[borepop]

It feels like the author has a notably loose idea of what the "this" is that she's been through before. She's applying lessons she feels she learned through personal trauma involving her son's autism to the analysis of a global pandemic.

I appreciate the general notion that we should be skeptical and that experts can be wrong, but I'm just not sure what the one situation has to do with the other. She could just as well have written the same style essay about why, since her son had autism and was not well understood, the earth is also flat and climate change is a hoax.

[AbrahamParangi]

I believe this article is a testament that when something needs to be done but nobody really knows what to do, the structures of power will demand you do this or that regardless.

This incoherent demanding is from a fundamental need of power to project power and is harmful to those subject to it.

[MrBuddyCasino]

The lesson to take away that "trust the experts" as a general motto is nonsense, especially the more we move away from pure math into things that are much more difficult to decide.

This is especially true if people are forced against their will, violating their freedom rights. Sure, taking away your kids is on the far end of the scale. But thousands of people have quit their jobs or been fired over vaccine mandates. Peoples lives and businesses have been destroyed over lockdowns. How do you justify this, with studies like this coming out:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-28/getting-v...

People have been called conspiracy theorists a year ago when the "lab leak theory" was being discussed. Major news outlets would call you a racist lunatic. You would think they'd become more humble, but they didn't. They simply continue to repeat the officially sanctioned narrative and enforcing the Overton window. They simply are downstream of power.

It has become abundantly clear to anyone who follows the topics in-depth that politicians and institutions are barely competent, and they should have very limited power over people's lives.

[soco]

Thing is, people are barely competent themselves yet still have various degrees of power over some lives - children, neighbors, elderly relatives, pedestrians...

[MrBuddyCasino]

The way to modulate this used to be customs, traditions and passing on of knowledge via inter-generational living. It works fine if a given individual does not have to re-invent the whole of civilisation on their own, and there is no reason they should need to.

This has been lost to a certain degree, which (among others) explains the rise of The Expert. The failure modes are worse though, because incentives are mis-aligned.