Yesterday’s piece led to a lot of reactions and comments, mostly from people who’ve observed the same things… and yet, there continue to be people stuck on the “it’s a hoax” or “it’s totally overblown” thing…

Two things that appeared elsewhere in the news yesterday… one guy’s Facebook postings, starting in April… a whole progression of Pro-Trump/anti-mask… it’s hype, it’s a hoax, it’s all BS, I have some symptoms, I’m getting tested, I have it COVID, I feel awful, this sucks, etc. Poor guy died two days after testing positive.

The other one was the person who died after going to a COVID party… his last words, to his nurse, were… “ I think I made a mistake, I thought this was a hoax, but it’s not”. Yup… well, at least he immortalized his last words… though probably not the ones he’d have wanted to go out on… and correct on both counts. He made a mistake, and it’s not a hoax.

There is a big difference between ignorance and stupidity, but self-imposed brainwashed ignorance falls into stupidity. Especially when otherwise intelligent people are drinking this Kool-Aid and falling for this nonsense.

I had thought we were done with exponential curves. The ones you see below have all flattened out… but that’s because I’m not charting things like Florida. They are setting records every day, and not the sort one would be proud of it. I think it’s beyond stupid, to be honest. So easily preventable if one just takes a step back and looks at the big picture. Agh. Frustrating.

On the flip-side, that’s just my opinion and I know not everyone agrees with it. In fact, here’s a word… with a bit of a long-winded definition:

Occhiolism (noun): the awareness of the smallness of your perspective, by which you couldn’t possibly draw any meaningful conclusions at all, about the world or the past or the complexities of culture, because although your life is an epic and unrepeatable anecdote, it still only has a sample size of one, and may end up being the control for a much wilder experiment happening in the next room.

There’s an expression I really dislike, but it seems to be accurate for so much these days… and it’s not an excuse, just an explanation… and not a very good one: It is what it is.

 

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