The View from the Hermitage, Day 185

Have we made it to herd mentality yet? No? And is that anything like groupthink? Wikipedia defines groupthink as "a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome." That description certainly fits what I think herd mentality might be. Mr. Google showed me a list of groupthink questions with answers from Psychology Today.This one is particularly relevant: 

Why can groupthink be dangerous?
        Even in minor cases, groupthink triggers decisions that aren't ideal or that ignore critical information. In highly consequential domains—like politics or the military—groupthink can have much worse consequences, leading groups to ignore ethics or morals, prioritize one specific goal while ignoring countless collateral consequences, or, at worst, instigate death and destruction.

I'd say that a global pandemic is a "highly consequential domain." As for everything after "leading groups to," that seems to me to fit like a glove our current situation. 

But enough about herd mentality. Did HWSNBN up-play or down-play the looming pandemic way back when? We've been there before: Audio or video tape of HWSNBN saying one thing that he later contradicts. Every time this happens, I want to tie him to a chair and force him to watch or listen to his saying Thing A followed by his saying Opposite of Thing A. Unfortunately, my training in psychology was not of the type to suggest how a narcissistic personality would deal with such a discrepancy. It might not be pretty.

Reading through the CNN summary of the first six months of 2020, I keep wondering if there could be a silver lining to 2020. I can't think of what a global silver lining might be, though I can imagine individual ones. My own life has certainly slowed down, though I feel bad at times that older son has taken on a shitload of responsibility to keep me safe. I don't feel guilty about walking for two hours almost every day which is a major factor in my losing so much weight. Maybe that's my silver lining. 

A notification just appeared on my phone telling me that the CDC director just predicted that a covid-19 vaccine will not be widely available until the summer or fall of 2021. It may be that my having several underlying risk factors might help me get ahead in any vaccination queue, though that might make me feel a bit guilty. How do I compare my risk factors to those presented by someone else? What makes me worthy to get it before they would?

I submitted more retirement paperwork and wait to hear what else I might need to do. I wonder if it all would have been easier to treat it as a resignation. I would not be able to keep my virginia.edu email address then, but as a part-time wage type, I'm honestly not sure it they'll let me keep mine. I tried to ask and kept getting referred to the help desk which offered no help. Evidently the system won't consider answering such a question until the day I retire or shortly thereafter. There's always something.

In addition to the unbelievable wildfires out west, we now have Hurricane Sally potentially dropping 35 inches of rain in some spots. Pensacola, Florida has already gotten over 24 inches of rain contributing to the collapse of a bridge. The rain may still be falling there; I haven't see anything about that. Slow-moving storm clouds but no apparent silver lining.