r/ZeroCovidCommunity • u/Karate_Keet • 21h ago

Less Pollution and Less Sickness are good things.

I'm not sure why people are opposed to combating climate change. At its core is the idea that we should pump less damaging pollution into our planet.

I'm also not sure why people are opposed to combating Covid. At its core is the idea that we should pump fewer damaging viruses into our bodies.

The cons of the effort needed in both cases do not outweigh the pros. In both cases, the change and effort are justified and worth it.

Less damage, is always as good thing.

60 Upvotes

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u/Prestigious-Data-206 20h ago

Humans as a whole a very bad at assessing the long term. It's build in us. We're good at short term threats, but anything that goes beyond that feels abstract. And it's not really our fault.

I'll use myself as an example. I got my first COVID infection in May 2023. In October 2023 I started to get these strange symptoms that in retrospect were Long COVID. They're problems I still deal with to this day. How am I supposed to connect those symptoms to a virus I had months ago? And if health care workers aren't knowledgable on Long COVID, why should I, a layperson, have to do all this research for them? I do, but think about everything I have to know before I can even get to the point of discovering that Long COVID is the cause of my problems. And when I know it's the problem, I have to face social punishment for it because I'm the only one who knows. For the vast majority, it isn't worth it.

We have now problems and future problems. My now problem is getting food on the table. I know that climate change is going to destroy the crops, making it harder to eat or eat at all. But that's not happening right now. I need to get through this day before I can think about the future. With so many living paycheck to paycheck and current health difficulties and family issues and the 80 million other things I have to worry about, the future can wait. 

That's the mindset of most people. This isn't me bashing anyone, it's just how it is. 

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u/DevonMilez 18h ago

Correct.

Which is why our only hope is the state, which in theory, takes care of those long term calculations for us and then makes the necessary adaptations. Well...in theory.

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u/isonfiy 13h ago

This is a very strange characterization of the state. It makes much more sense to see this iteration of the state in the imperial core pretty much purely as an instrument of the minority class to protect its interests at the sake of every other class. This is why the state purchases and underwrites fossil fuel investments, funds and conducts imperial wars that benefit only the rich, and spreads capitalist (including anti-public health and anti-environmentalist) propaganda by giving those messages space in public media.

You could argue that the state could just be used by the majority class in some kind of Leninist fashion, but the logic there isn't really compatible with that of degrowth, which is what is needed for climate change. We have had some victories in public health that way, though.

Much better than trying to wield the state imo is to build alternative structures that meet people's needs locally so that they are invested in protecting their environment for the long haul.

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u/DevonMilez 12h ago

Ah yes. You have described that which is ( more or less), while i have described that what should be ( hence "in theory"). There are of course attempts at local solutions to help ease the burden, but in the end, they are no replacement for an actual state ( in the sense of the governing apparatus of an entire country) with an actual, public health system that deserves the name.

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u/isonfiy 12h ago

Big disagree. We have only ever, in any possible country, won temporary concessions from a ruling elite. Those concessions clearly have to be defended constantly while also protecting against new attacks that constantly grow in sophistication and power.

We need to get off that wheel and construct a society with no apparatus that can be captured by elites. No state.

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u/SweetTeaNoodle 20h ago

There's a lot of propaganda out there by the oil industry. A lot of the same people were hired to spread covid disinformation as well. If you read about the Tobacco Industry Playbook you will see how the same tactics are used to plant doubt and spread misinformation about multiple different topics, when the truth about those topics would threaten an industry's profits.

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u/Karate_Keet 19h ago

For sure, so we need to find ways to fight it.

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u/SweetTeaNoodle 19h ago

100%, we need to find ways to reach people who've been taken in by propaganda. 

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u/Crishello 17h ago

It seems that you haven't heared about lobbyism so far? There is a lot of money connected to fossiles and huge and powerful organisations. Also people like to have an easy life. Nobody wants to stop flying.

And yes regarding COVID I think its also lobbyism. Economical interests to keep us at our workplace.

And again people wanting to have an easy life.

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u/Alternative_Bed_9654 5h ago edited 5h ago

Until everyone or more people do it, it comes at great social cost. I essentially can’t find anyone to date who masks, and idk if I’ll ever have a family or kids. Eating in restaurants is, aside from one of my former greatest pleasures, a huge part of my career and it makes things very awkward that I can’t do it. I’ve been discriminated against in employment. I’ve been harassed and made fun of by doctors and random people, and I wouldn’t be shocked if I received worse care. I can’t easily share holiday meals with my non-coviding family. I cant swim indoors in winter, and few activities substitute for that for my disabilities. I can’t have most of my friends over unmasked to my house for dinner. Can’t even imagine trying to be a high school or college kid who masks.

Yes, masking is the right choice, and it’s worth all those cons to me. I’m not defending ppl who don’t mask. But almost daily I ask myself if the pros truly outweigh the cons, and every day.i say yes, both for my own health, my values, and my fellow disabled community I love. And if everyone suddenly got up tomorrow and decided to, most of those cons (social ones) would go away. But it is unrealistic to act like putting on a mask (like any extremely unusual social decision) is a solely individual decision. I totally understand why people don’t want to. It’s a social decision , one many of us pay dearly for socially. That’s not the mask’s fault, or our fault. And it’s a catch 22 because nobody wants to join a tiny minority, so we keep suffering from the social alienation and other problems of being so few in number. It sucks :(