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Notes -
I've just started to read an historical book, which was written in 2014 and updated in 2021. And the book, understandably, starts with a preface by the author. In which the author chose to give an insufferable sermon about how much we should worry about the climate change (of course, nobody is going to print a book without a
quote from Leninsermon on climate change) and, since it was 2021, about profound and civilization-changing consequences of COVID (the topic of the book itself has absolutely nothing to with either, btw).Now it is 2026, so I find myself compelled to ask - were there any civilization-changing consequences to COVID? If so, which ones? To kick it off, I can give a list of what it changed for me personally:
I have lost significant dose of respect and hope for institutional knowledge. It's not that I doubt The Science (C) (TM) (R) knows a lot of things - I do not doubt that. What I doubt is a) that all those things are true, and b) that the institution as such really cares about as many of them being true as possible. I am now certain that institutionally there are no mechanisms that would preclude institutionally inconvenient truth from being hidden and institutionally inconvenient falsity from being accepted (and enforced) as true - at least on the timeframes comparable with my lifetime. I also am convinced the role of the press in the equation is significantly negative.
I no longer think that the US - as a society, as a culture and as people - have immunity to tyranny of any sort. It has somewhat better resistance than some other cultures, maybe, but the barrier after which all the lofty ideals of freedom are going to be gleefully trashed is awfully low and very easy to overcome, and can be overcome on literally days' notice by the government, with no significant resistance. We are all walking on a very thin ice, freedom-wise.
Personally, COVID events also gave me the necessary kick in the butt to finally get out of California. While it felt uncomfortable for a while before COVID, I could be succumbing to inertia for a long time yet, but COVID overthrew all my routines anyway, so the change came much easier.
On the personal level, I also realized I may not have as much time as I thought I have, with regard not only to my personal health and well-being, but also for all the framework that I enjoy as a member of Western civilization. Any part of it could disappear for reasons I can't predict, so if I want to do things, I better start doing things I want and not delay them to some vague future when I have more time and energy.
Job market drastically opened to remote work (in my area, of course) - what used to be a weird ask, became a standard offering. While there's RTO pushback now, remote work is a standard option and asking for it is no longer a niche request but a solid, respectable preference, that has its own ample market to work with. If anything, in-office work now begins to be seen as an add-on instead of the default.
None of that is civilization-changing though. Maybe the last one is a little economy-changing but it existed very much pre-COVID too. Any civilization-changing consequences I did miss?
Remote work and mistrust in institutions are civilization-changing in the long run, but it's not as if they wouldn't have happened without The Experts just openly lying to back up their narrative on Covid.
Look, I've talked to continentals who relocated over the virus restrictions. The USA is far and away more resistant to tyranny than other countries with functioning sewage systems. Yes it got bad here but not as bad as in Holland or France. I put way more importance on gun rights and accept much higher casualty rates for their sake than I would have prior to the 'pandemic'.
Yes, gun rights. Of course. I mean, I'm all for it. I have guns myself. One of the (many, many) reasons I moved out of California was how inconvenient California tried to make having guns and regularly practicing with them (no comparison to Europe, of course, but I never considered moving to Europe). But: when do gun rights come into play? I mean, I hope to never find out, really, but I also think, if they could lock up the whole country for months (while cruelly mocking it by allowing mass riots to roll unconstrained, just to make it clear how much of a power play it is), destroy the livelihoods of thousands of people, permanently hamper the education for millions, to say nothing of the long list of lesser indignities and humiliations, and the gun rights didn't come into play, I can not help but wonder how much farther they can go yet. Again, I don't want to actually find it out empirically, but the skeptic in me also asks - what if the premise that the gun rights are a barrier to tyranny is just a myth and we're actually soft and lazy enough to be salami-ed into anything?
The US did a lot better and rolled back restrictions much earlier than comparable countries, and guns are plausibly a big part of it. Like the French burned down cities over the issue and it didn't work. The US pretended militias were kidnapping a governor and we got a lot better.
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