one of the ways of jokerfication is the realisation that the polarised environment probably means 'book the gains, then deny that anything ever happened' is now the default mode of thinking for a lot of people
No such luck for the kids who were at uni though. They lost what should have been some of the best years of their lives. Also...money. Paying for accommodation many of them weren't using. And the bulge year where 'everyone made their offer' had v bad consequences for the kids the year after.
I'm not sure "making a decision that involves a trade-off" is the same as "grappling with a trade-off". My point is that the public discourse on closing schools, led by politicians + media, didn't adequately discuss the trade-offs inherent in the COVID school closure decision
You can't make a decision that involves a trade-off *without* grappling with the trade-off. And indeed in the UK, last week's IMO wrongheaded white paper on immigration did explicitly talk in the language of trade-offs, albeit in a IMO really stupid way.
other person in this conversation seems to use 'grappling with trade offs' to mean 'publicly discussing them with the public', something inherently constrained by 'most of the public will tune you out if you speak for longer than a tiktok reel'
One reason why I think it is primarily a problem of the change in our media consumption is I think social and fragmented media is inherently worse at discussing trade-offs. Similarly murky anecdote but the sheer number of 'I can't believe someone thinks THIS' any nuanced writing attracts.
I think back to (my murky memories of) "we're just following the science" as if 'the science' wasn't highlighting trade-offs between freedoms and case-loads that politicians (as is their role) chose between. I think they just shrunk from highlighting/talking about these (at times at least).
Yeah. The big change is a shift towards a mode of 'don't worry your pretty little head about it' talking about trade-offs which is unhelpful and counterproductive for many reasons.
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