#induced apathy

[futurebird]

No one who claims that not voting is radical has ever given me a reason how it's supposed work.

The only benefit of not voting is that talking about it makes centrist liberals *super* annoyed, and although this is very amusing, it's still not really doing anything.

Worse? Whoever posted this meme *isn't* throwing any bricks at cop cars. (There is a good chance they aren't even leftists but rather right wingers who would find *you* having a criminal record very convenient.)

It is possible and easy to recognize the limitations and insufficiency of electoral politics and still use voting as one action among many to facilitate change.

Listen to what black people and queer people are saying.

I roll my eyes when the *only* response people have to injustice is "Vote!1!" I roll my eyes more at the idea that not voting is some big brain 5D chess radical move that lets you operate outside the system.

Use every lever of power you can reach. Every single one.

[hamartia-grander]

That's a neat serennedy analysis post but the comment ab the scene being the most humanity shown in all of resident evil is so incorrect and just more proof that no one in this fandom pays attention to female characters or just any character who isn't Leon

[ofglories]

Thinks about my divine muses.

Laughs as I imagine Tsukiyomi, Orpheus, Tiamat, and Taliesin all having tea together and the latter three just bullying Tsukiyomi for his apathy towards humanity.

[tarotphil]

.

[noblechaton]

siderealsandman

ngl now that I'm watching you recap this, I think this was literally the last Doctor Who episode I saw before the 60th Anniversary specials

I honestly 100% do not blame you LMAO

it's so near incoherent and just sort of annoying that if you aren't able to detach yourself from reality for a bit I don't really know how you're meant to get through it. there's so little going on with any real depth to it while things that do happen only serve to either further annihilate River as a character or set up the asspull with which Moffat walks the finale back with later. there's nothing else here but people acting silly. Amy still had almost no character, Rory has nowhere to go and keeps getting insulted, 11 has become more Doctor-ish but only barely and not really on screen either

while I continued past this and to the halfway point of series 7 - and through 8/9/a bit of 10 - before I fell off, I absolutely believe series 6 played a huge role in my falling off as of now

I'm coming away from some of these episodes fucking fatigued and not because it's difficult to follow or anything like that, there's just so little meat on the bone that's actually worth all of this that trying to see those scant few good parts is exhausting. there's interesting concepts and ideas, but they're either undercooked or overcooked and there's no in between. they stress certain elements to the near breaking point and without anything behind them, you just stop caring

[alteredphoenix]

Me, whenever I see R. Scott Bakker’s Second Apocalypse books on Kindle’s daily deals: Oh look, suffering’s on sale!

[bootlickerhawks]

may i present to you... how my brain processes emotions (hint: it doesn't)

[thebirdmanhewatches]

my art blocked me 😞

[rpf-bat]

I’m having a bad couple days

[teawiththespleen]

i read in a winnie the pooh book,

if youre feeling blue or hurt by something someone said dont keep it bottled up inside just use your words instead

and felt so viscerally uncomfortable id literally skip the ending where the moral of the story came to a head so i didnt have to deal with fucking roo telling tigger he felt left out or whatever

and i think the little ripple of not learning that lesson has caused waves and so forth

[streetfarterturdstrike]

Happy that people didn’t take to Jin’s bullshit “redemption” arc in Tekken 8 forever pissed at Harada for ruining him and the series narrative in the first place

[saldziakrauje]

not cis, not transfem, not nonbinary, but a secret fourth thing

[luvjunie]

— broken promises

pairing: earth 42 miles x fem!reader

summary: while earth 42 miles comes off a lot tougher than 1610’s based off his cold demeanor and his trauma induced apathy, somewhere under that hard shell, he’s still the sweet boy he used to be and wants love just like anyone else. miles is aged up to 17 in this, simply for the plot! wc: 2,640

contains: spoilers!!! angst to fluff

word bank: “mi vida” - my life, “mi amor” - my love

playing now: Wasted Love Freestyle by Jhene Aiko

You and Miles have been dating for 7 months now, and lately he hasn’t been around as much as he’d like to, for obvious reasons. Well, not obvious to you. You still don’t know that Miles is the Prowler, and he’s intent on keeping it that way.

It’s the third time he’s flaked on plans he arranged himself this month, and he can tell you’re beyond tired of it with the way you just blew his phone up.

— Miles POV —

Miles’ phone buzzes in his pocket but he decides against checking it, marking it off as something unimportant. He’s already accepted a job from his Uncle and a distraction wouldn’t do him any good right now.

8:03 PM

Mi Vida: please don’t tell me you’re doing this again bro.

Mi Vida: this is a joke, right?

Mi Vida: hello?? you were supposed to be outside thirty minutes ago.

Mi Vida: Miles Gonzalo Morales I swear to GOD if I don’t hear your motorcycle revving outside in the next five minutes so help me.

*buzz buzz*

Ignored.

*buzz buzz*

*buzz buzz*

He kissed his teeth, lashes fluttering in aggravation and air puffing through his nostrils at the continuous buzzing against his leg. His shoulder fell to the side a bit as he reached down into his pocket to grab his phone while he climbed up the stairwell, following his uncle. Seeing your contact name on his lock screen, his brow raised as he read over the message, then they bunched together in the middle of his forehead incredulously, the tone of your texts causing his strides to falter.

Miles was genuinely confused for a moment, trying to think back on if he’d done anything to upset you, until the memory of him assuring you he wouldn’t do this again slapped him across the face harder than his mom did that one time he’d cursed at her on accident. The two of you had a date planned for tonight, and he swore to you he’d be there this time, fifteen minutes early at that, even though he knew there was a big chance he wouldn’t be able to make it all. It was selfish of him to promise something he couldn’t guarantee, knowing how demanding the other factors in his life were, but he was so tired of disappointing you, and how happy you looked when he told you you guys would finally get to spend some time together really had him thinking he could make it work this time.

Eyes falling shut for a beat, a heavy sigh leaves his lips, tongue darting out to dampen them as he quickly tries to think of something to respond with that won’t piss you off more than you already are.

He texts you back: sorry Mami, something came up yk how it is. i got you tomorrow tho fasho

Yeah. Real smooth.

*buzz buzz*

Mi Vida: yk what, just forget it, Miles.

Damn, she called me by my first name? I definitely fucked up this time. He thinks to himself.

Mi Vida: whoever you’re with is clearly more important to you than what we got goin on, so it’s cool. stay where you at, i’m done

Shit.

His heart beats a little faster in his chest, the sensation a semblance of something he hadn’t felt in years. Fear. He texts back as fast he can, head snapping up to see he’s fallen behind his Uncle, and he hurriedly jumps a few stairs before he comes to a stop again.

Miles: done??? the fuck you mean you done?

You don’t respond fast enough for his liking, so he double texts.

Miles: baby stop playin. you trippin it ain’t even like that at all

Mi Vida: i’m deadass. don’t call my phone.

He utters a string of curses under his breath, alerting his Uncle who had already noticed he was falling behind when he heard the inconsistency of his nephew’s footsteps. He’s ample steps above Miles, turning his head only slightly over his shoulder to address the distracted teenager.

“C’mon man, get off the phone. We got business to tend to. You in or you out?” Aaron asks. “You know I can’t have nobody holdin’ me back.” There’s a hint of something deeper playing within his words, and Miles knows he doesn’t have a choice.

He swallows hard as he looks up at the older man. Taking one last look down at his phone, his jaw clenches in contemplation before he’s shaking his head with a quiet sigh and shoving it back into his pocket. He’ll have to deal with this later.

“My fault. Yeah, I’m in.” He mumbles, doing a quick jog to catch up to the man.

His uncle’s lips quirk into a smirk, a heavy hand coming down to clap Miles’ back and squeeze his shoulder.

“My man. Aight, let’s roll.”

— Your POV —

8:05 PM

You: i’m deadass. don’t call my phone.

You watch closely as the three dots bubble at the bottom left corner of your screen, an indicator that he was typing. But instead, a quiet scoff slips from your mouth when they disappear, your shoulders slumping in disappointment at the word that appears below your last message.

Seen

You angrily toss your phone onto your bed, bottom lip quivering when you catch a glance at yourself in the mirror when you walk by. You’d gotten dressed up all nice just for him, because you knew the chance of him being free for a night to take you out was rare. You’d started your makeup early just to make sure he wouldn’t have to wait outside for you while you finished, and you’d even styled your hair the way you knew he liked. All for nothing.

You kicked your shoes off and dropped your purse to the ground, heading to your bathroom to undo all your work. You washed all the makeup off your face, the act feeling more humiliating than ever when you remembered why you’d even put it on in the first place. To feel pretty for someone who barely even showed up.

You closed your eyes and tried to calm down, hastily reaching back over to check your phone just one more time. Maybe he was thinking of what to say, and that’s why he’d left you on seen.

Seen 25 minutes ago

Maybe not.

You hated crying. And more than anything you were tired of doing it, especially when broken promises were the cause of your wasted tears. Your evening was basically wasted, and you weren’t in the mood to do anything else anyway, so you decided that you’d call it a night and head to bed early. You slipped on some comfy sleep shorts, tying your hair up for the night before grudgingly tugging a large t-shirt over your head. Your brow perked up at the scent that wafted past your nostrils, and pinching the shirt with your forefinger and thumb, you brought the fabric to your nose and immediately caught a whiff of Miles’ cologne. You then realized you’d put on a shirt you stole from him a while back, and the way your heart fluttered made you even more upset than you already were. You brushed it off to the best of your ability and crawled into bed, trying your hardest to keep your sniffling to a minimum as you pulled your blankets over your shoulder.

____

As soon as he’d gotten the job done and his Uncle gave him the okay to dip, Miles’ feet were moving at the speed of light down the stairwell. And while he had sort of rushed the plays he made with some of the city’s goons, he just had to pray that all his Uncle’s money was in the banded wad of cash he returned with, or it would be his ass.

Skipping a few steps he hopped down onto the platform before the next set, checking his phone for the time simultaneously.

10:15 PM

“Damn.” He groaned, pushing through the doors, cool wind hitting his face. Once he reached his motorcycle he shoved his helmet over his head, hopped on, and sped off with a “skrrrt”.

He sped through the streets carelessly, something you definitely would’ve scolded him for had you been riding on the back of his bike with him, with your arms tight around his waist to hold on like you always did. He bobbed and weaved through cars, lane splitting between a few of them and he may have even ran a red, but he wasn’t paying enough attention to remember. All he could focus on was that you said you were “done”, whatever the hell that meant, and he was adamant on making sure you weren’t.

____

You didn’t know when you’d dozed off, three steady knocks, a fourth one after a pause hitting against your window, resulting in your eyes snapping open at the disruption. You sat up on your mattress, the ball of your hand rubbing the sleep from your eyes as you peered across the room. Once they adjusted in the darkness and you recognized the familiar, lanky body of your boyfriend standing outside on the fire escape, the events of just two hours ago played over in your mind like a record.

With a roll of your eyes, you huffed and swung your legs over the side of your bed, pushing yourself onto your feet. Miles watched as you sleepily trudged over to the window, hands stuffed into the pockets of his jeans, head slightly lowered and tilted to the side, as if he were already apologizing before you’d even made it to him.

Hooking your fingers underneath the edge of your window, with a quiet grunt you pulled it up, effectively lifting the barrier between your bodies. You instantly felt your yearning for him come back full force, and wanted nothing more than to throw yourself into his arms, but you restrained. Your eyes met his, the cool night air breezing into your room, and his heart clenched. Somehow he was able to feel the coolness in your demeanor, yet the cold weather hadn’t bothered him at all.

He was the first to speak.

“Hola, Mami.” He sized you up once, taking notice of your eyes that were slightly puffy from crying.

His voice was like silk to your ears, alluring and confident, almost hypnotizing, and it aggravated you that you felt yourself gravitating towards him off two simple words.

“Why are you here, Miles?” You sighed, arms slapping at your sides in exasperation.

He looked slightly taken aback, chin lifting a bit as if you’d asked something completely outlandish.

“What you mean why I’m here? You my girl, shit, this my crib too.” He shrugged, so nonchalant, as if nothing had happened. You wondered if it had even been him texting you earlier.

“You left me on seen, remember? Stood me up, too?” Your head cocked to the side to match the attitude in your tone, brows raising at him. What excuse would he use this time?

He dragged a hand down his face, exhaling heavily before he spoke up again.

“I was… busy. Look, my bad, okay? You gon’ let me in or what? Ian come all the way over here to stand outside.” He demanded with a gesture towards the opening, his hazel eyes glinting in the moonlight and thawing the ice that’d been temporarily encased around your heart. There was the smallest hint of a smirk on his lips, because he already knew the answer.

Your lips pursed and you stepped to the side, a laggard arm stretched out beside you, silently granting him access to your room.

He stepped through the window frame and you closed it after him, his hands folding around the collar then the hem of his jacket as he adjusted it and turned towards you.

“I can’t keep doing this with you, Miles. It isn’t fair.” You mumbled, hating the way your voice split your words.

His head dipped to the side a bit as he took in your solemn expression and the way your gaze was cast to the floor, as if you were trying to contain your tears. He wasn’t the best at this, he knew that, and showing affection effectively really wasn’t his strong suit. He usually made it up to you by bringing you a few hundreds he’d made from a deal, paired with some roses he’d picked up on the way to your house at the last second— but you both knew paper and flowers wouldn’t fix it this time.

“I’m sorry, I mean it.” He said, reaching for your hand to bring you close and grateful when your eyes finally lifted to lock onto his, although seeing them tear-filled wrapped him in a deep-seated emotion he didn’t even want to acknowledge.

Miles rarely said he was sorry. If ever. Did he apologize? Yes, but it was usually a ‘my bad’ or a ‘my fault’, or some other term that’d get the point across without him have to use too much emotion. Hearing the words ‘I’m sorry’ from him was an anomaly, it happened once in a blue moon, so this time you knew he really meant it. In your heart you knew he meant it, but that didn’t stop the tear you’d been trying to keep at bay from rolling down your cheek.

His thumb caught the tear almost instantly, swiping it from the soft of your skin. It didn’t belong there, and he hated to be the reason why you were crying in the first place.

“Where do you disappear to, Miles?” You sniffled.

He sighed, glancing back over at the window. He considered telling you the truth, but he knew he couldn’t.

“I’m just tryna keep you safe, ma.”

“You always say that!” You squeaked, making sure to keep your voice down, you had technically snuck him in. You ripped your hand from his grasp, turning your face away from him as another tear fell. “Do you not trust me or something? Is that it?”

“Of course I trust you,” His eyebrows knit together at your question and he stole your hand from your side again.

“So why can’t you tell me?” You pleaded, eyes big and glossy.

“I just-“ He paused. “I can’t let you get hurt. The shit I do…” You watched as he hesitated, like even speaking about the subject pained him. “It ain’t good.” He swallowed, a hand coming up to cup your cheek. “And I’ll be damned if I put you in the middle of my shit. I love you… okay?” He moved closer to you, and when you turned from him once again he brought your face right back to his, this time with both his hands. He wasn’t going to let you go, and while Miles was rough around the edges, and seemingly devoid of any emotion other than anger or resentment for the world—he always handled you with care.

“I love you, Y/n, I put that on everything. I’ll burn this whole world down for you, you hear me? Don’t think I won’t.” He stared into your eyes longingly, intent on making sure you didn’t just hear every word, but that you understood them, too.

You couldn’t help but lean into his hand, your own coming up to hold at his wrist as you inhaled shakily and gave him a bleak nod.

That wasn’t enough for him. He needed to hear you say it.

“Do you understand?” He articulated his words, bringing his head down slightly to match your height a bit more.

“I understand.” You said softly, looking up at him through your lashes before your gaze fell to his lips. He took that as his sign, leaning forward and bringing you into a kiss.

You melted into him immediately, like you always did, eyes fluttering closed as your lips moved against his, and as his hands fell to your hips to pull you in closer, like they always did.

You broke the kiss for air, your hand resting on his bicep and your lips ghosting his as you spoke, as you shared the same breath. “I love you too…” You breathed, standing on your toes.

“Good,” You felt him grin before he pulled away, his hand pinching your chin to make you look at him. “Cause you not leaving me, ever. I can’t let no one else have you, Mami, you know that.” He cooed.

You felt heat flush your cheeks, a smile you couldn’t hide finally spreading on your face.

“Yeah yeah, I know.” You answered, chewing at your bottom lip. “Can you stay?” You whispered, eyes shifting between his hopefully as you awaited his answer.

“Ah…” He rubbed at the back of his neck, piping up again before you could get disappointed. “What about your moms?”

“She sleeps in on the weekends, you just gotta be outta here by nine. Please, pa?” You whined, already reaching for his hands.

He chuckled to himself and shook his head slightly, having to look away from the adorable look on your face. He tried to remain in denial of the fact that he was so deep in love with you he could hardly think sometimes, let alone say no, but he was failing. Miserably.

“Of course I’ll stay, mi amor.”

Your expression lit up, a toothy smile brightening your features as he let you lead him to your bed.

He made sure to remove his shoes before he laid down, settling on his back. He extended his arm out to you as he tucked the other behind his head, motioning for you to join him with his fingers.

You crawled into his open embrace, getting comfortable on top of his chest and nuzzling your head under his chin. You began to feel drowsy the second he wrapped his arm around you, a yawn leading your eyes to water. His hand slowly moved from where it was resting on your back, dipping beneath the hem of your shirt, the warmth of his skin against yours comforting to you. His large hand rubbed up and down the expanse of your back, the tips of his fingers drawing lines along your spine— you always fell asleep easier when he did that. You listened to the steady beating of his heart, fingers idly toying with the gold chain he kept around his neck.

“I’m really sorry I ain’t make it tonight. I know you prolly got all pretty for me n’shit… and I wish I got to see it, but that’s on me.” He grumbled. He’d beat himself up over this for a while.

“S’okay.” You say it is, but he knows it’s not. He knows better. “I missed you.” Your quiet voice murmured from below him as you scooted in impossibly closer.

His jaw tensed as he stared up at your ceiling, a deep breath from his diaphragm raising you a little bit with his chest, and lowering you as he released it. “I know.” His response was hushed, and as sleep continued creeping in, you wondered if you’d imagined it.

But when you felt a long, drawn-out kiss press to the top of your head, his hand rubbing soothing circles between your shoulder blades, you knew it was real. The last thing you heard before you dozed off was his voice, mellow and gentle as he assured you.

“Ima do better, mama. I promise, for real this time.”

- do not copy, plagiarize, or post my works onto a different platform.

likes, comments, and reblogs are very appreciated!

[gumjrop]

You might be forgiven for thinking it’s been a very quiet few months for the Covid-19 pandemic. Besides the rollout of new boosters, the coronavirus has largely slipped out of the headlines. But the virus is on the move. Viral levels in wastewater are similar to what they were during the first two waves of the pandemic. Recent coverage of the so-called Pirola variant, which is acknowledged to have “an alarming number of mutations,” led with the headline “Yes, There’s a New Covid Variant. No, You Shouldn’t Panic.”

Even if you haven’t heard much about the new strain of the coronavirus, being told not to panic might induce déjà vu. In late 2021, as the Omicron variant was making its way to the United States, Anthony Fauci told the public that it was “nothing to panic about” and that “we should not be freaking out.” Ashish Jha, the Biden administration’s former Covid czar, also cautioned against undue alarm over Omicron BA.1, claiming that there was “absolutely no reason to panic.” This is a telling claim, given what was to follow—the six weeks of the Omicron BA.1 wave led to hundreds of thousands of deaths in a matter of weeks, a mortality event unprecedented in the history of the republic.

Indeed, experts have been offering the public advice about how to feel about Covid-19 since January 2020, when New York Times columnist Farhad Manjoo opined, “Panic will hurt us far more than it’ll help.” That same week, Zeke Emanuel—a former health adviser to the Obama administration, latterly an adviser to the Biden administration—said Americans should “stop panicking and being hysterical.… We are having a little too much [sic] histrionics about this.”

This concern about public panic has been a leitmotif of the Covid-19 pandemic, even earning itself a name (“elite panic”) among some scholars. But if there’s one thing we’ve learned, three and a half years into the current crisis, it’s that—contrary to what the movies taught us—pandemics don’t automatically spawn terror-stricken stampedes in the streets. Media and public health coverage have a strong hand in shaping public response and can—under the wrong circumstances—promote indifference, incaution, and even apathy. A very visible example of this was the sharp drop in the number of people masking after the CDC revised its guidelines in 2021, recommending that masking was not necessary for the vaccinated (from 90 percent in May to 53 percent in September).

As that example suggests, emphasizing the message “don’t panic” puts the cart before the horse unless tangible measures are being taken to prevent panic-worthy outcomes. And indeed, these repeated assurances against panic have arguably also preempted a more vigorous and urgent public health response—as well as perversely increasing public acceptance of the risks posed by coronavirus infection and the unchecked transmission of the virus. This “moral calm”—a sort of manufactured consent—impedes risk mitigation by promoting the underestimation of a threat. Soothing public messaging during disasters can often lead to an increased death toll: Tragically, false reassurance contributed to mortality in both the attacks on the World Trade Center and the sinking of the Titanic.

But at a deeper level, this emphasis on public sentiment has contributed to confusion about the meaning of the term “pandemic.” A pandemic is an epidemiological term, and the meaning is quite specific—pandemics are global and unpredictable in their trajectory; endemic diseases are local and predictable. Despite the end of the Public Health Emergency in May, Covid-19 remains a pandemic, by definition. Yet some experts and public figures have uncritically advanced the idea that if the public appears to be tired, bored, or noncompliant with public health measures, then the pandemic must be over.

But pandemics are impervious to ratings; they cannot be canceled or publicly shamed. History is replete with examples of pandemics that blazed for decades, sometimes smoldering for years before flaring up again into catastrophe. The Black Death (1346–1353 AD), the Antonine Plague (165–180 AD), and the Plague of Justinian (541–549 AD), pandemics all, lacked the quick resolution of the 1918 influenza pandemic. A pandemic cannot tell when the news cycle has moved on.

Yet this misperception—that pandemics can be ended by human fiat—has had remarkable staying power during the current crisis. In November 2021, the former Obama administration official Juliette Kayyem claimed that the pandemic response needed to be ended politically, with Americans getting “nudged into the recovery phase” by officials. It is fortunate that Kayyem’s words were not heeded—the Omicron wave arrived in the US just weeks after her article ran—but her basic premise has informed Biden’s pandemic policy ever since.

Perhaps even less responsibly, the physician Steven Phillips has called for “new courageous ‘accept exposure’ policies”—asserting that incautious behavior by Americans would be the true signal of the end of the pandemic. In an essay for Time this January, Phillips wrote: “Here’s my proposed definition: the country will not fully emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic until most people in our diverse nation accept the risk and consequences of exposure to a ubiquitous SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19.”

This claim—that more disease risk and contagion means the end of a disease event—runs contrary to the science. Many have claimed that widespread SARS-CoV-2 infections will lead to increasingly mild disease that poses fewer concerns for an increasingly vaccinated (or previously infected) population. In fact, more disease spread means faster evolution for SARS-CoV-2, and greater risks for public health. As we (A.C. and collaborators) and others have pointed out, rapid evolution creates the risk of novel variants with unpredictable severity. It also threatens the means that we have to prevent and treat Covid-19: monoclonal antibody treatments no longer work, Paxlovid is showing signs of viral resistance, and booster strategy is complicated by viral evolution of resistance to vaccines.

But these efforts to manage and direct public feelings are not just more magical thinking; they are specifically intended to promote a return to pre-pandemic patterns of work and consumption. This motive was articulated explicitly in a McKinsey white paper from March 2022, which put forward the invented concept of “economic endemicity”—defined as occurring when “epidemiology substantially decouples from economic activity.” The “Urgency of Normal” movement similarly used an emotional message (that an “urgent return to fully normal life and schooling” is needed to “protect” children) to advocate for the near-total abandonment of disease containment measures. But in the absence of disease control measures, a rebound of economic activity can only lead to a rebound of disease. (This outcome was predicted by a team that was led by one of the authors [A.C.] in the spring of 2021.)

A pandemic is a public health crisis, not a public relations crisis. Conflating the spread of a disease with the way people feel about responding to that spread is deeply illogical—yet a great deal of the Biden administration’s management of Covid-19 has rested on this confusion. Joe Biden amplified this mistaken perspective last September when he noted that the pandemic was “over”—and then backed that claim by stating, “If you notice, no one’s wearing masks. Everybody seems to be in pretty good shape.” The presence or absence of health behaviors reveals little about a threat to health itself, of course—and a decline in mask use has been shaped, in part, by the Biden administration’s waning support for masking.

Separately, long Covid poses an ongoing threat both at an individual and a public health level. If our increasingly relaxed attitude toward public health measures and the relatively unchecked spread of the virus continue, most people will get Covid at least once a year; one in five infections leads to long Covid. Although it’s not talked about a lot, anyone can get long Covid; vaccines reduce this risk, but only modestly. This math gets really ugly.

The situation we are in today was predictable. It was predictable that the virus would rapidly evolve to evade the immune system, that natural immunity would wane quickly and unevenly in the population, that a vaccine-only strategy would not be sufficient to control widespread Covid-19 transmission through herd immunity, and that reopening too quickly would lead to a variant-driven rebound. All of these unfortunate outcomes were predicted in peer-reviewed literature in 2020–21 by a team led by one of the authors (A.C.), even though the soothing public messaging at the time called it very differently.

As should now be very clear, we cannot manifest our way to a good outcome. Concrete interventions are required—including improvements in air quality and other measures aimed at limiting spread in public buildings, more research into vaccine boosting strategy, and investments in next-generation prophylactics and treatments. Rather than damping down panic, public health messaging needs to discuss risks honestly and focus on reducing spread. Despite messages to the contrary, our situation remains unstable, because the virus continues to evolve rapidly, and vaccines alone cannot slow this evolution.

In the early months of the pandemic, many in the media drew parallels between the public’s response to Covid-19 and the well-known “stages of grief”: denial, bargaining, anger, depression, and acceptance. The current situation with Covid-19 calls for solutions, not a grieving process that should be hustled along to the final stage of acceptance.

[cemeterything]

the government and corporate executives in the silt verses trying to "solve" the issue of sociopolitical unrest by creating Literal State-Sponsored Corporate Product That Induces Apathy... i need to propose marriage to this podcast i need to give it head

[headspace-hotel]

further thoughts on modern extinctions of species

The scientists have a great difficulty laid out for them, doing public messaging about climate change/biodiversity loss that communicates the urgency and importance WITHOUT inducing a panic and helplessness that leads to apathy and shut-down (exactly what is seen in many young people in regards to climate change)

Now we all probably know here that it is really important for scientists to do "obvious" "water is wet" type studies showing something is a problem, even if the problem is obvious to anybody with eyes, because then the study can be used as hard evidence to change policies or to inform skeptics.

However sometimes these studies themselves end up becoming "Obvious" facts.

Because they are so important, they get cited a thousand times, and it becomes so seemingly reliable, that the methodology of the studies is not questioned very much.

It's not necessarily that the studies are even wrong—it's that their conclusions become Facts when the original study would only say "probably true under these specific circumstances" or "likely if measured within these parameters" or "suggested by what little evidence we can gather."

Here is one of those facts:

We know that abuse and misuse of our ecosystems can cause extinctions. But there needs to be hard evidence backing that up.

"The current extinction rate is over 1,000 times the usual background extinction rate" is an important estimate for understanding the magnitude of the damage deforestation, resource extraction, and other over-exploitation do to ecosystems.

But this estimate has become a Fact. It is treated like a black box. It is so widely cited and in particular it is so commonly used as evidence for the idea that human impacts on the Earth are irreversibly and unfixably destructive. People use it as irrefutable proof that we are in the midst of a mass extinction that we have very little chance of stopping. And that makes people feel hopeless...which makes people paralyzed and much less likely to act on behalf of their ecosystems. "We're all going to die! I can barely do anything, and it's unlikely to make a difference anyway. Why bother?" That's not good.

So...Here's an article that explains how this number is reached.

When bryozoans were my special interest I delved really deep into learning about fossils, and because of this I wondered, "How do we even know the background extinction rate, and how do we know there is a normal baseline for Earth's extinction rates?" The article explains:

I'm having a hard time finding very many articles about this, actually, if anyone has others, I would enjoy seeing them

So here's the thing...the fossil record is really, really, really, really, really low resolution. Fossilization is an extraordinarily rare event, huge periods of time are totally missing from the fossil record in any given place, and...this is just me, but since many living species can only be distinguished from each other by analyzing their genome, I doubt we could tell for sure if two fossils are the same or different species.

The way biodiversity is structured on Earth, there are usually small areas where large amounts of species diversify, often areas that are unique and isolated in some way. In other words, some areas are hotspots for species diversity. Many species on Earth have incredibly small, restricted ranges. (On top of that, these diversity hotspots are often islands or mountains...which seem unlikely to be areas where sedimentary rock deposition is happening.)

Since fossilization is such an unlikely event, and the fossil record is missing most of the time periods for each place because sedimentary rocks just weren't forming there (or they did and later got eroded), fossils probably preserve more wide-ranging, generalist species that were high in abundance. There must have been tons of weird, highly geographically restricted places like the Galápagos islands where bizarre creatures evolved and were never preserved because it was just a tiny area. (This makes me want to cry if I think about it too long.)

What's more, with vertebrate animals, species that fossilize and get easily noticed as fossils, tend to be larger-bodied, and larger animals generally tend to reproduce more slowly, which means the usual speciation and extinction rate for these larger animals might not reflect the speciation rate for, say, spiders or snails.

How is it determined that a taxon went extinct? Basically, when a taxon appears in the fossil record and seems to disappear, that's considered an extinction. However, that doesn't mean it did go extinct then. Maybe its range just became smaller, or maybe there is an unconformity. We could have a Coelacanth situation.

What I'm saying is...the fossil record is only a tiny bit of all the species that have ever existed, and probably wildly misrepresents the range of species evolving and going extinct at any time.

Now consider that the data is being filtered through something else that distorts it even more: databases and compilations of other scientists' works. So many disagreements and little errors pop up when you try to synthesize these!

All of these reasons are why I think "There is NO WAY we could estimate accurately what the average extinction rate for Earth is." Which is why it's frustrating to see the "1000x the background extinction rate" number treated like a rigid fact.

It's supposed to communicate that a lot of species have gone extinct in a relatively short period, I don't think it can be extrapolated the way it has been, to an irreversible and indescribably dire situation where the destruction of the biosphere is far beyond anything that can be fixed.

Here's the other part of this conclusion I find frustrating: How the current extinction rate is being calculated. It is based upon double and triple digits of species in each group (of vertebrate animals) having gone extinct both since 1900 and since 1500. Essentially, it uses these numbers from the vertebrate animals we know about that have gone extinct to extrapolate about the general overall extinction rates on Earth.

Articles and books that use this "1000x the usual background rate" statistic present it as some kind of ongoing process that is ruthlessly proceeding forward as we speak. But it is derived from scientists going, well, we predicted 1 or 2 extinctions for every 10,000 species per 100 years, but 100-something went extinct since 1900 that we know of, so this means the "current extinction rate" has changed to be a thousand times what it was.

I'm not great with math. But these numbers seem...coarse. Does that make any sense? The species that went extinct are each specific cases that we know about, and when you take these individual cases and multiply them by big numbers and divide those big numbers to get something like "20 species are going extinct every day!!" that seems wildly irresponsible. People are reading that and thinking, "Oh God, every single day more frogs and fishes and bees are gone forever" when there was such a large margin of error involved in each step of getting there that the final number is almost worthless.

And here's the BIG, HUGE, MASSIVE PROBLEM: The study treats the "extinction rate since 1900" as the same as "extinction rate today." The design of the study totally disregards ALL CONSERVATION EFFORTS AND ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTIONS because it assumes that human impact on the environment in all times since 1900 is the same as human impact on the environment today.

It is baked into the design of the study that the conclusions will assume wildlife conservation is happening to a much lesser degree than it actually is, because it uses the time when there were no protections for wild creatures or consequences for slaughtering them in mass numbers and dumping toxic deadly chemicals in waterways to draw its conclusions on what's happening "Now."

Environmental damage is still continuing, but it is not right to terrify people by treating species extinction as a steadily ongoing thing that has "risen" since 1500 because of broad forces that have stayed totally consistent, rather than something that happened for specific reasons in each case and can be prevented from happening. I have no doubt that species are still going extinct, but so many have been saved and are recovering, and it really matters that effort has been put into preserving them.