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People just lived through a crisis in which public health officials were telling them to avoid a deadly virus by using glory holes[0]. Skepticism of institutions is at an all time high for good reason.

[0] https://metro.co.uk/2020/07/23/health-officials-recommend-gl...

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Thanks for that reminder of some cultural differences (!) between us and our friends across the pond. Hopefully it goes without saying, that rather colorful example is a few steps removed from the replication crisis, although the point about governing institutions spending their credibility in poor ways is taken.

The US had a version of this as well. At the height of lockdowns and social distancing a lot of health officials were saying protesting racial injustice was more important than Covid 19, which we closed a lot of businesses for.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/06/04/public-hea...

I've got to admit that I'm unclear on the relationship between the US's attempts to juggle public health priorities with the constitutional right to freedom of assembly and... the UK glory hole thing. But I'm wondering if those George Floyd protests were a lot more fun than I always suspected.

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