I’m not a doctor. Or any kind of medical professional. But there are a number of them in the family. And they all have different views about coronavirus ranging from one extreme to another.
I’ve heard everything from “it’s no worse than the flu” to “it’s the end of the world.”
In Los Angeles, everything is shut down or shutting down. I won’t offer an opinion on the seriousness of the problem, but on coronavirus cancel culture.
It’s possible to believe that coronavirus is a serious problem without bringing in the tantrums of cancel culture, social media mobbing, and virtue signaling into the equation.
Virtue signaling hate doesn’t help anyone. It’s only meant to prop up the egos of the signalers.
Coronavirus cancel culture looks a lot like the vaccine debates with reaction formation and tribal hate being exchanged across the line.
In the real world, I’ve seen acts of kindness and generosity. But in the social distancing world of Twitter, Whatsapp, etc… there’s a surplus of nastiness and petty tribalism. But that is the magic of the internet. Virtuality makes people less kind and more cruel. When we stop interacting with people in person, it becomes too easy to dehumanize and reduce them to abstractions.
It’s possible to operate in a sane middle ground, to reduce risk, without hating people, and to respect everyone’s choices while making your own. But as the world grows increasingly virtual, the middle ground becomes one of those categories for which there is no algorithm.
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