Ah yes, the government pushing for “eat out to help out” during a pandemic is the poster for a ‘state of fear’ surely. Not China as they weld people into their apartments or Russia as they chuck journalists out of windows.
‘Dodsworth’s Covid corpus engages in the very same baseless appeals to emotion she so vehemently decries. This foreboding feeling is the constitutional currency of her entire book – animating every argument, steering every chapter. In my opinion, there is nothing ‘sensible’ to be found here, only more fog. Rather like the eerie, trance-like video that she retweeted years ago, Dodsworth’s argument depends on persuading you to suspect that your worst, most sinister, most ill-founded hunches are correct. Do not fall for it.’
There’s something very logical and at the same time, compassionate, about attempts to manage the populace during the covid crisis, to relieve the pressure on the health service by some robust public information, if only everyone had followed the guidelines.
This is not going to go down well here. What people need to understand about the UK is that culture is downstream from law. British people follow the rules and will defend those rules to the death. Redditors doubley so. The UK government said that COVID stuff was very important and correct.
And redditors do as they are fucking told because they are good boys. (And authoritarian in the extreme)
It’s very difficult to accept that the British government printed World War II levels of money and completely fucked us for decades unnecessarily. It’s too hard to accept. We have to let them have this one. People lost their jobs, livelihoods and their futures. They need to believe that it was worth it.
I’m personally okay with that. It costs us nothing to say stuff that gives them comfort right? What’s the point in stressing them out further? It will only make them miserable.
Perfect for the conspiracy theorist on your holiday list!
Seriously, though, I envision a writers’ retreat on brainstorming non-fiction bestsellers. “Think of an untapped audience — the more passionate the better — and write to THEM. Does it have to be 100% researched and proven? No, that’s the reader’s personal responsibility! We just provide the entertainment. Now, get ready to write and sell the heck out your topic!”
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Ah yes, the government pushing for “eat out to help out” during a pandemic is the poster for a ‘state of fear’ surely. Not China as they weld people into their apartments or Russia as they chuck journalists out of windows.
[the Skeptic review listing a myriad of reasons why this book is not very good.](https://www.skeptic.org.uk/2024/01/a-state-of-fear-laura-dodsworths-sensible-covid-scepticism/)
‘Dodsworth’s Covid corpus engages in the very same baseless appeals to emotion she so vehemently decries. This foreboding feeling is the constitutional currency of her entire book – animating every argument, steering every chapter. In my opinion, there is nothing ‘sensible’ to be found here, only more fog. Rather like the eerie, trance-like video that she retweeted years ago, Dodsworth’s argument depends on persuading you to suspect that your worst, most sinister, most ill-founded hunches are correct. Do not fall for it.’
There’s something very logical and at the same time, compassionate, about attempts to manage the populace during the covid crisis, to relieve the pressure on the health service by some robust public information, if only everyone had followed the guidelines.
This is not going to go down well here. What people need to understand about the UK is that culture is downstream from law. British people follow the rules and will defend those rules to the death. Redditors doubley so. The UK government said that COVID stuff was very important and correct.
And redditors do as they are fucking told because they are good boys. (And authoritarian in the extreme)
It’s very difficult to accept that the British government printed World War II levels of money and completely fucked us for decades unnecessarily. It’s too hard to accept. We have to let them have this one. People lost their jobs, livelihoods and their futures. They need to believe that it was worth it.
I’m personally okay with that. It costs us nothing to say stuff that gives them comfort right? What’s the point in stressing them out further? It will only make them miserable.
Perfect for the conspiracy theorist on your holiday list!
Seriously, though, I envision a writers’ retreat on brainstorming non-fiction bestsellers. “Think of an untapped audience — the more passionate the better — and write to THEM. Does it have to be 100% researched and proven? No, that’s the reader’s personal responsibility! We just provide the entertainment. Now, get ready to write and sell the heck out your topic!”
And another Hillbilly Elegy is born.