Just weeks ago, experts and
authorities told us not to wear face masks. It wouldn’t help prevent anyone
from getting the coronavirus we were told, would only prevent doctors and
medical personnel from having them to use. (But, why did doctors need
them if they don’t help stop the spread of the virus?) Now they tell us we
must—or at least should-- wear them, preferably at all times. I now see many
people wearing them while alone in their car! In some states you can now
be fined up to $1,000 if caught outside not wearing one. What happened
in the days between the conflicting advice/mandates? No coherent explanation
has been provided.
Also
just weeks ago, the experts told us the models scientists and academics
developed to forecast the spread of COVID-19 predicted as many as 2.2 million
deaths in the U.S. alone. Similar dire projections we’re made for other
nations. Now they have slightly tweaked those fatality projections…down to
about 180,000 in the case of the U.S., or about 8.1% of their original forecast.
Not so much as a “sorry for panicking you folks” has been heard.
Just a
few decades ago, experts told us they were certain we were entering an era of
global cooling. The evidence was overwhelming, they said, so get used to it. Stock
up on warm clothes and have a hot toddy, the science was settled.
Around
that very same time, the experts informed us that the planet was running out of
oil and consequently we had better find alternative energy sources pronto, or
we would all be screwed. There is a reason for the skyrocketing price of
gasoline and the long lines at the pump, they said. Sure, OPEC was embargoing,
but petroleum is a finite resource which the earth is no longer making, we were
warned. In just a few decades it would be as scarce as the passenger pigeon. It
was an oil crisis.
Today, too, we find ourselves in the midst of
an oil crisis, but this one is a little different: we literally don’t
know where to put it all. We have too much of it. Preposterously, the per
barrel price of crude oil actually temporarily went below zero dollars
recently. Guess we could’ve been paid to
take some off the hands of its producers. To my knowledge, not one expert has
ever blushed or cleared their throat-- let alone apologized-- for these
insanely incorrect predictions.
In
fact, whether picking which players to start for your fantasy football team on
any given week, playing the stock market, or trying to determine what the
global climate will be like in 50 years, the best bet is to do or believe the
opposite of what the experts tell you to.
Our
hyper-credentialed society is marginalizing many of its smartest and most creative
individuals. We have become far too dependent on these arrogant,
never-have-to-say-they’re-sorry, authoritarian ass-hats called “experts.”
And
now, with the advent of the coronavirus pandemic, experts have convinced our
leaders to proactively commit societal suicide so we can avoid death.
Some
say bad is the new good and good is the new bad. Others say 40 is the new 30 or
orange is the new black.
I say
experts are the new morons.
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