This Memorial Day sees the passing of nearly 100,000 Americans to a deadly battle, though not one with powder or fire or flags. This year, our fellows lost to COVID-19 should be the ones held in esteem, whether they are soldiers or not.
After all, they are casualties in a war.
It's a war of our senses. A war of sensibility, and of truth and reason.
We fight a nearly invisible enemy. But we are not helpless and the fight is not hopeless at all. We have all of the tools and armaments we need to fight it arrayed, easily. Maybe not optimally, but easily.
We are not bereft of the arms and armor we need to win this. But so many of us have decided to eschew their value in favor of wholly unrelated causes. Loudly and willingly, and now even callously.
If we lose more battles in this fight, it will be from impatience, not ineptitude.
I don't understand the photos of full gatherings at bars and restaurants and parks and pools. I don't. We're not done. All the data says we're not done. All the experts say we're not done.
And I can't imagine these people are truly celebrating the memorial of any dead patriots.
They themselves, having set aside their armor in this time, may be Ghosts Already in a war that's largely seen in statistics. A war we know how to win. A war that is filling up with a kind of ironic survivorship bias.
A kind of knife to the cords, thinking: "This parachute is only slowing me down at this point." When we're still thousands of feet up. Still plummeting. Still in danger.
Please listen to science.
Please respect the stories of loss from our fellows in this trying time.
This is not truly an economic battle. That's a false choice. The economics of this can be solved after we retain the full value of human life and our potential/collective energy by remaining patient.
We have to win the medical battle first, or we risk more and more every day.
Transferred from Twitter Thread: https://twitter.com/irrezolut/status/1264977293778096128
Things I was thinking of when I wrote this:
The place I got the phrase Ghosts Already, for this painting:
https://youarenotsosmart.com/2013/05/23/survivorship-bias/
I love this painting and for the life of me, I cannot find a better image/larger file.