One of the stupid things about the covid fiasco is how people have followed the rules mostly to show how noble and self-sacrificing they are - "I wear my mask to protect you" or "I took the vaccine to protect others".
All total nonsense but they actually believe it. Neither liberal nor utilitarian. Simply stupid.
"Note that none of this discussion depends upon the debates about how potentially fatal a given virus is. (Although we note that the best science places Covid-19 on par with a bad and condensed flu season.) The minute one delves into cost-benefit analysis, one has already departed from moral sanity on this issue. Yes, defend the rights of individuals, particularly the most vulnerable, to protect their own health! But to impose that as an obligation on others so that they may not earn a paycheck is unconscionable."
"Masks can also function as an important visual cue, says Joseph Allen, an assistant professor of exposure and assessment science at Harvard University T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
They're a "reminder that we need to be taking these precautions and serve as a reminder to people to keep that 6-foot buffer," he says. "It should be seen as a badge of honor. If I'm wearing a mask out in public, it means I'm concerned about you, I'm concerned about my neighbors, I'm concerned about strangers on the chance that I'm infectious. I want to do my part in limiting how I might impact you.""
Learning from history informs that "Badge of honor" has a dangerous legacy for those seduced by an appeal to virtue:
"...A powerful symbol is to be found in the fact that the boycott leadership gave orders that a sign with a yellow badge on a black background was to be pasted on the boycotted shops. This regulation is intended as a brand, a sign of contempt. We will take it up and make of it a badge of honor...
...It was intended as dishonor. Jews, take it up, the Shield of David, and wear it with pride!..."
When the reality is masks were required specifically because they evoke a primal fear response in the amygdala, so utilitarians could psychologically manipulate our risk and threat perspective so we'd be scared to be among other people, the chosen Non-Pharmaceutical Intervention applied as behavioral science-based epidemiology.
Of snakes and faces: An evolutionary perspective on the psychology of fear
"The data reviewed in this article show that snakes and faces, as evolutionary fear relevant stimuli, systematically differ from fear-irrelevant stimuli in a suggestive way. First, they are more strongly and persistently conditioned to an aversive US than are neutral stimuli. Second, fear-related responses can be elicited from pictorial representations of both snakes and faces even with backward masking conditions that preclude conscious recognition."
Fear. Sold as "badges of honor." To conscript populations to be walking billboard amplifying fear on their faces. There's another word for spreading fear: Terrorism. Conscripted unwitting terrorists brainwashed to believing they are doing a good deed. Utilitarianism's (un?)intended consequence prevailing over libertarianism.
Use of fear to control behaviour in Covid crisis was ‘totalitarian’, admit scientists
One of the stupid things about the covid fiasco is how people have followed the rules mostly to show how noble and self-sacrificing they are - "I wear my mask to protect you" or "I took the vaccine to protect others".
All total nonsense but they actually believe it. Neither liberal nor utilitarian. Simply stupid.
"Note that none of this discussion depends upon the debates about how potentially fatal a given virus is. (Although we note that the best science places Covid-19 on par with a bad and condensed flu season.) The minute one delves into cost-benefit analysis, one has already departed from moral sanity on this issue. Yes, defend the rights of individuals, particularly the most vulnerable, to protect their own health! But to impose that as an obligation on others so that they may not earn a paycheck is unconscionable."
https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2020/04/guest-op-ed-immorality-of-indefinite.html
It is never okay to do what is "good for the collective" to the detriment of the individual.
Appeal to virtue. Propaganda. Psychological manipulation to evoke a behavior desired by the practitioner of behavioral scientists.
Masks were framed as a, "badge of honor," rather than the fear-evoking symbol they actually are:
Mask FAQ's
National Public Radio, April 3, 2020
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/04/03/826996154/coronavirus-faqs-is-a-homemade-mask-effective-and-whats-the-best-way-to-wear-one
"Masks can also function as an important visual cue, says Joseph Allen, an assistant professor of exposure and assessment science at Harvard University T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
They're a "reminder that we need to be taking these precautions and serve as a reminder to people to keep that 6-foot buffer," he says. "It should be seen as a badge of honor. If I'm wearing a mask out in public, it means I'm concerned about you, I'm concerned about my neighbors, I'm concerned about strangers on the chance that I'm infectious. I want to do my part in limiting how I might impact you.""
Learning from history informs that "Badge of honor" has a dangerous legacy for those seduced by an appeal to virtue:
Wear it With Pride, The Yellow Badge
Jewish Virtual Library, 1933
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/wear-it-with-pride
"...A powerful symbol is to be found in the fact that the boycott leadership gave orders that a sign with a yellow badge on a black background was to be pasted on the boycotted shops. This regulation is intended as a brand, a sign of contempt. We will take it up and make of it a badge of honor...
...It was intended as dishonor. Jews, take it up, the Shield of David, and wear it with pride!..."
When the reality is masks were required specifically because they evoke a primal fear response in the amygdala, so utilitarians could psychologically manipulate our risk and threat perspective so we'd be scared to be among other people, the chosen Non-Pharmaceutical Intervention applied as behavioral science-based epidemiology.
Of snakes and faces: An evolutionary perspective on the psychology of fear
Scandanavian Journal of Psychology, 2009
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1467-9450.2009.00784.x
"The data reviewed in this article show that snakes and faces, as evolutionary fear relevant stimuli, systematically differ from fear-irrelevant stimuli in a suggestive way. First, they are more strongly and persistently conditioned to an aversive US than are neutral stimuli. Second, fear-related responses can be elicited from pictorial representations of both snakes and faces even with backward masking conditions that preclude conscious recognition."
Fear. Sold as "badges of honor." To conscript populations to be walking billboard amplifying fear on their faces. There's another word for spreading fear: Terrorism. Conscripted unwitting terrorists brainwashed to believing they are doing a good deed. Utilitarianism's (un?)intended consequence prevailing over libertarianism.
Use of fear to control behaviour in Covid crisis was ‘totalitarian’, admit scientists
UK Telegraph, 2021
https://web.archive.org/web/20210519003131/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/05/14/scientists-admit-totalitarian-use-fear-control-behaviour-covid/
Totalitarianism always rides into free societies on the back of fear. History. Lather, rinse, repeat.