Apparition of Jack

According to the current immigration debate, there seems to only exist pure-blooded locals who’ve existed in that exact same piece of land since animals first walked out of the primordial oceans, or hyper-new arrivals who’ve only been in the country for six hours and don’t speak a word of English / French / German / etc. But what about the people descendant from previously-established migrant communities, who might have some cultural ties to their relative’s home country but are otherwise thoroughly integrated into mainstream society? Like, where does someone like Andrew Yang or Kim Kardashian fit into these debates? You’d be hard pressed to say either of those aren’t fully American citizens, but their parents, grandparents or even great-grandparents were, at one point, immigrants. It always feels weird to me that it’s only a dichotomy between like, full native white Brits / Americans / Canadians / Germans etc, and fresh arrivals from India / Nigeria / Honduras etc. What about the people who don’t fit into either category? It’s crazy that these people aren’t more part of the discussion. What do you guys think?

Are we really all that fragile and gutless that a single pandemic causes us too much trauma to even talk about? Does our obvious mortality frighten people too much? Are people so addicted to baseless material distractions that we still can’t cope with the idea we might not be fundamentally in control of our lives? I’m sick of this shit. People died. People still have long COVID today. It affected the entire planet. WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT IT. HOLY SHIT. EDIT: I’ve cooled down a bit. I guess I got a little heated, lol. Still, it frustrates me that idk, we haven’t yet really talked about what we went though and how it impacted us. I just wish there was more discussion about it.

COVID was a mass trauma event. So much of the political chaos in the world today can be directly traced back to it (yes, even Trump winning in 2024.) You don’t move on from a mass trauma event by pretending it didnt happen.

I personally was pretty OK during COVID. I’ve been an introvert for a long time and I had lived many years more or less by myself beforehand so I wasn’t too impacted by it overall. I am dealing with my own personal health issues, but that’s unrelated to the pandemic. My concern is more for other people, who still haven’t physically or mentally recovered from the pandemic. I do hear what you’re saying, and I agree physical issues are a bigger problem than emotional ones relating to the pandemic, but I guess what we’re talking about is trauma here. Some people have the ability to shrug things off, which is good for them, really, but for a lot of people, especially developing kids, the conditions they went through during the pandemic weren’t so easy to move on from. Trauma is harder to see and more difficult to cure in some sense than physical issues, so it can be easy to dismiss it as “not really a problem”, but for the people going through it it doesn’t work that way unfortunately. Also there’s been a lot of talk about kids during all this, but let’s not discount adults either. Even if you don’t believe the lockdown caused psychological stress (which id disagree with but w/e), you’d have to admit that sudden disruptions to the economy, socialising, spending habits etc would have an impact on a lot of people anyway, wouldn’t you agree? I mean, the terrible inflation we’ve seen over the last 5 years has more or less been caused by the pandemic alone. Just having less people working on farms, working in factories etc made the price of everything shoot up. If nothing else, can you accept that the financial crisis caused by COVID has made a lot of people anxious?

Life isn’t a zero-sum game. Someone’s suffering doesn’t disappear because someone else had worse suffering. If a kid came up to you crying because he was just beaten up by bullies, would you say to him “don’t whine, my neighbour lost his legs in Vietnam?” do you think that would help the kid? Losing your legs is “worse” than being beaten up, but does that mean what the kid went through wasn’t bad? Also I’m not just concerned for Australian kids. There’s kids in America, the UK, hell goddamn everywhere going through this. Fuck, do you think kids in the SLUMS weren’t affected? In fact, many of the poorest communities had it worse. They were the ones stuck in apartments, stuck in the city etc because they didn’t have big houses with gardens. Again I keep saying COVID affected EVERYONE. Not just white kids. Not just wealthy kids. EVERYONE. What about all those “slum” kids whose parents lost jobs because of the pandemic? They exist, you know. What were they “supposed” to do? Be born rich? Lmao EDIT: You also havent disproven what the doctors have been saying. I ask you again - are they lying? EDIT 2: What about long covid? What’s your answer to that?

No, but when kids are suffering, you don’t pretend that they’re not. Would you tell someone who was beaten by their parents as a kid not to feel depressed? Or someone who went through war not to be angry about what happened? People need to HEAL, you don’t just dismiss people’s suffering. I mean shit someone in this thread legit has long covid lol

what does immigration have to do with anything? 💀 corona didnt care if you were Latino or white lol Obviously not everyone was seriously negatively impacted, for a lot of people (including kids) life has moved on. But for too many people it hasnt either. When doctors, nurses, teachers, parents, kids etc are saying there’s a problem then there’s got to be a problem. I mean just look at this comment from a YT documentary about coronavirus from a nurse. Obviously nurses are different to most other people, but it’s not like other people weren’t affected too. Considering, you know, it was like, everywhere 💀

What about the paranoia of catching the disease itself? Millions of people - kids included - became terrified of going outside, touching people , catching the virus, etc. It’s like human worry doesn’t exist to you.

Like I said, tone-deaf and callous. Also subtle hints of out-of-touch too.

Tell that to families living in apartments. Your attitude strikes me as very tone-deaf and callous.

We’re literally debating over screens right now lol, we’re not any better

Screens were the only way for kids to attend classes. Also if you’re locked inside a house 24/7 for months at a time, what else is a kid gonna do? You can try board games or baking but at some point you have to accept that social conditions can have a way bigger effect than any personal sense of discipline can handle

Your average kid in 2015 probably spent like 4 hours a day on their phone. After COVID that number has gone up to like 10 hours a day. How could it have no had effect?

Again, COVID made the problem 100x worse. It’s like saying Cartels aren’t a problem in Mexico because “drugs have always been around.” Yes that’s true, but the cartels have become far worse over the last few decades because of just how much more lucrative the US drug market has become in that time. Conditions change.

you might as well say the Vietnam War didnt cause PTSD because “trauma existed beforehand.” It’s just such a nothing statement completely removed from material reality. Just watch this video man. Doctors who deal with kids are literally saying the pandemic had widespread impacts on kids. Is he lying?

I don’t get why you’re so hung up on that number. Maybe it was only six months, maybe it was more, the fact is it had a huge negative impact on kid’s brains, not being able to physically engage with friends, schoolyards, etc. Like I don’t see why this is so hard for you to accept. This isn’t me saying that kids who spent a week off school because of a snowstorm all turned into weed smoking vagabonds, lol. Schools would have to open and close if a new wave of COVID came about. A lot of parents lost their jobs or had to work from home, making the living conditions even more cramped. We were basically prisoners whilst the virus was around, it obviously had negative mental health impacts on countless people. What about university students who had to drop out because all the facilities shut? What about people with kids who had to move in with their parents after they lost their job because of the pandemic? Im still really struggling to understand why this is so hard for you to accept. Teachers, parents, hell the bloody kids THEMSELVES are all saying they were seriously fucked over by the pandemic. Countless kids have said they’ve become anxious, can’t concentrate, feel isolated due to the effects of the pandemic and prolonged, sudden isolation of lockdown. Not to mention, again, the physical effects COVID can cause. What part of this is hard for you to accept? It’s not the “parents responsibility” to prevent a global disease breakout, no human being has that power, let alone two random office workers with a couple of school kids. What part of those reports do you disagree with? Why do you deny what teachers, counsellors, students etc are all saying about what COVID has done to them?

Didnt you get an education? Where did you learn to read and write? How did you learn to deal with other people (like learning how to not be a bully or learning how to get things done in a group?) again I’m not saying the education system we have is perfect, far from it in fact, but can we at least agree that having kids know how to read, know how to write, know how to do basic maths and know how to get along in a group is a good thing? I’m not saying educations only purpose is to turn everyone into rocket scientists or tech CEOs, obviously that’s not a reasonable goal. But it is destined to teach kids the basics of thinking, grammar and socialising they need to get by in the world (otherwise they turn into wolf children who only speak in barks lol)

That Mexican surgeon still also had an education though. It’s not like universities only exist in rich countries lol 💀 Also yes I agree, spending time in the country is one of the best things someone can do if they have access to it. But again, we’re talking about cities of millions of people. It’s not practical to just say if kids are struggling during lockdown everyone should just move to their lakeside cabin, especially when most people don’t own one of these.

Where do you live? Are you in the countryside? If you reject modern urban living, that’s good for you, really I’m under no illusions that modernity is perfect, but unfortunately that’s just not practical for a civilisation of hundreds of millions of people. Modern society has many problems but I don’t think trying to research cancer or make cars safer is one of them. We could absolutely make the world more environmentally sustainable, but that would still require education actually (how else do we build solar panels or use less water in our farming techniques?)

Sure dude. Because a bunch of asshole billionaires bribed their way into getting Ivy League degrees, that means we don’t need educated doctors, pilots, chemists, engineers, police commissioners, cancer researchers, etc etc. If a plane has a mechanic problem, no problem, just stick some duct tape on it! If someone has cancer? No problem, just take some aspirin! Who needs education right? If someone needs a kidney removed just ask dad for some scissors and he’ll sort it all out! 😂

Don’t make me turn into an asshole, dude. You might as well say eating food isn’t important to kids because they live off “kid energy” or some other vibes-based bullshit. Kids need school. I’m sorry you don’t think this is true, but it is. Maybe you’re right and education is a scam and kids don’t have feelings and we can basically throw them into the Amazon jungle and except them not to die, but I don’t buy it. I live on planet earth. Here on earth, education is important for not turning kids into illiterate malcontents. Feel free to fly on the next plane flown by a pilot who dropped at in Year 5 if education means so little to you.

OH YEAH. COVID also has associated neurological problems. Even mild cases can lead to brain fog, tiredness, etc. No shit you’re not going to be doing as well at school if your brain isn’t working 100%, no amount of “responsible parenthood” can fix that alone

Also, what about the fucking parents? A mum and dad can only organise so many socially-distanced play dates or try and teach their kids Grammar or whatever before they themselves have to get back to work, look after other family members, etc. I mean the literal reason we have schools is so that parents don’t have to look after and teach their kids 100% of the time. Schools is fucking ESSENTIAL to early childhood development; kids were denied this opportunity because of a DEADLY VIRUS ravaging the world.

Again, you’re putting the cart before the horse. Yes, families DID do this, but there’s only so many socially-distanced camping trips you can have before the dire need for in-person education (you’re not teaching Maths to your kids at Umina beach), socialising with other kids their age on a daily basis etc becomes pressing. Also, let’s not forget that many families can’t afford to do that shit all the time and rely on school to be the main source of education/trips/socialising for their kids. And again, ITS NOT ME JUST MAKING THIS UP. It’s observable fact. You have a problem with my argument, feel free to refute the evidence. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12574550/#:~:text=Impacts of COVID-19-Related,onset%3B Amplify%2C 2021).

Do you not understand that parents literally weren’t allowed to? Parents DID try. Parents DID organise those things. The problem is the seriousness of COVID was far too great and too widespread for a few online play dates to remedy. For fuck’s sake you might as well say kids dying during the London Blitz was parents not buying their kids hard hats to stop German bombs. The problem isn’t the parents, it’s the world they’re in.