I think it is pretty clear that these are polarized times, and that many of us, myself included, find it frustrating that the way we see things is not the way others do. After all, polarization comes from a place of deep concern, and the psychological mechanism that ratchets it up comes from our worry that if our most deeply held values are not shared, we could see a future in which they are not respected or observed.
That said, such processes also take on a life of their own, because all things that exist wish to continue doing so, and the result can be a dimmer understanding of the world around us as the ol' amygdala takes over more and more of our thinking.
So this is the opposite thread, and in it, I propose we take various fragments of the Canadian current events landscape and comment on them from what we might perceive as "the other side", and thus try and inhabit these perspectives and see what they look like from the inside.
It would be too easy to make this into an exercise in satire, so please, none of the "to find Flanders, you have to think like Flanders" approach where thinking like Flanders means going "I'm a big four-eyed lame-o" etc.
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This should instead be more of a high school debate-type thing where you actually argue the other side.
Let's stick to Canada and mainstream news outlets so that we are not tempted to reach for strange foreign dictators or wild-eyed fringe figures from the US.
I'll start:
B.C. premier says it's 'outrageous' people are travelling to Vancouver Island, but has no plans to stop it
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...inue-1.5978321
What this story says to me is that our governing bodies lack both the willingness and the legal ability to take the actions necessary to stamp out COVID-19.
Given the spread of many new dangerous variants, and the localized nature of infection processes, Canadians need to give serious thought to implementing practices that curb internal travel within our provinces.
Whether this takes the form of enhanced tracking or a new technological overlay, our battle against COVID-19 is far from over and our governments need new and broader powers to do whatever is necessary to bring the case rate to zero, as is the focus in New Zealand.