“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
I have a PhD from Cornell University. While I never met Carl Sagan, I went by his picture multiple times a day. All Cornell professors were brilliant, but he stood out because he managed to convey his brilliance to the masses through words. Today I can do no better than to quote Carl.
I've just read the UK imposed a 5000 pounds ban on travel without a valid reason, which could only be work, the death or birth of somebody in the family. The article went on to detail how two families can meet now if their number is under six and so on. They've vaccinated about half of their population, and their numbers look good. They have a plan that they are following on easing restrictions, which seem ridiculous, and are enforced sporatically. If someone would have told me a year ago that people would accept this sort of rules, I would have believed them mad. But it seems that the bamboozing has been going on long enough to not be stopable in the neear future. Yet I so hope I am wrong.
So, will the terror stop? Is so when? No world war has lasted less than four years, and the current political situation (reaction to the virus) has gripped the whole world. We've never openly admitted that wars are a mistake that we kept repeating every now and then. In this war against the virus, Sweden has refused to torment it's people. Brazil has imposed few restrictions, and has seen fewer deaths per million than the US or than many other countries. Their response is, however, severely criticised.
The press has always been the one to create and feed the wars, and it is not failing at what it's best at in our days. I do hope it will be over soon, but will it? It is the year of the vaccine, but will the vaccine suffice to end such bamboozlement. I want my children to go to school in person (teachers have vaccinated already), and I want the freedom to make choices for myself and my family back. My children would like to see their father -- it's been more than three months since we've seen him last and there are still no flights with the UK. My father has not seen his son in a year and a half. I'd like to see my brother, too and so would my parents, in this life, not the next. I was just reading the requirements for a country to be in the blue zone, i.e., safe, and it's to not have any COVID cases for four weeks. When the vaccines are not 100% efficient, and with a virus that mutates, this requirement is ridiculous. It's like saying "there should be no colds for four weeks in a row." Of course, it depends on the number of tests, and on how honest the testing is. But if the testing is honest, it should be an impossible feat.
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