Brian Calhoun
I remember a tickle of a sense of doom in 1989 before the ’90s because then it was just 10 more years to 2000 and complete, utter, 100% societal breakdown. This was fear based on zero logic. Rather, it was based on bad science fiction and a lack of information about what was really going on in the world.
Back in ’89, there was no World Wide Web, of course. When my government told me something, I basically believed it but with a huge grain of salt. Among friends, and on TV, we all knew that our government couldn’t be trusted but we didn’t know why. It was a vague notion turned into jokes about our corrupt government on the take. Doesn’t matter what government, really. These were common jokes among Western societies, at least according to me and the rest of my US friends who had travelled to Europe and Central America.
Thirty years ago your world of trust was what you could experience directly in person or by close friends. And then the World Wide Web came along.
We have all learned new skills about what information we can trust on the Web, and what information each of us trusts is highly personal.
The crazy thing is, the current government here in New Zealand thinks we are all living in a pre-Web world as if we can’t see what’s going on in other countries.
Multiple countries are seeing massive strikes and walkouts due to mandatory vaccinations in critical infrastructure areas like airline pilots, teachers, and healthcare. And here in New Zealand, we are just now ramping up the pressure on these same good folks to get this jab! Does our government think we don’t have web browsers? Is this why our government said the only source of trusted information is from the lectern in the Beehive?
Of course, our government knows we have web browsers, so perhaps the more surprising thing is their audacity in thinking we will buy what they’re selling when we can clearly see that they are not in step with the rest of the world.
The wheels have come off the COVID-19 mandatory vaccine narrative, except here in New Zealand where we’re partying like it’s 1989.
