I engaged and you shot me a false ad hominem and moved on. To reiterate, if my mental state cannot directly harm you, and Pete is not advocating that I take any actions that transmit the disease or otherwise harm public health efforts, then how does Pete asking me to change my mental state harm you?
Again, this isn't about what Pete is asking you to / what you're doing. I already pointed out his entire viewpoint on this is very privileged. He never once acknowledges how hard it is that 1 in 5 workers are out of a job, how hard it is for thousands of families to have loved ones die alone, to not be able to hold a funeral.
My point, for the umpteenth time, is that Pete made a moronic post initially about the coronavirus outbreak. It was misinformed, misleading, and dangerous to spread that kind of false information to his (presumably) thousands of readers. Instead of acknowledging that or updating his article to reflect reality, he instead pivots to how it's not that bad (for the folks who still have a job) and that things are good, actually.
Step 1: Make a misinformed post, comparing covid-19 to the flu
Step 2: Your initial post is immediately challenged and proven to be pretty inaccurate
Step 3: Pivot away form playing armchair epidemiologist and transition to being an "outrageous optimist."
He never acknowledges his shortcomings in his first post, never offers an apology, never notes to his readers that he mis-read the situation. And of course, readers/commenters can't see the pushback in the comments on his site because he filters out nearly all critiques. This forum and twitter replies are basically the only place where that happens. And even here, basically every critique (on this subject or any) is immediately met with response from supporters asking, "Why are you criticizing Pete for having an opinion??!!" or "Why does Pete posting something make you angry?? tRiGgErEd!!!" Pete likes to joke he started a cult, but plenty of folks are proving it wasn't a joke. And I say that as someone who thinks Pete has both good and bad ideas! But if I'm questioned *every time* for saying Pete made a bad point, it's a cult.
So, sure, if you want to ignore our hospital systems becoming precariously close to running out of ventilators, or >30k people dying in the U.S. alone from this virus, or all of the people forced out of work because of government shut downs...feel free. If you want to live your life that privileged and that uncaring about others, I don't care. Whatever you decide to do with your life has no impact on me.
I'm also not even really sure of Pete's point in his follow up - as long as we have a society we're fine? Cool. Thanks for the incredible wisdom. Some kids are walking with their parents more? YEAH NO SHIT. There's literally nothing else to do. Whenever "normal" comes back I highly doubt we're going to think back fondly of doing about the only physical activity we were allowed to do with our families. Maybe I'm wrong, though. I'm just not *optimistic* enough.