Is Anybody Out There?
Madness may be addictive but it’s never helpful
Lately I’ve been wondering if there’s any point documenting unconventional thoughts when there may be almost no-one left to read them with any measure of comprehension. I’ve been an outsider all my life but rarely have I felt it so keenly as over the last few months, and most especially now.
Until the middle of September my experience of our current pandemic of mindless hysteria was limited. Switzerland largely avoided being influenced by the absurd sensationalism that infected the rest of the world. Switzerland, along with the Netherlands, Sweden, Estonia, and Iceland, mostly avoided the media-driven abdication of reason that has shamed the human race around the world.
But for the last few weeks I’ve been in the UK, which succumbed without a fight to the same reason-free panic that is now the defining characteristic of our species. And it’s profoundly depressing.
While I can understand ordinary people believing the nonsense they are bombarded with and imagining that the relative non-threat of SARS-CoV2 is actually something we need to pay attention to, I find it impossible to understand the complete abdication of anything remotely approaching coherent thought.
It is, just, comprehensible that ordinary people never bother to acquaint themselves with readily available data that would show how absurd the global panic truly is. I can understand that almost nobody would think of searching out data and then being able to understand what it’s telling us. I can also understand that almost nobody has any concept of how scientific studies ought to be conducted, and how statistical analysis must be done in order to avoid misrepresenting outcomes. After all, who can be bothered to learn these things when it’s so much more important to keep up with the latest TV show and InstaSnap influencer?
I can understand ordinary people not making the connection between claims that facemasks and social distancing will “save lives” while simultaneously being told that despite all the facemasks we’re going to have to return to lockdown because the virus is spreading (so clearly facemasks don’t work).
After all, we humans never evolved the capacity for consistency-checking because…
