{"id":54771,"date":"2020-08-22T07:02:32","date_gmt":"2020-08-22T12:02:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=54771"},"modified":"2020-08-22T07:02:32","modified_gmt":"2020-08-22T12:02:32","slug":"on-covid-19-and-authoritarian-abuses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=54771","title":{"rendered":"On Covid-19 And Authoritarian Abuses"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Covid-19 And Authoritarian Abuses<\/a><\/h3>\n
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Over the last few months there\u2019s been a clique of indie media who\u2019ve been urging their respective followings to bully and cajole other indie media into focusing on Covid-19, lockdowns, mask laws and Covid-related authoritarian agendas in their coverage of world events.<\/p>\n

I personally find the idea of fighting with indie media in a world that is dominated by murderous globe-spanning power structures absurd, so I won\u2019t make this about them, but since their attacks are getting more heated now I\u2019m going to try to spell out my own position on the matter here as clearly as possible. I don\u2019t expect this essay to have any effect on this online mobbing behavior\u2019s primary drivers, who appear to operating in bad faith; this is more for my longtime readers who\u2019ve been expressing bafflement that I haven\u2019t made Covid-related abuses a primary focus of my writing.<\/p>\n

To sum up the gist of my position in a paragraph: I\u2019ve\u00a0said from the beginning<\/a>\u00a0that \u201cthe fears that the ruling class will seize this opportunity to advance preexisting authoritarian agendas\u00a0are well-founded\u201d, and I\u2019ve\u00a0repeatedly<\/a>\u00a0written\u00a0entire essays<\/a>\u00a0about this. Unless people want me to re-write more or less the same essays over and over again, there hasn\u2019t been much more for me to add to the discussion. The information ecosystem is still too polluted and muddied to see clearly enough to provide a comprehensive, lucid, big-picture understanding of what\u2019s actually going on, so I\u2019ve just been watching and patiently gathering information.<\/p>\n

That is what someone who is interested in telling the truth does: they wait until they have enough information about something before they attempt to elucidate their understanding of it. I haven\u2019t been writing about my clear, big-picture understanding of what\u2019s going on with this virus because I simply do not have one, and frankly I don\u2019t believe anyone else does either.<\/p>\n