>family members were too naive to know that the thing they were instructed to do by the state was a false thing

Would be interesting to see everyone who jumped in here yesterday [1] to comment on this one as well.

1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45889297

The problem with Canada and the USA is that there's no educated ideology primed to capture the inherent distrust people have of systems that used to work and now don't, such as government authority.

People should absolutely question authority basically all of the time. Authority should be justifying its competence to tell you what you should be doing with every decision it hands down. But there's nobody on the other side of the AM radio hosts to say "yeah the flip flop on COVID masks was weird but it's probably not because billionaires are putting tracking devices in the masks and more because the CDC just didn't understand the issue correctly yet. Here's some studies on the effectiveness of mask wearing in slowing the spread of disease, seems smart to wear one just in case?"

Instead you have neoliberal America, politicians on every side of the aisle saying "no matter who we are, at least always trust us," and the only vent from that is alt right and conspiracy theorist podcasters.

What terrifies me personally is that people with 2-digit IQs are apparently being employed in virology labs. That's the kind of realization that could undermine anyone's confidence in government.