More Scattered Thoughts
13th October 2020
Severian shares.
Pyrrhic victory. Like most of the rapidly-dwindling band of people who are capable of thinking for ourselves, I regard the Kung Flu freakout as a mostly manufactured event. The initial freakout was real enough — Boomers still control the culture, and Boomers are nothing if not obsessive about their last few minutes on the stage — but it was quickly co-opted by cynical political operators as a great way to damage the Bad Orange Man and his booming economy. And it worked: record unemployment, lots of businesses closing. But it might turn out to be the very definition of a Pyrrhic victory.
The great online-ening of the past year has shown just how useless so much of the modern “economy” is. To take just the most obvious example, ask any teacher how important face-to-face instruction is. If you’d asked them before March, you’d be forgiven for thinking that teaching is some kind of super-skilled, rocket scientist-level job that only years of training and fanatical, monk-like dedication can prepare you for. Post-COVID, and “education” means “log in, look at the powerpoint, and answer the multiple choice quiz… you know, whenever you feel like it. Or don’t, it’s all good, because following schedules and completing assignments is racist.”