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Even if it doesn’t evolve into something truly dystopian, contact tracing still is a waste of time, money, human goodwill — leave us lonely, isolated, pacified. There is a reason why the suicide rate is rising, like overdoses, which may or may not be another form of suicide.
Contact tracing means government intervenes in your social network; contact tracing means that the government monitors who you see and what you do. Contact tracing means surveillance means the disruption of organic physical, social networks, by a totalitarian hall monitor. Enforcers of the mask and trace ideology tend to be white collar nerds: people who were unpopular in high school, who are unpopular now, who feel some sort heroic serotonin rush performing their new, self-created role. These pseudo-experts get off on check ing the behavior of free individuals, the popular kids, who don’t feel they need to follow all the institutional rules. The social discourse surrounding COVID-19 is a juvenile pyschodrama.