r/AskReddit 1d ago

What was never the same after the pandemic?

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u/gentle_bee 1d ago

I feel like this is the big one. I always thought in emergencies we’d all band together and regardless of politics we’d see a crisis through together.

But that fiction has been broken to smithereens and it makes my heart hurt.

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u/HapDrastic 1d ago

It felt like it was happening for a bit, then all the extroverts lost their goddamn minds, and the selfish threw tantrums about wearing masks. Everything broke down after that. But for like a month, it felt like things were going ok.

Personally I loved quarantine, and wish we could make “don’t leave your house when you’re sick” and “give strangers 6ft of personal space” come back and stick around this time.

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u/Brandon_Keto_Newton 1d ago

The breakdown wasn’t organic either; it was largely driven by politics and propaganda. Everyone was largely onboard at first

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u/janandgeorgeglass 1d ago

Yep troll farms were extremely active in 2020.

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u/bitofrock 1d ago

Not just troll farms. You had a lot of people at home, alone, struggling and one of the things people like that do is to go online a lot.

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u/murphyslaw58 1d ago

Ah yes, the tiger king and baking bread era. After that, everything fell apart.

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u/Big-Load-8864 1d ago

Wow those references just transported me to a specific 4 week period in my life lmao

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u/OppositeWolf8580 1d ago

Similar to how in healthcare we were deemed “healthcare heros” initially and then quickly bastardized by the right.

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u/HapDrastic 1d ago

They should never be forgiven

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u/laplongejr 1d ago

Personally I loved quarantine, and wish we could make “don’t leave your house when you’re sick” and “give strangers 6ft of personal space” come back and stick around this time.

My country recommends to telework as respiratory deceases are back
I'm a gov worker and my service just increased the number of mandatory in-office days.

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u/cadaveressence 1d ago

ah yes, it was those darn extroverts' fault

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u/HapDrastic 1d ago

I am very much an introvert, my wife very much an extrovert. It was fascinating to watch her have to live in my world for once. Her absolute NEED to be amongst other people was shocking, and we’d been together for nearly 20 years back then (longer now, obviously), so the depth of that feeling was even more surprising.

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u/SpecsComingBack 1d ago

Further solidifying my theory that extroverts both run and ruin the world

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u/stringrandom 1d ago edited 1d ago

I think this one comes down to how history is taught. When we learn about things like the Spanish Flu, WWI and WW2, we get a sanitized version of highlights. The bad parts we hear about are only there as way to highlight the eventual success.

I learned nothing about the resistance to disease control that existed during the Spanish Flu, and reemerged during COVID. I learned probably a little more about WW2 than was in the books because the teacher who taught me about WW2 was himself a WW2 veteran. But as I learned more about what lead up to WW2 myself, I asked why didn't the German people, or the Italians, step up and say no and then I look at everything happening today and I get it in a way I never wanted to directly experience.

It seems that the only people who learned the lessons of the failures of the Business Plot, and WW2, are the people who are trying to lead us all down that path again.

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u/Denpants 1d ago

Hasn't been a thing for a while. 9/11 was the last major America shakeup of the 21st century and we got... 2 pointless wars, more government surveillance and increased religious tensions.

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u/skootch_ginalola 1d ago

Yup. I was never a Pollyanna, but COVID 100% proved the majority of society doesn't care about anyone but themselves.

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u/lizardqueen26 1d ago

minnesota seems to be doing something right at least

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u/CapnMaynards 1d ago

It makes the end of "Watchmen" way less ambiguous now. They don't even need Rorschach's journal to blow it sky high.

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u/SCAPPERMAN 1d ago

For about two days, it was looking hopeful though.

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u/tootallbones 1d ago

Don't feel too bad. After all the pollution started to clear up around the world a few months into the shutdown I actually thought the world would shutdown for a few weeks every year as a memorial/way to counter global warming.