Thread by @JuliusGoat

“I want my life back” is a hell of a thing to say much less publish when 5.5 million people have actually lost their actual lives.

We still insist on prevention measures because there are still at risk people who are very much in danger and for whom vaccination is not an option, who can’t simply opt out of caring.

So tired of these articles that frame it as if we’ve chosen this because we like it somehow.

Yes! I also want life to return to normal! We all do! Everyone wants this!

It’s hasn’t, because our leaders have refused to do what is necessary to make it happen, I guess in the hopes that those of us who can afford the risk of just shrugging and moving on will do so.

https://twitter.com/thinkingpoker/status/1481402006807920642

This isn’t just solidarity; there’s self-interest involved. A society that abandons the old and sick to die is a society that will eventually abandon you, if you ever get sick or old.

If you think you will never get sick or old, I have bad news for you about how time works.

I want a survivable world for myself and a sustainable role for my kids. I expect and demand it.

The way you get a society that doesn’t abandon people when it’s convenient is by refusing to abandon people for your convenience.

Solidarity should guide us.

And my question for The Atlantic's editor in chief @JeffreyGoldberg:

For what other global human tragedies with a death count past 5 million, would you promote a perspective of smug unconcern, and why?

What is valuable about this perspective? What good is it?

When people ask questions to which answers can easily be found, it's frequently because they aren't actually interested in the answers—they're simply looking for a rationale to not give a shit, and any rationale will do.

How many ARE there, really? Oh a lot? Well then,

I mean how do you even argue with people like this.

https://twitter.com/soetsappies/status/1481618536942510083?s=20

Extraordinary how people will just show up to brag about not caring about other people's lives at all, and treats any basic expectation from the society that undergirds their entire life as if it were a restaurant with a surly waiter rejecting an expired coupon.

Let's then pretend that we had a lot of laws and regulation and restrictions about where and how to drive, and that the expectation of following them is actually necessary rather than oppressive.

https://twitter.com/GhostOfGord/status/1481621731974557706?s=20

I guess last point to make about this article: it's being written at a moment when it appears our system and our society really is just giving up—so the writer is getting what they want.

The objection, I think, is the convicting sight of people who are still trying.

The tragedy is she was desperate to go to an enemy’s book launch party and now she’ll never see my invitation.

The number of people coming in to demonstrate their deliberate self-constructed unconcern, as if it were a rebuttal to what I’m saying and not a direct example of what I’m saying, is breathtaking. Astounding. One after the other.

Anyway if you were offended, good. Offense intended.