Lowest Common Denominator Syndrome // Variant Perception #23
“We’re living in the most interesting times.”
I find myself repeating this phrase over and over.
One, I believe it to be true. The world we exist in today holds so many, even limitless fascinations, quirks, idiosyncrasies, and left turns that highlight contrasts in the spectrum of human experience.
Two, I believe this world-view supports my mental and emotional health. It keeps me focused on the present. Reminds me to get curious. And, orients my perspective to view things as interesting, fun, and exciting. Plus, viewing it all as interesting is a small act of personal rebellion during a time when many do the opposite.
And, a video a friend shared with me (which I link below) really piqued my curiosity. It’s a compilation of the intense and coordinated marketing campaign or (depending who you ask) misinformation campaign that took place during covid. For me, it shows the beginning of the end of what little faith many Americans had in their leaders.
On the Richter scale, covid was probably an eight out of ten. It caused widespread damage and created a huge cloud of ash covering our culture and shrouding our awareness in darkness. The aftershocks of covid on the economy, health, and trust are still being felt.
We’re just now beginning to clear the ash away and repair. Assessing the damage and remembering what that time was like is a bit shocking. It’s easy to compartmentalize and forget just how intense that time period was.
This video encapsulates much of the intensity:
Of course, this video is edited and cut in a way to heighten the intensity. That does not however negate the maelstrom of hate, vilification, and blame that the video shows.
News anchors, celebrities, politicians, pharma CEOs, and world leaders repeatedly share with complete conviction that “nobody is safe” from covid, the anyone who does not get vaccinated will die, and must be shunned from society.
They vilify and mock the concept of “doing your own research,” claiming anyone who questions the predominant narrative is a conspiracy kook.
Bill Gates (everyone’s favorite lynchpin of conspiracy theories) shares towards the beginning that there will be “no return to normalcy until the large majority of the global population gets vaccinated.” And then, at the end, does an about face, admitting he did not know much about the nuance of the virus and who was most at-risk when he made his original sweeping proclamation.
Watching that video gave me chills to see how the pandemic brought out the worst in many people. The fury and psychic intensity of the death counts running on CNN and the routine spewing of insults. People wonder how humans committed atrocities in the past. The behaviors shown in the video are a window into how.
It’s no wonder our population is so polarized today. When stressed, the majority of people devolve into an us versus them, ethnocentric point of view. And covid mandates based on faulty assumptions shattered what little trust many Americans had left in our institutions and leaders.
Allegiance and fealty to The Science™ according to Tony Fauci, the CEO of Pfizer, or the CDC director came above all decency or respect.
I’m not surprised that so many people are now calling into question the incentives and ethics of our institutions and leaders. I think it’s the right thing to do at this crossroad. We need a broad covid-19 post-mortem.
We are finally starting to get a trickle of information on what happened. The fog of war is starting to lift through Freedom of Information Act requests. However, I don’t think the answers are going to build more trust.
Just recently, it was revealed through a FOIA request that CDC director Walensky knew that there were breakthrough cases of covid among vaccinated individuals as early as January 2021
However, that didn’t stop the media and Walensky from doing the full press tour on every major station sharing that the vaccine would stop transmission, often repeating “if you get vaccinated you will not get sick,” a platitude meant to increase confidence which, in the end, destroyed it for many.
We allowed media and government to censor and berate anyone who disagreed with the dominant narrative, even if all it did was add nuance. A perfect example of Lowest Common Denominator (LCD) Syndrome.
LCD Syndrome is when a message needs to get communicated effectively to massive amounts of people, hundreds of millions and billions, the message gets simplified so that it impacts the lowest common denominator the same as the outlier.
Most people tune out when presented with a nuanced, contextual message. Whether that’s because they don’t spend the time to learn or have become so used to repeating what’s said on their trusted news source, I don’t know.
In order to effectively communicate to large groups of people, the message must be reduced so the it lands with the lowest common denominator. We see this all the time with information about what you can or cannot eat in pregnancy, other health and fitness advice, and the risks of travel.
Except, reducing nuance creates the reflexive loop of ignorance:
Complicated, nuanced ideas get published where only a small, highly-specialized group of people know and understand the implications within their greater context
Word of these ideas is passed to the media
Media translates these complex ideas into simple, easy to digest, and if they’re really good at their job, highly viral headlines and articles
Masses read the articles and inform their opinions based on this simplification.
Culture of social media selects for the idea with the highest R0 value
That simplification becomes dominant, influencing public sentiment
Public sentiment puts pressure on public policy (and creates great campaign slogans…)
Policy gets created to satisfy the loudest, most-viral of simplifications.
Don’t be an LCD human.
-Jared
Excellent commentary- Eventually truth comes out- the lies and hypocrisy of the government, mainstream media, and unelected bureaucrats.There's something else to understand about the big push for the vaccine-From the beginning there was no mention of therapeutics -the narrative was "it's a virus so antibiotics don't work so we can't give you anything" in other words just go home, tough it out and die.The real reason was the Emergency AuthorizationAct- EAU- if you read the FDA definition carefully it says it can be invoked in an emergency "as long as there are no approved and available alternatives" Therefore, no rush for monoclonal antibodies or anything else-that would preclude the Big Pharma push for the vaccine that doesn't prevent you from getting Covid or spreading it-Of course at the tail end when the virus was mostly over,Pfizer comes out with Paxlovid as a therapeutic(more profits coming and going right)- I read about this in The Epoch Times,maybe the only publication that explained the situation-I had no idea but I was always skeptical about the big push especially when it came to children who had little susceptibility. My wife was vexed, both my daughters who live in Vaxafornia were vaxxed and boosted. Everyone got Covid-19 except me- I was not vexed . I did my research and had my physician do a Sars antibody blood test -my immunity level results were at the top of the range and taking my excellent health into account , he let me make the choice. I chose not to. I'm just glad I'm retired and didn't lose my job at the time because of my position. Others I know weren't as fortunate.