Eristalis

Sure. But there are also some scientists who think the lockdown didn't work, or only work really fast and hard. Or only work in dense populations but are useless in sparse ones. The Democrats don't have a monopoly on truth, they're not omniscient. They just had a different idea of how they wanted to respond based (like every other politician) on what they thought would sell well to their electorate.

Who knows what they word have actually done in power. I hate to break it to you, but politicians lie - it's kind of their job.

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.

And on your last point. Scientists did come out and question many of Fauci's policies. They were removed from social media and in many cases fired.

It's easy to claim majority support when you silence opposing voices.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11024-022-09479-4

Exactly. That's his job and he did it. That's it.

As to the obfuscation. He went on the Newt Gingrich podcast and said the idea of a lab origin was a conspiracy theory without any scientific basis eight days after a meeting he had with top scientists at which the majority were of the opinion that it probably was. In what way is that 'not stating something as fact when it's uncertain'?

He'd just come from a meeting where he'd been told it was uncertain, and he stated publicly that believing it amounted to conspiracy theory.

I can't understand why people defend the man. I can't understand why anyone would particularly hate him either. He's just a normal political appointee.

Again, he chose a job in the public eye. He wasn't drafted in. And he literally wrote in his diary that he was enjoying the attention.

Politicians trying to make appointees look bad is standard practice. David Kelly was literally driven to suicide by the pressure to relent over Iraq.

As above. This was a global crisis. The issues were not caused by the Republican party, nor by the Democrats, nor by anyone even in America! I know... Imagine a thing happening that isn't directly to do with America!

A nasty virus spread throughout the world. Governments and scientists didn't know what to do. They rushed to make policies to deal with it, within the crappy, corrupt political systems that all countries have. Most came up with a mostly crappy response, mostly dictated by corporate lobbies and electioneering, like every other policy they've ever come up with. Lots of people died. Lots more than would have if everything had been done perfectly, but we don't live in such a world and we would no more have if the Democrats were in charge.

Well, insomnia seems to do you good, that was an interesting and measured post, which is a rarity.

I think I agree with most of what you say, which is unfortunately going to make my post far more boring than yours deserves in response.

I feel similarly about Anonymous but for my cynicism about their capabilities making me perhaps a little less concerned about their lack of structure. Their actions amuse me solely because they tend to be aimed at institutions who deserve to be rattled. I don't imagine them taking Barclay's down, but it would give me a wry smile if their websites went down for a day.

Likewise disillusioned with the left (though I suspect maybe resulting from different experiences). I'm what might be called the old left - unions, environmentalism, welfare. It saddens me to see so much individualism dominate the modern left and I blame that for our lack of collective action. Far too much concern about themselves to think much about others. I'm not saying my generation were martyrs, but we got on fucking boats and sailed in front of whaling harpoons. We didn't whinge about our feelings, then throw a street party and call it activism.

Anyway, rant over. I too am old and tired, and probably far more curmudgeonly than is healthy.

So, yes, maybe structure is key, it stops any Tom, Dick, or Harry from deciding their neighbour is a fascist because he didn't give the lawnmower back and therefore is the justified recipient of violent counteraction. But, as above, I'm not sure I even trust structures anymore.

Insomnia is nasty.

I think that's less confusing. It sounded like the method was the problem. But you're saying the scale of the counter-movement ones actions are a part of is the difference?

That makes a lot more sense. So this guy's tactics (though not his politics), would have been acceptable if they were part of a larger movement?

It's of interest to me because there's been a lot of chatter about the use of violence against political adversaries at the same time as condemnation of this guy's underhand methods (which are clearly much less problematic for the victims than violence would have been), and I wondered if people were justifying it by whose side they're on, or some broader ethics.

Like if the tesseract guy had a hidden blocklist of Nazi, and right-wing groups and then DDOSed the main perpetrator, that would presumably be OK. After all, it's the sort of stuff Anonymous get up to, right? And that's generally considered fair game.

If Anonymous has shadow-blocked Barclay's and then DDOSed them, I think most here would think that was a pretty cool stunt (myself included).

So really the whole tesseract thing boils down to 'this is a left-leaning group and so anti-left action isn't welcome'.

This just reads really weird. It sounds like you're saying that physically assaulting your 'enemies' is an OK form of political action, but a hidden blocklist is a step too far. I can't quite see the ethical coherence there.

Hating on the guy because of his politics is fine, but pretending the issue is merely with his tactics whilst simultaneously condoning violence as a legitimate tactic is incongruous at best.

If I'm ever on anyone's hate list, I don't think I'm alone in saying I'd rather be clandestinely blacklisted than beaten to a pulp.