Do you have a "Naomi Wolf" in your life?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know a few people who turned out this way, including my ex. All very smart and well educated.

There are two common traits that I can point to. One is a very black and white thinking, no grey whatsoever. E.g., if you can’t give a 100% guarantee that X is safe, it means that X is unsafe, and how dare you? The other is that they ARE probably smarter than an average person and they have an independent streak which leads them to center their identity around “not being a sheep” and believe they can “do their own research”, etc.

Add the internet echo chambers in the mix, and there you go.

This is such an apt summary. The latter doesn't even need to morph into a Naomi Wolf, not being a sheep, etc. They simply see themselves as smarter than others and only trust others' opinions if they attended a similar or more highly ranked UG institution.

[Anonymous]

Both the left and the right don't buy into "the system"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You don't think it's weird her reputation was destroyed because she doubted the value of vaccine mandates?

She went from "questioning" vaccine mandates to stuff about microchips, North Korean style police states, WEF etc.

Well, Musk is literally trying to put microchips in people. That's not crazy at this point. We will probably all have chips in us in our lifetime. And North Korea does exist and is a nutty police state. And WEF has incredibly ambitious goals. None of this sounds nuts.

Most of what people were being censored for is now commonly accepted as fact. Things like: the covid vaccine won't prevent you from getting covid. Mask efficacy is debatable. Children aren't at great risk from covid. There will be negative consequences from shutting schools and businesses. It's okay to go jogging outside without a mask on, you won't get or pass covid from that. These things were so incredibly controversial during covid that they could not be said in mixed company. Looking back, who looks crazier? The people who said it would be fine for us to open schools like virtually the rest of the planet. Or the ones who insisted these benign ideas were dangerous and "going to get people killed!"

The reason we shut down schools and wore masks was because people were dying. They may not have been the types of people you care about (elderly, immune compromised, disabled) but they were dying and hospitals could not keep up. It was a desperate attempt to try to slow the spread so that hospitals weren’t so overwhelmed with COVID patients they could serve others with non-COVID emergencies.

The vaccines do decrease the severity and chance of needing hospitalization or if dying.

Yes, most healthy adults would be fine. Most healthy kids are fine. But you do realize kids have adult and older teachers who may have health issues? That they may live with at-risk relatives?

Whenever I hear your argument I just hear “I only care about healthy people”.

Pp you're responding to. During covid, I agreed with all of this. I wore a mask religiously, except while running outside. In fact, I still wear a mask if I'm under the weather and sometimes while traveling. And I agreed with the schools being closed. But I also now recognize that these things weren't particularly effective. And that we are still dealing with the negative effects that came from it. I have enough intellectual humility to realize that I was probably wrong. And that the people who were right were silenced. You might want to stop trying to cast everyone who dares to challenge conventional thinking as a danger. If we had listened, we might have been able to better manage the downsides--- rather than your strategy of just covering your ears when people tell you your choices might have some issues. This attitude deprives our nation of the ability to make realistic, well considered plans.