According to a recent poll we’ve become a people obsessed with safety. Not just any safety though! The government mandated kind is what’s especially in vogue. The poll asked “Should the government favor innovation or safety?” and 56% of all respondents voted for safety. Here’s my interpretation.
I believe that the lockdowns were one of the worst policy decisions of the last century. They were senseless government meddling that did virtually nothing to lessen the impact of the Chinese virus, but did manage to ruin tens of thousands of small businesses and force millions of people into isolation further exacerbating an already acute mental health crisis in America.
I’m guessing most of y’all feel the same way about lockdowns, and one of the questions we’ve pondered is why was the government able to get away with it? How could these draconian tactics be adopted on such a widespread scale? Well, this poll provides us with an answer. The people are demanding it!
If we’re to believe the accuracy of this questionnaire, then 56% of the population wants the government to do something, anything, to keep them safe. And that, my friends, is how you end up with lockdowns. The worst policy ever wasn’t just the technocrats abusing their power, it was politicians responding to the whims of the voters. At this point I’m reminded of a pair of ideas expressed by two smart people.
Early on in the pandemic Louis-Vincent Gave wrote an outstanding article arguing that “cover your ass” is the determining factor in our policy response these days. Governments must be seen to do something, anything, to address whatever is making the news that evening. Sometimes (many times?) the best choice may be to do nothing, but the populace won’t tolerate passivity and so the people in charge come up with some half-baked plan that will let them excuse themselves from accusations of disinterest. Or, as Louis put it, CYA.
Roughly one year into the pandemic Mike Green uttered a phrase that smacked me so hard I had to hit the pause button and listen again three times. Mike said, “What’s become obvious is that we have a population that can be controlled by fear.”
That’s a bingo! Demanding government intervention is another expression of I’m feeling scared and want someone/something to make me feel safe. There’s nothing wrong with feeling scared, it happens to me all the time, but to think that government programs are going to protect you is probably an unrealistic expectation.
For example, two-thirds of the American population is overweight. Being overweight puts you at an increased risk of a severe case of the Rona so you might expect that this segment of the population might favor intervention. Understandable, but instead of government safetyism a better response would be losing weight and derounding your mid-section. Solve fear at an individual rather than political level. One of my first long articles, The World’s Most Powerful Philosophy, was an argument for taking personal responsibility and owning the outcome.
If we had chosen safety over innovation America never would have broken free from England, as this was a risky proposition at best. If safety had triumphed we’d all be drinking tea and writing USE in our forms. Safety means we wouldn’t have gone to fight the Nazis in WWII, or tinkered with the nuclear bomb. What happened in Japan was a tragedy, but the final outcome is nuclear power which is the greenest and lowest cost source of energy on the planet.
If we’re to solve the problems that plague our country we’re not going to uncover the solutions in safety. Innovation is risky and there is an uncertain outcome, but a bit of uncertainty is a hell of a lot better than social distancing in stagnant safety, scrolling the socials to soften the sting of isolation.
Let’s bring back innovation and rejuvenate the country. Yank up the bootstraps, engage in entrepreneurship, get less than six feet close to each other and risk being amazing. It’s what the founders would have wanted.
I agree with you that lockdowns were a disaster, and that they were driven by a culture of safetyism BUT - that's a weird question to ask in a poll. Should the GOVERNMENT prioritize innovation or safety? Had I been asked that, I likely would have answered 'safety'. Why? Because if the government does have any legitimate role at all, it's to safeguard the population from a) foreign invasion (via the military) and b) unscrupulous capitalists (via the monopolies board and regulators).
Lockdowns weren't the only disaster Covid wrought. The mad push for unproven mRNA vaccines over proven remedies like ivermectin cost thousands, potentially millions, of lives. That was government prioritizing innovation over safety. Still think it's a good idea?
Part of safetyism is relinquishing responsibility for your own actions. In Covid it was giving the responsibility of perceived protection to the government to "keep us safe". I think individual responsibility scares people now a days. People focus on Jordan Petersen's anti pronoun talk but underneath I think it's his push for people to take individual responsibility for the themselves and their own agency in the world. And that's what really scares the piss out of people whether you do it standing or sitting.