As more of our existence moves into the virtual realm, the virtual realm carries more weight than the physical reality. This was foreseen with the rise of mass media decades ago - long enough to have been forgotten - and now we're just living it out. This is combined with post-truth - the world is complicated, and we're swamped with conflicting expert opinions. So we fall back to solipsism - nothing truly matters until it affects you.
I had been hoping this article was going to be about actual psychosomatic effects based on peoples beliefs. Like say if the people who didn't care about the epidemic actually had lower fatality rates. That would be interesting, alas.
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As more of our existence moves into the virtual realm, the virtual realm carries more weight than the physical reality. This was foreseen with the rise of mass media decades ago - long enough to have been forgotten - and now we're just living it out. This is combined with post-truth - the world is complicated, and we're swamped with conflicting expert opinions. So we fall back to solipsism - nothing truly matters until it affects you.
I had been hoping this article was going to be about actual psychosomatic effects based on peoples beliefs. Like say if the people who didn't care about the epidemic actually had lower fatality rates. That would be interesting, alas.