• Please use real names.

    Greetings to all who have registered to OPF and those guests taking a look around. Please use real names. Registrations with fictitious names will not be processed. REAL NAMES ONLY will be processed

    Firstname Lastname

    Register

    We are a courteous and supportive community. No need to hide behind an alia. If you have a genuine need for privacy/secrecy then let me know!
  • Welcome to the new site. Here's a thread about the update where you can post your feedback, ask questions or spot those nasty bugs!

The President and Covid

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
We are in danger but thank goodness the military won’t obey any orders against the civilian population!
 

Jerome Marot

Well-known member
In the discussion about Covid deniers, we seem to forget the difficult situation the people are in. Not that it is an excuse, but it may explain how their behavior arose. The following was originally published in German:

Case 1 (Self-employed exhibition booth builder): Explains to me that he and his wife, who was previously employed by him, are facing the collapse of their existence. Has no more orders and cannot pay the rates for their house any longer. Aid packages from the government completely miss their problems. Since then only shouting at home and his relationship is collapsing. Because of distance learning, the children are always at home. Thinks that he will kill himself if the consequences of COVID19 are as long lasting as science says. So he convinces himself that politicians are wrong and everything is not so bad. He would simply like to have his old life again and sees the only chance in the fact that one may finally recognize that Corona is only the flu.

Case 2 (Employee managing director in a fitness studio): Has been busy for months processing letters from members cancelling their subscriptions. He is currently, so to speak, processing his lack of professional future. Explains to me that when the alarm clock goes off in the morning, he would prefer to stay in bed because he is so frustrated. He often sits at home in the evening and cries. He estimates that his employer will only last a few months. Studied sports and loved his job. Had a serious COVID illness in his relatives very early on and was extremely worried. But now thinks that Covid is just an excuse to "destroy the economy of the West". Is obviously totally caught in a social media conspiracy bubble.

Case 3 (Social worker at the City X Youth Welfare Office): Has several high-risk patients in his family and had a mad fear of infection at the beginning of the Corona pandemic. City X acts haphazardly, sometimes closing and sometimes opening youth care facilities - but without adequate protective measures for the employees. The social worker works with children from socially deprived areas, who naturally do not follow any regulations. Employees and children who come with masks are sometimes spat on, coughed on, etc. by other children in front of the facility. The social worker often calls in sick because he cannot mentally cope with this dangerous situation. This results in several employee interviews, in which his objections regarding occupational safety are ignored and he is accused of refusing to work. Has been explained by his bosses that he should be a better team player. My impression is that the guy has been running in zombie mode ever since. Goes to work, but is in a bad mood all the time. Doesn't take the mask commandment seriously anymore because he thinks that one of the brats at work will infect him one day anyway. He has completely resigned himself and just wants this whole "Corona circus" to stop soon.

I would bet that many of the Covid deniers are people who, like these three, see no other way out than to deny Covid.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
A fascinating sampling in 3 cases. Here it’s mixed up with Trumpism.

The latter in much part is fury at blacks and other foreigners in positions of power and their faces in authority in the TV for opinions on politics, global warming, Justice, immigration and more.

There are Blacks and Hispanics who support Trump based on the wish of the economy booming and fear of “socialists”!

But the core of Trumpism is the coslitionscof the poor uneducated cruder Christian Right with the much more sophisticated true believer Evangelical Christians educated in the “Path of “Jesus as Savior” to the nth.

Interesting paradox: although Christ died on the cross, (suffering to be “the sacrifice” that pays off the sins of the world), it doesn’t apply to Joseph Biden and Kamela Harris it even myself, for NOT voting for Trump!

(I give me votes to my wife so as not to neutralize her own choice.)

The biggest barrier I see to democracy and to managing existential threats is not being equipped to separate stories from observed and confirmed facts!

Asher
 

Jerome Marot

Well-known member
The one thing certain today is if you take a stand vocally on one extreme or the other, you'll likely piss off about 50% of the people you associate with.

The politics discussions are generally limited to this particular section, so it is easy to avoid them.

The particular passage I cited from your post however worries me. If you are likely to piss off 50% of the people you associate with just by stating an opinion, it would seem that you only associate with extremists. That should be ground for concern. I am not pissed off when somebody expresses a political opinion I don't adhere to and neither are most of the people I associate with. We can agree to disagree.
 

Alex Johnson

New member
The politics discussions are generally limited to this particular section, so it is easy to avoid them.

The particular passage I cited from your post however worries me. If you are likely to piss off 50% of the people you associate with just by stating an opinion, it would seem that you only associate with extremists. That should be ground for concern. I am not pissed off when somebody expresses a political opinion I don't adhere to and neither are most of the people I associate with. We can agree to disagree.

I heard one very reasonable phrase: people are divided into smart and fools, and fools are already divided into parties, religions, etc. That is, an intelligent person, supporting this or that party, will not pounce on people, but a fool will prove with foam at his mouth how wrong you are, supporting another candidate.
 
I heard one very reasonable phrase: people are divided into smart and fools, and fools are already divided into parties, religions, etc. That is, an intelligent person, supporting this or that party, will not pounce on people, but a fool will prove with foam at his mouth how wrong you are, supporting another candidate.
There are many intelligent people who become fanatical towards their cause seeing all alternatives as madness, and plenty of fools who ignore all the arguments & just continue with their lives.
Fortunately most of us are capable of continuing to get on with people who don't share our views. This is just as well, if I tried I could probably manage to find something I don't agree with in every other persons opinions.
About half the country disagree with me on Brexit, far more than half the remainder think football is important, many of the rest don't think photography is important...
 

Jerome Marot

Well-known member
Fanaticism is old and the present era can be considered mild when compared to others. Between 1618 and 1648, Europe managed to lose half its population over a minor disagreement of religious doctrine. That is difficult to top.

But what I worry about is that, in the past decade, there were developed automated systems to polarize people. I don't think this is such a great idea.
 

Tim Rucci

Member
The particular passage I cited from your post however worries me. If you are likely to piss off 50% of the people you associate with just by stating an opinion, it would seem that you only associate with extremists.

I think you may have misunderstood what I was referring to when I wrote that. My reasoning was that in the US, roughly half of the population support the current president, while the other half do not.
That was the basis for my assertion that vocally supporting one side generally pisses off supporters of the other side. Nothing more; nothing less.



Also, I do not believe I only associate with extremists (so don't be worried). I'm not sure if you folks are extremists or not, and you certainly are not the only people I associate with (wink).

New topic on politics in OPF and other forums moved here.
 

Alex Johnson

New member
There are many intelligent people who become fanatical towards their cause seeing all alternatives as madness, and plenty of fools who ignore all the arguments & just continue with their lives.
Fortunately most of us are capable of continuing to get on with people who don't share our views. This is just as well, if I tried I could probably manage to find something I don't agree with in every other persons opinions.
About half the country disagree with me on Brexit, far more than half the remainder think football is important, many of the rest don't think photography is important...

I didn't mean at all the level of intelligence or the quality of education. A person may have an honors degree and a prestigious job, but in life he is a fool. And there are people who only graduated from school, but at the same time their reasoning is adequate and reasonable, they calmly react to other points of view. This is an absolutely individual moment that does not depend on education or position in society.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Tim’s important topic on “What photographer enthusiasts/hobbyists, (like himself), might be about”, (especially shielding themselves from politics), is now a separate thread here!

Asher
 
Top