People are not stupid. People don’t understand.

A thread. 1/ https://twitter.com/stphnmaher/status/1264371087745392641

I read a thing on F@ceb00k this am from a family member which was a laundry list of “I don’t consent”s. It had all the usual gripes about this thing is closed but that thing is open and why is this person doing this when that person does that... 2/

There was also the trope about mandatory vaccination and a few others. I didn’t read it all because it is truly maddening, but the undertone is “I don’t understand and it scares me.”3/

We are being asked to trust people we don’t know, and those people belong to an organization (government) that has been routinely vilified for decades as being out of touch. Of course people are going to push back. 4/

None of that is the same as “people are stupid.” And people who know things calling those who don’t know things “stupid” will never, never help. 5/

Here in BC, Dr. Henry has talked a lot about patience. People like my family member need to be patient while restrictions are in place. They need to be patient and accept that there are things happening that they don’t understand. That casts a wide net. 6/

And people who have the benefit of more knowledge need to be patient with the people who have less knowledge. If we’re all in this together, it means we’re going to have to keep going back to collect some stragglers. 7/

We are going through a global pandemic at a time when bad information spreads like wildfire and there are no effective gatekeepers. That is the definition of unprecedented. 8/

There will be bumps along the way. There will certainly be fraud artists and others who will take advantage of the ignorance and gullibility of others. And people will do dumb things like crowd into tiny spaces. 9/

But if we are going to survive this, it will only be through patience and understanding. Calling people stupid and the gleeful use of the term “COVIDiot” is not helping anything. 10/10

Fin