There's a thing I saw happening on Twitter where a lot of people are worried about the widespread mental effects of long covid not in a "wow it's unfair that so many people are experiencing a diminished quality of life" way but in a "we are being overrun by zombies" way, often citing "personality changes" in people who contracted covid. And this makes me pissed as fuck, because yeah, covid infection did change my brain, it made my memory worse and it made me more easily exhausted, but you know what really changed my personality? The trauma of living through a pandemic. The constant fear of dying or accidentally causing someone else's death. The tragedy of watching the bodies pile up, preventably. The frustration of watching governments and private citizens acting like there's nothing to worry about. The unbearable calculations and tradeoffs of income versus safety. All of those things have given me a harsh edge I never had before.
There's a pattern I've noticed (that really deserves its own post) that goes like mark a set of people as outgroup (i e not included in common use of "us" or "you and I") → dehumanize them based on the idea that their behavior is determined by their biological or physiological properties
