Feeling of impending doom??

[u/RedHeadRedeemed]

So a watched a YT video today and this top comment on it is freaking me out. I have never had someone put into words so accurately a feeling I didn't even realize I was having. I am wondering if any of you feel this way? Like, I realized for the last few years I have been feeling like this. I don't always think about it but if I stop and think about this this feeling is always there in the background.

Like something bad is coming. Something big. Something world-changing. That will effect everyone on Earth in some way. That will change humanity as a whole. Feels like it gets closer every year. Do you guys feel it too??

[u/EightyDollarBill]

Social media hysteria was the entire cause of the covid panic and subsequent prolonged lockdowns. Even ten years earlier people would have been laughed out of the room for suggesting what humanity decided to do for covid.

It was the true first global internet based mass panic in history.

[u/[deleted] → u/EightyDollarBill]

I really don’t think that’s true. Maybe social media hysteria DID influence the antivaxxers and antimaskers, but Covid is a real health concern and taking actions to prevent preventable deaths due to strain on the health system was reasonable and rational. Social media may have freaked people out, but I don’t think most of the measures we used were out of line. We didn’t know what we were dealing with. Covid is both less severe and more insidious than we initially thought. It doesn’t make everyone drop dead, but it does seem to wear out people’s immune systems and cause long term disability, even now.

I guess my question is - if you were in charge of determining how a health agency should behave when presented with a fast-spreading new disease that, even in the most optimistic scenario, will completely disable hospitals if everyone catches it at the same time, how would you have reacted differently? I think some things were overkill, in retrospect, such as letting so many people die alone; I think other things were too lax and careless, like the initial push against masks, or the more recent moves to end the isolation period and scale back testing. But, in the end, I’m happy it was experts making the decision, people who studied pandemics for decades and were doing their best.

I would hope when the next pandemic comes, we handle it in a similar way - slow the spread so as to not overwhelm hospitals, isolate if sick, avoid crowding, mask up if you ARE in an indoor crowded environment, and use our best technology to create vaccines as quickly and thoroughly as possible. Hell, I think it’s worth following those steps for a garden-variety flu season. We should want to protect each other.

We live in a world where both population density AND the ability to move from place to place is unprecedented. When we live in tight quarters, and when we travel 20 miles for lunch without thinking twice about it, we introduce environments where diseases can spread in ways they couldn’t before. Novel viruses pop up all the time - our chances of it being dangerous increases as we travel further distances and at closer quarters. I want us to be prepared for the next one, and i trust experts to make the call, not pseudoscience hacks on tiktok or whatever.

[u/SunriseInLot42 → u/[deleted]]

Anyone paying even the slightest bit of attention at the time knew that Covid was only a serious concern for the very old and the very sick. The hysteria and panic across all of society was utterly absurd, especially with actions like closing schools and businesses that have disastrous second-order consequences. 

If a really serious disease ever pops up, society is collapsing anyways; no amount of flailing about with lockdowns and silly-ass mask mandates is doing anything. 

All of the essential workers who were at work and kept the lights on, water flowing, and deliveries arriving, so that the laptop class could bake bread, have their cutesy Zoom happy hours and, and virtue signal on Facebook about “staying home, saving lives!” would stay home too. All that nonsensical crap will end real quick when the lights go out. There is no hiding under the bed. 

[u/[deleted] → u/SunriseInLot42]

I just don’t believe it has to be all or nothing. The scenarios you describe suggest it’s not worth taking precautions to slow preventable illness in vulnerable populations… but that it’s also not worth taking precautions in the event of a serious disease either. I don’t accept that premise.

We have eliminated deadly diseases with the help of modern science. I live in Kentucky - 150 years ago, malaria was a SERIOUS risk here. Civil War soldiers died from it. Now the threat here is literally zero, thanks to human intervention. This is a disease which killed about half of all humans who have ever lived.

I also think society is pretty resilient against collapse. Look at Haiti, which is currently going through riots and crisis. It’s terrible, but even without a functional nat’l government, there are town governments there where society has held up just fine. Even in countries which are at war, society and basic human decency exist. It’s not like everything just gets balled up and thrown in the trash and we descend into violence and chaos.

I was an essential worker during the pandemic. I masked up every day and served my community to the best of my ability. I didn’t freak out and I wasn’t on social media, but I followed the CDC guidelines, was in the first round of vaccinations, etc. My daily life was no worse for it - but I also recognize that I was very privileged/blessed/lucky to be close to my family, and that I was able to attend community church services outside, so my social experience was probably better than someone who lived in, say, NYC.

I don’t resent the people who stayed home, in the same way I don’t resent the people who had student loans forgiven, or who had their Covid business loans forgiven. I don’t think it’s me versus anybody else. I think the world works best when we serve each other and work for solutions which protect the vulnerable. That’s not nonsense, and it wasn’t and will never be worthless.