D&D and the rising pandemic

[FitzTheRuke]

I am facing a similar dilemma to that lady today. My 6-year old daughter has had a bad cough for about a week. She is otherwise fine, and was scheduled to start her first day of school holiday care today. She is super excited about it, and burst into tears when I told her she may not be able to go. She certainly doesn’t have Covid (there is none here at the moment) and has no other symptoms. My theory is that it is seasonal. It is spring here and the cough’s arrival coincided with me developing different hay fever symptoms. A couple of years ago I would not have thought twice about letting her go. As of right now, I honestly don’t know what I am going to do*. Anyway. I guess I am just trying to say that sometimes those decisions can be really hard as a parent.

* Actually, having finished this message I have now decided to call the programme lead and have a chat to her about it.

Oh, I'm sympathetic! The first day of school my son, who is 14 and vaccinated, had a runny nose. Like lots-of-tissues runny. I had to tell him that he couldn't go. Some of it is overkill, sure, but we've got to be pretty strict with ourselves right now, for people's comfort. He may not have spread covid, but if he spread his cold, even that is potentially a lot of people who might get sick enough to go get themselves tested (in the very least of adding burden to the healthcare system).

 

[Mirtek]

I know this is probably too political, but, at what point do "protesters" become "terrorists"?

The radicalization of Canada and America is a truly, truly terrifying thing to see.

In Germany a man got angry that he was denied buying cigarettes at a gas station whithout wearing a mask, so he drove home, picked up a mask and a gun, drove back and killed the 20-year old cashier in cold blood.

 

[Hussar]

In Germany a man got angry that he was denied buying cigarettes at a gas station whithout wearing a mask, so he drove home, picked up a mask and a gun, drove back and killed the 20-year old cashier in cold blood.

And, the unfortunate truth is these kinds of things have been happening for quite a while. When they have to escort nurses out of a freaking hospital because of safety concerns, there's something SERIOUSLY wrong with people.

So many political rants I want to go on right now. I really do appreciate the rules here that stop me from doing that.

 

[Zardnaar]

In Germany a man got angry that he was denied buying cigarettes at a gas station whithout wearing a mask, so he drove home, picked up a mask and a gun, drove back and killed the 20-year old cashier in cold blood.

I've got aate who works in a service station. He tells customers to put a mask on if required but doesn't push it as it's not worth the aggro.

His funniest story was a student raiding the masks for customers. He called him out on it and his response was "how else well I get into the bottlestore?".

 

[GreyLord]

Another thing we are seeing worldwide, is a lot of the vaccine hesitancy occuring in strong religious communities. And sometimes we even see churches encouraging their members not to get vaccinated.

I think governments need to take a stronger stance against that, and simply pull their tax exempt status for doing that.

I think this is what it really is...it's not access to information for these people. They have the same information available to them as everyone else does.

It's what they CHOOSE to BELIEVE. It is more akin to religion than other things, but as it has not been recognized as much being related to this type of thought process, they can go to the extremes. In that light, it's not even like mainstream religions...most of which have actually endorsed vaccinations, but like the extreme fanatical cult that occasionally pop up where the members do things that are unbelievable to most of the world.

Except, because it's not recognized as a similar thing, people think it is more acceptable to be a part of the extreme thought processes, the same that encourage the type of belief system that fuels extremist cults.

In that light, it's not really religion as we know it, or information availability, but a way of thinking that garners people into a more fanatical cult like stance.

This is why we get people who may even KNOW the evidence, but even after knowing it, even as they die of it sometimes, refuse to accept that reality...because it's not what they BELIEVE and hence they cannot accept something that goes counter to a fanatical fantasy that they uphold.

 

[Zardnaar]

Number fairly static but they're relaxing restrictions. To many people not following the rules.

I suspect delta will be out and about in a few weeks. Less restrictions translation "go see friends and family".

Still none where I live and our vaccination rates are some of the highest in the country.

Could be interesting stopped watching the daily updates weeks ago just get the tldr version from family.

Think people just gave up.

 

[Umbran]

This is why we get people who may even KNOW the evidence, but even after knowing it, even as they die of it sometimes, refuse to accept that reality...because it's not what they BELIEVE and hence they cannot accept something that goes counter to a fanatical fantasy that they uphold.

So, we should note that it is more than just how they BELIEVE in a fantasy, and can't let it go.

That fantasy is tied to their peronal sense of identity. Asking them to change their minds on covid is often equivalent to asking them to reconsider who they are as a person.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

So, we should note that it is more than just how they BELIEVE in a fantasy, and can't let it go.

That fantasy is tied to their peronal sense of identity. Asking them to change their minds on covid is often equivalent to asking them to reconsider who they are as a person.

They would have to admit that they were duped into believing a fantasy, and that's just embarrassing. No one likes to be proven to be a fool.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

They would have to admit that they were duped into believing a fantasy, and that's just embarrassing. No one likes to be proven to be a fool.

It’s actually worse than that.

Like Umbran said, this has become a matter of identity. For them, accepting their fantasy has been debunked could be as disruptive to their sense of self as finding out their ancestors didn’t come over on the Mayflower, the family fortune was built on illegal arms sales, or granny was a madame in Las Vegas.

It’s not just, “Ooops, I was wrong.”, it’s “My world is coming undone.” It’s the psychological equivalent of a roundhouse blow from the reigning heavy champion of the world.

 

[Umbran]

They would have to admit that they were duped into believing a fantasy, and that's just embarrassing. No one likes to be proven to be a fool.

There's an element of that, too. But consider the next step, the broader implications...

If you are wrong about this, what else is linked to it that you might also be wrong about? If you're into these ideas, you probably went to a couple of specific places to get information, and you probably believed them on those things too. But now all those sources, and all the things you believed from them, become suspect.

It goes from the embarassment about being a fool, to being oh, crap, everything you know is wrong very quickly.