Fake News... How "Ben.S." does it.

While looking at the twitter of Ben, a conservative American of some note as a character, as a polemic.  I noticed a common enough trick or theme.  One need not rebuke the facts but claim them in principle.  In principle, we need not fear the facts even as we avoid then in practice.  Ben on his twitter and through other mediums selects easy targets, insists they're the mainstream, even if they're fringe or not linked to political influence and power and grumbles upon the nature of the liberalist insanity that hath unfurled before us.  And when insisting upon the falsity of the news reports in the main of the press, Ben insists that use of a stock image or video, or the same borrowed from elsewhere, is a primary piece of evidence that the mainstream news media are the producers of propaganda.  What Ben.S might call "Fake News."  And from this suggestion of fake news and the previously noted insanity of the fringe of the left, he paints a picture of a surreal world.  A world believed to be real by many, even if it is a manifestation of deception through the eyes of a very limited social media perspective.  Ben is a propagandist who picks targets and re-enforces conservative values in a way that leaves little room for introspection.  Which is, after all, the whole point.  

COVID-19 [Note #1]

I'm not likely to create a series of thoughts on this matter.  I am however likely to note a thing or two in the future, directly or not, regarding this matter. 

I am worried about the future.  Not because I think things will get that bad due to coronavirus disease, but rather, I suspect a general period of stagnation.  Fear on one hand and disruption on the other as thousands die.  Our ill-prepared system is shown to be as it is.  Our experts and government officials over-estimating risks to ensure they limit those risk factors.  People then rejecting the inflated risks and so creating the risk factors that can lead to worsening problems.  Many try to lower risk as much as possible, others ignore advice, jobs at risk, future hopes placed on hold, but for a cause that is not unfair.  A likelihood is normality returns within months, or months longer if handled poorly.  Yet, with much debate on the matter of how to handle the situation, the question of how the cope is much contested.  A pondered question by some is would the cost of mass illness even be as bad as the concerns, or should those with health issues be isolated while the rest keep calm and carry on.  But how can you Isolate such people when society mingles.  And many don't know what they do or do not have.  Health concerns and unseen problems conspiring to up the toll.  Equally, if on matters of carers, if they are expected to be the plague doctors of the modern-day, then how can they limit risk unless we all limit together??  No easy answers, no simple tricks, but in a year's time some will laugh about this.  And, indeed, Some are laughing now.  Is this wisdom or folly, no person may say until the passage is scribbled into the history books.  I suspect that it would not be as bad as some suggest, yet a trivial matter it is not.