Thread by @HZiauddeen

🧵COVID-19 and the corruption of systems and values:
(Mainly UK-centric but aspects relevant to other countries)
This is about various troubling aspects of govt and society that have become more pronounced over the last 18+ months and make me really fear for the future.
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Corruption, in its different meanings, seems like a good term to describe these phenomena but I'm open to suggestions.

Let's start with the simple and straightforward stuff: corruption in our political systems, and I'll stick to a few highlights.
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-In the immediate background (and increasingly in the foreground) is Brexit and complete hash that is was and is.
-There is the horrendous pandemic response and how it has been shaped by lobby groups (HART, AIER) and other vested interests

https://twitter.com/HZiauddeen/status/1414236543137591299?s=20

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-Even this horrendous response was massively exploited by the rich and powerful and contributed to the financial hole...
-...which it turns out the poor and the young somehow need to pay for (cuts in UC, increases in NI)
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-The destruction of environment for economic greed (reducing commitments to climate change, increasing sewage dumping into rivers).
-The concerted attack on the NHS and push to privatisation.
There's load more but I'll stop there and recommend following @docrussjackson
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Inherent to this are a set of values shared by those in power, which can broadly be thought of as what they are entitled to AND what everyone else deserves (money, rights, opportunity, freedom), as opposed to values that are about ensuring that everyone's life is better.
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The values of the group in power will influence those of other systems that they have control over (exhibit A, the benefit system) and systems and individuals that will want to align with power ('I see the writing on the wall and I want in').
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If you want govt contracts, good business deals, exclusive reporting, honours and prestigious positions, you know what values and ideas to hold and espouse.
In truth though, this is more a process of selection through homophily (birds of a feather).
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Of course to those in power your ideas and values only really matter in terms of marking you as someone who will be useful for their purposes, whether this supporting their plans or attacking those try to hold them to account and/or criticise them.
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The beauty of the latter is that this attack can be on any front, no matter how far removed from the key issue to hand, because the purpose of the attack is to occupy, distract and undermine those who are interfering with your plans.
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Btw, I am no longer talking about just government here as all the above are just as relevant to the two other corrupted systems I wanted to mention, the media and academia.
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I don't need to say too much about the media except that it has massively enabled the govt's disastrous plans. Highly recommend @docrussjackson and @RussInCheshire here.
I'll focus a bit on academia though which has always been a corrupt system to start with.
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Throughout the pandemic there have been several scientists (not just UK) who have actively fought against controlling the pandemic, dismissed both rational precautions and accumulating evidence, provided evidence to and lobbied govts and advanced their own careers.
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They have provided cover & support to govts and other vested interests and bullied and harassed those who have pushed for better science and for controlling the pandemic. Given they are in line with govt I'd expect to see them becoming more prominent in the near future.
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To put it in very blunt terms, scientists who think it is ok (explicitly or tacitly) for thousands of people to die and for children to be infected with a novel and dangerous virus will find favour with a govt that thinks the same.
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In academia, prominent scientists play a vital role in gatekeeping and controlling the science that is published. We have already seen this happen a lot during the pandemic and we know from extensive experience that it is nothing new (speak to women and POC in academia)
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I did a thread about this a while ago and include it below.
I find it hard not to think of the F-word when one sees scientists siding with or tacitly endorsing a cruel govt plan that will lead to large numbers of deaths and serious illness.
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https://twitter.com/HZiauddeen/status/1425969555080454147?s=20

Again, like with political systems, these values will percolate into the wider system by shaping behaviours and incentives.
Btw, this is mainly about the life sciences & STEM. The humanities and social sciences have been less prominent but it is not quite their time yet.
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That will come when the history and justifications of this period have to be written (by the victors) and the development of the models that will underpin and justify the reality that is to follow.
We're hoping history will judge the leaders of this disaster harshly.
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However there will be a version of history in which they are the heroes who took the brave stand, made the difficult decisions, shepherded us into this glorious new world. Yes, there were many tragic deaths but things would have been worse without their intervention.
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These sets of values have profoundly shaped what has happened in the last 18+ months. But like with Trump, they have also served as lighthouses for those values in our wider society, emboldening and foregrounding related problems e.g. xenophobia, discrimination,...
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...nationalism, exceptionalism, eugenics. When the idea that it is ok for people to die and fall ill becomes normalised to the point of it becoming day-to-day conversation, when attempts to prevent this become unacceptable infringements on one's life & liberty,...
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...when it becomes ok or even a point of pride to support actions and policies that are actively harmful to other people (as long as you are ok), when 'who is entitled to live here' and 'who is it ok to let die' both become part of mainstream discourse,...
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...when it becomes ok that children die, fall ill or starve, then there's been a significant corruption of societal values. These do not have to be majority positions, it is bad enough if they are positions with enough backing to be serious participants in the discourse.
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This is what scares me.

And we know these are not the only fronts that we are fighting on. The pandemic has amplified numerous societal inequalities and affected the disadvantaged and the marginalised far more severely.
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We have already seen policies that will worsen these and a steady rollback of policies that would have helped these.
General quality of life, living standards and population health are declining.
The climate situation is an emergency.
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There is an intensification of the attacks on the fight for equality (reproductive rights in the US, transphobia in the UK).
There is a move to wrest back power by those who have resented having to relinquish it for the ridiculous reason that other people deserve rights.
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There are continuing humanitarian disasters in Syria, Afghanistan and other parts of the world with little political ambition to try and help the situation.

Of course none of this is new to any of you but I'll stop depressing you further.
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And faced with all this, our main systems of power are either invested in pursuing these as objectives or disinterested in addressing them, and shaping the world so that it becomes even more normal that this is the way things are.
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There is no way I am unique in this but I fear most for my daughter. Brexit was bad enough but what has happened with COVID has seriously trashed my hopes that we could make this world a better place for her generation.

I've rather lost the thread by now but it's over.
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