I started another post a week ago. It was about simulation, as it relates to the topic of simulacra. I hope to finish it at some point and continue that discussion. However, I may need to readdress the topic of simulacra at the same time, as I think my interpretation may still be problematic. That all said, personal life reared its ugly head, and that is why I’m only getting back to writing now.
As I get older, and hopefully wiser, I understand many things that I did not understand in my youth. I see things I could not see before. Those concerns I had as a child have not gone away. Instead, I can recognize them more, seeing the fine edges; the sharp edges.
We are still amid a global pandemic. To be clear, it may be well beyond a year, but the pandemic is still going strong. The COVID-19 virus is still running rampant through most populations. So why doesn’t it feel like it anymore? At least, it doesn’t to me. You see, where I live, cases are down pretty low. In my community, if anyone happens to be infected right now, they are not spreading it.
The local university students have been particularly problematic in this regard. There are restrictions and rules governing people’s behaviors and actions. For example, there are not supposed to be groups of more than 50 people congregating outside. So when those students hold gatherings in excess of 8000 people, there are concerns. They didn’t do this just once either. They held similar outdoor gathers over the course of two consecutive weekends. As the pandemic is ongoing, this should worry me, shouldn’t it?
I am concerned, because a group of people are voluntarily breaking this rule. A rule in place to protect the community from a virus. However, now that these parties have concluded, there has not been a significant increase in cases. The fear that large groups will “cause” an outbreak seem unfounded. Breaking the rule seems to have had no serious consequences.
It is possible we are all simply lucky. If there is no one infected among the 8000, then of course there will be no transmission. But then why the rule? The rule is in place “just in case.” If there were people infected, then the probability of infecting others goes up dramatically if people are congregating in these large groups. The rule is not in place to prevent a certain event, only a possible one.
It gets better. The reason many of these rules were implemented at the outset of the pandemic declaration were to give time for our various health care systems to prepare. That is, it takes time to train medical workers and care givers, to create beds and equipment, to make space for the grievously ill. The rules were in place not to prevent the spread of disease entirely, only to slow it. It has been over a year; have the appropriate preparations been made?
In my part of the world, the short answer is no. No preparations have been made. The health care system is firing on the same four cylinders it was at the beginning. Some new equipment has found its way into their hands, but that equipment is by and large disposable. No new staff. No new beds. No new space. What happened?
In truth, I don’t know. I’ve been trying to get by like so many others, primarily focused on myself and my family. My area of expertise is not medical, and neither is my partner’s. We do our part, following the rules and not requiring the health care system to attend to us. But we don’t contribute to that system directly either.
It seems to me that the current rules I am asked to exist under were created with the intention of buying time for society to prepare. However, the time to prepare has passed. Those decision makers appear to have confused rules to delay for rules to protect. That is, these current rules were not intended to prevent the spread of disease, only slow it down. But it seems like decision makers seem to think that the rules will prevent disease. The rules are no longer serving the purpose they were intended to serve.
Are we, as a society, expected to remain at home indefinitely? The decision makers will suggest this is not the case. Of course no one is being expected to remain at home indefinitely. In fact, we need people to get back to work (as the supply chain crisis is making clear). However, I am receiving conflicting information in this regard. Don’t congregate in large groups, for fear of spreading a disease, but do congregate in groups at work (as is necessary) to maintain the continuance of our consumerist society. So which is it?
There is no straight or simple answer here. This is a pandemic, and the truth is there is no cure. We cannot stop the disease. COVID-19 (and its various variants) will continue to be a part of our world indefinitely. I imagine these viruses will continue to exist in some form even when I am much, much older than now. Probably even beyond my expiry date.
What seems important now is not to perpetuate false hopes and insincere mandates. Not to become seduced by rule worship, where we all simply follow rules blindly for the sake of those same rules. The rules ought to be rules for a reason. If there is a rule commanding me to remain at home, there ought to be a logical and sound reason for me to remain at home. Not simply “stay home because the rules says so.” Something like “stay home because it will protect others from infection.” However, if that happens to be the reason to follow the rule, and no one in my community is infected, then the rule is serving no actual purpose.
The last point I wish to make here is with regard to the vaccinations and lethality. That is, do the vaccines serve their purpose? Are people who are vaccinated actually protected from being infected. The short answer is no. There are many people who have been fully vaccinated who have ended up in the hospital with serious, life threatening conditions. Having said that, the number of vaccinated people who end up in hospital is much, much less than the number of unvaccinated people. So vaccination does seem to provide some protection, and so yes, people ought to get vaccinated for that reason.
But what about lethality? That is, does being vaccinated reduce the probability of fatality? Evidence seems to suggest so. Those who are vaccinated are dying less than those who are not vaccinated. I know how statistics work, so I am well aware of the various ways this can be delineated. Yes, if you look at the proportion of total deaths, and then look at how many were vaccinated people and how many were not, you will see that the number of vaccinated people dying has certainly increased since the beginning of the pandemic. But that only makes sense because there were NO vaccinated people at the beginning of the pandemic, and now there are tons of vaccinated people. It only stands to reason that the number of vaccinated people dying will increase as there is an increase in the number of people vaccinated.
So what am I saying then? What I am saying is that OF the number of people who are vaccinated, the percentage of them that die is less than OF the number of unvaccinated people, the percentage of them that die. In other words, if you are vaccinated, the probability of you dying as a result of COVID-19 is much less than if you are unvaccinated. Meaning, remaining unvaccinated increases your risk of dying as a result of infection. Conversely, being vaccinated decreases your risk of dying as a result of infection. There is also evidence to suggest that being vaccinated may reduce the probability of becoming infected, but that evidence is less clear.
What I am getting at here is that, purely from an egoist perspective, it is in my own interest to be vaccinated, as it reduces the probability of me dying as a result of infection, if I happen to get infected. Furthermore, if I follow the current rules, I am also less likely to become infected, as I am staying at home and not interacting with other people. In other words, if I remain a hermit who has been vaccinated, I will have a very, very small risk of dying.
Unfortunately, this is where the egoist argument ends, because if we all are egoists, nothing will get done. That is, if I remain at home, I am not producing any products or providing any services. I am not working. All those lovely luxuries I take for granted have to come from somewhere. My running water. My electricity. My food. It is through the efforts of people that all these things happen. So some people will have to go to work and not remain at home being hermits. Some people will have to throw themselves into the line of fire.
In our modern world, it is often suggested that equality ought to be considered very important. That is, everyone ought to be treated equally. This is what is meant by Human Rights: if you are human, then you are entitled to these rights. If we all are entitled to these same rights, then in that way we are expected to be equal. For example, no one ought to be forced to throw themselves into the line of fire. If one voluntarily does so, that is their choice and we can commend them and thank them for doing so. But no one ought to be forced to do so…
So this ends up being about freedom. That people ought to be allowed the freedom to choose for themselves if they want to sacrifice themselves for the good of society. In North American societies, where consumerism and capitalism are greatly valued, where egoism is commonplace, who do we expect to sacrifice themselves? And, over time, if all those who sacrifice themselves eventually die off as a result of infection, all that will remain will be the egoists who remain at home, slowly dying as a result of lack of food.
As I see it, this is one ridiculously messy situation. The problem, it seems to me, is that our currently established culture and value system is of concern. The rules of society are the problem. Not just the rules themselves, but how those rules are established. Even how the decision makers are decided upon. The decision makers are the egoists. The “common people” are being forced to sacrifice themselves for the benefit of the egoists. The wealthy and powerful remain at home (because they can) and ask those who cannot stay at home (the common people) to sacrifice themselves in order to perpetuate a society that is in slow decline and ruin.
The problem is class. The problem is wealth. The problem is… Me… I am the problem. For I see all of this. I worry about all of this. I have a skillset that employs me such that it does not require me to embed myself within the masses of people out in society. Don’t get me wrong, I am far from wealthy. And I am not a decision maker. But I have sufficient wealth to be able to get by safely.
I am down a rather deep rabbit hole presently. I often feel like there is no point to any of this. This world where we are all like hamsters on the big wheel, running very very fast and getting nowhere. But it isn’t like the hamster wheel, because we are not actually going nowhere, we seem to be going backward.
Everything we do simply makes the situation worse. Every problem we solve generates several more problems that need to be solved (and sometimes these new problems are much, much worse than the original problem). No one really benefits, though there is a minority out there that are certainly more comfortable than the rest of us.
I was once told a story about robots, constructed to perform mining operations on other planets. The robots mine ores and other materials, and then use those materials to create more mining robots. It is a practice of efficiency, where the population of mining robots grows, allowing them to mine materials faster over time. This all sounds lovely, but the question I would pose is “why?” Eventually, the robots will be so plentiful and the planets to mine so few, until there are no planets left. Then what? It is a pointless venture. And what do we do with all the robots at the end?
I was taught in philosophy that I ought to present an alternative before I criticize something. If I think the current system is bad (for whatever reason), I ought to offer an alternative system to be used in its place. The truth is, I have several. However, each of these alternatives is considered outrageous and unreasonable. For example, one of my alternatives during this pandemic is that the health care system ought to prioritize people who are vaccinated over those who are not. In fact, I would suggest that the health care system turn aware the unvaccinated entirely.
This requires some further explanation. It has been over a year since the pandemic began. It has been over six months since vaccines have been made available to the populations (at least in my part of the world). Those who support the existing system have had ample opportunity to get themselves vaccinated. Most of them have in fact been vaccinated at this point. The majority of those who remain unvaccinated have done so by their own choice. This entire situation is an expression of people’s freedom.
It is the health care system that has made vaccination possible. It is the health care system that has urged the populations to get vaccinated, in order to alleviate the preventable stress on the health care system itself. Getting vaccinated amounts to supporting or “buying into” the health care system. In other words, those who choose to get vaccinated are choosing to support the health care system. Conversely, those who choose not to get vaccinated are choosing not to support the health care system. If someone isn’t supporting the health care system, then why is the health care system supporting them?
The health care system is like insurance. Not everyone who purchases insurance ends up using insurance. It is a way for a group of people to work together toward assisting individuals. If everyone “buys into” insurance, then those few who need to use insurance coverage will have much more resources available to support their need. In the case of health care, if everyone “buys into” health care, those few individuals who need support can receive much better, and more expensive, support. This all works ONLY if most people who are supporting the system do not need to receive from that system. If everyone who buys in also needs support, then the system breaks down and each individual would be better off supporting themselves (generally, there still may be good reason to support such a system in order to equalize the support for those who are able to buy in less than others).
In our present situation, we have a large number of people supporting the health care system by getting vaccinated. We also have a significant number of people choosing not to support the health care system by not getting vaccinated. We also have a group of people who would like to get vaccinated but are unable (mostly small children at this point). What I suggest is that those who actively choose not to get vaccinated ought to be turned away by the very system they are not supporting. We don’t give insurance support to individuals who did not buy insurance, so why should this be any different?
The obvious controversy in this scenario is that it amounts to allowing thousands of people to simply die. (Also, the logistical nightmare in implementing such a process is likely untenable.) The value system we seem to have adopted is one suggesting that we do not allow humans to die. (I know people think we have adopted a system where all life is precious, but to them I suggest you start by investigating where your food comes from.) Thus, in order to implement this alternative solution, it would require a shifting in our current value system. We would have to reduce the prioritization of human life.
Is this a good solution? I’m sure many would think not. But I would point out that our current system, the manner in which we have already been running, thousands of people are already dying. Changing to this alternative system would likely not change the numbers of people dying (certainly not in the short term); it would really only change which people were dying. It would effectively reduce the lifespan of those who do not support the system.