
walk in empty fields and when questioned about mask wearing tell you about how
COVID can spread through the air. I recently met such a couple and did my best
to avoid a deep sigh or an eye roll.
If this pandemic has reinforced anything in me it is that critical
thinking is not a strong suit among a large swath of the population and finding
kindred spirits who share your opinion has been a boon to those who seek
reinforcing of their own ideas, no matter how mistaken. I don’t think it is
entirely their fault as right-wing echo chambers (I think of Fox News in the
States) trumpet conspiracy theories daily to attract eyeballs. Advertisers are the
gleeful recipients of viewer attention, and the network makes money. No one loses
except we are just one more step in our downward spiral towards a further
dumbing down of society.
I have said enough about Trumpists here over the years and,
by now, we are all fatigued by them. So, I watch Chris Hedges videos about the
imminent and inevitable fall of the American empire but not with any sense of joy. I
simply feel how much of this could have been avoided had we not done so much of
the groundwork towards our own downfall.
As climate change wreaks havoc on places which have no business
experiencing floods or drought, I ask myself if it is avoidable that humans
compound their own problems with what appears to be inherently gifted idiocy.
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