Thank you for this article, Jonathan. I enjoy your work, and you of all people should know by now that this kind of lucid analysis downplaying SARS-CoV-2 as an existential threat certainly falls into the category of "Wrongspeak" -- especially in Canada! (Great work on that podcast, btw.)
I would add another perspective in terms of understanding adolescents' and young adults' lack of compliance with the new pandemic laws. Not only is the virus remarkably less likely to cause them serious illness, their lives are also dramatically more interrupted here. Let's set aside their economic vulnerability. The policy response to the pandemic is profoundly interfering with their basic developmental tasks: individuation from their parents (largely by connecting with their peers), pursuing a vocation, and finding a life mate. Whether they are conscious of these drives or not, there are deep evolutionary forces behind their "reckless" behavior. And this is very different than what older adults are being asked to give up. They are partnered and in the "Generativity" life stage, something that can largely be done by Zooming into work from the comfort and safety of their home offices.
People won't like the following word, and they will describe the rationale underlying the current restrictions on young people's behavior as being different in kind and "based on science:" There is something deeply puritanical about the older generation's throttling of the young here. To anyone that is bristled by that I would point them towards Hume's work on science and "is vs. ought," Sweden's pandemic response (including the logarithmic discrepancy* between the projected death total with no lockdown and what actually has occured), and -- most importantly -- the total lack of public discourse in Canada about our fundamental pandemic approach.
Jonathan! Your stance on this 'pandemic' has shocked me from the start. I thought you were an expert researcher - perhaps you have missed some of the information that has been largely censored by expert scientists with a different but valuable opinion about the seriousness of the situation? Our Canadian Munk Debate podcast - 'be it resolved the scientific community has overreacted to the threat of Covid-19 and the data prove it' ended with a very concerning comment from Jay Bhattacharya - MD and Prof at Stanford that, not only has the scientific community overreacted, but that many very respected scientists around the world have had their work and voices silenced. Therefore the vast majority of people don't even have the ability or opportunity to make their own judgements of the situation. It's called tyranny. Your trite and unfair comments about young people spreading the disease are surprising. Perhaps if your children were in first year university in their bedrooms you might have a different perspective. Your parents are not going to die. Your children are not going to die. Very few people actually die. If your grandmother is alive she might die. All the while we are spending billions of dollars to decimate our economy, sending children and their families to these testing centres repeatedly to get a giant swab stuck into their heads just so they can go to school, forcing the use of masks which are questionable at best. Please! Look for the information that is available that might contradict your beliefs! Find out what they are saying! Look at the numbers! Then come back and speak/write from a place of better understanding. It seems to me you have bought into the tyranny. Not as open-minded and clear thinking as I would have thought.
Interesting piece - what concerns me a tiny bit more and has since maybe june of this mess - is that we have a bunch of Permafrost and ice melting and with it, bacteria. Now hear me out (and then you can all scream at me that I am insane): I just wonder how much of that bacteria could be dangerous to modern man, how much of it will enter our waterways or food systems without us even knowing. Is any of it airborne? Covid-19 isn't even the worst disease we are going to see - and we were utterly unprepared - as were our governments. We didn't have and weren't given information (as someone noted in the comments below), the information we have been given has sometimes not made much sense or has been mildly contradictory. I get that science is evolving and should actually be constantly correcting itself and that this is a good thing but what concerns me isn't so much covid specifically as our lack of preparedness and how ham fisted we were
Thank you for this article, Jonathan. I enjoy your work, and you of all people should know by now that this kind of lucid analysis downplaying SARS-CoV-2 as an existential threat certainly falls into the category of "Wrongspeak" -- especially in Canada! (Great work on that podcast, btw.)
I would add another perspective in terms of understanding adolescents' and young adults' lack of compliance with the new pandemic laws. Not only is the virus remarkably less likely to cause them serious illness, their lives are also dramatically more interrupted here. Let's set aside their economic vulnerability. The policy response to the pandemic is profoundly interfering with their basic developmental tasks: individuation from their parents (largely by connecting with their peers), pursuing a vocation, and finding a life mate. Whether they are conscious of these drives or not, there are deep evolutionary forces behind their "reckless" behavior. And this is very different than what older adults are being asked to give up. They are partnered and in the "Generativity" life stage, something that can largely be done by Zooming into work from the comfort and safety of their home offices.
People won't like the following word, and they will describe the rationale underlying the current restrictions on young people's behavior as being different in kind and "based on science:" There is something deeply puritanical about the older generation's throttling of the young here. To anyone that is bristled by that I would point them towards Hume's work on science and "is vs. ought," Sweden's pandemic response (including the logarithmic discrepancy* between the projected death total with no lockdown and what actually has occured), and -- most importantly -- the total lack of public discourse in Canada about our fundamental pandemic approach.
*https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-boris-johnson-needs-to-speak-to-anders-tegnell
Jonathan! Your stance on this 'pandemic' has shocked me from the start. I thought you were an expert researcher - perhaps you have missed some of the information that has been largely censored by expert scientists with a different but valuable opinion about the seriousness of the situation? Our Canadian Munk Debate podcast - 'be it resolved the scientific community has overreacted to the threat of Covid-19 and the data prove it' ended with a very concerning comment from Jay Bhattacharya - MD and Prof at Stanford that, not only has the scientific community overreacted, but that many very respected scientists around the world have had their work and voices silenced. Therefore the vast majority of people don't even have the ability or opportunity to make their own judgements of the situation. It's called tyranny. Your trite and unfair comments about young people spreading the disease are surprising. Perhaps if your children were in first year university in their bedrooms you might have a different perspective. Your parents are not going to die. Your children are not going to die. Very few people actually die. If your grandmother is alive she might die. All the while we are spending billions of dollars to decimate our economy, sending children and their families to these testing centres repeatedly to get a giant swab stuck into their heads just so they can go to school, forcing the use of masks which are questionable at best. Please! Look for the information that is available that might contradict your beliefs! Find out what they are saying! Look at the numbers! Then come back and speak/write from a place of better understanding. It seems to me you have bought into the tyranny. Not as open-minded and clear thinking as I would have thought.
Interesting piece - what concerns me a tiny bit more and has since maybe june of this mess - is that we have a bunch of Permafrost and ice melting and with it, bacteria. Now hear me out (and then you can all scream at me that I am insane): I just wonder how much of that bacteria could be dangerous to modern man, how much of it will enter our waterways or food systems without us even knowing. Is any of it airborne? Covid-19 isn't even the worst disease we are going to see - and we were utterly unprepared - as were our governments. We didn't have and weren't given information (as someone noted in the comments below), the information we have been given has sometimes not made much sense or has been mildly contradictory. I get that science is evolving and should actually be constantly correcting itself and that this is a good thing but what concerns me isn't so much covid specifically as our lack of preparedness and how ham fisted we were