More or Less Stable Chaos
May 31, 2022 1:16 AM Subscribe
Even tyrants would be foolish to pass down an iron law when a low-key change of norms would lead to the same results. And there is no question that changes of norms in Western countries since the beginning of the pandemic have given rise to a form of life plainly convergent with the Chinese model. Again, it might take more time to get there, and when we arrive, we might find that a subset of people are still enjoying themselves in a way they take to be an expression of freedom. But all this is spin, and what is occurring in both cases, the liberal-democratic and the overtly authoritarian alike, is the same: a transition to digitally and algorithmically calculated social credit, and the demise of most forms of community life outside the lens of the state and its corporate subcontractors. from Permanent Pandemic by Justin E.H. Smith [Harpers; Archive]
Related: The Fight of Our Lives by George Soros [Project Syndicate]
Related: The Fight of Our Lives by George Soros [Project Syndicate]
I find this piece weirdly difficult to relate to, in its resignation that the approach that countries took to COVID are, necessarily, the ones that people are going to accept. The left has seen that reaction is a powerful force; it very much can be wielded against private enterprise treating human life as a line item, now that its effects are palpable. Conversely, I think the argument about freedom that's being deployed in this piece, that this is a slippery slope we've already started sliding downwards, as is untrue as it was at the top of the slide; people are willing to accept a certain curtailing of freedoms to fight a pandemic, and they will demand those freedoms back when the danger passes. In addition, the destabilisation of the world order thanks to Xi and Trump means that Western countries have a vested interest in positioning themselves in opposition to China, which can very easily include a curtailing of the kind of intrusive tracking China does.
The experience in my country is that voters got a taste of a government that looked after its citizens and didn't outsource every single decision to the market, and they liked it and voted accordingly.
posted by Merus at 2:28 AM on May 31, 2022 [16 favorites]
The experience in my country is that voters got a taste of a government that looked after its citizens and didn't outsource every single decision to the market, and they liked it and voted accordingly.
posted by Merus at 2:28 AM on May 31, 2022 [16 favorites]
Related: You Are Going to Get COVID Again … And Again … And Again
posted by zardoz at 2:50 AM on May 31, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by zardoz at 2:50 AM on May 31, 2022 [7 favorites]
To support Merus' point, power exists until it's abused in a way that's intolerable to the public.... the scandal of the inaction of the Uvalde police department might just have given a second breath to the faltering defund movement in America. Likewise, both Xi and Putin's regimes are in a new verge of fragility right now- turns out that funding organizational resiliency matters.
People become inured to chronic crisis. As Covid persists, it will steadily diminish as a political pretext...
posted by LeRoienJaune at 3:20 AM on May 31, 2022 [4 favorites]
People become inured to chronic crisis. As Covid persists, it will steadily diminish as a political pretext...
posted by LeRoienJaune at 3:20 AM on May 31, 2022 [4 favorites]
I read the Soros piece and it was really interesting - it laid out how Putin's invasion of Ukraine has specifically led particular countries, people, and institutions in Europe to extend or expand European institutions to protect against his actions in the future, and it said something I had not known about China:
never told the Chinese people that they had been inoculated with a vaccine that was designed for the original Wuhan variant of the disease, but which offers little protection against new variants.posted by brainwane at 3:27 AM on May 31, 2022 [2 favorites]
chavenet, thanks for posting this. By Smith's standards I am a COVID maximalist and it's interesting to read his view from France (I'm in the US which has taken a much different approach, for instance, with vaccine/test pass apps). I am also concerned with personal privacy and with scope creep of the apparatuses developed for COVID-related purposes.
For example, the New York State COVID vaccine pass mobile app gets notifications to tell residents, for example, that booster shot eligibility has expanded. Recently I saw they'd sent a note about the baby formula shortage and I thought: someone has lost an argument about scope creep and urgency, and the value of this channel has now started to degrade and will keep doing so.
More saliently; COVID notification/tracking/contract tracing info in Australia was misused by law enforcement in ways they'd promised Australians they wouldn't, which reduced trust and willingness to provide accurate data when visiting public places.
posted by brainwane at 3:48 AM on May 31, 2022 [8 favorites]
For example, the New York State COVID vaccine pass mobile app gets notifications to tell residents, for example, that booster shot eligibility has expanded. Recently I saw they'd sent a note about the baby formula shortage and I thought: someone has lost an argument about scope creep and urgency, and the value of this channel has now started to degrade and will keep doing so.
More saliently; COVID notification/tracking/contract tracing info in Australia was misused by law enforcement in ways they'd promised Australians they wouldn't, which reduced trust and willingness to provide accurate data when visiting public places.
No matter what happens with the virus—whether or not it keeps evolving in ways that legitimate new drastic measures—the technologies it has ushered in are largely here to stay. These technologies will continue to have applications in industry, commerce, dating, and other affective strategizing; some might even hold out the promise of “fun.” But the principal application will be in the domain of what Michel Foucault called “governmentality”: the set of techniques and strategies, preferably deployed in the form of under-the-radar nudges, by which a population is caused to do what those in power want.This rings true to me.
posted by brainwane at 3:48 AM on May 31, 2022 [8 favorites]
Jacen's is what TVTropes calls an Armor-Piercing Question.
Helen Nissenbaum's landmark book Privacy in Context, which introduces the contextual-integrity theory of privacy (tl;dr: there isn't and cannot be one-size-fits-all privacy, because people's sense of privacy depends on context features such as who/what the data sender and recipient are), discusses in its conclusion the "tyranny of the normal." That is, when a given type of surveillance becomes Just The Way Things Are, resistance to it atrophies.
We've seen it with ad tech, social media, ed tech, and more. I'd need a really good reason to believe it won't apply to pandemic-related surveillance also, especially since surveillance-based outfits have obvious motive to downplay the risks and dangers of any novel surveillance apparatus.
Possible slight counter-event: the ongoing legal dismantling of Clearview's field of action.
posted by humbug at 4:35 AM on May 31, 2022 [5 favorites]
Helen Nissenbaum's landmark book Privacy in Context, which introduces the contextual-integrity theory of privacy (tl;dr: there isn't and cannot be one-size-fits-all privacy, because people's sense of privacy depends on context features such as who/what the data sender and recipient are), discusses in its conclusion the "tyranny of the normal." That is, when a given type of surveillance becomes Just The Way Things Are, resistance to it atrophies.
We've seen it with ad tech, social media, ed tech, and more. I'd need a really good reason to believe it won't apply to pandemic-related surveillance also, especially since surveillance-based outfits have obvious motive to downplay the risks and dangers of any novel surveillance apparatus.
Possible slight counter-event: the ongoing legal dismantling of Clearview's field of action.
posted by humbug at 4:35 AM on May 31, 2022 [5 favorites]
I think the virus has ironically had a hand in limiting the deployment of technological "solutions". Remember back in April 2020 when it widely assumed that you could only get covid once? There was talk about issuing "passports" to those who had already recovered from it, and I wouldn't be surprised if a platform for doing just that was very close to deployment before everyone realized how common reinfection was. Ditto the current "vaccine passports" which do indicate a higher level of immunity and are more useful, but in practice aren't the public health panacea they were initially viewed as because once again, reinfection and multiple strains.
A year ago my family got together for the first time since the pandemic began. We were all newly vaccinated and the future looked great! Fast forward to the present day and half of us couldn't make it because they tested positive within the past week and one cousin even tested positive the day before our cookout. Now we're realizing that this is probably how it's going to be going forward: at every family gathering we're always going to be one at home test's margin-for-error away from everyone getting infected. And it sucks. And there's never going to be fancy app that's going to say it's completely safe to meet in person.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 4:43 AM on May 31, 2022 [13 favorites]
A year ago my family got together for the first time since the pandemic began. We were all newly vaccinated and the future looked great! Fast forward to the present day and half of us couldn't make it because they tested positive within the past week and one cousin even tested positive the day before our cookout. Now we're realizing that this is probably how it's going to be going forward: at every family gathering we're always going to be one at home test's margin-for-error away from everyone getting infected. And it sucks. And there's never going to be fancy app that's going to say it's completely safe to meet in person.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 4:43 AM on May 31, 2022 [13 favorites]
"the state and its corporate subcontractors" might be upside down?
posted by nofundy at 4:57 AM on May 31, 2022 [13 favorites]
posted by nofundy at 4:57 AM on May 31, 2022 [13 favorites]
Most of my anger and outrage towards the pandemic is that nothing has changed despite how completely unprecedented the past two years have been. One can even argue that here in the U.S. there's been a weakening of public health laws as people now have the "freedom" in some states to skip vaccines against childhood diseases and the "freedom" to go maskless.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:12 AM on May 31, 2022 [29 favorites]
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:12 AM on May 31, 2022 [29 favorites]
And add to that the general despair at how despite.....everything.....the group of people who deliberately exacerbated the pandemic for their own selfish ends by sabotaging policy and spreading misinformation has yet to face any consequences, legal or electoral or social, and are poised to return to power because....[checks notes]....people are sick of restrictions on their freedom imposed to fight the pandemic.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:31 AM on May 31, 2022 [22 favorites]
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:31 AM on May 31, 2022 [22 favorites]
As someone who has endured and is still enduring the American pandemic response I have absolutely zero fear of government overreach, technical or otherwise, in response to any public health crisis. I have full confidence instead that I will be allowed, or perhaps even required, to die an easily preventable death of one sort or another or become disabled for the sake of the economy that primarily benefits a small fraction of the country's population.
posted by srboisvert at 5:45 AM on May 31, 2022 [58 favorites]
posted by srboisvert at 5:45 AM on May 31, 2022 [58 favorites]
One can even argue that here in the U.S. there's been a weakening of public health laws
It's not even an argument: Over Half of States Have Rolled Back Public Health Powers in Pandemic, Kaiser Health News, September 15, 2021, with more bills pending.
The article itself is anti-vaccination nonsense. It can be summarized as "Not getting vaccinated is a revolutionary act and a good thing, actually." Utter bollocks. Vaccination is one of the greatest achievements of humankind, and implementing it effectively is one of the best possible uses of government.
This also jumped out at me:
posted by jedicus at 5:51 AM on May 31, 2022 [50 favorites]
It's not even an argument: Over Half of States Have Rolled Back Public Health Powers in Pandemic, Kaiser Health News, September 15, 2021, with more bills pending.
The article itself is anti-vaccination nonsense. It can be summarized as "Not getting vaccinated is a revolutionary act and a good thing, actually." Utter bollocks. Vaccination is one of the greatest achievements of humankind, and implementing it effectively is one of the best possible uses of government.
This also jumped out at me:
Fauci’s long record of mistakes should invite any lucid thinker to question his suitability for the role of supreme authority in matters of healthFauci's not the supreme authority of anything, and this casting of the enemy as "at the same time too strong and too weak" is a common fascist argument.
posted by jedicus at 5:51 AM on May 31, 2022 [50 favorites]
“By early March of this year, infection rates were—for the time being—declining again in the United States and Europe”. LoL when was this written. Was it this week or month?
These people love to complain about us being stuck in an outdate paradigm (covid safety protocols) while failing to see that we have completely left the previous public health paradigm (not seeing mass death from single diseases in the west).
Also love seeing yet another writer who is going to call me a “COVID __________ist” until they have their good byes pre-vent or pre-someone else’s vent.
But hey, COVID’s getting more mild guys! Omicron infected 5x more people than Delta while only killing 1.6x more people!
posted by Slackermagee at 5:57 AM on May 31, 2022 [6 favorites]
These people love to complain about us being stuck in an outdate paradigm (covid safety protocols) while failing to see that we have completely left the previous public health paradigm (not seeing mass death from single diseases in the west).
Also love seeing yet another writer who is going to call me a “COVID __________ist” until they have their good byes pre-vent or pre-someone else’s vent.
But hey, COVID’s getting more mild guys! Omicron infected 5x more people than Delta while only killing 1.6x more people!
posted by Slackermagee at 5:57 AM on May 31, 2022 [6 favorites]
I'd love to hear more perspectives from MeFites in France about this article in this thread! Or MeFites who have spent a lot of the pandemic so far in other places that have been as forceful in COVID-related restrictions.
posted by brainwane at 5:57 AM on May 31, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by brainwane at 5:57 AM on May 31, 2022 [3 favorites]
Do people demand freedoms back, though?
I've heard it said (possibly here on MeFi) that westerners who spend time in North Korea realize that the public can be made to…maybe not accept, but tolerate, just about anything.
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 6:15 AM on May 31, 2022 [1 favorite]
I've heard it said (possibly here on MeFi) that westerners who spend time in North Korea realize that the public can be made to…maybe not accept, but tolerate, just about anything.
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 6:15 AM on May 31, 2022 [1 favorite]
Even tyrants would be foolish to pass down an iron law when a low-key change of norms would lead to the same results.
This is a point made at considerable length in Manufacturing Consent.
the public can be made to…maybe not accept, but tolerate, just about anything.
Accept, tolerate and even demand. The Hidden Persuaders gives a good account of the techniques routinely used.
posted by flabdablet at 6:21 AM on May 31, 2022 [8 favorites]
This is a point made at considerable length in Manufacturing Consent.
the public can be made to…maybe not accept, but tolerate, just about anything.
Accept, tolerate and even demand. The Hidden Persuaders gives a good account of the techniques routinely used.
posted by flabdablet at 6:21 AM on May 31, 2022 [8 favorites]
sorry this just isnt the crisis we face in the us
posted by AlbertCalavicci at 6:31 AM on May 31, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by AlbertCalavicci at 6:31 AM on May 31, 2022 [7 favorites]
I'd love to hear more perspectives from MeFites in France about this article in this thread! Or MeFites who have spent a lot of the pandemic so far in other places that have been as forceful in COVID-related restrictions.
I spent a lot of time travelling back and forth to Canada last summer and it was wonderful to be able to go to public places and know that almost everyone would be masked up and vaccinated. It was the safest I have felt since the start of 2020. Unfortunately, I had to drive through Indiana and Michigan to get there where our preferred refueling points (Culver's) were initially "anything goes" and then later were "Indoor dining & toilets are closed due to lack of staff". The contrast was stark.
posted by srboisvert at 6:35 AM on May 31, 2022 [11 favorites]
I spent a lot of time travelling back and forth to Canada last summer and it was wonderful to be able to go to public places and know that almost everyone would be masked up and vaccinated. It was the safest I have felt since the start of 2020. Unfortunately, I had to drive through Indiana and Michigan to get there where our preferred refueling points (Culver's) were initially "anything goes" and then later were "Indoor dining & toilets are closed due to lack of staff". The contrast was stark.
posted by srboisvert at 6:35 AM on May 31, 2022 [11 favorites]
sorry this just isnt the crisis we face in the us
Well, no, our fascists didn't have to sneak in through a COVID restriction backdoor; we let them in the front when they rang the bell in (arguably) 2004.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 7:10 AM on May 31, 2022 [7 favorites]
Well, no, our fascists didn't have to sneak in through a COVID restriction backdoor; we let them in the front when they rang the bell in (arguably) 2004.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 7:10 AM on May 31, 2022 [7 favorites]
The result is that those who represent rationality and good, sober, pro-science problem-solving have found themselves digging their heels into the dark soil of dogma alongside those who have irrationally defied the advice of medical experts. For the COVID maximalist, it is as if there is no such thing as an objectively hard choice, an existential either/or that must be decided by will rather than by the supposedly unambiguous dictates of numerical data.Tired, are you? I'll give you fucking tired, you pompous ass.
We're all tired, asshole. Tired of reading self-satisfied short-sighted pseudo-thoughtful chin-stroking horseshit about there being some kind of essential opposition between public health and personal freedom / the economy / mental health / whateverthefuck.
Nobody likes living with the public health measures that have demonstrably been responsible for the countless lives we've collectively managed to snatch from the jaws of this fucking virus. Nobody thinks that imposing those measures comes without considerable and in some cases tragic costs. The only reason that any of that shit is necessary is because the consequences of not doing it have always and everywhere been shown so clearly to be worse.
If this apparently immumerate pearl clutcher wants not to be lumped in with the One World Government Chemtrails Reptilian Flat Earth Wharrgarbl fringe screwheads, he needs to pull his fucking head in and stop parroting their fucking talking points for them.
I'll tell you what I'm fucking tired of, fuckface. I'm tired of living inside a pandemic that fuckheads like you are doing nothing to shorten and everything to lengthen by making it even harder to keep sensible, temporary public health measures politically achievable.
Am I supercilious yet?
Fuck's sake.
posted by flabdablet at 7:13 AM on May 31, 2022 [70 favorites]
I don't know why I am surprised that the eventual public policy for COVID in most places is "every man for himself," but I am.
posted by Kitteh at 7:23 AM on May 31, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by Kitteh at 7:23 AM on May 31, 2022 [6 favorites]
Yeah...this is absolutely not a problem the US has. As an immunocompromised person, we have no restrictions here. At all. the most protection I get is most medical facilities 'require' masks, and even try to kind of enforce it sometimes. And those are places I have to go.
Stores? Pharmacies? Groceries? Nope.
I haven't gone anywhere except medical appointments and a couple of remote hiking trails since February 2020. And I'm lucky that I have that option. It's probably a major reason I'm still alive.
How tired of the pandemic do you think I am?
It would be nice if people like the author of the piece here could make a small effort so society as a whole could be healthier and safer. It's like saying wearing wearing gloves in winter is fascism. Small efforts and inconveniences to protect those with disabilities is not the end of freedom. This sort of writing is about selfish people who are profoundly lucky not to know the price of health issues in American society.
Caring for your fellow humans is a what makes a good society.
posted by scififan at 7:24 AM on May 31, 2022 [21 favorites]
Stores? Pharmacies? Groceries? Nope.
I haven't gone anywhere except medical appointments and a couple of remote hiking trails since February 2020. And I'm lucky that I have that option. It's probably a major reason I'm still alive.
How tired of the pandemic do you think I am?
It would be nice if people like the author of the piece here could make a small effort so society as a whole could be healthier and safer. It's like saying wearing wearing gloves in winter is fascism. Small efforts and inconveniences to protect those with disabilities is not the end of freedom. This sort of writing is about selfish people who are profoundly lucky not to know the price of health issues in American society.
Caring for your fellow humans is a what makes a good society.
posted by scififan at 7:24 AM on May 31, 2022 [21 favorites]
As for having only just now noticed that the upgrade treadmill is inhumane because it failed for you when your fingers were cold:
NO SHIT, SHERLOCK
But the idea that that is somehow to be sheeted home to the pandemic response as well? Just... fuck. There are no words.
I guess his nose must have been cold as well. There must have been some reason for shoving his head so far up his own arse.
posted by flabdablet at 7:24 AM on May 31, 2022 [2 favorites]
NO SHIT, SHERLOCK
But the idea that that is somehow to be sheeted home to the pandemic response as well? Just... fuck. There are no words.
I guess his nose must have been cold as well. There must have been some reason for shoving his head so far up his own arse.
posted by flabdablet at 7:24 AM on May 31, 2022 [2 favorites]
Inside the pharmacy, an older Muslim woman was nearly in tears. She couldn’t figure out how to complete, on her phone, the form required to receive the test. I pulled up the form on my own phone and saw the logo of the Ministry of Solidarity and Health. Like all government documents here, it featured the slogan: Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité. The pharmacy claimed that it could not provide a paper version of the form. She complained that old people should not be required to navigate online labyrinths on screens too small for their aching fingers and fading eyes just to comply with the rules.
The guy was right on the verge of a revelation about something, and then it went whooshing over his head like a startled flock of pigeons on the steps of Montmartre.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:58 AM on May 31, 2022 [18 favorites]
The guy was right on the verge of a revelation about something, and then it went whooshing over his head like a startled flock of pigeons on the steps of Montmartre.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:58 AM on May 31, 2022 [18 favorites]
I don't pretend to understand the pandemic experience in France. Maybe everything the author says is reasonable in that context. I guess I wouldn't know, not having been there since the pandemic started.
But drawing parallels between whatever's going on there and the US? I've got some conspicuous side-eye for that. Because I certainly have been here in the US the whole pandemic, and the claim that it has "given rise to a form of life plainly convergent with the Chinese model" is laughable. I mean, I don't even know how to engage with that seriously. What part of the US is this, that took or is taking the pandemic so seriously?
I mean, I did all the recommended stuff. I sat through the Great Lockdown of 2020, when we all got real into baking bread and doing paint-by-numbers and investigated what was in the back of our pantries. (And, at least in my social circle, a bunch of people got pregnant for some reason. Probably the fresh-baked bread.) I dragged out all the N95s from my woodworking shop. My mother-in-law made cloth masks when other types weren't available. I got vaccinated as soon as vaccines were available (team Moderna). And then boosted.
I have my 'vaccine card' saved on my phone, for the sole and exclusive purpose of going to events at the Kennedy Center, the only place that has ever seemed to take the requirement to present the things with even the remotest hint of sincerity. I think there was a time when we were supposed to show them at restaurants, maybe? I never got asked for one.
I installed an app on my phone that supposedly tells me if I've been in contact with someone with COVID. It hasn't reported anything in a very long time. (And honestly never really gave me any actionable information to begin with. It was a nice thought, though.)
People around my area still seem to be wearing masks in the grocery store, but that's about it. The Korean-American businesses still have signs up asking you to put on your mask before entering, and I do, but the signs are starting to look a bit tattered and I have my doubts that they'll be replaced when the Scotch tape affixing them to the entry doors finally loses its stickiness and they fall off, or an Amazon delivery person accidentally tears them off holding the door with their back while they shove a six-foot tower of cardboard boxes through on a hand truck.
Xi's China, it is not.
When I hear someone claiming that this is 'creeping fascism', it pings my Right Wing Crank radar pretty hard. My dudes, you're being asked to wear a fucking face mask to avoid killing your neighbors, not invade Poland. You're also required to wear shoes, which notably cost more than masks, and don't really protect anyone but the wearer. Go protest "shoe mandates", if you want a hill to die on.
posted by Kadin2048 at 8:11 AM on May 31, 2022 [26 favorites]
But drawing parallels between whatever's going on there and the US? I've got some conspicuous side-eye for that. Because I certainly have been here in the US the whole pandemic, and the claim that it has "given rise to a form of life plainly convergent with the Chinese model" is laughable. I mean, I don't even know how to engage with that seriously. What part of the US is this, that took or is taking the pandemic so seriously?
I mean, I did all the recommended stuff. I sat through the Great Lockdown of 2020, when we all got real into baking bread and doing paint-by-numbers and investigated what was in the back of our pantries. (And, at least in my social circle, a bunch of people got pregnant for some reason. Probably the fresh-baked bread.) I dragged out all the N95s from my woodworking shop. My mother-in-law made cloth masks when other types weren't available. I got vaccinated as soon as vaccines were available (team Moderna). And then boosted.
I have my 'vaccine card' saved on my phone, for the sole and exclusive purpose of going to events at the Kennedy Center, the only place that has ever seemed to take the requirement to present the things with even the remotest hint of sincerity. I think there was a time when we were supposed to show them at restaurants, maybe? I never got asked for one.
I installed an app on my phone that supposedly tells me if I've been in contact with someone with COVID. It hasn't reported anything in a very long time. (And honestly never really gave me any actionable information to begin with. It was a nice thought, though.)
People around my area still seem to be wearing masks in the grocery store, but that's about it. The Korean-American businesses still have signs up asking you to put on your mask before entering, and I do, but the signs are starting to look a bit tattered and I have my doubts that they'll be replaced when the Scotch tape affixing them to the entry doors finally loses its stickiness and they fall off, or an Amazon delivery person accidentally tears them off holding the door with their back while they shove a six-foot tower of cardboard boxes through on a hand truck.
Xi's China, it is not.
When I hear someone claiming that this is 'creeping fascism', it pings my Right Wing Crank radar pretty hard. My dudes, you're being asked to wear a fucking face mask to avoid killing your neighbors, not invade Poland. You're also required to wear shoes, which notably cost more than masks, and don't really protect anyone but the wearer. Go protest "shoe mandates", if you want a hill to die on.
posted by Kadin2048 at 8:11 AM on May 31, 2022 [26 favorites]
Thanks to chavenet for a thought-provoking post.
The article’s discussion of COVID maximalists has predictably triggered another rehash of the US’ pandemic response.
But the articles also invite a broader discussion of how states/corporations use crises as an opportunity to extend the scope of technological monitoring and control of people.
If the powers that be used 9/11 to expand corporate/government control why would they not use COVID to do the same?
As others have noted above, it would be very interesting to hear other French perspectives
posted by lumpy at 8:25 AM on May 31, 2022 [6 favorites]
The article’s discussion of COVID maximalists has predictably triggered another rehash of the US’ pandemic response.
But the articles also invite a broader discussion of how states/corporations use crises as an opportunity to extend the scope of technological monitoring and control of people.
If the powers that be used 9/11 to expand corporate/government control why would they not use COVID to do the same?
As others have noted above, it would be very interesting to hear other French perspectives
posted by lumpy at 8:25 AM on May 31, 2022 [6 favorites]
I mentioned upthread the misuse of contract tracing info in Australia: "‘Breach of trust’: Police using QR check-in data to solve crimes", Sydney Morning Herald, September 6, 2021:
The nation’s privacy watchdog has called for police forces to be banned from accessing information from QR code check-in applications after law enforcement agencies have sought to use the contact-tracing data on at least six occasions to solve unrelated crimes.posted by brainwane at 8:46 AM on May 31, 2022 [5 favorites]
You're also required to wear shoes, which notably cost more than masks, and don't really protect anyone but the wearer. Go protest "shoe mandates", if you want a hill to die on.
I can see your house from here
posted by flabdablet at 8:59 AM on May 31, 2022 [2 favorites]
I can see your house from here
posted by flabdablet at 8:59 AM on May 31, 2022 [2 favorites]
He never told the Chinese people that they had been inoculated with a vaccine that was designed for the original Wuhan variant of the disease, but which offers little protection against new variants.
This is a bit weird, because the Western vaccines are formulated against the Wuhan strain too and haven't been updated yet either.
They're probably holding up rather better than Sinovac but it's not because they've been updated, they were just more effective in the first place, and also people more at risk in the US are probably on their second mRNA booster by now.
posted by BungaDunga at 9:13 AM on May 31, 2022 [7 favorites]
This is a bit weird, because the Western vaccines are formulated against the Wuhan strain too and haven't been updated yet either.
They're probably holding up rather better than Sinovac but it's not because they've been updated, they were just more effective in the first place, and also people more at risk in the US are probably on their second mRNA booster by now.
posted by BungaDunga at 9:13 AM on May 31, 2022 [7 favorites]
vaccine that was designed for the original Wuhan variant of the disease, but which offers little protection against new variants.
That's straight from the anti-vax playbook: vaccines are simultaneously too new to have the long-term effects figured out and too slowly developed to be of any assistance.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:22 AM on May 31, 2022 [5 favorites]
That's straight from the anti-vax playbook: vaccines are simultaneously too new to have the long-term effects figured out and too slowly developed to be of any assistance.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:22 AM on May 31, 2022 [5 favorites]
It's probably true that a couple doses of Sinovac gives you worse against omicron than Pfizer but much better than nothing: "Almost 3% of people aged 80 or older who got two doses of the inactivated CoronaVac shot died after getting infected, compared with 1.5% of those who were given the BioNTech SE vaccine... Among those aged 80 and older, 15% of those who weren’t immunized died after contracting the virus."
posted by BungaDunga at 9:32 AM on May 31, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by BungaDunga at 9:32 AM on May 31, 2022 [6 favorites]
The article’s discussion of COVID maximalists has predictably triggered another rehash of the US’ pandemic response.
I am also interested in a discussion of French and other non-US perspective, but here are some word counts from the article:
But let's talk about France. To quote the article again:
Also, the percentage of fully vaccinated people in France (~78%) has barely budged for the past 90 days, and significant numbers of adults remain entirely unvaccinated. I guess those are the author's revolutionary heroes.
Anyway, across pretty much all Western countries the story is the same: successive waves have all had less and less effect on people's behavior and vaccination numbers have flattened. This is not a good thing in my opinion! But good or bad, it flies in the face of the author's claim that these societies have been inexorably placed on a one-way track to an oppressive, algorithmically controlled postbiopolitical order in which "the technologies we developed to control [the pandemic] still control us."
posted by jedicus at 9:41 AM on May 31, 2022 [12 favorites]
I am also interested in a discussion of French and other non-US perspective, but here are some word counts from the article:
- United States / America: 6
- France: 5
- American: 2
- French: 7
- "Western countries": 2
- Europe: 2
- China / Chinese: 2
- Canada, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Sweden, United Kingdom, etc: 0
But let's talk about France. To quote the article again:
Yet the starkest transformation is one that we likely would have had trouble anticipating before 2020: the commandment to stay at home, which unbelievably transformed into a norm of the permanent pandemic.According to actual data, the French currently spend an incredible 2% more time in residential places than at the start of the pandemic (compare to ~30% more during the first lockdown period). Wow! Truly, an unbelievable transformation in French society.
Also, the percentage of fully vaccinated people in France (~78%) has barely budged for the past 90 days, and significant numbers of adults remain entirely unvaccinated. I guess those are the author's revolutionary heroes.
Anyway, across pretty much all Western countries the story is the same: successive waves have all had less and less effect on people's behavior and vaccination numbers have flattened. This is not a good thing in my opinion! But good or bad, it flies in the face of the author's claim that these societies have been inexorably placed on a one-way track to an oppressive, algorithmically controlled postbiopolitical order in which "the technologies we developed to control [the pandemic] still control us."
posted by jedicus at 9:41 AM on May 31, 2022 [12 favorites]
It seems like complaining about overreaching mandates while no one obeys them is another recurring theme.
posted by meowzilla at 10:00 AM on May 31, 2022 [11 favorites]
posted by meowzilla at 10:00 AM on May 31, 2022 [11 favorites]
Having made my way through the whole meander now I can't help but think that this is an awful lot of political philosophizing to avoid admitting that the author is getting old enough to feel left behind by tech?
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 10:09 AM on May 31, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 10:09 AM on May 31, 2022 [8 favorites]
In an earlier time the author would be complaining about how the programs of the New Deal were undermining freedom because everyone's issued a Social Security Number which (gasp!) uniquely identifies them and could be used for tracking and that we should all just accept being poor.
It's a bit reductionist, but there are times when I swear a lot of the effort going into making sure pandemic relief and public health policy both fail horribly is being done precisely to keep another New Deal from happening.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 10:25 AM on May 31, 2022 [9 favorites]
It's a bit reductionist, but there are times when I swear a lot of the effort going into making sure pandemic relief and public health policy both fail horribly is being done precisely to keep another New Deal from happening.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 10:25 AM on May 31, 2022 [9 favorites]
Ongoing maintenance of the misery of the poor is essential to people mentally ill enough to seek, retain and flaunt the obscene degree of wealth and power that so many conspicuously display today.
The entirely rational fear with which the rest of us view them is the entire point and purpose of what these shitheads and their gutless media lickspittles do. They are completely incapable of imagining, let alone working toward, a more egalitarian world in which no such fear need exist so their driving concern is to avoid feeling it themselves.
And none of that has anything to do with the public health response to this pandemic except to the extent that the usual suspects have been doing everything within their power to turn public health into another culture war shibboleth along with climate change, renewable energy, gender, race, gun control, women's bodily autonomy and every other fucking thing they blast and ruin for shits and giggles.
That's what makes me tired.
posted by flabdablet at 10:56 AM on May 31, 2022 [10 favorites]
The entirely rational fear with which the rest of us view them is the entire point and purpose of what these shitheads and their gutless media lickspittles do. They are completely incapable of imagining, let alone working toward, a more egalitarian world in which no such fear need exist so their driving concern is to avoid feeling it themselves.
And none of that has anything to do with the public health response to this pandemic except to the extent that the usual suspects have been doing everything within their power to turn public health into another culture war shibboleth along with climate change, renewable energy, gender, race, gun control, women's bodily autonomy and every other fucking thing they blast and ruin for shits and giggles.
That's what makes me tired.
posted by flabdablet at 10:56 AM on May 31, 2022 [10 favorites]
Here are two points from the Harper's article that I found interesting.
The article says that the "vast apparatus of control" and state of emergency imposed post 9/11 is being " extended to the entirety of our social lives, rather than simply airports and other targets of potential terrorist interest." And that the apparatus of control is being implemented by "private companies, particularly tech and pharmaceutical companies, which, in needing to turn profits for shareholders, have their own reasons for hoping that whatever crisis they have been given the task of managing does not end."
So the article seems to be saying that the same confluence of public and private interests that resulted in the military-industrial complex and its need for forever war is now creating some kind of health-technology complex that similarly requires endless health crises to thrive. Which does not seem implausible.
The article also references "right-wing Foucaldian thinkers" who argue that "the power of the professional classes is being maintained through the aggressive monitoring of other people’s bodies and breath, even as it relies on the labor of people who lack the freedom to decide where their own bodies go or what air they breathe."
Now college was a long time ago for me and I really struggled with Foucault even then. But this statement gave me pause. I am a professional who has worked from home since the start of the pandemic. I harshly judge anti-vaxxers, anti-maskers, etc. But like that quote says, I am more than happy to rely on the assistance of the same people I judge. I think it's worth considering how freely we impose monitoring and restrictions on other people's bodies even (and maybe especially) when our cause is righteous.
posted by lumpy at 12:07 PM on May 31, 2022 [5 favorites]
The article says that the "vast apparatus of control" and state of emergency imposed post 9/11 is being " extended to the entirety of our social lives, rather than simply airports and other targets of potential terrorist interest." And that the apparatus of control is being implemented by "private companies, particularly tech and pharmaceutical companies, which, in needing to turn profits for shareholders, have their own reasons for hoping that whatever crisis they have been given the task of managing does not end."
So the article seems to be saying that the same confluence of public and private interests that resulted in the military-industrial complex and its need for forever war is now creating some kind of health-technology complex that similarly requires endless health crises to thrive. Which does not seem implausible.
The article also references "right-wing Foucaldian thinkers" who argue that "the power of the professional classes is being maintained through the aggressive monitoring of other people’s bodies and breath, even as it relies on the labor of people who lack the freedom to decide where their own bodies go or what air they breathe."
Now college was a long time ago for me and I really struggled with Foucault even then. But this statement gave me pause. I am a professional who has worked from home since the start of the pandemic. I harshly judge anti-vaxxers, anti-maskers, etc. But like that quote says, I am more than happy to rely on the assistance of the same people I judge. I think it's worth considering how freely we impose monitoring and restrictions on other people's bodies even (and maybe especially) when our cause is righteous.
posted by lumpy at 12:07 PM on May 31, 2022 [5 favorites]
If the powers that be used 9/11 to expand corporate/government control why would they not use COVID to do the same?
A reasonable question. It seems like something worth being on the lookout for, but it doesn't seem to have actually happened?
At least to me, the difference between post-9/11 security theater and COVID response was that the post-9/11 stuff was rarely grounded in reality, was more about perception than fact, and probably wasn't necessary to accomplish the purported goal of preventing another 9/11. (After all, the flying public demonstrably fixed the "use airliners as flying bombs" issue sometime around 10AM on 9/11.)
The pandemic response could have been done better, certainly, but there wasn't a lot that was actually done (in the US) that wasn't pretty directly indicated by evidence.
If the government were, several years from now once it is no longer an ongoing problem, still using COVID-19 as a justification for building out a vast, TSA-style bureaucracy and all-knowing domestic surveillance program... that would be a different discussion. But it seems a little premature at this point, given that substantial numbers of people are still getting sick and dying from COVID.
posted by Kadin2048 at 12:47 PM on May 31, 2022 [12 favorites]
A reasonable question. It seems like something worth being on the lookout for, but it doesn't seem to have actually happened?
At least to me, the difference between post-9/11 security theater and COVID response was that the post-9/11 stuff was rarely grounded in reality, was more about perception than fact, and probably wasn't necessary to accomplish the purported goal of preventing another 9/11. (After all, the flying public demonstrably fixed the "use airliners as flying bombs" issue sometime around 10AM on 9/11.)
The pandemic response could have been done better, certainly, but there wasn't a lot that was actually done (in the US) that wasn't pretty directly indicated by evidence.
If the government were, several years from now once it is no longer an ongoing problem, still using COVID-19 as a justification for building out a vast, TSA-style bureaucracy and all-knowing domestic surveillance program... that would be a different discussion. But it seems a little premature at this point, given that substantial numbers of people are still getting sick and dying from COVID.
posted by Kadin2048 at 12:47 PM on May 31, 2022 [12 favorites]
I'd love to hear more perspectives from MeFites in France about this article in this thread! Or MeFites who have spent a lot of the pandemic so far in other places that have been as forceful in COVID-related restrictions.
I can't claim to be French, but I did spend last fall in a small rural French town. (Therefore, my impressions are probably not the same as those of Parisians.)
We showed our Covid pass everywhere and wore masks everywhere, as did everyone else. It was just a nonevent. Waiters asked and you showed it and that was just how the world worked.
The most fascinating thing to me was that there was no casual conversational debate about any of it -- and if you know the French, they like to question everything! But not this. Vaccines, masks, and the pass were completely accepted. Obviously, there are many unvaccinated French people who feel differently, but the simple fact that it wasn't a topic of debate seemed really significant me.
When the outdoor mask mandate lifted, about half of our town kept wearing them, saying simply that they were used to them now.
As an aside, a significant number of French women expressed being thrilled about covid putting a halt to all the cheek kissing. And many hope that it doesn't re-appear. Here's to not being required to be (potentially) molested (in a socially acceptable manner) by your boss and every single employee in your office!
posted by quiet wanderer at 12:51 PM on May 31, 2022 [15 favorites]
I can't claim to be French, but I did spend last fall in a small rural French town. (Therefore, my impressions are probably not the same as those of Parisians.)
We showed our Covid pass everywhere and wore masks everywhere, as did everyone else. It was just a nonevent. Waiters asked and you showed it and that was just how the world worked.
The most fascinating thing to me was that there was no casual conversational debate about any of it -- and if you know the French, they like to question everything! But not this. Vaccines, masks, and the pass were completely accepted. Obviously, there are many unvaccinated French people who feel differently, but the simple fact that it wasn't a topic of debate seemed really significant me.
When the outdoor mask mandate lifted, about half of our town kept wearing them, saying simply that they were used to them now.
As an aside, a significant number of French women expressed being thrilled about covid putting a halt to all the cheek kissing. And many hope that it doesn't re-appear. Here's to not being required to be (potentially) molested (in a socially acceptable manner) by your boss and every single employee in your office!
posted by quiet wanderer at 12:51 PM on May 31, 2022 [15 favorites]
I am a professional who has worked from home since the start of the pandemic. I harshly judge anti-vaxxers, anti-maskers, etc. But like that quote says, I am more than happy to rely on the assistance of the same people I judge. I think it's worth considering how freely we impose monitoring and restrictions on other people's bodies even (and maybe especially) when our cause is righteous.
Yes, there is a very "the law forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges" aspect to pandemic policies, i.e. some people get to work from home--others get laid off, requiring people to pay for their own tests in order to return to work, not requiring people be given paid leave, not providing childcare or transportation etc, not making vaccines available in places where people aren't able to travel....
We could have done a much better job of leveling the playing field and it's worth examining how much a lack of support may have pushed people into the denial/antivaxx camp. But this is all standard Capitalism 101 personal responsibility bullshit and not necessarily anything specific to the pandemic.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 1:42 PM on May 31, 2022 [5 favorites]
Yes, there is a very "the law forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges" aspect to pandemic policies, i.e. some people get to work from home--others get laid off, requiring people to pay for their own tests in order to return to work, not requiring people be given paid leave, not providing childcare or transportation etc, not making vaccines available in places where people aren't able to travel....
We could have done a much better job of leveling the playing field and it's worth examining how much a lack of support may have pushed people into the denial/antivaxx camp. But this is all standard Capitalism 101 personal responsibility bullshit and not necessarily anything specific to the pandemic.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 1:42 PM on May 31, 2022 [5 favorites]
The insight that politics is principally concerned with living bodies rather than abstractions is fundamental to the philosophical genealogy of biopolitics.
O RLY Justin ? Sorry, but I was recherching my temps perdu a long way before you cast that particularly pithy pearl.
Somewhere in paragraph 2, to be precise, where you didn't pull your 49 year-old oh-so fat, oh-so tech-averse thumb out your arse and try to help that poor woman (despite your ink-stained, substack-penning ivory-appendages seeming to get the job done thereafter sans trop de soucis) but did then choose to use her distress to add that extra frisson of contrapuntal rusticity (and a hint of the exotic - a Muslim!) to your ante-expository amuse-guele.
The bit about the officious, dismissive pharmacist was just the glaçage on the macaron.
Please don't read this guy's stuff as being apropos of anything broadly significant or insightful about people in France.
posted by protorp at 2:02 PM on May 31, 2022 [8 favorites]
O RLY Justin ? Sorry, but I was recherching my temps perdu a long way before you cast that particularly pithy pearl.
Somewhere in paragraph 2, to be precise, where you didn't pull your 49 year-old oh-so fat, oh-so tech-averse thumb out your arse and try to help that poor woman (despite your ink-stained, substack-penning ivory-appendages seeming to get the job done thereafter sans trop de soucis) but did then choose to use her distress to add that extra frisson of contrapuntal rusticity (and a hint of the exotic - a Muslim!) to your ante-expository amuse-guele.
The bit about the officious, dismissive pharmacist was just the glaçage on the macaron.
Please don't read this guy's stuff as being apropos of anything broadly significant or insightful about people in France.
posted by protorp at 2:02 PM on May 31, 2022 [8 favorites]
Not one person was killed by a shoe or a bottle of water and yet to this day we are dutifully taking off our shoes, parceling out our liquids, and letting TSA staff look at us with X-ray glasses. Meanwhile over a million Americans have been killed by COVID-19 and masks are optional on airplanes. Can you imagine what the security precautions would look like if a million people were killed in a terrorist attack?
posted by Pyry at 3:29 PM on May 31, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by Pyry at 3:29 PM on May 31, 2022 [8 favorites]
A reasonable question. It seems like something worth being on the lookout for, but it doesn't seem to have actually happened?
The was a story on the CDC buying Americans’ location data from a shady tracking company for pandemic surveillance purposes. But, of course, this is an example of the government as just another client of the unconstrained private surveillance apparatus that already exists, not of the government extending its reach.
posted by atoxyl at 4:46 PM on May 31, 2022 [2 favorites]
The was a story on the CDC buying Americans’ location data from a shady tracking company for pandemic surveillance purposes. But, of course, this is an example of the government as just another client of the unconstrained private surveillance apparatus that already exists, not of the government extending its reach.
posted by atoxyl at 4:46 PM on May 31, 2022 [2 favorites]
This essay loses steam rather quickly upon the author noting about halfway through that the health pass requirement in France expired in March 2022. As RonButNotStupid noted, the reality seems to be that as viral evolution and antibody waning have rendered vaccination/prior infection status a weaker indicator of transmission risk, many places have become less interested in enforcing immunity-based restrictions. Which would appear to be fairly directly contrary to the premise that these powers, once seized, are not relinquished.
posted by atoxyl at 4:59 PM on May 31, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by atoxyl at 4:59 PM on May 31, 2022 [8 favorites]
As a person who recently contracted COVID who went everywhere indoors with a mask while riding the elevator with maskless fuckwits (I can't avoid elevators, I'm in a wheelchair), who has seen the entire city of Philly go YOLO over the last few weeks, can I just say the following:
bitch
posted by angrycat at 3:26 AM on June 1, 2022 [9 favorites]
bitch
posted by angrycat at 3:26 AM on June 1, 2022 [9 favorites]
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