During March 2020 I was obsessed more than usual over the possibility I might be wrong, and that this wrongness might lead others to take risks with COVID-19 more than they should have. This was true both during emails to friends and posts to my Blogger account.
In many cases, after long mental deliberations, I took those risks of being wrong anyway. My blog doesn't seem to get a lot of readers, let alone enough respect for people to change their ways because of it. Nobody turns to this blog for medical advice, the purpose is to foster deeper thought. I hope to bring up points which get lost in normal discourse, but may lead somewhere useful if explored deeper (not just by me, but by others taking them further).
Then I've been torn by the concern that maybe I should take down earlier articles that didn't emphasize the risks enough.
In fact, my earliest articles on COVID-19 might very well be wrong. But I can't take them down for another reason: I still hope they are right! And countervaling many panic-driving media accounts that lead people to the meme "We're All Gonna Die!" instead of "We can minimize this catastrophe by working together in different ways."
I think my position has now shifted pretty much in line with MoonOfAlabama, who I was criticizing earlier for shifting his position.
I've noticed this, and decided it was worthy of comment, but not for serious soul searching of the kind "maybe I shouldn't be blogging at all." At least not yet.
The funny thing was, I was among the first of my friends calling for staying away from large gatherings. From late February until mid-march. Then my friends went way past me in fear, it has seemed, largely driven by mass media accounts which naturally focus on individual horrifying stories that seem to contradict statistical evidence (such as, old people are more vulnerable). Stories focus on young and healthy people who have died, contradicting the mass of other evidence that continues to show older and sicker people being more at risk.
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