I got the 2nd Pfizer vaccine and now I can see light traveling through objects of different densities without refraction?

— SwiftOnSecurity (@SwiftOnSecurity) May 3, 2021

I got the Moderna one and I can see the yawning horror of the void. So I picked it up and licked it and said, “You’re mine now.”

In olden times (3 years ago) I would have gone and blasted this on the two or three prominent collector forums, but they're all dead now, and all the major players are decentralized on about 5,000 Discords and Facebook groups.

— Frank Cifaldi (Unlicensed).nes (@frankcifaldi) May 3, 2021

The decline of forums and blogs has rendered the internet nearly useless. That’s the corporate dream, of course, and apparently also the aspiration of many regular people as well.

Still, though, what a loss.

The Liberals Who Can’t Quit Lockdown. Progressive communities have been home to some of the fiercest battles over COVID-19 policies, and some liberal policy makers have left scientific evidence behind.

Some people genuinely and unwaveringly worship lockdown. They love it. For some reason.

Let’s examine the general cause, the etiology of this sickness. I’ve had several people that I respect argue with me that what I’m about to claim is not true but I think they are wrong, especially as more evidence stacks up: many liberals — perhaps most these days — are against pleasure-taking in general. In others, certainly and even more so, in themselves. This aversion to enjoyment is coincident with all the increased prudishness, but not quite the same thing.

I believe this liberal sickness emerges from the interlocking crises of climate change, inequality, loss of power, and lately from the rise of Trump, the alt-right, and now Covid. These were just devastating to liberal causes and psychology, and caused them to retreat, retreat, retreat, until all they had left was prissy identitarian concerns and hiding away from the world. With the arrival of Covid, then, that was a confirmatory push to live this sort of life of withdrawal from all pleasure forever. After all, how can one enjoy a sunny day or a dessert if the sky is filled with poison and the dessert contributed to climate change? (Note I don’t think these things, but I am exemplifying the psychology of these types.) Better to avoid the world, line up for the pod, to save the corporations planet.

And that’s exactly what many are doing, and insist we do as well.

Is Covid moralism forever? I would like to not live like this forever thank you.

Probably? The libs are really seizing on this as a great way to do some moral preening.

I have already ranted about those who seem to derive immense, perverse pleasure out of moralizing about Covid, enforcing pessimism with utter gusto and strutting around as if treating the most unpleasant future as the likeliest future is a mark of moral sophistication.

Aye, fuck those people. Garbage humans. Not quite as bad as the anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers, but still just horrendous pieces of crap.

The crime is not believing that better times are here. The crime is wanting better times to be here.

Unfortunately, Covid arrived at a time when many, especially on the liberal side, were already essentially withdrawing from society and Covid made this pernicious tendency much, much worse.

And now the Covid moralist says, never again. You must live in a bubble, away from them, and even worse from many that you love, and even your bare desire to be free of this brutal hindrance is disordered.

To many, prison is freedom. The pod is the dream. Restriction is clarity and release.

I am not one of those people.

THIS.

Remember when people would scream at you for using the phrase "partial herd immunity"?

Turns out that even if you don't reach the magical (and theoretical) "herd immunity threshold", you can almost entirely get rid of the disease… https://t.co/zemSp1lY6H

— Noah Smith 🐇 (@Noahpinion) May 3, 2021

Oh yeah, I remember. Epidemiologists who apparently can’t even read textbooks in their own field emerged from the walls screeching about how that was “impossible,” even though that’s the common case for most diseases.

As I said three months ago, when we hit 50% vaxxed, cases are going to fall through the floor. I was right then and it’s clear I’ll be right now.

My exact words from February 8, 2021:

When we hit around 50% vaccination rate, cases will fall dramatically and everyone will be shocked. But you shouldn’t be because I am writing it now. And I will be right again.

Now why is it that I can run a simulation in my brain that’s better than 99%+ of expert prognostications, when they have all those credentials and access to all that computing power? That should not be a thing that can happen.

But here we are.