Apologies for the croaky voice, but I need to get a few things off my chest.
The last three years (approximately) has proven that the human race can be pretty
stupid at times. Here’s a (non-exhaustive) list of things I found incredibly stupid.
1. Arrows at Entrances. In order to stop the spread of an airborne pathogen,
arrows were placed at entrances of shops to make sure people filed in through one lane, and filed
out through another. Nobody really understood the science, but overzealous door guards enforced it
nonetheless. I wonder if airborne pathogens knew this. Did the pathogens floating through
the air follow human directions and stay in their lanes? Clearly, arrows at entrances are STUPID!
2. Announcing Pronouns. “I’m Kamala Harris. My pronouns are She and Her. I am a woman sitting
at the table wearing a blue suit”. Although this sort of nonsense has been on the horizon
for quite some time now, it’s only recently that it’s hit my workplace. My position is clear. I’m
never going to announce my pronouns, and I think peer-pressuring people to do so is just plain
wrong. I’m all for people living their lives as they see fit, but that doesn’t mean I have to go
along with them. Although this act of “announcing one’s pronouns” is being performed under the
guise of inclusivity, it’s actually rather more sinister. It’s controlling and coercive. Here’s a
clue, my pronouns are I/Me/My, and your pronouns are You/Your/Yours. If you really don’t know if
I’m a He or a She (or anything in between), then you can just call me by my first name. “Hi Sally”.
“Hi Rick”. “How are YOU today?”. “I’M fine. How about YOU?”. “Yeah, I’M good”. “By the way Sally,
what are your pronouns?”. “F**k off Rick!”. Announcing Pronouns – STUPID!
3. Check-in Apps. I only ever checked in twice at my university, and then the powers that be
decided that we had to start checking in to every building on campus we visited
throughout the day. I told my supervisor that I wasn’t going to do that because on average,
I had to walk between eight and 12 buildings everyday. She told me that
if I wasn’t willing to do it, I’d have to work from home. I said, “OK”, and I’ve never been
back since. How many lives did these apps actually save by the way? I’d guess zero,
or close to zero. I know these rules are gone now, but for an academic institution who’s meant
to be run by intelligent people, for them to go along with these draconian rules, STUPID!
4. Dots on the Floor. Apparently, standing on these dots 1.5 metres apart will stop the
spread of an airborne pathogen. When the person ahead of you moves forward and you
move forward to take their place, apparently the air they were breathing in and out just moments
before no longer has any pathogens in it, or are somehow able to follow the person. Yeah, STUPID!
5. Labor Election Promises. I’m normally fairly neutral towards Labor. I’m not a fan,
but I usually don’t actively despise them. But in the run-up to the federal election in May, Anthony
Albanese promised to address cost-of-living issues facing the poorest Australians. Four months on,
those very same Australians are facing the worst cost-of-living crisis in a generation.
People are skipping meals, skipping medication, can’t afford their rent, with some even moving
back in with their parents. Sure, a lot of these issues were outside the Government’s control,
so my question is this: Why make promises you can’t keep? Obviously,
the answer is: To get more votes. Labor Election Promises? STUPID!
6. Outdoor Mask Mandates. Especially when you’re by yourself, or in a car by yourself. STUPID!
7. The Police Who Enforced Outdoor Mask Mandates. STUPID!
8. Indoor Mask Mandates (Except When You’re Sitting at a Table). Yes,
if you sit down without a mask, airborne pathogens can’t travel between tables. STUPID!
9. Forced Gender Equality. I’ve been getting these emails over the last couple of years
from my employer stating that, “The next Academic Board elections will be held to
appoint one (1) female academic staff member…”. Surely this is bordering on illegal? If they said
the same thing, but with a male instead, there would be protests would there not?
Queensland Police tried enforcing a quota system of 50/50 males to females. The result was that
lots of lesser applicants were employed simply because they were female, while 200 meritorious
males were excluded because they weren’t. In some cases, ineligible women had been selected over
male applicants with six of these women graduating from the academy despite them failing to meet
the minimum entry standards. And of course, there were police shortages, and still are,
with the police now trying to recruit teenagers to make up the numbers. I don’t know about you,
but if there’s been a burglary at my house and two male detectives rock up to investigate,
or if two female detectives rock up instead, I don’t care. All I care is that the police are
doing their jobs. I certainly wouldn’t say, “Oh, I was expecting at least one male and one female to
attend! This is an outrage!”. Would we expect the national ballet to enforce 50/50 gender ratios,
or kindergarten teachers to consist of half males? It’s just a fact that more males want
to become police officers than females. It’s just a fact that more females want to become
ballerinas. That’s not controversial, but forced gender equality is. It’s STUPID!
10. Hand Sanitiser. I’m all for washing my hands, don’t get me wrong. But during the pandemic,
we were told to sanitise our hands over and over again to prevent the spread of
an airborne pathogen. Hmm. I wonder what percentage of infections occurred due
to lack of sanitiser use. Does anybody know? Regardless, my conclusion is the same, STUPID!
11. Elbow Bumps. Apparently, using your elbow instead of shaking a person’s hand
prevents the spread of an airborne pathogen even though your heads are closer together. STUPID!
12. Plastic Screens. When I speak to the person at the register,
we usually can’t hear each other through the plastic screens, so of course,
we lean around the side of the screen to communicate properly. Unless these screens
are fully enclosed, hermetically sealed boxes, they pretty much meet the definition of STUPID!
13. Person Limits in Shops. The local supermarket I went to had a limit of 249
people based on their internal area, you know, to stop the spread. First of all,
nobody ever checked how many people were going in and out (although, some Kmart’s
did pretend to do this). Secondly, 249 people in an enclosed space isn’t going to prevent
the spread of an airborne pathogen. As with most rules during this pandemic, it’s clearly STUPID!
14. Check-in Apps. Yeah, I know, I’ve already mentioned them before, but I thought these apps
were so stupid that they were worth mentioning twice. Whenever I went to the supermarket,
I either didn’t check in, or I pretended I was checking in. Only on two occasions did
somebody ever approach me. On both occasions I lied. “Did you check in, sir?”. “Yes”.
“Oh, okay”. What are they going to do? They don’t have any legal authority to check my phone to see
if I checked in. Obviously, all of this was never about safety. This was always about government
overreach, power and control, and I don’t like people trying to control me, so I resisted these
measures at every opportunity, and I hope many of you did too. Check-in Apps were of course, STUPID!
And number 15, the most stupid of them all, Vaccine Mandates. This is not me saying that
vaccines are stupid, but the mandates certainly were… certainly are! They resulted in people
losing their jobs. They resulted in a divided society where only certain people could visit
a restaurant for example. They resulted in an increase of people becoming distrustful of the
health authorities. They resulted in a growing resentment towards government in general. And now,
thanks to these stupid mandates, less families are getting their children vaccinated against
other illnesses. Yeah, these vaccine mandates really screwed society. I’ve always said,
if there was a killer pathogen floating around that was taking out large numbers of people all
around us, and there was a simple injection you could take to stop yourself from dying from it,
then the government wouldn’t have to mandate anything. People would race out and get it.
The fact that the government did mandate it was very telling. That’s when alarm bells
started to ring in my head. You don’t need to mandate something that’s highly desirable,
or that people need. If I haven’t said it before, vaccine mandates are completely STUPID!
Although a lot of these things have since disappeared, we still have remnants of
this disastrous period of human civilisation. Plastic screens. Used masks strewn across the
environment. Dots on the floor that they can’t peel off. Bottles of hand sanitiser attached
to the walls. (Although, I’ve found that many of these bottles are never refilled anymore). Sure,
some people still wear masks, and that’s fine. I’m all for people doing things that they want
to do voluntarily. But the moment governments try to mandate these things. The moment they
try to tell you that these things are no longer voluntary, and if you don’t do it,
they’ll fine you, or worse, is when people like me (and you) stand up and say “No!”.