Newsroom

An Important Message From Your Friend, Mercury

To my dear friends on Earth, but particularly to those in America:

Hi. I’m Mercury, the planet that rules thinking and logic and language and stuff like that. I am in what’s called my “shadow period” right now. That’s what happens before I go retrograde (which will be happening on June 18th). I might be slightly impaired now, but not as goofy as I will be there in the.

That’s why I’m taking a minute to help you be logical about some of the things you’re saying on Facebook and Twitter and to your neighbours.

I know a lot of you have spent the last few months becoming experts in constitutional law, criminology, and immunology. I’d like to point out some common mistakes some of you seem to be making.

–Some of you have been complaining that various covid-19 projections, good or bad, are somehow “rigged.” Unless in the last few months you’ve managed to learn not just more about viruses, but also about statistical modelling, comorbidity, the difficulty of collecting accurate data in the middle of a crisis, how the r0 (R-zero) number is a factor in how a virus spreads, and Bayesian probability? Odds are good that meme you shared from your uncle may have a political bias that has little if any grounding in reality.

Come on people, learning is fun! Try it!

–Also: complaining about how the mainstream media has some sort of an “agenda”? For the most part, you’re right. That agenda is to get your attention and increase ratings. But just because someone is trying to sell you something doesn’t mean the thing they are selling is wrong or bad. Insurance companies spend millions on advertising to get you to buy auto insurance. But if you have a car, that’s a good thing to have. Of course, exactly the same principle applies to that guy making YouTube videos in his basement who’s getting paid by the click. Just because you don’t trust X doesn’t mean you automatically have to believe Y because Y doesn’t trust X.

-While we’re at it? If you find someone sharing an outlandish-sounding news story or “fact”? Maybe do a minute or so of googling before you spread deliberate disinformation. There’s a lot of that out there, including a lot of the stuff you might be agreeing with.

-One more thing. Let’s say there’s a person that we will call Very Bad Man A. Let’s say he built his entire life and reputation as an influential multi-millionaire by having a talent for ingratiating himself into the lives of other influential multi-millionaires. This means that there will be a whole lot of photos of Very Bad Man A taken with influential person B, C, D, E, F, and so on.

THAT DOESN’T MEAN THEY ARE ALL MEMBERS OF THE EXACT SAME CONSPIRACY!

And yes, I watched that Netflix documentary too. It was shocking!

Anyway people, here’s to you all using your brains more and your gut reflexes less in the next few months. I doubt much of that is going to happen, but I had to give it a shot.

Your pal,

Mercury