You want to find the authoritarians among us? Find the people who are unable to laugh and make it known that no one else should.
(Many of my closest friends see through the narrative, partially because I wouldn’t shut up about it once I started reading the research and really realized how big of a mistake we’d made as a society)
It’s kind of like how everyone thinks that they would have opposed the Nazis because they grew up being taught that Nazis were bad. The truth is, this experiment in mass collective delusion has made it very clear which among us would have spoken out.
The ones reporting their neighbors for having a gathering or not wearing a mask while watering their lawn would have happily helped participate in genocide. Don’t doubt it.
What's clear to me after the pandemic: most people wouldn't think twice about completely destroying the fabric of normal society (perhaps irrevocably, while also violating fundamental rights) if they believe they're acting morally.
In any case, I take solace in the fact that pretty much all of my comments in this thread are more or less equally downvoted :P
I’ve had to stop browsing HN as much during covid because people here tend to be very rabid about this issue. I am shocked how normalized the idea of forcible business closures and total bans on population movement for years (“until the vaccine”) has become. All to avoid a virus that spreads so well that even literal islands (NZ) have been unable to contain it, which has per the CDC a .65% IFR (I personally think the real figure is .3%), and which unlike Influenza does not kill children.
But I digress.