Something about this pandemic makes me feel like I'm part of a giant psychology experiment.
Maybe there's a bunker deep beneath DC where there's hundreds of social scientists watching computer monitors. They time the delivery of the latest mortality stats. They track the compliance rate for every new limitation they impose. In real time, of course!
When California tried to shut down gun stores, the bunker boys calculated that the resistance level would quickly pass the obedience level, and let the folks in charge know it. Suddenly, gun shops became an essential service.
Likewise, when the government of Prince Edward Island closed the liquor stores, they too became an essential service practically overnight.
Social science is as much art as science. The top social scientists spend their entire careers finessing different strategies to improve the rats' compliance stats. Sometimes they have to take a step back. Then its just a matter of time. With a little tweaking of the hysteria-inducing news channels, they'll soon enough take two or even three steps forward again.
The social scientists work at the behest of the Public-Private-Partnership the rats still think of as their government. They do get to vote every four years, don't they?
True enough, but does that matter?
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