Humans Are Evil, But Mostly Just Stupid

What do you think of riots in South Africa, a total mess in Haiti, mostly peaceful protests in Cuba, and anti-vax-passport demonstrations in France?

Frankly, I don't think much, nor do I worry much about the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, as Suzannah Lipscomb does at UnHerd.com.

What I do worry about is the stupidity of government officials, and their ham-handed actions high and low.

I worry that the shutdown of the economy during COVID will have all kinds of unpleasant effects on the US, stemming in part from disruptions to the lives of marginal people that will never get their lives back together again. I don't say the shutdowns and maskings and quarantines were evil. I just think that they were mostly stupid and will have "unanticipated consequences" that nobody ever thought about.

I worry about the "go for broke" culture in the US ruling class right now, from gigantic spending to excessive unemployment benefits to wholesale voting-law reforms. I don't say that they are evil; I just think they are spooked, and have reacted by doing stupid things.

The Four Horsemen represented Disease, Famine, War, and Judgement. And Lipscomb wants us to realize that those ancient harbingers of disaster are not so ancient or so distant as we like to think in our modern prosperous bubble.

Still, it is sobering to learn of Disease that

It was also bubonic plague that continued to reappear on average every 16 years, with a lethality rate of between 60% and 80%. It killed quickly and horribly.

And of Famine that

Much famine, then as now, was man-made, like the eight-month siege of Sancerre in 1573 during the French Wars of Religion. The inhabitants first turned to eating their horses and donkeys, then cats, rats, and finally dogs.

So a lot of famine was the consequence of War

Warfare is less obvious today. Troops do not get billeted to our homes, nor loot and pillage our food supplies. 

Although, after a century with two world wars and the US meddling all over the world, I wonder.

But whatabout the Day of Judgement? Oh yes, Climate Change,

the news that Canada registered a record, Sahara-desert like high of 49.6°C last month[.]

Hey, I know! Whatabout the absolute disaster of all socialist and national-socialist regimes from Bolshevik Russia to today's Winner, post-Castro Cuba. There's the Judgement of God, if you like.

But I still think that worse than all the evils of the world are the stupidities. You know, like the Great Reset, from the World Economic Forum.

There is an urgent need for global stakeholders to cooperate in simultaneously managing the direct consequences of the COVID-19 crisis. To improve the state of the world, the World Economic Forum is starting The Great Reset initiative.

Oh yeah. That should work.What could go wrong?