This is what my neck of the woods looked like during lockdown, first time around. It was very disheartening and I was worried about all the small and family run businesses. I thought that would be the first and last of these measures to be taken – but how wrong was I. I hope we all come back to our senses soon, and adopt an approach more akin to that in the Great Barrington Declaration. Although I know it is unlikely, as these days seldom those in power admit their mistakes and take unpopular approaches that are more beneficial in the long run. This has become the world of populism. The world where everyone craves to be liked, rather than seek the truth. A world where we have tribal ideologies, and no one is allowed to question or think anything that is not approved by their tribe. Such a serious crime to logic and reason. We thought science had finally broken the shackles of incontestable, irrefutable, absolute truths, constants never allowed to be questioned – but now we seem to have made new ones. No one can question ‘The Science’ – regardless of whether its right or wrong and specially when there are alternative collaborations to give new meanings. It has become even worse than religion, where people support parts of it which are made popular, unknowing of the actual knowledge behind it the sheep attack anyone who questions the salient points of the new religion. In the age of abundance of knowledge and the greatest access to knowledge ever known – we have become most ignorant. Why bother understanding or discovering when you can just google it, or follow the latest trend on twitter. Reading and comprehension are two separate things and they will remain separate – I just hope people realize it before they forgo all their cognitive capacity to those who wish to control it. Learn to think for yourself, understand the patterns of information that might trap you in multiple biases, face the world with humility of knowing that you know nothing even if those less fortunate than you might think you know everything, do not take words of others as gospel, and never trust those that deal in absolutes.
