#imagine a pandemic that targets people like you

[cassolotl]

Sometimes something puts me into my context as a queer born in the 80s and growing up in Section 28 England, and there's nothing else really to do except have a little cry about it.

“There’s a generation of queer people grieving for the childhood they never had,” Haigh says. “I think there’s a sense of nostalgia for something we never got, because we were so tormented. It feels close to grief. It dissipates, but it’s always there."

[trainsinanime]

One criticism about Miraculous Ladybug that I find really interesting is the criticism that the show is still like that. It’s phrased in different ways, like “there’s no development” or similar, but it often includes an exasperated “it’s season five and Marinette still hasn’t told Adrien she loves him” somewhere in the text. This criticism isn’t fascinating because it’s correct (it’s not) or because it raises complex questions (it doesn’t); it’s interesting because on some level, I totally get it.

Imagine you’re six, or eight, or ten years old when Miraculous Ladybug launches in 2015, or maybe even fourteen like Marinette, and you love it: It’s funny, it has good action, a beautiful romance, and Marinette is just an awesome character: She wants to do good, she loves her friends, she’s clumsy, she’s anxious, and she’s still awesome, all in one package. You can’t help but love her.

But now it’s 2022. If you were the show’s target audience of six years old, you have now spent half your life with that show existing. If you were as old as Marinette, you’re now an adult. You’ve certainly changed schools once or twice; made new friends, lost old ones. You gained new hobbies, new interests, your first interest in romance if you’re into that, your first global pandemic and so on. And the show, on a really high level, is still like that. Marinette’s foibles, which used to be funny, are now cringy, because they remind you of how you used to be. Marinette’s anxiety around her crush may have become a painful reality, or a painful memory long in the past. The threat they’re facing is still the most cartoonish in the history of cartoonish threats, and they’re not even one step closer to doing anything about it; i.e. their biggest problems are still exactly the same, while yours have changed completely.

Other shows and book series and so on often try to grow up with their audience, dealing with darker topics and/or more explicit kissing as they go on and their audience presumably gets older. Miraculous Ladybug cheerfully does not. It’s still fundamentally the same show it is now as it was in 2015.

That means you grew up, and Marinette is still fourteen. And isn’t that just the worst? A reminder of who you used to be, back when you were a young, stupid child. A reminder of all the things you’ve outgrown. I totally get being frustrated with that.

Of course, that isn’t a flaw with the show as such. It wants to be a show where Marinette remains fourteen forever, or at least for a couple of seasons more, and it’s doing that well. Getting better, even. It just means that you and the show have split ways at some point, and you’re no longer the person who fell in love with it. There’s no shame in that, it happens.

(To be clear, it’s not required. There are people who fell in love with the show as a child and still enjoy it. Whatever makes you happy.)

Move on. Or fail to recognise it and make angry Tumblr posts about it; your choice, really.

That’s why I personally recommend watching the show once you’re in your thirties and have stopped giving a shit. Then you’ll have the best long-term experience with it. 😁

[windvexer]

Would you say that cataclysms or crises, like market crashes, wars, elections, pandemics, have their own spirits? Or put it another way, these things are not just chains of events, but separate energetic entities that initiate or guide the proceedings on the ground? If yes, would, erm, plinking spells at them with intention to get rid of them just make these constructs pay more of their... let's say transformative attention to a particularly daring spellcaster?

This is really interesting!

I hesitate to say that casting a spell at a market crash would make the spirit of the market crash rise up to harm you.

And I am 100% just basing this off of the fact that it sounds silly to me. Very much overlapping on conspiratorial, even.

Also I've never heard of it happening. And it doesn't line up with the way I think the world works.

For this to work, I think we have to believe 3 separate things:

All major national or global crises either are spirits in and of themselves, or are all guided and guarded by spirits (hereafter called Crisis Spirit).

A Crises Spirit (whether that be singular or a cohort has little relevance I think) would (A) notice energy directed against it, and (B) be capable of retaliation.

If it takes enough notice against any single person or working group, the Crises Spirit would choose to carry out targeted retaliation.

I do not believe that all catastrophes are, or are guided by, spirits. Not even the very big catastrophes. It's tempting to think that there is an organized malevolent force behind everything bad happening, but at this point we're basically talking about the New World Order except we're switching out key words for woowoo talk. So it's a big ask for me to buy into this line of thinking.

As a practitioner, I believe that if you look for a spirit, you'll find it. It's very easy to interpret a big lump of energy as a spirit, and depending on what your definition of "spirit" is, you're never going to not find a spirit.

Crises having their own energy: Yes

That energy automatically being a sentient being capable of awareness and retaliation: No

Even if we say that perhaps these events themselves are not spirits, but are guided by external Crises Spirits, I'm again stymied by the fact that we do not live in a good-vs-evil universe that specifically targets and harms people who try to stop bad things from happening.

Because the problem with this line of thinking is that anyone who wants to help the world then puts themselves in a position of a targeted martyr with access to hidden knowledge that gives them the ability to fight against organized, secret evil at the highest levels of control, and at that point just hang a Q on it.

So my main problem with this is the worldview. As in, damn, imagine the kinds of people you'd be aligning your worldview to in order to have to believe that this happens.

When a person begins their magical practice, I think they probably do rely a lot on what they're told by others. This is baggage. As in, a starting suitcase you need to begin your travels.

After a while, a practitioner begins to get a feel for how things really are beyond what they've been told. They have encounters. They get into situations. They go places. This is experience.

And beyond black pepper and Spells Georg, when a person really starts to make their path their own, I think that a big aspect to this is sorting through what baggage you no longer need, cleaning out the suitcase, and packing new luggage. This shift, I believe, should be inspired by and conform to personal experience.

On the one hand, I keep an active eye out for this type of thinking and do my best to not let it sneak into my suitcase. This is because worldview is a choice; you can choose how you align and orient yourself in this world, the results of which dictate your view. Yes?

On the other hand, I've never seen or experienced what you're describing in the real world and I simply don't believe it exists. My experience of the metaphysical, the spirit world, and magic, precludes there being universally present Crises Spirits that govern all world cataclysms.

This isn't to say that I don't believe spirits can make bad things happen or be involved in bad things. This isn't to say I don't believe there are gods of strife or chaos.

I just don't think there's a cabal of spirits who cause global catastrophe and that might retaliate against you if you try to stop bad things from happening.

[eretzyisrael]

by Dr. Phyllis Chesler

Hamas has perpetrated a depraved pogrom. There is no other kind. This is what a pogrom looks like and what a pogrom does. The pogromchiki target civilians, the most vulnerable of civilians, and do their worst. They rape Jewish women, torture Jewish men, brutally attack children and the elderly, and then kill them—and anyone who is living with them.

Hamas took a page from ISIS’s Caliphate playbook and video’ed their atrocities in live-time in order to sow further terror (or horribly enough, gladness) in the eyes of viewers. Hamas has also raped and kidnapped women, perhaps into sex slavery, as ISIS also did.

Right away, I started emailing people and saying that this attack was far bigger than 9/11. Here’s why. In terms of demographic equivalence, the Israeli population is a bit more than nine (9) million people; the American population is a bit more than 331 million. Eight hundred (800) Israeli dead and counting is the equivalent of 29,418 American deaths. This is nearly ten times more than the 9/11 number of a little more than 3000. The number of Israeli wounded is, so far, at 2000 and counting. In American terms this is equivalent to 75,503 wounded.

Imagine if America had been told not to respond, not to retaliate, to retaliate but only a little bit to Al-Qaeda’s blow against the Zionist and Crusader entity. Bin Laden said so himself.

A handful of us knew, we knew for a long time, that the pandemic of anti-Israel/anti-Zionist propaganda was inevitably going to lead to what we’ve just seen and what Israel has just endured. Words do harm. Pogroms and genocide have always been the result. This has been the case in the Arab Muslim world and in the European Christian world.

In the early 21st century, I wrote that anti-Zionism was the new anti-semitism and that the alliance between Islamists who hate Jews, Judaism, and the Jewish state for religious reasons far more than for questions of territory—and the western politically correct elites, was the most dangerous kind of alliance. For this, I was denounced as a traitor. Laughed at. Dis-invited. Deemed an Islamophobe and a…Zionist.

Poisoned propaganda has slowly and carefully been sewn into every conceivable fabric of humanity, in every language, round-the-clock. The propaganda is now a tsunami, a cognitive mushroom cloud of death.

The Big Lies are coming at us from the academy, the gliterrati, the United Nations, human rights groups, feminist groups, street activists, government leaders. The hatred for Jews and for the Jewish state is global.

Demonstrations and statements in support of Hamas’s horrific pogrom are taking place world-wide. They have been going on for decades and may not stop anytime soon. Yes, there are also pro-Israel statements and demonstrations going on as well, including the EU, Germany, and Austria’s decision to suspend funding to Palestine. Number 10 Downing Street and the Brandenburg Gate was draped in the colors of the Israeli flag.

But really, there is no comparison, no moral equivalence between the two kinds of statements. Rallying for Israel is rallying for the real victim. Do people know that the head of Hamas, Ismail Haniya’s daughter was treated for free in an Israeli hospital for a month? Doesn’t sound like an apartheid nation state, does it?

Rallying for Hamas is applauding Nazi-like barbarians and the atrocities they commit. I wonder why so many pro-Hamas women are wearing hijab given that Iran, their paymaster, is raping, beating, and murdering Iranian girls and women if their hijab slips or is missing entirely.

Burning questions and difficult solutions remain before us.

I have been monitoring the situation, passing along information to the right people, and have not had the time to sit down and write a long analysis about this War. I will send around a video of a speech I delivered on September 21st via Zoom. I also strongly recommend that you read Liel Leibowitz and separately, Alana Newhouse at Tablet.

I dashed this piece off because a number of people have called and written to me wondering why I’ve been silent. Well—I’ve been covering this shocking, heartbreaking, truly awful War.

[samueldays]

The first 'conspiracy theory' here is true, what else?

This one is from The Policy Institute of King's College London.

Statement 1: "Central bank digital currencies will be used by governments to control people's money and restrict their freedom"

One-third of people think this is definitely or probably true. The talking heads sneeringly and contemptuously imply it is false, and a conspiracy theory. The one-third of people are entirely correct. The statement is plainly true. Central banks are already used by governments to control people's money and restrict their freedom, there is no reason to believe governments will do an about-face when given a technical advance that provides more control.

For the forty percent of normies who think it's false, I imagine that most of them skimmed the question and heard something like "Government bad with money? true or false".

For the people at The Policy Institute, I think a permanent ban from public communication is in order. The misinformation is once again coming from inside the God-damned house of the professional informationists and the academic-industrial complex.

Statement 2: "The mainstream media and government officials are involved in a conspiracy to cover up important information about terrorist attacks in the UK"

This is plausible. A few years ago, I observed that the mainstream media and government officials had been involved in a conspiracy to cover up important information about gang rapes and slave rings in the UK.

Rotherham is the headline name here, where Pakistani rapist-slavers went around kidnapping, raping, enslaving, and trafficking white English girls, and the white victims were targeted partly because they were white and had less ethnic solidarity and less government protection, while the media told themselves "we don't want to cause a racist backlash" and downplayed the story partly because the offenders were brown. There were lots of cases similar to Rotherham across the UK.

Now, since the statement posits a coverup, it's hard to know with certainty. It's probably true, but I don't know. Anyone answering definitely false is wrong, though. Gullibility points for you, sir! And the people at The Policy Institute sneering 'conspiracy theory' again - the term is hardly more than a slur - I suggest punitive damages in the manner of Xerxes. Ask them how they want misinformers to be punished in a thinly veiled hypothetical of their own situation, then do that to them.

I don't know about 15-minute cities, so I'll skip ahead.

Statement 5: "The "great replacement theory" – the idea that white Americans and Europeans are being replaced by non-white immigrants – is happening"

This statement seems to load a lot on unstated connotations and other definitions of great replacement theory that the polled people won't necessarily have access to. For the summary definition given here, it appears to be true.

White Americans and Europeans have below-replacement fertility rates while their rulers are importing millions of non-whites and seek to import millions more non-whites. This is a deliberate if shortsighted government decision to keep the total population up (allegedly for purposes such as paying pensions) by importation of foreigners instead of by reversing the native decline.

How much difference between this and statement 5 is there, without having to lean on "not what I meant"?

Fuck'em.

Statement 6: "The Covid-19 pandemic was part of a global effort to force everyone to be vaccinated whether they want to or not"

Whomigonna believe, The Policy Institute or my lying eyes?

There was a global effort to force everyone to be vaccinated whether they want to or not, caused by COVID-19. It was an unpopular minority effort and it failed, but there was an effort.

The statement as given in The Policy Institute's own material is true.

Perhaps the Institutionals have an implicit mental reservation about "a majority effort" or "an effort backed by the UN Security Council" or "an effort that nearly succeeded" or some other clause that makes it false. But there's no such clause in the statement as given. The statement as given is true. It is not a conspiracy theory.

I despise these people.

Out of seven so-called [*waggles fingers aggressively*] “conspiracy theories” three are true, one is plausible, and I am exerting mental effort not to update towards the other three because reversed stupidity is not intelligence.

But I gotta say, I have more sympathy now for believers in everything listed and every other “conspiracy” they come across, because reversed malevolence is better aligned than reversed stupidity, and I can see how malevolence might compete with stupidity as an explanation for people at King's College behaving this way.

[its-wabby-stuff]

Rottmnt things:

Trigger warning for real life events affecting a fictional world.

2020. The year the world was invaded by an alien race. The start of the end of the world. The year the Rottmnt movie takes place (despite its release in 2022). Irl, 2020 was a big year as well.

Covid. Covid-19 hit hard and caused a worldwide pandemic. Now imagine if Covid also affected the rise verse. On top of an Alien invasion, which would take precedence, there’s this virus roaming around. There is no government, hospitals are shutting down, society is collapsing, people are spread out but those who find each other stay together. Close. It’s the best way to survive and the best way for a virus to cultivate.

Covid-19 primarily targeted the older generation, those above 50 and has devastating lasting consequences if you managed to survive. But the apocalypse is THE WORST time to get sick, and with resources dwindling, there would be no attention toward a vaccine, limited amounts of ventilators or materials to actually help if someone got sick. You’d be doomed. And the best way to help would be isolation, not to spread or contaminate. And bam. There goes the older generation, the experienced old men who might’ve fought wars before, who could’ve trained, or brought different kinds of survival instincts to the war effort. Any young adults or teenagers affected by the disease might have lasting consequences that affect how much they can help fight. That shortness of breath would really get to you in a world where you have to stay on the move, or fight for your life, or just having to breath in the hot, dusty air around.

The older generation gets wiped out not just from Krang, but from Covid, leaving the resistance to fall into the hands of children.

Wether or not Splinter might’ve been affected, I’ll leave up to you. He fits the target age range, but his rat genes may effect how the disease affects him, if he gets it at all.

But Covid is skepticism, since it’s a fictional world with mutants. Who even knows if it happened, or even if it was worse.

But there’s another thing. Once again, related to the older/middle generation. 9/11. About a week ago, and maybe it’s still going on, fires in Canada caused thick smoke to fall on New York City. An amount which hadn’t been seen since September 11, 2001. Seeing the pictures from my dad, who was traveling in NYC during this time, it gave very apocalyptic vibes and I myself was inspired to give that atmosphere to Rise.

However, there is another connection. The tallest building in New York. The building The Krang attacked, called Metro Tower in the movie, is the World Trade Center. The building that was set as a replacement for the loss of the twin towers. As a reminder that America is still strong and will not forget, by happenstance is the place the Krang enter from the prison dimension, bringing forth terror and destruction.

Anyone in New York who lived through that, and now through this could be prone to PTSD. The sky, the atmosphere, everything could be effected by the krang attack. The lasting effects to the environment as well, and very likely, worse.

9/11 is likely the reason the name of the building was changed to Metro Tower in the movie. Or, you can take that with a grain of salt.

Of course neither of these things HAVE to have any lasting affect. There is so many other things going on that these may seem insignificant. But I think it’s interesting to imagine, and possibly interesting to add.

[claireofluxembourg]

My theory is that because they compare Mary and Kate a lot it makes her bitter (as if there's any competition when both of them are completely different people) because she's Australian too so she shits on Kate and supports Meghan because she's the Anthitesis of Kate. But she only supports Meghan for likes tbh and to seem woke.

She isn't Australian, she is from the Philippines (I think) and her husband is Dutch, they just live in Australia.

I've followed her for about 18 mos maybe, and her love for Mary is as newfound as her hatred of Kate, if it was there before, she has managed to hide it well.

the biggest turning point was the Eurovision performance, that's when she really started to be explicitly aggressive towards Kate, before that she appeared relatively neutral, though she always defended Meghan and added 5% to her polls and substracted 5% from Kate's.

some people claim she used to run a Meghan fan account before, I'm not sure if that's true, but her RFP was started during the Pandemic. But I'd definitely say that from what I saw she's more of a Meghan fan than a Mary fan, the Mary thing started when the photos of Fred emerged and you could see that she had hoped very very hard it was William instead 🙂

Oh she was absolutely disgusting around Fred's rumoured affair came out, literally talking shit about "scoops" she had regarding Rose like if she was fucking Deuxmoi, it was so laughable and sad lmaooo

Honestly I unfollowed her because despite me being friendly towards her, she targeted several of my friends, the last straw was when she went for Isa. That was it for me. She's so fucking delulu. Imagine I felt bad for her when she was deceived by that one person who tried to destroy a lot of my friendships back in 2017 or 2018 with her narcissistic behaviour. It's so sad.

[whyyoualwayssoradical]

Idk how much experience you may have with this but lately I've been thinking about how most men I know somehow can't clock transwomen as fast as I can and I'm wondering if male's like don't have as strong of a recognition of sex as women do? And maybe that's part of why a lot of transwomen think they pass when it's very obvious to us 🤔

personally i've been able to clock just about every trans person i've come across, either IRL or online just from something as small as a reddit post. most of them are pretty obvious. there's like probably 30-50 trans people at my work and i can clock all of them at first glance (there's two people I am unsure of) and only one of them knows i'm trans because i told one transman that i trust, when i told him he asked if i was transmale or transfemale.

from what i've experienced, males are atrocious at pattern recognition when it comes to people because they literally just have "man, boy (potential man), woman/girl" is how they categorize people it seems. i've heard radfems talk about how part of the reason males are worse at it might be because they don't need it to survive as much, but girls and women need to be able to accurately ID a male, in any circumstance, to survive in modern society.

for me, again personally, the only people that have really clocked me have been lesbians and gay men. most straight people seem to be completely clueless, more so men than women. i do claim i pass but when i say that i mean like in most everyday situations like going to the grocery store or to get food or something almost everyone will assume i'm a "woman" even though i'm not one. i definitely think there are plenty of women who have clocked me and just not said anything/played nice. i think any woman that spent any amount of time talking with me or hanging out with me would figure it out sooner or later, but i generally tell any close friends if we're actively talking/hanging out that much because i don't want to and don't mean to deceive them.

some anecdotes from personal experience:

i have been targeted by powerful men before because they, for some reason, legitimately thought i was female. a woman who "worked" for them also thought i was. that situation made me legit fear for my life.

the most common question i got asked at whole foods anytime i mentioned i didn't feel well, multiple women would ask if i was on my period, to which i would say just no it's just stomach cramps or w/e was making me feel crappy.

most women that do suspect me to be not what i appear usually think i'm non-binary or a transman if they ever want to ask anything.

i was disallowed from doing something at a different whole foods because they said it couldn't be a woman doing it if the other person was a man (overnights require min 2 people present). this rule miraculously disappeared after the pandemic hit and we didn't have the staff to do otherwise. i had volunteered to be the second person since i already came in early so it was no big deal to come in earlier, but they were like no it cant be a man and a woman if there's only 2 people.

this isn't me trying to say "oh i pass sooo much better" or anything like that, because i doubt i pass that particularly well but also at the same time i often struggle to make sense of what i do experience. i can't imagine this many people doing all of this just to validate me and i don't go around telling people i'm a woman, however my documentation all reflects "F". these experiences are generally why i will say i "pass" and also why i use the term "assimilated transsexual".

i think being bullied so much by boys and men plus getting into radical feminism drastically improved my human sex pattern recognition. i definitely used to not be as good at it as i am now. i can look at myself and pick out my male features fairly easily. i have had more androgynous features most of my life than anything else.

it does blow my mind when i see quite clearly men wearing makeup saying they pass and are hotter/sexier than women, because i feel like any look into the mirror would reveal otherwise... which the same could totally be said about me, maybe i look like a clown too and everyone is just nice to me who knows, but i almost never wear makeup, i've only worn it on special occasions and it's usually just eye makeup, nothing else.

[timeloopbuddy]

How Much Improvement The Entities Need & How I Would Do It

The Buried - Basically nothing, it is incredible, so it’s only problem is a lack of outreach. Breekon & Hope are not enough, we need more of it in general. The Corruption - Bugs are cool, but they need to cash in more on the crappy feelings and ease of spread that comes with common diseases. Not just world ending pandemics, the cold, strep, allergies, and many more. They could really branch out and just play with people’s general feelings of disgust and unhappiness that comes with just the basic sense of sickness. The Dark - Branding/Creativity. It’s only like 2 problems but in this line of work they can be very detrimental if you screw it up. It seems like they are so devoted to the Dark that instead of going out, being cool, and terrorising people, they’re just worshipping it. Improvement 1, more monsters, the reason Callum Brody was so good at his job was because he let creativity do the work. Improvement 2, less church themes, it only makes you the target of ridicule. (See Gertrude Robinson in regards to the “church group”). The Desolation - Similar to the Dark but not as bad. The devotion is still a problem, but it is one easily fixed by simply toning down the church themes. Other than that they just need to keep on burning stuff down and being generally sexy. The End - Good at what it does, and it just keeps on doing it. The End has its niche, sticks to it, and does a damn good job. I can’t really think of any improvements. The Eye - Stop being fucking nerds. Eye avatars can be cool, but they gotta lean into it and stopping the biggest fools/idiots in their universe. I get how the Eye itself can be stupid, it just likes eating knowledge. But the people, how? The coolest Jon was was when he was running around country to country finding answers, reading statements, consuming live statements from random people, and forcing people to answer his questions. They just need to be more active in the community. There is a reason everyone hates Eye avatars. 1. Because they’re annoying. That one isn’t bad, in fact I think they should dial it up to 11. 2. They are cowards. We need more Eye avatars who don’t fuck around with that morality bullshit like Gertrude, but are also dedicated to the cause of being annoying nerds. To summarise, I want the Eye to actually go out and do stuff.  The Flesh - Give Angela more screen time. That’s it. Also maybe open up a few more restaurants. The Hunt - They’re fine.  The Lonely - Just keep vibing my dudes. Although boats would be cool. I just like boats. The Slaughter - More music. I just love the vibe of murdering someone while music plays in the background. The Spiral - Also more music. And questions. I feel like they could get a lot of mileage out of disorienting questions. The Stranger - More dunking on Eye nerds. Imagine being seen during the Unkowing. How embarassing.  The Vast - MORE BLIMPS. There are only 25 blimps on Earth, That is embarrasingly low. More blimps. More air travel. More sea travel. More space travel. TRAVEL AND EXPAND MORE. The Web - Why did it have to be spiders? It’s so cool and everything but spiders are the absolute worst. The Extinction - Be less boring. We’re suffering through an apocalypse right now and it’s just tiring. Come on, do something. Also more avatars. And ominous radio towers.

[k00297028]

‘For Your Convenience’ (Short Film) #StopAsianHate

Director - Aronjonel Villafor

I watched this short film where I found Valladolid doing a great job portraying what life was like for Asian Americans during the pandemic.Within this film it shows the day to day reality, Asians had to face during the coronavirus. They go to work just so they can support themselves,not only is it hard already with how covid changed everything but they also have to deal with seeing people of their own race getting attacked and robbed in public,I can imagine that you constantly have to look over your shoulder because we did not feel safe since Asian people are the prime targets for theses violent attacks.

You can imagine that in the film that she’s exhausted. Not only is she having to work to support herself but with these strikes going on it’s getting hard for her to have to deal with hatred where people blame you for the cause of the pandemic.Theres a point in the film where a violent woman refuses to where a mask and begins to act hostile with the worker and starts blaming her why we have to where masks during the “Ching Chong Virus” and further gets violent by throwing products on the ground and yelling “go back to your country”.

Reason why i chose this short film is because i really like how that in this film conveys the reality of what it was like for the majority of Asian people during the pandemic and i take inspiration by showing the abuse and movements that AAPI had. I want to show the importance of Asian peoples stories during this difficult time and how it impacted us. I can understand it affected many people across the globe but when your looking over your shoulder constantly by making sure you dont get violently attacked you can’t help but deny what Asian People had to go through and and the director Aronjonel Villafor succeeded in showing the viewer what really was like for us.

[troglobite]

re: abandoning idea that you're special

currently trying to deal w this bc it was all so mundane.

but the way i've been treated…like it hurts MORE if i accept that the reason ppl treated me that way is just bc they're boring and mean, and i was a convenient target.

it hurts MORE if there's nothing for me to change abt myself and try and learn that way. it hurts MORE if my pain therefore doesn't matter to anyone.

like my therapist keeps saying this shit is PROTECTIVE, it's not just punishing myself, it's protecting myself from a reality that hurts worse and makes me mean less.

it doesn't HAVE to, but it's not easy or simple and it doesn't make me feel better, and given everything else going on i'm sort of just too tired rn to fully come to grips w this.

i don't think i'm special in a positive or negative way, just unique in a stupid way.

it's also really hard to accept if i have never met a single person w the same experience as me that makes me feel the most pathetic.

like not identical but there are a few things where i'm like, okay even ppl who say they relate still had xyz and i didn't. not trying to nitpick or be special, but it makes me feel worse when someone in THEORY is like I Get It! and then they v much don't in a way that makes me look more pathetic

here i'll be specific:

d/von pr/ce also just posted abt this

there was a lesbian who msged them and said early 20s, haven't ever been kissed, on a date, no one has expressed interest, what should they do? what's going on? is it just bc they've missed the flirting bc they're autistic?

and the response was stop being self-obsessed and pay attn to other ppl then pursue ppl and ask for what you want, don't be passive in your own experience of attraction, etc.

and i can't speak for that person, but

why would i ever do that when i have spent my entire life being ridiculed for existing and other ppl have thought it was a JOKE when i found someone attractive

like

idk abt that person, but for me it is very much not me being a PASSIVE PERSON or NOT PAYING ATTENTION to what i like or find interesting abt others

i am not self-obsessed (in the Make People Like Me way) to the point that i don't pay attention at all

piloting in conversations AT ALL is VERY DIFFICULT, and that INCLUDES just trying to learn abt someone

i'm just tired and angry. nothing i do has a good outcome. with people.

and it's not--my passivity or obsession w Being Likable (which arguably i have deliberately failed at multiple times in my life) that made me lonely or confused.

it was the hatred and bigotry of other people

and these two forces are always at war in my head

"stop telling me everything wrong w me and my life is my fault. it's not. stop acting like me taking a ~simple~ action will fix it, it won't. i'm trying my best and right now i'm so tired i'm just conserving energy and trying to even mentally and emotionally think abt and process everything that i haven't bothered REALLY thinking abt before."

and then also

"there must be something fucking wrong w me for so many ppl to so casually and mundanely HATE me. i must be bad at conversations. at people. i must be annoying. i must be doing something wrong. if i could just figure out what."

and then the advice is always

unmask!

stop worrying abt that!

take an active interest in people!

as if being unmasked and trying to be interested in people hasn't been LITERALLY THE INCITING INCIDENT FOR SO MUCH OF MY, again, very boring and mundane abuse.

so no, reaching out and taking an interest in people and asking for what i want isn't going to go well. it's also a pandemic and I CANNOT LEAVE THE FUCKING HOUSE so my options are LIMITED.

and no, unmasking is incredibly painful with very limited benefits.

i am a very precarious point in my life, and i can't imagine being MORE VISIBLY DISABLED is going to help me AT ALL.

and no, abandoning this idea that i'm "special" is not helpful and not possible at this moment.

that lesbian that reached out to DP is younger than me, and that is still the closest i've ever come to someone ACTUALLY relating to me on that front.

i have never been on a date. i am almost 29 years old. people consider that a RED FLAG abt me.

everything i listen to has ppl expressing surprised or amusement if someone hasn't had sex by a certain age, or kissed by a certain age.

or ppl saying "it's fine if you're a late bloomer lesbian, in my experience most of us don't care if it's you're first time with a woman"

how about first time, PERIOD? how about first relationship, PERIOD?

it's just this whole part of life that i've never been a part of and i WANT.

i was interested in boys in school. i DID pursue them. in the classically awkward but not overly creepy (as far as i can remember) way of young preteens and teens.

and it was never received well. it never went well.

i'm just tired.

i don't want platitudes "oh life will be better if you do xyz" or "tons of ppl share that experience, it isn't unique"

i want an actual person w the same experience to look me in the eye and say "yeah that happened to me, too. it was awful."

i pay so much attention to other people that i have fun fancy little categories for them all in my head. not in a mean or limiting way, but where i get to see them grouped w other ppl and i can see Patterns in humanity--what i've seen of humanity.

i think abt my friends & other ppl & their lives and appearances and experiences and what i like abt them or just thinking abt them and taking them in.

yes i pay attn to making myself as inoffensive as possible--but based on what i know abt those ppl. i couldn't do what i do if i wasn't paying attention to other ppl in a very close and important way. all i do is think abt and anticipate how others might feel. i try to be considerate. i try to frame my language in a way that's helpful or clear to them. i don't want to hurt them or show that i misunderstood them if i did--i want to make sure i understand them as much as i can.

conflict is a part of life, and in theory it's fine--the problem is that even productive conflict rarely ever goes well for me. even if i want to address it. even if i try and handle it REALLY well.

i'm just tired of responses that flatten out the REASONS why things go poorly, the REASONS these are the protective strategies and masking i've had to learn.

my "problem" is that i don't care if it hurts me. and that no one cares abt my hurt.

but i've had to pay close attention to others my whole life. i've had to do things to make life survivable. and i don't even have it that bad.

i'm in this stupid grey area where it's not that bad so i should just get over it.

then i get yelled at for comparing myself to others, when it's all i've been taught to do.

everything i do is wrong and my fault and i'm tired.

[mssophiesthirdaidmysterybiscuits]

What the Fuck, Berlin?

Warning: Rant, with a couple explanations at the end, if I can be bothered. Maybe in another post.

Berlin, what the ACTUAL F U C K ?

Are you seriously FUCKING kidding me? After two pandemic-ridden, luckily fairly quiet years, this new years night just completely busted all charts of reasonability. Everyone expected the "old, normal, pre-covid" amount of firework related injuries, fires and other shit. The Berlin Fire Departement was prepared for that. NOBODY expect the absolute hellscape parts of this city turned into for some of the firefighters last night.

Let me paint just a small part of the picture, just three of the MANY, M A N Y incidents that happened:

One: While driving with activated emergency signals and carrying a patient an ambulance was not only shot at with firework and had firecrackers thrown at it, some thought it funny or wise or what the hell ever to throw a WHOLE ASS FIRE EXTINGUISHER onto the hood of the vehicle.

Two: Firefighters were called to put out a bus that had caught fire (or possibly was set on fire, I dont know, fact is, it was burning) and were REPEATEDLY targeted by deliberately thrown pieces or fireworks, prohibiting them from doing their job. Police in full fucking RIOT GEAR hat to step in, so that the firefighters could do what they were there for. Oh, and did I mention that said on-fire-bus was directly under an overpass and the fire could have very easily AND NEARLY DID spread onto the building(s) right above?

Three: A firetruck had to stop because of a literal burning ROADBLOCK, whereafter it as A M B U S H E D by as many as 25 masked individuals who ripped open the compartments, trying to grab and steal gear from said truck while apparently waving some kind of weapons (I dont know what exactly, so might have been guns, might not) arround in an attempt to threaten the crew.

Now, you have to know that one of the ways Berlin prepares for these nights is by calling in / relying on many of its volunteer firefighters. Now, I give you one single bloody guess, as to who manned this particular truck that night. Now, admittedly, having a truck manned by career firefighters in such a situation would obviously be just as bad, but please imagine the following: you have VOLUTARILY given up new years eve with family and / or friends to spend your time helping others and the "Thank you" you get for that is being ambushed in your own city, having the literal crap scared out of you, having weapons waved around in you face while your truck gets looted by a masked mob.

Over the wole night multiple firefighters / first responders were injured, as far as I know one is still in hospital.

In conclusion, the people who did shit like that can to straight to non-existant hell, for all I care. As a volunteer firefighter myself (even though I am not from Berlin) crap like this gets me pissed off beyond anything else.

I might link a couple things, either later on or in another post, right now I need to find a way to cool down.

Take care, stay safe and to all the first responders out there: thanks and come back home safely!

[irradiate-space]

Long COVID and traffic safety

Epistemic status: I don't have the data to back up my synthesis suspicion, but the premises are well-documented.

Given the following documented facts:

Since the pandemic started, the US has seen increased rates of speeding drivers, car crashes, distracted driving, road rage, and similar vehicular incidents where the driver's mental state is a key factor

Documented side effects of Long COVID include increased impulsivity, increased aggression, mood swings, and decreased inhibition

, I strongly wonder whether COVID is directly responsible for a decrease in traffic safety.

Experimental design to test this would be ... well, you'd either need to interview all crash participants about whether they've had COVID (including hit-and-run drivers who ran), or you'd need to run a countrywide survey of all drivers (including unlicensed drivers) to ask them about their crash history and their COVID history. I imagine that @slatestarscratchpad can identify several major IRB objections to this survey design.

But let's say you obtained the data, and the data concluded that the percent of risky drivers has irreversibly increased. What would that data tell you? It'd tell you that car drivers are now more dangerous to each other and to non-drivers, who in the modern planning parlance are termed "vulnerable road users". We already knew that drivers were dangerous; now we know they're more dangerous.

How do you deal with dangerous driver behavior? You take a Safe Systems Approach, implement your Vision Zero recommendations, and borrow all the pages from European countries who have lower traffic injury rates than the USA. But none of that is a COVID-specific policy recommendation.

How do you deal with dangerous drivers? The collected states already have some policies for that, like banning repeat problem offenders from driving. And some states are starting to think about changes to policies to require periodic retesting of drivers, and ongoing competency training. But those aren't COVID-specific policy recommendations.

The only COVID-specific policy recommendations hinge on identifying COVID-havers and treating them differently from the rest of the population — but it's not the fact that they had COVID or have Long COVID that makes drivers bad drivers. It's specific driver behaviors, and we can more-directly target bad drivers by targeting that behavior.

The more I think about it, any public policy action that might be taken in response to "people who have Long COVID may be worse drivers" is already covered by non-COVID public safety policy proposals.

At best, the conclusion "people who have Long COVID are worse drivers" would serve as an impetus to accelerate safety programs that are already being implemented for other purposes. Is that enough of a reason to do the research?

At worst, the conclusion "people who have Long COVID are worse drivers" would be used to discriminate on the basis of medical history (usually illegal) and would be used as ammunition in demographic-based political attacks ("The Demoncrats infected us with this virus, and now they're using that to ban us from driving! It's economic genocide!" "Rethuglicans refused to protect poor Black working families from COVID, and now they want to ban us from driving! It's economic genocide!"), and nothing would get done to address the tangible street safety problems. Is that enough of a reason to avoid doing the research?

Would you do the research?

[ronron234002]

FILIPINO PANDEMIC ADVERTISEMENTS

Advertisement #1: Basta (RC Cola advertisement)

The first video advertisement that I chose was a video advertisement of RC soft drink. A 2020 television campaign for RC Cola in the Philippines was made by the ad firm Gigil and is titled Basta ("Whatever"). It was initially made available online in November 2020. The idea was that a tormented youngster would come home from school and ask his mother whether he was adopted. The son takes off his backpack as tears fall down his cheeks and four glasses appear to be sprouting from his back. Before removing her own head to admit that she is actually a huge bottle of RC Cola, the mother laments, "We've kept this secret from you for so long." The commercial concludes with the mother putting cola in the glasses from her neck and the family using straws to drink from the boy's back. Local families are the target market for this advertisement, which clearly depicts them eating together and sharing a meal. It also depicts Generation Z and their reactions toward modern problems in society as dramatic humor. The advertisement demonstrates that RC helps people in times of adversity pain and distress by helping them bond together. This is shown especially in the confrontation segment of the commercial when the mother pours drinks and drinks with the whole family while smoothing out the issue of his adoption and the whole family not telling about it. The advertising itself wasn't necessarily horrible because it was able to serve comical relief and transform what was meant to be a tragic series of events into something original and creative. The product however was also not necessarily bad but may not bring health benefits while drinking too much would add health complications. The advertisement does not appear to have any media manipulation thou heavily suggests drinking RC, especially at meal times. The advertisement solely focuses on being creative as to gather as much attention as possible while being low on budget. The work was inspired by current Generation Z humor and passion for things that are ridiculous as shown by the four glasses on the back of his body and the mother turning into an RC bottle emphasizing on the level of craziness of the situation.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Advertisement #2: A Message from the Future (Jollibee)

The Jollibee commercial "A Message from the Future" is the second video advertisement that I have selected. The most popular fast-food chain in the Philippines is Jollibee, and chicken is one of its primary selling points. The television commercial "a message from the Future" asks viewers to imagine themselves in the future and depicts the epidemic from that point of view. The world is described in the advertising as being "painful, scary, and upended lives around the world". The advertisement focuses on the tale of a Filipino immigrant family living in New York City that, like millions of other people worldwide, has suffered greatly as a result of the epidemic. The ad depicts the numerous pandemic repercussions, including job loss, loved ones passing away from the virus, and the mother of the family contracting the disease. Jollibee emphasizes the value of family unity while pointing out that despite all of these losses, the family has managed to find pleasure and love in their suffering. Our family was what carried us through everything, from literally spending every waking hour together in lockdown to extensive video chats across countries. Finally, the grandpa advises her granddaughter to "never take anything for granted" as the campaign comes to a close. The products of Jollibee itself were not necessarily good or bad as the product is food. However, as mentioned it is a product of a fast food chain which means it has many calories as well as fatty foods which may be bad for the health if eaten every day or frequently. The advertisement itself does not contain any malicious or misleading content and does not manipulate a common truth about what happened during the pandemic. However, the advertisement focuses on human perseverance and determination as a whole. In addition, the campaign signifies the transition of fear into hope by the color grading of the film from monochrome black to a colored one. The ad relates to each and every one of us that has experienced the pandemic and experience its horrors which is what the ad used to capture the attention of the audience

______________________________________________________________

References:

Contagious. (2021, July 20). The strategy behind RC Cola's basta campaign in the Philippines. Contagious. Retrieved from https://www.contagious.com/news-and-views/insight-and-strategy-behind-rc-cola-Filipino-advertising-campaign

Cambosa, T. (2021, May 19). Jollibee's first-ever global campaign a 'message from the future' on finding Joy over fear. MARKETECH APAC. Retrieved from https://marketech-apac.com/jollibees-first-ever-global-campaign-a-message-from-the-future-on-finding-joy-over-fear/

[sekritjay]

I'm uh.... back. I didn't really leave I guess... at any point between before and after my last post if I'm being honest, which you may have seen if I popped up in your notifications liking a random post out of the blue because I fat-fingered and then hastily unliked a post on my mobile. So what happened?

Well nothing, frankly. After my dog copped it I didn't expect things to get any worse but they did anyway, and they did in ways I could never have imagined - Covid did a number on the business but in a way that to my egocentric ways seemed at times to specifically target me

Literally from the moment de Pfeffel declared a lockdown I was run ragged every single fucking day. Coupled with the fact that I had to put my entire staff on furlough meant that for the next two years I was doing double the work for two-thirds of the money, with a 20% premium added to everything I had to buy on top. Before the pandemic I had a migraine maybe every other month. During the pandemic it was every other day and even today I get migraines on the regular

And of course people died. Three family friends passed away and none of them from covid - sepsis, cancer and car accident. And I never saw them the entire time, not even at a funeral. All I could do is... get back to work, because I was facing yet another night of doing more work for less money

Shamefully my default response during that time wasn't despondency - it was in fact through extreme temper flare ups, shifting from apathy to explosive anger from even innocuous questions

And now business is on a downturn. Right when my energy bills are skyrocketing. Two months ago I was paying £1,500 a month for electricity, my next bill? £3,500

And I don't derive any pleasure from doing what I loved. If anything, I do those things just to distract myself from what I should be doing but can't seem to face. Even a post like this, which had been sitting uncompleted in my drafts for two months. Because I couldn't bare to face it. Because I honestly felt shame from even voicing it on the internet, in a public sphere. Because it felt like I had lost the ability to meaningfulyl socialise. I haven't even spoken to my real life friends in three years, let alone people on tumblr

I finally managed to get a mental health review a couple of months ago, thinking that it was ADD. Couldn't even get that right - I've been diagnosed with persistent depressive disorder and prescribed sertraline

I'm still not sure if it's *improving* my situation on a personal level as I don't feel any different. Outwardly maybe - anger flare ups stopped happening even when under pressure but no-one seemed to notice. I haven't told my family I'm on antidepressants but they haven't said anything. And I guess it's nice that I don't have intrusive thoughts any more, something which my doctor said that despite everyone getting them, the frequency I was having them was a cause for concern

The fact is though is that the circumstances that lead to depression haven't gone away - I would say that have in fact gotten worse but I don't see any way I can change it in the short term. I'm still doing 60 hours, 7 days a week. I still can't pay myself. I still can't get the fresh start I desperately want

And I still can't sleep properly at night. Plus ca change

[mariacallous]

Beginning in 2023, we won’t have Dr. Anthony Fauci to kick around any more. After 38 years in government service, the director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, as well as the White House’s chief medical advisor, is leaving his jobs—don’t say “retiring”—and, at 82, is headed to his next adventure.

It’s hard to imagine anything more adventurous than what he has been through in the past three pandemic years. The country—well, most of it—sympathized with his anguish as he tried to decode the ever-shifting challenges of Covid while his former White House boss, at various times, named the infection with a racial slur, claimed it was no worse than flu (it’s killed a million people in the US alone so far), and suggested it might be treated with a good injection of bleach. Fauci’s role as the highly qualified, avuncular explainer-in-chief heading a critical research lab won him many fans, but as the pandemic progressed, it also made him a target for those who sniffed conspiracy or simply got sick of following guidelines that might save their lives.

On the eve of Fauci’s departure from government, the nation finds itself in a strange place. We’ve pretty much declared ourselves done with Covid. But Covid isn’t done with us. It killed 2,504 Americans last week, and many thousands are living with the debilitating misery of long Covid. Yet those who wear masks at indoor gatherings—like Fauci—are mocked. Fauci himself got Covid earlier this year, when he briefly let his guard down and lowered his mask.

For my fourth interview with Dr. Fauci (you can read the previous ones here, here, and here), I decided to ask him about how he regards the psychology of denial—and also to get a glimpse of what we have in store for us this winter. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Steven Levy: Let’s talk about this winter. Do you expect those two new Covid variants BQ.1 and BQ1.1—they don’t really trip off the tongue—to dominate very soon?

Anthony Fauci: It looks like it’s going in that direction. They went from a fraction of a fraction, to a few, to now double digits. I do expect that, as we’ve seen in other countries, those variants will likely play a role. But they’re not the only ones. You know, there’s BA4.6, BF.7. And then there’s the others that aren’t even here yet that are lingering in other countries.

Those variants are troublesome, right?

Yes, they’re different, somewhat evasive. They elude some of the monoclonal antibodies that have been used effectively. But if you look at the relationship between them and the currently dominant variations, they are subdivisions of that lineage. So although the vaccine isn’t precisely matched to the variant, I believe there’ll be enough cross-reactivity not to create a very serious issue among those who’ve been vaccinated, and particularly those who’ve been vaccinated and boosted.

Can we expect some sort of surge this winter?

It’s unlikely we will see a surge the likes of when Omicron hit us last November and December. I always keep an open mind because I don’t put anything past this virus. But I would be surprised if we saw a major, major surge.

One thing about a surge is that it makes people more careful. Even in communities that once were cautious, most people aren’t masked now, despite continued infections and hundreds of deaths every day. If levels of infection are about the same, we’ll have no incentive to jar us into a higher level of caution.

I believe that you have to enter something else into your equation. As we get into the cooler months of the late fall and the early winter, we’re not only going to have Covid—particularly with these other variants beginning to emerge as we just discussed—but you also have the influenza season. Some years it comes early, sometimes it comes right on time, and sometimes late. This year looks early, at least in some regions. And then there are other infections, such as respiratory syncytial virus, which is particularly problematic for children less than 5 years old and for the elderly.

People should begin masking when they’re in indoor settings during the winter. I’m not talking about mandating anything. I’m talking about using good common sense. If you are a vulnerable person, or if you live in a household with a vulnerable person, you might want to go that extra step. Even though there’s no requirement for a mask, you might want to go back to wearing a mask in an indoor setting.

So let’s talk about masking. I heard that when you got Covid yourself, you attributed it to a moment of weakness, when you took off your mask around people who were special to you and weren’t wearing masks themselves. Those of us who try to wear masks indoors have all felt that pressure. How do we get to the point where we concede the “freedom” of people not to wear a mask and thus endanger others, while the freedom to wear a mask is under assault?

I can’t explain that very well. There’s a very interesting psychological twist there, where you’re doing the right thing to protect yourself, and you feel uncomfortable, because you think that you are making other people uncomfortable. Now, I don’t want to practice psychoanalysis in our interview …

Let’s go for it.

I can tell you my feeling. I was seeing all of my friends—this was a college reunion. I walked into that room, and I had a mask, and they were there with their significant others, none of whom had a mask on. I felt badly, like I was making them feel uncomfortable because they didn’t have a mask on. So I took my mask off. It was a psychological glitch. And it cost me, because there’s no doubt that that’s where I got infected.

Do you think situations like those are a victory for the science deniers?

I don’t want to give them any victories.

But that’s the reality. You’re an empirical person. This is where we are. I wouldn’t want to be in a subway without a mask. But I go on the subway and 20 percent are wearing masks.

There’s a difference. As long as we’re getting into psychoanalysis, here’s how I feel: If I go on in a subway or I get on a plane, and I’m wearing a mask, and nobody else is, I don’t really care how they feel. But when you go to a social event, you know everybody, and you don’t want them to feel uncomfortable—that’s a little bit of a different incentive. Or disincentive, as it were.

I interviewed Bill Gates recently. You must have read his book about the next pandemic.

I have indeed.

Bill and I kind of got into an argument. He said that we’re in a better position to fight the next pandemic, because we fought this one. I said we’re in a worse position, because of the mistrust and even hate now directed toward the public health world, which everyone used to respect. This hostility is something that you’ve experienced yourself. So I think that if another pandemic comes on, we’ll be starting from a disadvantage, because there’ll be a significant percentage of people who won’t accept the proper guidance on what to do to fight this next one. Where do you stand?

There are two elements to that. Overall, I agree with Bill. I think that the lessons learned, particularly among public health officials, are the kinds of things that should be applied. If those lessons are heeded, I think we’ll do better. The good news about the outbreak is that we had years of investments in basic and clinical biomedical research, which allowed us to actually develop a vaccine in unprecedented record time—from the time that we identified the virus to the time that we got a safe and effective vaccine into the arms of people. So we should absolutely remember the lesson of continuing to make investments in biomedical research. Also, heeding the lesson of what went wrong early on, with regard to the public health issues, will put us in good stead.

But in another way, you are correct. Statistically, you will never know when the next pandemic is going to be. I’ll yield to you that in the next pandemic, if it comes relatively soon, there will be people who say, “We’ve had enough of restrictions, we’re not going to have them anymore, we’re just going to go our way.” That would be a big mistake. But what likely will happen is that the next pandemic might be years and years and years from now, when people don’t remember what it was like back then. We would just start all over again. And hopefully, we wouldn’t forget the lessons.

I don’t know if we’re heeding those lessons even now. Hundreds of people a day still die of Covid, and millions are getting long Covid. In September, President Biden asked for more money to fight the virus and help the sick people. He couldn’t get the money.

Right, it’s unfortunate.

To what do you attribute that? Republicans get Covid, too, right?

Obviously, that reflects an unfortunate reality. We live in a very, very divided society. And the degree of divisiveness clearly has interfered with the optimal response to the pandemic. You have a situation where the level of vaccinations in red states versus blue states is substantially different. And the number of deaths due to Covid among Republicans is greater than among Democrats, for the simple reason there’s less of an uptake of vaccinations there. That is unfortunate and should never happen.

There should be a unified response, where everybody realizes that the enemy is the virus, not each other. We need to do everything we can to protect ourselves and protect each other. Unfortunately, that’s not been the case. Political ideologies have gotten involved in a response to an outbreak.

A Senate committee recently concluded that Covid originated from a lab in China. Do you think that’s an unreasonable assumption?

I joined a large group of highly experienced evolutionary virologists who studied this very carefully. We kept an open mind that any theory is possible: lab leak versus natural occurrence. We looked at the evidence on either side and feel that the true evidence—not the tweeting and whatever—strongly weighs on the side of this being a natural occurrence. That doesn’t prove the case. And you still keep an open mind for a lab leak. But I believe that anybody who studies this situation can’t in good conscience say that the lab leak is the most likely explanation.

How much of a practical difference would that make if we knew one way or the other?

Well, knowing which it was would prepare you for the next pandemic, or help you to prevent it from happening again. If we definitively proved that it was a natural occurrence from an animal reservoir—which I believe is the case, again—we would put much more effort into exploring that animal reservoir to see what’s out there, and putting restrictions on the utilization of wild animals in wet markets.

I’d hope we’re doing that anyway.

Well, the Chinese aren’t, when they go against their so-called regulation of not bringing in animals from the wild into the market, exposed to people in the market shopping for food. We have clear-cut proof that they actually did. We have photographs showing the animals in the market that should not have been there. We want to get much stricter on not allowing that animal-human interface.

The state attorneys general in Louisiana and Missouri are charging that you colluded with Mark Zuckerberg to suppress information about a Covid lab leak. Just for the record, you didn’t collude?

That’s laughable. I mean, that is so ludicrous. It isn’t even worth commenting on. I mean, give me a break.

These are people who were elected by state populations as their chief law officers.

Yeah. And some of them are the ones who say that Biden didn’t win the election. So there you go.

Have you ever listened to Joe Rogan?

No, I have not.

Some of his interviews are fascinating and enlightening. And then he’ll have a guest like the Covid denier Robert Malone, and the two of them talk for three hours about how vaccines are more dangerous than Covid itself. It’s baffling to me. Why are even intelligent people so prone to these conspiracy theories? I know you don’t like to psychoanalyze, but you’ve been through tough times before, and it’s part of your job to deal with irrational fears. What’s behind that?

It’s not an easy explanation, Steven. You don’t know whether people really believe that or it’s just acting out. I can’t explain it. It’s too complicated.

You’re leaving your government posts in December, after an amazing career that must be ending bittersweetly because of all the invective and threats leveled against you. Do you think it’s helpful to have a single person, even a trusted one, so much out front in a national health crisis like this?

Other people have to decide that. I am not alone out there. We have the director of the CDC [the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention], we have the surgeon general—there are a lot of people out there. Because I’m the target of the far right, it looks like I’m the only person out there, but I’m not.