Tetridict
15d ago
Wouldn't it be cheaper just to buy a team shirt or scarf and get a photo of yourself taken with it?
Tetridict
19d ago
Today, the 23rd of March, marks six years since Boris Johnson implemented the first Covid Lockdown in the United Kingdom. This time of year will always remind me of those eerie first couple of weeks of lockdown. The cherry blossom trees, in all their Spring glory, standing lonely in the usually heaving central park at lunch time. Driving down the main motorway in and out of my city and not seeing a single other car at 5pm rush-hour on a weekday. The ease which unfounded terror was spread through the population during those weeks was eye-opening. The unquestioning acquiescence of all my fellow citizens made me realise for the first time just how subject to the whims of authority this society was and just how fragile and precious was my own freedom.
For the first couple of weeks, as the virus’s spread through Europe was meticulously tracked and broadcast, as carefully curated images of overwhelmed hospitals and rows of coffins were plastered across our screens, although I was already vehemently arguing against any imposed restrictions, I still retained some sympathy for the scared and frightened masses. But as the early data coming out of Italy and other places started to emerge and was so evidently at odds with the fearmongering propaganda all around me, my sympathy quickly gave way first to bewilderment and then slowly to anger.
As The Science™ took deeper hold and lockdown for two weeks to flatten the curve turned into lockdown for the summer turned into second lockdown turned into third lockdown and still the people clamoured for more restrictions and railed angrily against even the mildest suggestion that maybe we should ease up on the tyranny. Any moment now, I thought, surely any moment now the people will break and rise up against this imprisonment. All their lives they’ve been told that they live in a free democracy and now they’re happy to be essentially locked inside their homes, told they can’t visit friends and family, told they can’t touch or hug their family members, even if they’re dying, while with their own eyes they should be able to see that the virus for which all this suffering is supposed to be in honour of is so much less potent than they were told, while with their own eyes they should be able to see the hypocrisy of being ordered that grandparents are not to hold or even visit their new-born grandchildren while thousands marched shoulder to shoulder in the streets in celebration protest of the death of a criminal in a land 4,000 miles away. But no, the people never rose up. As Orwell, who understood the crowd better than any, once observed “Nowadays there is no mob, only a flock” and so it proved as my cowed peers meekly submitted to every curtailment of their freedom.
I will always remember lying in an empty field, reading a book in the warm sunshine and being buzzed by a police helicopter for being outdoors while not undertaking my mandated single-allotted daily exercise. I will always remember being told by the police to move on while sat in the deserted central park. I will always remember the multiple other times I was interrogated by the police for not cowering at home like a good citizen. I will always remember the fear in the eyes of my brother’s girlfriend as she shied away from anybody who got within two metres of her. I will always remember the depths of persuasion I had to employ to convince two of my friends to come and spend a night in the countryside with me during summer 2020, and the lies they had to tell their mothers to even be allowed out (and back in) their homes. I will always remember my work colleague who got suspended for hugging another colleague. I will always remember being kept apart from my partner in a foreign country due to closed borders. I will always remember being told by my own parents that I was not welcome in their house.
Today, the 23rd of March, marks six years since Boris Johnson implemented the first Covid Lockdown in the United Kingdom and life has returned to normal. The traffic is heavy and the parks are busy again. The Black Mirror-esque dystopian future that we got a horrifying glimpse of has faded away. Even the predictable economic and public-health consequences of lockdown have somewhat smoothed out. Covid came up in conversation the other day and my dad glibly remarked, “Covid? That’s ancient history now!” The world has moved on but, for me, the memory of Covid lockdowns still dominates my outlook. There is still a deep rage within me at the brutal illustration of the state’s power to strip away my freedom, cheered on wholeheartedly by the electorate. There is still a disbelieving resentment at how readily the populace succumbed to government control and willingly followed directives that just six months previous they would have loudly decried as inhumane. The hypocrisy of lockdown policies was responsible for a violent swing in my own politics, from casual left-wing socialist to hard libertarian, but most of all the lockdowns destroyed my faith in my fellow humans. The stark demonstration of just how easily manufactured-fear convinced the country to follow ridiculous commands replaced my underlying faith & trust in humanity with a smouldering disdain. The betrayal of even my own family, as they chose to follow the orders of tyrants and closed the door on their own child, drove a dagger into my heart.
I remember the lockdowns and I’m still angry.
Tetridict
2mo ago
My guess is that we'll see another 20-40% rise before the run stops
We're up 20% in the last five days, 7% today alone. Are you predicting a crash/leveling off in the next two weeks?
Tetridict
2mo ago
It's not that hot chicks can't have informed insights on geopolitics, it's just that as a hot chick you have so many other more fun options to do with your time than deep-diving in to geopolitics.
Maybe I should listen to Nebraska from start to finish and it'll click for me.
Everybody, if they get the opportunity, should do this at 2am while on an all night drive.
Tetridict
3mo ago
Decent writing but I can't stand dogs. They're rude, smelly, mostly idiotic beasts who think only with their stomach and are incapable of love. /r/dogfeee is one of my favourite subreddits and it's gratifying to me how, now that I have become a parent to a young newborn, how many posts I see in the parenting subreddits with new parents hating/regretting having a pet dog. They are disgusting creatures and your "dumb bitch" is 100% right to be wary of marrying a dog owner.
Tetridict
4mo ago
I really enjoyed reading this post. I also grew up with Harry Potter, not quite as extreme as every night for ten years but I read all the books multiple times, and your post reminded me that I used to spend hours reading HP essays on https://www.hp-lexicon.org/ back in the early 2000s.
I found your analysis of OOTP interesting and insightful. I haven't read a HP book for some years and it would be curious to read them again from an adult perspective but I'm a little worried the magic would be tarnished and i already have too many books to read.
I don't see the culture war angle of your post though, seems more suited to Friday Fun?
Tetridict
7mo ago
Islam is on course to dominate Europe within the next generation or two and Islam's take on the gender culture war is much closer to the Amish than to the descendants of the sexual revolution who are currently being displaced in their ancestoral homelands.
He's definitely gloomy about any future peaceful solutions. He paints a picture of perpetual violence and, at the end of the book, predicts no end to the conflict for the foreseeable future. I think one could safely say that the eight years since publication have proven that prediction correct so far.
I read Enemies and Neighbours by Ian Black last year and found it expansive and informative. Drawbacks are a mild pro-Palestinian bias which becomes more apparent towards the end of the book and the fact it only goes up to 2017 (when it was published) means it is now 8 years out of date but I found it to be an engaging, relatively balanced and detailed account of how modern Gaza became the mess it is now.
I like the saying: in marriage you should be aiming for a 60/40% effort split with both parties trying to be the 60%.
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