Looking at the recent discourse has made me really upset.

Covid is still a massive problem that is killing people, and almost no one is taking it seriously

It so so hard to do anything when you're worried about dying, and not in an anxiety disorder way. edit: stop speculating about what medical conditions I have, thank you kindly

I've accepted that there is basically nothing I can justify doing during bad weather that involves people outside my 3 person bubble (it used to be larger, but folks have decided to be less cautious without communicating about it) both in a moral obligation and a personal safety sense, and that's despair inducing because the way things are going this is a "live with it the rest of your life" sort of thing

I want to go out, I really do. I miss hanging with friends. I miss going to concerts and parties and drag and commie shit. But I can't, and not in a "something is wrong with me" sort of way. I've tried to find new social circles who take the pandemic seriously. It's been an exercise in having my boundaries pushed and my (these next two words are the one part of this post I encourage you to make fun of) evidence based perspective on the pandemic pathologized.

And I know this will be alleviated when the weather outside is suitable for outdoor masked stuff, but god, I haven't been able to see people besides my partners since the holidays, and there is still months and months left until I can hang out with friends again.

I'm so fucking tired. I can't keep going on like this without my mental health deteriorating and I can't stop acting like this without being reckless with my body and abdicating my responsibility to others

  • HoChiMaxh [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    I think it's false dichotomy to suggest that people either take the pandemic seriously and never go out, or don't take the pandemic seriously and go club all the time.

    Like it's not really true that there are health risks to covid but not health risks to staying inside all the time and not having a healthy social life. They both are associated with serious negative health outcomes.

    It is possible to mask up in most of your life, but also engage in moderate social gatherings to connect with human beings. Mental health is health too.

    • MeatfuckerDidNothing [they/them]
      ·
      2 years ago

      I think it’s false dichotomy to suggest that people either take the pandemic seriously and never go out, or don’t take the pandemic seriously and go club all the time.

      I don't mean to be impolite but I think you're shadowboxing here. cw:sex metaphor

      spoiler

      I'm not preaching abstinence here, I'm preaching "use protection or get tested and keep your partners informed" except when it comes to covid, protection means outside and masking (or well ventilated indoors and both parties masking, but no one agrees to that), and the weather can be shitty for months on end

      I'll schedule hanging out with a person, and the day of I'll check in, and they'll say "oh yeah I went out to a busy restaurant two days ago" cw sex metaphor (because this is absolutely how I conceptualize this shit)

      spoiler

      It's the equivalent of scheduling a hookup, going through the effort of getting tested, and then the day before they're like "oh yeah, I went to an orgy last night and had unprotected sex with 30 strangers"

      And it's impossible to find people who are reasonable about this stuff! It keeps happening over and over again, if they're willing to be honest in the first place!

    • robot_dog_with_gun [they/them]
      ·
      2 years ago

      or don’t take the pandemic seriously and go club all the time.

      i disagree with your analysis. the discourse was on a big party night during winter so the timely context of that is "go to an indoor gathering to eat and drink" which is pretty automatically going to spread covid.

        • Kuori [she/her]
          ·
          2 years ago

          given how even alleged socialists won't take minor precautions to protect others, yeah, absolutely.

        • robot_dog_with_gun [they/them]
          ·
          2 years ago

          i think that average people will fuck it up at some morally unacceptable rate and i conjecture that the kind of people willing to go to an indoor gathering during winter are more likely to expose themselves ahead of said gatherings.

        • robot_dog_with_gun [they/them]
          ·
          2 years ago

          It’s not nearly as bad as last year, stop pretending like it is when it’s clearly not.

          wild that you talk about how the conditions in your location are different that i might expect and then immediately turn around and generalize about the rest of us, who probably live somewhere that cases are up year over year.

          good job your country not fucking it up... assuming they're actually still collecting data in a way that's comparable to previous years unlike here where the reporting has gone to hell

          • space_comrade [he/him]
            ·
            2 years ago

            good job your country not fucking it up

            That's the thing tho, they absolutely did fuck it up, we had one of the worst death rates during the worst of it. And now it's "fine" in the sense that hospitals aren't overflooding. I can't imagine what conditions are different in the US that would create a huge wave. Looking at the official data it doesn't seem to be nearly as bad as this time last year.

            • robot_dog_with_gun [they/them]
              ·
              2 years ago

              oh well i take it back then, the bar is so low maybe the current conditions are unacceptable too, and only seem "fine" because of anchoring

              • space_comrade [he/him]
                ·
                2 years ago

                Every Covid death past like February 2020 is too much, the world could have eliminated it entirely. However they didn't and it's here to stay now, what good will obsessing over it do for me and my community? It's not going away, we fucked up and we have to learn to deal with it and I don't think locking yourself up for the rest of your life is a good way to go.

                • robot_dog_with_gun [they/them]
                  ·
                  2 years ago

                  your government fucking up doesn't absolve you of contributing to the spread. your neighbors being plague rats doesn't give you permission to be one too.

                  we could still lockdown for a couple months and be done with this but the capitalists simply wont.

                  learn to deal with it

                  immune compromized comrades will just die then. disabled comrades will get even worse. gtfo with this nazi shit, what the hell is wrong with you people

                    • Kuori [she/her]
                      ·
                      2 years ago

                      oh wow, i bet nobody here ever thought about just getting help! you're definitely being well-meaning and not at all attempting to shroud your shitty insult with faux-friendliness

                        • Kuori [she/her]
                          ·
                          2 years ago

                          i wish it was just your life that you were ruining, but you and your fellow plague rats are a huge part of why the rest of us have to fucking live like this

                          i'm not pretending anything. lest you forget, you were the one bullshitting people about how your ableist garbage is actually a heartfelt plea for us to please get help. "you just have mental issues, it's not a real concern!"

                          yeah fuck off with this shit.

          • MeatfuckerDidNothing [they/them]
            ·
            2 years ago

            The other option is remain housebound for the rest of your life while the rest of the world moves on around you.

            Or, just don't go to concerts, don't go to restaurants, learn to get comfortable asking people what they've been up to before taking off your mask, and still have a social life? Oh wait, everyone is going to concerts and restaurants and removing their masks in unsafe environments so you can't without risking dying. Fuck.

            You're being remarkably tone deaf here, you are doing the behavior that makes it hard for people who are at risk to not be housebound, which is what I'm currently complaining about in this thread.

          • Spike [none/use name]
            ·
            2 years ago

            You’re not keeping anyone any safer

            Except for everyone you interact with

              • MeatfuckerDidNothing [they/them]
                ·
                2 years ago

                if you can't take basic covid measures because "my actions aren't going to make a difference" why bother with the leftism? Why not just go back to brunch?

                  • MeatfuckerDidNothing [they/them]
                    ·
                    2 years ago

                    you just talked about how you're going to concerts and eating in restaurants

                    edit: you take some basic covid measures, but the keyword there is some. Credit where credit is due, but not very much credit.

                      • Kuori [she/her]
                        ·
                        2 years ago

                        "why should i have to give up my treats? nobody else will!"

                        huge socialist hours

                          • Kuori [she/her]
                            ·
                            2 years ago

                            y'know, i don't mean to be dismissive but i just realized i have less than no interest in rehashing this conversation virtually when i have to have it every fucking day in real life

                            i think you're acting in contradiction to your alleged socialist principles by prioritizing your personal happiness over the health and safety of the people around you but like, hey, fuck 'em. they were already doomed, right?

                          • booty [he/him]
                            ·
                            2 years ago

                            it would have made a difference for all the people you gave covid to before you realized you had it. you know how many times ive had covid? 0. because i dont go to fucking parties and concerts during a pandemic.

      • robot_dog_with_gun [they/them]
        ·
        2 years ago

        I’m not willing to forgoe the occasional night at a restaurant or bar.

        this attitude gets people killed

          • booty [he/him]
            ·
            2 years ago

            dont give me cute emotes you fucking pro-covid chud

              • booty [he/him]
                ·
                2 years ago

                healthier than getting covid, you disgusting fucking chud. not my fault monsters like you made it unsafe to go outside

                  • booty [he/him]
                    ·
                    2 years ago

                    and the only thing that would make you give up your treats is a death sentence, got it, you fucking :LIB:

                    • space_comrade [he/him]
                      ·
                      2 years ago

                      Yes you are correct I would literally play Russian roulette every day for the rest of my life if it meant I can keep going to my favorite restaurant.

                        • space_comrade [he/him]
                          ·
                          2 years ago

                          I will literally die from Covid soon enough apparently so I'm not gonna be bothering you for long, stay strong bro.

                          • booty [he/him]
                            ·
                            2 years ago

                            beating up on strawmen, a favorite :LIB: pastime

                            • space_comrade [he/him]
                              ·
                              2 years ago

                              True marxists always develop a debilitating anxiety about getting sick, just like the Bolsheviks did in 1918 during the Spanish flu pandemic. The revolution almost didn't succeed because they were all quarantining themselves.

              • Dirt_Owl [comrade/them, they/them]
                ·
                2 years ago

                It's literally how you survive an extinction event, dumb fuck. That's literally how our evolutionary ancestors survived the Permian. Lmao

    • AssortedBiscuits [they/them]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Or for that matter, political organization. How is political organizing going to look like in a Covid world because not everyone's going to have the luxury of having open physical space to congregate. You're most likely going to have to hold meetings in closed rooms, many times with poor ventilation, where the odds of at least one person having Covid in that room being fairly high. Some of the rhetoric here seems dangerously close to being, "We shouldn't organize because organizing spreads Covid" even though political organizing is the only real solution out of this fucking mess. No one will say this explicitly because it's blatantly counterrevolutionary, but I have already seen rhetoric on Twitter where some people expressing what their vision of proper Covid precautions de facto preclude all forms of political organizing.

        • AssortedBiscuits [they/them]
          ·
          2 years ago

          People who de facto preclude all forms of organizing are counterrevolutionary full stop. Not everyone has the labor aristocratic salary to have a working microphone with a stable Internet connection to hold Zoom meetings. Meetings need to be done in person. Immunocompromised people have a place in any org, but you also need boots on the ground, even if it means a higher risk of getting Covid. I guess every single union member needs to stay home and let the scabs cross the picket line because they might get Covid from the scabs, which is completely ridiculous.