Editor’s Note: Bill McGuire is professor emeritus of geophysical & climate hazards at University College London and author of “Hothouse Earth: An Inhabitant’s Guide.”

  • OpenStars@startrek.website
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    9 months ago

    You are saying that there is balance in all things. I agree fully - we even need some of these people, so long as it works out, e.g. scientists, engineers, teachers, doctors - these people need their inflated egos, or how else would someone have the audacity to be able to do something like stick their literal hands inside of someone’s literal guts to carve out the cancerous masses and thereby save people’s lives? When it is appropriate, it can be used for all of our benefits - the literal definition of “good” then, as in aka advantageous.

    Where you started to go off the rails is when there seems to be a lack of balance - though there too I think it will come, in the future and also here in the present in other ways. e.g. hard times begets strong people, who make better times, which makes weak people, who fall into hard times, and the cycle repeats itself.

    Where it starts to matter the most, imho, is when we are hyporitical, then instead of choosing our own balance point, we (/they) are the ones who will get balanced instead, if you catch my drift. e.g. you alluded to people who upon first deciding that “covid is fake”, refused to take the vaccine, then predictably got covid, then all of a sudden wanted help from a real doctor (why not call the likes of Joe Rogan then, huh?), then spread covid even further. Many irl actual doctors, media personalities, pastors/preachers/priests/ministers/whatever, and average families are dead now. This did not need to happen, yet it did. It was a choice to jump off the cliff, even though it was not always phrased that way by the people goading others into it (which sometimes but not always included themselves - see e.g. the Woodsworth interview where Trump said in advance that he was going to claim that the virus was not airborne, yet admitting that it was, in fact, very much known to be airborne; this was a known quantity, and he knew that he knew, but even so he knew, and even admitted, that he was going to say differently from what was known, which btw we used to call these “blatant lies”, yet now refer to them as “alternative facts”, b/c Might Makes Right I guess, and powerful people get to control the words rather than us adhering solely to what is Truth). And now, predictably (despite how we all act shocked, Shocked I tell you, SHOCKED!:-P), many nurses have quit, some by outright dying, others by simply leaving the field, and some I shit you not have literally taken to the hills and now live in some mountainous area far away from people (if their stories on Reddit were to be taken at face value, which seeing what I know myself I 100% believe that many of them at least are likely to be true).

    Likewise, I am sure that you have heard the stories of doctors fleeing from states that refuse to perform abortions - I think it was Idaho who literally closed their final, last remaining (or was it second to last?) maternity ward, due to the final doctor retiring rather than put up with all the BS she had to endure on a daily basis, and they could not keep it staffed anyway due to harassment of the nurses too. I also heard a story in the early days of the pandemic (in Springfield MO iirc) of a doctor who had brought in federal funding to begin an entire new medical research institute there - a JOB CREATOR - but who, predictably, upon receiving death threats decided to cancel those plans and leave the state instead. He was not the first doctor willing to move to Missouri who was convinced to make alternate plans - I hear similar stories far too often, and even from literal decades in the past, to attribute them to anything short of an actual pattern of behavior.

    I wanted to point out how those problems did not start there though, but themselves had earlier causes, and also that “those people” never simply remain where they are, i.e. appeasement never seems to work, as history has taught anyone willing to learn from it. e.g. when they got covid, they drove in from their rural areas where they already had decided not only to not fund hospitals themselves, but they also caused people who WERE trying to bring in outside funding to build those to flee. And when they came in, many treated the nurses (and doctors) horribly - sometimes threatening them LITERALLY AT GUNPOINT, to say or do whatever they wanted, e.g. “don’t say that this is covid, everyone knows that isn’t real, now just save them!”. These kinds of temper tantrums affect us all, whereever we may be - and I do not mean solely emotionally. B/c when these same nurses quit their jobs, who now is lining up to take their places? Supposedly we held them up as heroes… with all the clapping and surrounding media blitz, but when push came to shove, we did not have their backs, nor do we have them even now as they continue to strike for better working conditions (where did all that media blitz go?), and one day we may find ourselves in need of medical care, but be unable to find a qualified practictioner, as a direct result of our choices of actions (again, even though the words went the opposite direction). We will be “shocked” to discover, then, that medical care is no longer what it once was, even just a few short years ago. (Also, importantly, while this does affect people “everywhere”, it does not do so “equally” - some areas are, obviously, affected to a higher degree than others.)

    We all just want “daddy to take care of us” - whether that be in the form of Big Brother, or a God (real or imagined), we cry out for salvation or at least acknowledgement of our pain. And Donald Trump… yes, just like every politician ever, gives them that. He gives them what they say and think that they need, and so they will vote for him, even again, even after all that has happened before. B/c appeasement always works, don’t you know? :-(

    One way or another, the balance of the USA, and UK, and Australia, etc. will be restored. Though we might not remain sovereign nations anymore as a result. Just. Like. Rome. The rich & powerful do not seem to “need” (or want) democracies around the world, anymore. So therefore we will not be allowed to have them any longer.