Has anyone considered the possibility that the messaging early on in the pandemic fundamentally devalued human life, to the point where rational people might conclude that the world doesn’t much care about their continued existence?
“Don’t wear masks that protect the wearer, they need to be reserved for....people more valuable than you”
People aged 10-14 are impressionable and impulsive, but they aren’t dumb.
I don’t have any independent sources really for what “rational people”, people generally, or “people aged 10-14″ thought about the ‘anti mask’ messaging early in the pandemic, but my recollection is that the messaging was ‘masks don’t work (for laypeople)’. (I’ve been following Zvi long before the start of the pandemic and I don’t read/watch almost any typical news sources.)
Obviously it would have been more honest for the messaging to have been ‘please don’t restrict the limited supply of masks for healthcare workers’.
But I’m not sure anyone would (charitably) interpret the messaging as “they need to be reserved for … people more valuable than you”. Where’s the ‘they’re more valuable than you’ element in any of the messaging? Why wouldn’t people think ‘masks should be prioritized for healthcare workers as they’re more likely to be exposed to the virus’?
And yet we did create exactly that impression early on, with the homages to essential workers (as if working from home in a tiny apartment in Harlem with kids running around didn’t come with its own unique set of difficulties).
The idea of some people having more worth than others was emphasized again in the early days of vaccination: “Get vaccinated...when it’s your turn”
Framing everything around altruism has foreseeable risks.
Has anyone considered the possibility that the messaging early on in the pandemic fundamentally devalued human life, to the point where rational people might conclude that the world doesn’t much care about their continued existence?
“Don’t wear masks that protect the wearer, they need to be reserved for....people more valuable than you”
People aged 10-14 are impressionable and impulsive, but they aren’t dumb.
I don’t have any independent sources really for what “rational people”, people generally, or “people aged 10-14″ thought about the ‘anti mask’ messaging early in the pandemic, but my recollection is that the messaging was ‘masks don’t work (for laypeople)’. (I’ve been following Zvi long before the start of the pandemic and I don’t read/watch almost any typical news sources.)
Obviously it would have been more honest for the messaging to have been ‘please don’t restrict the limited supply of masks for healthcare workers’.
But I’m not sure anyone would (charitably) interpret the messaging as “they need to be reserved for … people more valuable than you”. Where’s the ‘they’re more valuable than you’ element in any of the messaging? Why wouldn’t people think ‘masks should be prioritized for healthcare workers as they’re more likely to be exposed to the virus’?
And yet we did create exactly that impression early on, with the homages to essential workers (as if working from home in a tiny apartment in Harlem with kids running around didn’t come with its own unique set of difficulties).
The idea of some people having more worth than others was emphasized again in the early days of vaccination: “Get vaccinated...when it’s your turn”
Framing everything around altruism has foreseeable risks.