I think a lot of it came from the impact of social media algorithms driving people into increasingly polarised groups such that to prove you weren’t in ‘their’ group you had to fervently believe the exact opposite of everything ‘they’ believed.
Politicians, being politicians, jumped on that and pinned their flags to one group or the other. Meanwhile, health institutions and scientists, not, as you say, magically immune from the influences the rest of us are under, did the same.
But my point is really that they all still just did their job under those circumstances. Not as saints, not as evil masterminds, but as biased, ideologically-blinded, rash, stressed-out, fucked-up, and disillusioned ordinary people. Just like the rest of us.
And some of the ideas coming out of that are going to be fine, some are going to be harmless but annoying, and a few are going to be properly crap. That’s how the world is.
What’s crazy is seeing everything as black and white.
I think a lot of it came from the impact of social media algorithms driving people into increasingly polarised groups such that to prove you weren’t in ‘their’ group you had to fervently believe the exact opposite of everything ‘they’ believed.
Politicians, being politicians, jumped on that and pinned their flags to one group or the other. Meanwhile, health institutions and scientists, not, as you say, magically immune from the influences the rest of us are under, did the same.
But my point is really that they all still just did their job under those circumstances. Not as saints, not as evil masterminds, but as biased, ideologically-blinded, rash, stressed-out, fucked-up, and disillusioned ordinary people. Just like the rest of us.
And some of the ideas coming out of that are going to be fine, some are going to be harmless but annoying, and a few are going to be properly crap. That’s how the world is.
What’s crazy is seeing everything as black and white.