Covid is no less virulent or no less serious than it was 4 years ago. Among well vaccinated populations, the seriousness of infection decreases, but among populations who cannot get the vaccine it is as dangerous as it ever was. It has not evolved into something less dangerous over time.
Given the author may be from a place with poor healthcare that doesn't support the disease or autoimmune diseases well (e.g. the U.S.) or may be close to someone with a weakened immune system, it's very reasonable for some people to be cautious about covid.
I think more people are realizing that the stories of startup success in 2013 were heavy on survivorship bias, and that over the past decade people have become aware of just how predatory and unequal the VC model is.
New founders have less wool over their eyes, and increasingly run the numbers and say, "wait a second, that's the expected success rate? That's the pressure I'll have to grow grow grow? Those are the terms? Nah, I can work 40 somewhere, get paid more, and put in fewer hours."
We've stopped romanticizing killing oneself for the hustle too.
Read up on 1557 changes and title ix changes, which include language that specifically permits institutions to say, "we do not discriminate based on criteria X, y, z" when they discriminate against trans people.
It also affirmed that they felt they could supersede state law to protect caregivers (doctors, etc) who provide care against the law in their state (gender affirming care). They declined to exercise that authority and explicitly said they would not.
They also said they would consider provider discrimination only on a case by case basis (which they are not funded to do, and leaves poorer people more likely to suffer discrimination).
They added language stating "nothing in this rule imposes a requirement that covered entities provide gender affirming care".
They specifically struck the following language: "a providers belief that gender transition or other gender affirming care can never be beneficial for such individuals is not sufficient basis for a judgement that a health service is not clinically appropriate." Basically giving doctors the explicit right to say "I don't believe in gender affirming care and will not provide it".
Anti communist or anti Stalinist? Or even anti Marxist-Leninist?
Homage is a complicated book to place because it's been interpreted so baby different ways across eras. But it's hard to imagine someone going and fighting for POUM and praising them post facto would ultimately be anti communist across all flavors of communism.
I think it's human nature under capitalism. I think before the 1800s there were loads of different societies that valued things like community and mutual support over "got mine".
This is the fundamental assertion of anarchism -- people generally like helping each other and like feeling useful. If basic needs were covered, we'd use most of our time doing things that felt meaningful, and those things would make everyone's lives better.
A party that wants to kill my and a party that wants to kill me politely are the same. Yeah, sure, I can discern one is smiling, but practically the "choice" I have is die or die (politely), which really isn't a choice at all.
The Dems are writing and sponsoring anti lgbtq laws nationwide. Biden removed anti lgbtq discrimination rules, permitting local municipalities to discriminate against trans kids. The Dems aren't just side liners here, they are active participants in the erosion of lgbtq rights.
It's worse than this, actually. Biden administration removed anti discrimination statutes that both Obama and Trump had in place around discrimination in healthcare care and education. Biden changed the rules to permit discriminatory behavior by states as long as it was not "systematic". So, of course, states and municipalities will discriminate against trans folks and then claim they were all unique cases.
Yes, you are right Biden did nothing to protect LGBTQ folks, but he did also take action to harm them.
It's worth remembering that Orwell was a socialist, a leftist, and was anti authoritarian not anti communist. (Which isn't opposed to your comment, the Soviet Union was authoritarian.)
It just gets brought up so often that because he was anti Soviet, he must be anti communist, which wasn't the case.
Are you familiar with Malcolm X's speech about the fox and the wolf?
Given the past four years have seen things like shutting down labor strikes, support foreign wars, expanding arctic drilling at record pace, increased police budgets, erosion of women's rights, erosion of lgbtq rights, and a steady increase in corporate power... I think the difference we'll see is in degree, not in direction.
The law has a provision permitting the President to grant 90 day exceptions. Trump has indicated he'll sign one tomorrow. This isn't going around the law, it's just the law as written. We can debate whether the law was good or bad, but this is an outcome the law directly supports.
You say I'm naive, I say you've been had by jingoistic propaganda. You are more concerned about a foreign boogeyman, I'm more concerned about the one that's governing me.
The US government has shown, time and time again, what it will do with power once it uses it.