Do you want to know what the most perverse thing I've observed over the past year or so?
It's not : the government(s) mishandling the response to the pandemic, the general public failing to grasp the gravitas of the situation. It's not even that hundreds of thousands of people have died untimely and unnecessary deaths.
What is it then?
It's that people have reversed their psychology towards normality. It was once "normal" to be working most of the day, contributing towards society to earn a living. It was once normal to be out and about interacting with people. It was once normal to be paid for some productive endeavour.
That's not normal anymore.
People are paid to do sod all. Granted it's much less than most would be getting if they were working full time, but in terms of hours of your life committed to working for money (you know, that thing that lets you buy stuff you want and need) - it's a whole lot less than it was pre-covid.
The perverse thing is that this is becoming the norm. That people can be getting paid ~75% of their wage up to 2.5k a month to sit on their asses and ponder about the point of it all.
It really does make you wonder, if people get used to these perverse outcomes, how will society go back to productivity when the core value propositions of work have been shattered?
Perverse incentives cause perverse outcomes. And nothing is more perverse than robbing people of their productive dignity, to rely on the government handouts, and then sit around on the 'Flix all day ordering Deliver'fkin'roo.
Have we greased the path to socialism without realising it?
Fuck knows. But when people are head over heals about furlough extension into late Summer, splashing out on PS5's, and having all the time to do whatever shitty pass times they had before the pandemic, it really does make you wonder if power house economies consisting of fervent workers, hustlers et. al, might make short work of the western complacency now in full effect.