Are you trapped in an area of the country where scientific illiteracy and an overall unapologetic ignorance has got you totally bugged out? Do you want to know how to engage with the individuals among you in that area to encourage an honest abandonment of their emanating imbecility?

Well, don’t we all.

Now, I don’t mean to isolate the bible belt as a unique regional cesspool of bungling idiocy. But it is. During so calamitous a time as we find ourselves in now, individuals are struggling with perhaps a uniquely capitalistic existential crisis. Should I sacrifice my health and well-being to provide for those I care about, potentially endangering them? Or should I abandon my inclination to provide in order to protect loved-ones and citizens in the long run? This is a daunting position to be in. Typically, individuals must ultimately answer questions like this for themselves if they’re to legitimately employ their values in a problem-solving way. But our society is structured such that somebody with a value-system encouraging them to isolate could rapidly impoverish not only their reality, but the reality of the very loved-ones they want to protect.

It’s a false manifestation of existentialism since the right answer is pretty fucked. People in the United States simply cannot not make money. Our continued participation in the workplace safeguards not only the powerful elite—heavily invested in the stock market—but also our ability to provide for ourselves and our families. And while mass citizen economic abandonment is truly the fear of the powerful elite, they must find reassurance in the average individual’s necessity to work. It is a juxtaposition of power maintenance and mere existence.  So, the ethicality of economical sustenance amid a pandemic which plagues the fragile is certainly minimal, if not non-existent, but few American citizens are financially situated to employ ethicality in deciding what to do here.

The decision becomes even harder in the bible belt. Georgia, where I live, is led by so bungling an idiot that now, while we as a country test so few per capita and thus barely know who among us may be carrying this virus, our state is charged with getting back to normal. What constituted a non-essential business here already pushed the envelope. Now, pretty much everybody aught to just get back to work.

At the very least, steps should be taken to adapt each social environment to as least deadly a situation as possible. I wear a mask and goggles at work, where we have been significantly busier than ever. Even still, I hear from many individuals in my area that “this is a democratic hoax,” or “it’s all to make Trump look bad.” These individuals often quote the nonsense or pseudoscience their fed on either Faux News or conservative radio. Many champion the savior treatment Hydrochloroquine, which had they done a smidgen of research would see that there is little to no benefit and possible harm from incorporating this Lupus treatment into the toolbelt of medical professionals around the country. We’ll see if this propaganda continues to be parroted by these media-sheeple now that even Faux and the president have abandoned this drug.

So we have:

– Scientific illiteracy

– Mass ignorance

– Powerful incentives to work

– Leaders encouraging unsafe conditions

and

– Brainwashed imbeciles regurgitating force-fed horseshit.

Now, it is increasingly likely that COVID-19 is less deadly than originally thought. And while that is to some extent reassuring, as the percentages of individuals with anti-bodies indicate a heard-immunity on the up-and-up, the practical measures to ensure that as that happens the fragile among us endure as well are sadly being abandoned. What can we do? I guess go bowling and get our hair done.

No, don’t stick your fingers in the same balls other people’ve just used. And have a partner or loved one cut your hair . . . or cut it yourself.

It’s difficult for me to implore any individual to stay home though because I’ve worked this entire time and I have yet to experience the economic misfortunes plaguing so many right now.  At any rate, I hope you guys can employ your own values to your best ability to make the most reasonable and beneficial decisions for yourself and those you care about. Be safe and God bless!

-Matt