please empty your brain below
Hmmmm, very thought provoking.

Neesi | 16.12.20 - 7:10 a.m. | #

Roger Hargreaves’ Mr. Worry, made flesh.

David | 16.12.20 - 7:46 a.m. | #

All very well, but how many of us use stuff made in China?, are we bothered about the Uighurs whilst using out smart phones to complain about oppression on Twitter, or the pollution and environmental damage that we outsourced to make them.

We make decisions not to be bothered about other people's welfare everyday, all that's happened with C-19 is that the consequences aren't 'out of sight and out of mind', but in turn how many of us are truly bothered about the lives ruined by the job loses, or businesses going under so we can save 'our relative'.

Still Anon | 16.12.20 - 8:07 a.m. | #

I'm glad I'm not the only one who has those sorts of thought processes.

Sarah | Homepage | 16.12.20 - 8:34 a.m. | #

As car driver is supposed to have said "I have never been in a car accident, but I have seen lots in my rear-view mirror" ...

strawbrick | 16.12.20 - 8:46 a.m. | #

Anyone who has pondered the interconnections of things will have had these thoughts. A healthy response is to recognise that there is nothing one can do about most of these events and that the important thing is to carry on with life while avoiding or mitigating the most obvious and dangerous ones.

With Covid, the state has deliberately fractured our individual and collective understandings and judgments of risk and benefit by the use of the dark arts of psychological manipulation. I fear that the damage will take a long time to repair.

Andy Riley | 16.12.20 - 8:53 a.m. | #

Agrajag.

Southern Heights (Light Railway) | 16.12.20 - 9:02 a.m. | #

This philosophical post reminds me that as a student I was asked by the now sadly late Jonathan Sacks for help in writing an essay entitled "Am I dreaming". I could not help!

Everybody in some infinitesimally small way is involved in everything that happens, good and bad. Example: like many others I am currently a hermit dependent on the weekly supermarket delivery. I order an item and that eventually means 1 less of that item on the store shelf so the shelf needs replenishing, setting off a string of actions. Somebody wanting to buy the item just before replenishment finds no stock and does something subsequently and has an accident, my fault? No. The only time one can concede responsibility is if your (poorly chosen) action leads directly to disaster because if it doesn't then there will be later interactions that do.

J. | 16.12.20 - 9:14 a.m. | #

The butterfly effect theory.

Blue Witch | Homepage | 16.12.20 - 9:15 a.m. | #

With the National Lottery people think it might be you & gamble thinking they will win despite the odds being greatly against. With covid people seem to think it won't be them despite evidence showing it could well be.

Andy S | 16.12.20 - 9:22 a.m. | #

There is now way of knowing whether your specific action saved or caused a death, and so there is little in this line of thought that is actionable. Inaction just means you won't save any lives. Therefore, all you can do it ignore it and carry on with your life.

Jimbo | 16.12.20 - 9:44 a.m. | #

False logic.
When you trace a path from some action of yours all the way to a death, it wasn't just your action, it was the cumulative effect of yours plus all the myriad of other people's.
Secondly taking your action meant you didn't take another action which would have been on a different path.

Joho | Homepage | 16.12.20 - 9:53 a.m. | #

I wonder how many lives the bus employee saved yesterday when he boarded the bus I was on - as a passenger, not an inspector - and 2 of the 3 mask-less people around me scrambled to put a mask on in case he was!

I wonder how many lives might have been lost if he hadn't boarded the bus soon after they had!

Cornish Cockney | 16.12.20 - 10:26 a.m. | #

I wonder why DG chose today to publish this post. Could there be a connection with anything in today's news?

Malcolm of Kent | 16.12.20 - 10:53 a.m. | #

Some years back, inspired by your blog, I took my kids to Brent Lodge Park, and during which, my daughter fell and grazed her knee. You'll be hearing from my solicitor.

Phil J | Homepage | 16.12.20 - 11:09 a.m. | #

Thought provoking indeed.

Many years ago I read a novel by Issac Asimov entitled, IIRC, "The End of Eternity" in which he imagines a future society that manipulates the past in order to assure their own existence. They achieve this by making the minimum change to a situation, such as by turning round a tin of paint on a shelf so the label is obscured, thus taking longer to find. The person searching for it is delayed which sets off an ultimately fatal chain of events, so preventing the invention of a certain weapon.

It's complicated but well worth a read.

Baldrick | 16.12.20 - 11:12 a.m. | #

What Joho said .

David | 16.12.20 - 11:15 a.m. | #

You got on the tube once a second too late and Gwyneth Paltrow got out.

Matt | 16.12.20 - 11:16 a.m. | #

I've indirectly created a life, by setting up a blind date for friends who had a baby earlier this year. Does that count against my inadvertent death tally?

TomH | 16.12.20 - 12:13 p.m. | #

Be positive. Pressing that crossing button could just as easily have meant that someone was not hit and injured by a car a bit further down the road.

popartist | 16.12.20 - 7:26 p.m. | #

You are obviously an intelligent man DG, but your continual unshakeable belief in the Covid-19 nonsense makes me lose all respect. When practically every country on the planet simultaneously shuts down peoples basic freedoms, forces them to wear masks, and forces them to stay apart from each other, quite frankly a 5 yr old might scratch its chin and wonder if this is about a bit more than a so-called virus. Amazing how flu is non-existant this year? Or does that ring no alarm bells. A vaccine rolled out after 8 months when the standard testing period of a vaccine is 8 years minimum? People need to fucking open their eyes, switch off the lying cretins on the tv, throw away the lying traitorous journalists in the newspaper, and get a grip. Time is running out

marty | 16.12.20 - 8:20 p.m. | #

I'd rather listen to scientists and journalists than cretins.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 16.12.20 - 8:24 p.m. | #

An action or inaction (such as Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics) may just lead to someone or something else replacing that action done or avoided, with the same outcome - this too is incalculable. 'Everything is linked to everything else' (Chaos Theory) but not necessarily in the way you expect.

Not fatalism nor predetermination, just with several billion people on the planet, and an infinite number of interactions (see Douglas Adams' "Infinite Improbability Drive"), no outcome is entirely predictable nor controllable.

Enjoy your life and do it responsibly.

Joel | 16.12.20 - 8:26 p.m. | #

So marty, you throw a hand grenade with your comments but produce no evidence to back it up.
The ball is in your court my friend unless of course you believe the queen is a lizard.

And thanks DG. I enjoyed todays article. It got me thinking

Scientist | 16.12.20 - 8:44 p.m. | #

Well done DG. Far more concisely put.

Scientist | 16.12.20 - 8:50 p.m. | #

Interested to know what chain of events lead to the martys of the world thinking the way they do.
The so called virus may not be so visible to you because many are exercising their freedoms to take precautions having rightfully seen what can be caused if we choose to do absolutely nothing about the situation.
You're welcome.

M | 16.12.20 - 11:20 p.m. | #

Great article exploring the potential ramifications of one's actions. A short blog comment in response cannot possibly do it justice.

DavidC | 16.12.20 - 11:42 p.m. | #

Yeah, the bodies are piled up in the streets and the hospitals have mile long queues to gain access to. Its such a pandemic that even the governments around the world are forced to advise health officials to write Covid 19 on death certs even when there are many other serious underlying conditions, you know like heart failure or termninal cancer to keep up the numbers. They tend not to use death figures so much now, its all new cases.

marty | 17.12.20 - 12:11 a.m. | #

All sensible folk prefer scientists and (responsible) journalists to tin-hats. But which scientists and which journalists - and how about some economists and some medics dealing with non-Covid conditions? There is no established consensus on this disease and how to handle it and, in general, more reasoned and rational debate and less credulous hysteria, pompous sanctimony and guilt- tripping would be a step forward

David | 17.12.20 - 5:49 a.m. | #

David trotts out his tried and trusted tin hat line, as if anyone who questions official narrative has to wear a tin hat..... while thinking it perfectly exceptable to wear a mask. Says it all about the level of critical thinking going on

Marty | 17.12.20 - 6:16 a.m. | #

That’s not what I said or meant. I didn’t mention masks. And I can spell ‘acceptable’. Back under your bridge, you.

David | 17.12.20 - 6:28 a.m. | #

Children are starving to death in third world counties because they have no work because we have lockdown.

It is inhumane to have policies that kill a child every month just to keep granny a little safer.

Tony | 17.12.20 - 9:27 a.m. | #

I agree with Baldrick. The end of Eternity is worth reading.

Cornish Monkey | 17.12.20 - 6:58 p.m. | #

Very thought provoking ; its that time of the year. Have you been having strange dreams?
Thank you for entertaining & educating me throughout 2020.
Here's to 2021.

Fiona Stephenson | 23.12.20 - 1:49 p.m. | #











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