As I keep saying, the COVID-19 pandemic was mishandled by just about everyone. It's really easy to point out what we did wrong. Perhaps I shouldn't be overly negative. What should we have done?
I'm just one person. The entirety of finding a better solution should not come down to just me. That said, I do have some thoughts in this area.
Unfortunately, we are not set up well for my preferred approach. Our first objective should be to end the destruction of minds. We need to either end forced schooling or completely replace the existing model. We need a mentally active society where each citizen can utilize the best information available to decide what's right for them.
The media needs to clean up its act. Even before the pandemic, every mainstream media outlet destroyed its own credibility. When the pandemic hit, the media was quick to fearmonger, politicize, and even cheerlead the virus. They made it very clear that they had an agenda from day 1, and that we couldn't trust them to provide information in a truly accurate and honest manner.
We needed the truth far more than we needed a political agenda. The media should have simply told us what was going on as honestly as possible. Instead, they convinced those with similar beliefs to mindlessly do what they were told. They also convinced their critics to mindlessly refuse to do what they were told.
They should have given us diverse viewpoints rather than cherrypicked experts who all repeated the same narrative. This might have helped lessen some of the confidence-busting swings such as the reversal on masks and vaccines shifting from reducing spread to keeping people out of hospitals. It can also provide a compelling argument if experts with different backgrounds and different agendas all converge around the same belief.
As someone who believes in freedom, nothing should have been forced. If we were in an intellectual society, the truth would lead an overwhelming majority to the best decisions. Instead of convincing people to do what's right, our authoritarian government flat out dictated how we must live our lives.
One thing that became very clear in a hurry is that our government was embracing a solution to the pandemic that would harm mental health. The social isolation and loss of freedom caused by the government's response to the pandemic led to numerous predictions of a mental health crisis that appear to have been validated. Most predictions focused on suicides and substance abuse, but there was another component that a lot of people overlooked. Mental health issues can also lead to an increase in violence.
The bottom line is that we killed people as a means of saving lives. Even if we saved more than we killed, it can be dangerous to allow the government to establish that a segment of the population of their choosing is expendable. Also, I want to make it clear that the pandemic didn't cause a mental health crisis. Our response to the pandemic did.
For years, I have discussed what I consider to be the three primary crises facing the American people, educational, informational, and governmental. This pandemic clearly involved all three. The educational crisis kept people from even trying to understand what was best. The informational crisis kept us from reliable information that could be used to make the best decisions. The governmental crisis has fueled mental health problems, which has resulted in unnecessary loss of life.
The COVID-19 pandemic has clearly validated my concerns with modern-day society. More than ever before, I want to address the three big crises. I at least have some ideas regarding education and information. Ideas for our governmental crisis still elude me. That said, one thing should be very obvious at this point. We need change.
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