Pretty sure you’re on to something with people being online far too much. The whole echo chamber of consuming social media and other info that reinforces people’s existing ideas and beliefs and drives them to extreme view points seem to be so much worse during the pandemic.
For sure the whole “return to normal” idea is a right wing talking point, but it is not only coming from the right. There are moderates and liberals that are talking and acting in the same way, although from very different angles than the whole “muh FreeDumb” and “don’t muzzle me” rhetoric that comes from the right.
While only one political party here in the United States are the beneficiaries of the current propaganda warfare being conducted on us, I try to be really careful to remember that it is
every side of everything that is being used to attack us. AI and data collection make it so easy to pinpoint the right combination of things to spam a person.
It is scary to think about how much further along they are with the last 7 years of added data and fine tuning the programming from when this video was made.
So for people who won't fall for the current right wing talking points, they will be attacked with a narrative fit to them. Everything from talking about things like the Tuskegee experiments to anti-medical '
establishment' type arguments can be used.
We all want to get back to real life, but to make people become dangerous about it the right strings need to be found and plucked.
Lock downs, remote learning and anxiety about the pandemic have really taken a mental health toll on school age kids. The last two years have been exceedingly tough for my two kids and a lot of their friends. This has been discussed on here before.
My entire family is triple vaxxed at this point and have been fairly religious about masking since 2020. We had a recent bout of omicron that was mild, we believe because we were all triple vaxxed, but we don’t really know if we just got lucky there.
Im glad your family is healthy and being as safe as possible during this pandemic.
I really can't imagine being a kid the last couple years. This is why I am so worried about the impact a trolling attack on them can be right now. That is why I hope people realize that even if a online 'friend' seems completely benign, if you don't know them in real life, there is no reason to not assume that they are likely a troll. They could be simply interacting with you to get more information for a future brainwashing attack. One thing I try to get my family sick of hearing, is that figure at least half of everyone they 'talk' with online (that they don't know from real life (and that can confirm details of online conversations with when talking in person)) are trolls attacking them.
And now with distance learning and the isolation we are all feeling, it is just that much more dangerous, especially when you think about the ability to chat and find kids who are on the edge of madness, and how easy it would be to manipulate them into hurting themselves or others, which would be able to be used to further scare the rest of society. It is a vicious feedback loop.
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That said, masks are about to become optional for our school district again and my wife and I are not going to make out kids continue to wear them at school once this happens. I’m definitely not a right wing person, but am willing to take risks like this regarding the pandemic at this point.
My parents and my wife’s parents are all very liberal, elderly and have some health concerns. They are all pretty much acting normally again, albeit with masks most of the time.
I don't have kids, but do understand. Kids are stuck in a building with hundreds of others for several hours at a time, it is going to be next to impossible for them to avoid breathing in each others air mask or no.
I worry more for the teachers/staff who might have people at home who can't get vaccinated/elderly living with them.
But do think that people are extremely rude when they are in places like stores (that others HAVE to be at, not recreational places) that go mask-less even though it is asked that they wear one to protect others (who again might not be able to get vaccinated/or are not healthy).
This return to normal is where the US in general is going at this point and not just because the right wing has pushed it so hard. I know this is causing alot of angst especially with respect to additional variants, long COVID rates and the fact that COVID deaths are still alarmingly high.
I think the word 'normal' is kind of a stretch. We have been living with the flu and end up with about 30,000-60,000 people dying of it yearly here in the states.
We need to learn how to do things differently as a species, because this is not going to be the last pandemic, and really it has been only in the last century that we have had electricity the way we do now that brings so many people inside small spaces to do things like watch movies and eat with strangers (restaurants, sorry I sometimes have a hard time figuring out how to word things to not sound weird) and travel for many miles spreading everything at lighting quick speeds.
I don’t have good answers for people that are alarmed by those facts and am not trying to argue with people that have such concerns. Those concerns are valid, but the reality is that as a society we are moving on a bit here in February of 2022.
This is why I try to make sure that I don't attack the person for the decisions that they make. I just try to stick to the blocking and tackling of trying to help them see why they may be feeling what it is that they are, and stick to attacking the propaganda that is designed to keep them scared and acting unsafe by not getting vaccinated.
The mistrust, fear mongering, and anger is almost all manufactured. Outside of occasionally rising to propagandists like Rand Paul attacking him and the people who have dedicated their lives to keeping us as healthy as possible for their entire lives, you don't see doctors like Fauci attacking people for not getting vaccinated.
www.scientificamerican.com
www.cnn.com
