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What has changed most about the world since the pandemic began?

I'm not sure what exactly has changed about the world since coronavirus began. I think we can see very well which countries are strong enough to protect their people in a crisis like this, and that the United States is not one of them. I think the USA's international standing will be affected, and it had already degraded substantially over the past four years. It's hard to predict the repercussions of that, or what that will mean for how long and whether we can build back our international reputation. It feels like the pandemic has been a crisis that revealed many hidden (and not so hidden) weaknesses. We can choose to address those weaknesses or continue to ignore or deny them. It does feel as if our society is at a crossroads, where we have this choice, bit it's unclear what path we'll take. Even if we acknowledge these weaknesses and choose to address them--an important first step that is not guaranteed-- there is of course profound disagreement about how they can be addressed, as there should be in a democratic and diverse society. But since our mechanisms for discourse and sharing factual information are broken as well and are part of the problem, it's unclear how to proceed. I don't know how to get people who are deeply entrenched in conspiracy theories to recognize that they are being conned, at everyone's expense. We know that slave owners after the Civil War continued to deny that they were responsible for wrongdoing, and we know that many people who supported Hitler's rise in Nazi Germany claimed not to know anything about the Holocaust, even as the evidence was in front of them and they actively or passively enabled the genocide. So history shows denial is powerful in situations where fascism, racism, and genocide have gained traction. I don't know how to have dialog with someone who is not coming to the table in good faith, and indeed wants to actively exclude people, including me, from that table.

November 24, 2020

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