Thursday, December 31, 2020
2020 hindsight
As this very unusual year draws to an end, I thought it would be a good idea to look back at the last 12 months and see what, if anything, we have learned.
The sad truth is I don’t think we’ve learned a thing.
I still hear people who think that the Coronavirus is no worse than the seasonal flu despite the fact that as of this writing, 334,029 people in the United States have died of it since Jan 21, 2020. In contrast, only 22,000 people died of the normal flu in 2019-2020 flu season. .
Yet despite all the evidence around them -- like over-flowing hospitals and a healthcare system on the brink of collapse -- I still see people asserting their “rights” not to wear masks or protesting government restrictions limiting large gatherings. To make matters worse, unscrupulous politicians are using this crisis not bring the country together, but to separate us into small tribes as if this were some sort of game.
This has left me feeling frustrated on a number of levels and makes me feel like the year 2020 is going to be the year that began the decline and fall of one of the greatest countries on Earth.
The United States was built on all of us being one, unified people. It’s right there in the pledge of allegiance we all recited as children: “one nation under G-d, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” Yet politicians seem bound and determined to divide us into small groups: red and blue, Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, snowflake or fascist.
For G-d’s sake, didn’t we fight a war over this 150 years ago? Does no one remember that famous Lincoln quote: "A house divided against itself cannot stand."?
The United States didn’t expand across an entire continent, help turn the tide in the world’s first mechanized war, survive a great depression, defeat fascist regimes bent on world domination and win a cold war, by turning against each other and fighting among ourselves.
On the contrary, we put on our big-boy pants, put aside our differences, and came together to fight whatever the current threat was. But today there seems no interest in this. All people seem to be interested in today is their own good. Screw the other guy, as long as they get what’s good for them, they don’t care what happens to anyone else.
This has never become more clear to me than the people who still refuse to mask up. “It violates MY rights,” they say. “I shouldn’t be forced to wear a mask.”
And they are right. They do have a right NOT to wear that mask. But to paraphrase the late, great StanLee, “With our great First Amendment rights, comes great responsibility” and while some people are all about defending those rights, they forget about their responsibilities to their fellow citizens that comes with them.
Look, our rights do NOT let us do anything we want. The U.S. Constitution guarantees us to the right of free speech, but you can be damn sure that if I yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater (remember them?) that you’d be arrested for causing a stampede if not a few deaths.
Likewise, there is no law that says you have to wear any clothing if you don’t want to. But you still can’t go out in public naked, even if you find clothing gives you a rash or prevents your skin from breathing. You’d be arrested for public indecency. And what about my right to go around shirtless with nothing on my feet? I should be able to walk into any restaurant and get something to eat, right? So where is all the outrage over those “No shirts, no shoes, no service signs” I see posted on almost every eatery’s door?
Then, on top of all this disregard for our fellow citizens, we’ve suddenly turned our collective backs on another thing that allowed this country to excel: our reverence for science and the opinion of experts.
Our history is chockful full scientists, doctors and engineers whose inventions and discoveries helped change the world: Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Morse, Eli Whitney, George Washington Carver, Thomas Edison, George Eastman, Walter Reed, Philo Farnsworth, Robert Goddard, Benjamin Spock, Jonas Salk. Then there are others like Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla who came to this country and became citizens because of the value our country placed on science.
But I’m afraid that wouldn’t happen today. If Einstein and Tesla were thinking of about coming to our country now, they’d probably be turned off by self-proclaimed, armchair experts who think that because they saw something on Facebook or spent 10 minutes Googling something, that they suddenly know more about science and engineering than they do.
It’s sad because I always thought that we were better than this. I always believed each new year would bring us one step closer to the shiny utopian future portrayed in “Star Trek” and not toward the bleakness of the Empire’s rule in the “Star Wars” universe.
But if 2020 has taught me anything, it’s that maybe it’s time to retire those rose-colored glasses and optimistic attitude I’ve always viewed the future with and start looking at it with a more skeptical eye.
I hope 2021 will change this attitude, but at the moment, I’m not counting on it.
Thursday, April 30, 2020
Science Friction
It’s a troubling thought, especially coming from someone who spent the first part of his career as a journalist, defending that cherished right.
But to paraphrase comic book legend Stan Lee, “with great freedom comes great responsibility” and lately I see people exercising their right to the former with no regard to the later.
This is hardly a new phenomenon. It has been going on since man first invented language and unfortunately will continue until our race is extinct.
And the way things are going lately, I fear that extinction may be right around the corner.
This pessimism isn’t born of the Coronavirus pandemic that’s currently sweeping the globe. It’s only the latest symptom of it.
My pessimism comes from the fact that we’ve lost trust in science and that people think that they know more about any given subject after 10 minutes on Google, than the scientists, doctors and engineers who’ve spent the better parts of their lives studying it.
It’s about politicians and fossil-fuel-industry executives denying climate change when the evidence that it is happening is right in front of their faces. They’ll claim the science is inconclusive even though 97 percent of the world’s scientist say it IS happening. Look, if only three people out of 100 say you are not an ass, it’s time to get fitted for a saddle, because you ARE an ass. And if you have to begin a sentence with the phrase, “I’m not a scientist, but….” you’re right.
You’re not a scientist.
You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.
So just SHUT THE FUCK UP!
Yes, I understand that our current way of life is built on the use of fossil fuels and I understand we can’t just get rid of them overnight. But denying a problem exists, doesn’t make it go away. Neither will encouraging people to keeping kicking the problem down the road. Eventually the problem will catch up to us and just because you may not be around to pay that price, your children or grandchildren will. So if you care about them, you need to start doing something now.
It’s also about the Anti Vaxxers, who after reading some discredited medical studies or conspiracy theories on the Internet, think they know more about diseases than doctors who have spent their lives actually fighting and treating them. They will disregard the effectiveness of these drugs focusing on the very small percentage who’ve had some pretty bad reactions to them.
I get it that vaccines aren’t 100 percent effective. But nothing in life is guaranteed. And by advocating that others should follow their misguided lead, Anti Vaxxers are hurting the rest of humanity by reducing our heard immunity and leaving us more prone to pandemic outbreaks.
Look, I’m not saying that Anti Vaxxers are responsible for the Covid-19 crisis.
Far from it.
There is absolutely no evidence that herd immunity would have protected us from the Coronavirus.
What I’m railing about is people blatantly disregarding doctors and scientists’ advice about social distancing, wearing masks and or taking other common sense efforts to keep the disease from spreading just because they want a haircut; think it’s a hoax perpetrated by the “left” and the liberal media or think that it can be “cured” by injecting bleach ; exposing the human body to heat and light and promoting an unproven drugs as a coronavirus 'miracle cures.'
Again, Mr. President – and all you who think like him – if you have to begin a sentence with “I’m not a doctor. But…” just shut up and let actual doctors do the talking!
I get it that the president as well as many in the general public are concerned about the economy. I know they want get back to work ASAP so they don’t lose their livelihoods. But by disregarding the advice of experts, we can make things much, much worse. You can’t have a thriving economy if half the world is dead.
It didn’t work for Thanos, and it won’t work for you.
So instead of using your freedom of speech to sow disbelief in science and scientists, how about encouraging people to actually believe in the ingenuity and creativity of these folks? If scientists, doctors and engineers could get us to the moon and back in just ten years, I have no doubt they can figure out Covid-19 and other issues plaguing our society, too.
Yes, scientists will undoubtedly make mistakes along the way, and we need to expect that. But that’s how we learn. By experimentation, collecting data and basing new theories and experiments on that data – not by basing our findings on the way we wish things to be.
All this takes time and a lot of effort. So unless YOU are willing to put in all the work needed to get a degree in your scientific field of choice, put down your damn smartphone and stop telling people you’re an expert because you read some random article on the Internet, and let the people who ARE experts get on with their work!