Scientists, Politicians and the Rest of Us

  In a summary of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, the website Fandom notes in a brief summary:

The Golgafrinchans realised that were three types of beings on the planet of Golgafrincham: the leaders (or thinkers), the workers (or doers), and the middlemen.The leaders contained the artists and "achievers". The workers were the people who "did all the actual work", and who made and did things. The middle management was comprised of hairdressers, telephone sanitisers, and other such "worthless jobs." The group of leaders built a ship and convinced the middlemen to leave Golgafrincham by telling them several different reasons, including: that the planet was going to crash into the sun (or perhaps the moon was going to crash into the planet), that the planet was being invaded by a gigantic swarm of twelve foot piranha bees, and that "the entire planet was in imminent danger of being eaten by an enormous mutant star goat."The middlemen were sent off, told that the other Golgafrinchans would follow soon, however they remained on the planet with no intention of leaving. The middlemen stayed in space for a long period of time, with many on board in suspended animation for the majority of the journey, with the exception of the Captain and his Number One and Number Two. This third class eventually crashed onto Earth, while the other two-thirds of their society on Golgafrincham lived full, rich and happy lived until they were all suddenly killed off by a raging disease contracted from a dirty telephone. 

This is an interesting metaphor.  In our current Environment we have Scientists, Politicians, and the Rest of Us ("ROU"). The Scientists seem to focus on death from the virus ignoring the many other ways people die. Perhaps because we have a diminutive seer whose vision is focused on a single virus. Then we have politicians whose sole objective is to continue their presence and advantage of feeding off the ROU.

Unfortunately the ROU cannot be sent to another planet, we, unlike the fortunate middlemen of Adams tale are stuck with the Scientists and the Politicians. The dirty telephones will perhaps be the death knell for all.

Life is filled with risks. One may understand them and then act accordingly. One may ignore them and take the consequences. But actions, both scientific and political that drag the ROU down is unacceptable. The Scientist in this case is so narrowly focused they he seems to be deliberately blind to all other attacks on individual existence. It has been estimated that at the current rate there will be an excess of 85,000 deaths from cancer due to the inability of patients to get care for their malignancies. It seems that this excess mortality is racing ahead of mortality from the virus. Viral death is dominated by long term care, and that effect was apparently the direct result of the Politicians sending the infected into the LTC facilities causing a true pandemic. We have been documenting this daily in New Jersey and it is now well known in New York.

Risk is a daily element in life. Responsibility is part of mitigating risk. Riding a motorcycle at 100 mph has inherent risk. We allow people to take it and then suffer the consequences. They may get a ticket or they may die. But choice and survival by one's own actions are an essential part of a democratic republic.

Perhaps the ROU should have some voice, or perhaps we should ask the Scientists and Politicians to seek their own planet, safe from the ROU.