good morning John I doubt anyone will be
surprised to hear that right now I am a
little bit my worry as you have put it
eloquently is omnidirectional but there
are also pieces of this that I do find
encouraging so I feel like it's probably
more productive to talk about that stuff
right now here five things that I'm
finding encouraging right now one if
there is ever a time in which we in
America will recognize that having most
people get their health care through
their employer is arbitrary and cruel
and ludicrous this is the moment second
maybe we are realizing how much work
goes into making the world function well
maybe after we're done with this that we
will appreciate the work done by other
people more whether we are currently
being asked to live without it like as
is the case with many teachers and
childcare workers or if we have been
asked to imagine what the world would be
like without their work and how much we
very much do not want to live in that
world third thing we are currently at
least for now listening to expertise a
lot of people who found it like good
marketing or politically useful to say
that like a gut feeling of a regular
person is equal to or superior to like
decade's worth of expertise are now
suddenly very glad that the expertise
exists number four among the
underappreciated institutions that are
feeling really necessary right now is
just government and I'm not saying that
like all governments have done this well
I'm saying that government is very
necessary in this moment and there are a
lot of people who spend a lot of time
trying to cut and cut and cut government
who are suddenly very very quiet
government responses being bad isn't
because government is bad it's because
government has been hobbled by years and
years of people saying that it's not
necessary and attacking it and also
having this war on expertise that has
forced people who are experts out of
positions in public service and last
right now we are acting as a society we
tell a really individualist story about
how things get done in America
individualism is a good story it's
empowering and I think that it does a
lot of good
not really a true story as the saying
goes we live in a society and right now
we know it kind of just realized this
while I was making this video but I
think we are in the middle of the
largest collective intentional action
that has ever been taken I'm not saying
this is good
this is bad not just the illness and the
loss of life but the inequity of how it
is hitting and will hit us not just the
economic fallout but again that's gonna
hit very unevenly and I'm worried that
in a moment that calls for maybe even
requires a lot of international
cooperation this is gonna make us even
more nationalistic and again I'm worried
that we're trusting experts right now
but a little bit down the road when we
are dealing with the repercussions of
this and people might be saying like oh
it wasn't as bad as they said it was
gonna be those messages will work even
if right now these experts and their
policies are saving thousands of lives a
day because here's the thing about
having strong opinions and no expertise
you always get to pretend that you're
right because your advice never gets
taken and so you can say that you were
right you were right you were right
because there's no one running the
simulation where we did it your way and
thank the Lord my worries are in every
direction but I do not have less faith
in humanity now than I did three months
ago and that's something and with that
in mind like with the knowledge my own
need for it I've decided to do a little
project it's a weekly I think 20 minute
podcast called Cove it sucks people
don't where I talk to some people who
are trying to make this better a first
interview for example is with a guy who
just this week got his first injection
of an experimental Kovan 19 vaccine he's
one of 45 people in the world in that
trial and he is surprisingly chill about
it links in the description John I'll
see you on Tuesday