Three years on, and the debate over lockdowns, masks, mandates, and the mRNA vaccine is over. The truth emerged, reason won the day. But that doesn’t do much good if those on the losing side end up writing the history books. The war now is over memory. The memory of the greatest instance of mass hysteria in history. The memory of how, like a bolt from the blue, a psychological plague swept our species almost overnight, sending our imaginations into a spiral, awakening something prehistoric in our collective psyche, and very nearly causing a self-inflicted, imagination-incepted apocalypse. A collapse of the modern world, borne out of nothing more than fear. Those who fanned hysteria and guided our fear are now writing the books that will be used to teach future generations about that psychological eclipse, pitch black at noonday, and the truth will be lost to history. This would be a tragedy on par with the event itself, because, terrible as it was, it has much to teach us. Most fundamentally, lessons about our true nature as a species. We are not exalted above all other animals, and in many respects we are far worse. Our tragedy is our squandered potential. We produce Mozarts and Goethes, but also Oppenheimers and Hitlers. In no other species, probably in the known universe, can such a range be found. 2020 should be our species’ greatest teacher, a foundation of knowledge that we use to achieve our potential, rather than sliding into easy regression in the pursuit of fake technological progress, as we’ve done for much too long.
