As to why he is being downvoted, my experience in lemmy has shown me that people here are incredibly sensitive to rudeness (maybe this applies to other social networks, I wouldn't know). It's very common to see interactions like this, a person says something awful but they say it in a polite way. Then, someone who understands the awfulness replies with something like "wtf, this shit is awful because ..." and they get downvoted even though they are right because they weren't polite. And the most people just follow the number, like lemmings hahaha. Social networks are just awful to have meaningful conversations I guess.

As to the topic at hand, a part of me kind of misses the pandemic. Of course, the rational part of me understand that this is irrational and another pandemic would be awful. Specially because I lucked out in the last one and me and my family were all ok, but who knows what will happen in the next one. It would be incredibly dumb for me, or anyone, to wish for another one.

But it's hard not to miss some aspects of the pandemic, specially now that people in charge are forcing all of us to return to the status quo by force and coercion. For example, for me (an autistic person, though luckily I can mask very well) the silence during the pandemic was just life changing. Before then, I didn't realize just how noisy cars are and how much stress this adds to my life. It's hard for me to express just how much enjoyable my day to day was just because of that.

And here we are today, as a type this from my home I only hear car after car after car and it's incredibly annoying and incredibly exhausting. For me, it literally takes order of magnitude more energy and will power to get through my day now. And this is from my home, when I'm forced to go to an office or any other place is just so much worse. And I just have to suck it up and deal with it, society will just not accomodate for me because for most people this is not an issue.

And that's why you get a lot of people kind of wishing for another pandemic. For a lot of us, it was literally the first time that we saw a society that accomodated us like it accomodates normal people and it was just life changing. Of course, I don't wish for another pandemic. The amount of suffering it brought is not worth it of course, and the negative impacts were huge too (the social isolation for example).

But I kind of get it, at this point is very clear that society will just go back to the old status quo and we just have to suck it up. In fact, it seems to be getting worse and worse every day with bullshit RTO mandates, and bullshit laws, and people becoming increasingly intolerant to people who are different. And it's clear that nothing short of another pandemic will force society to acommodate us again. Quite the opposite, everywere it seems like goverments and corporations are just doubling down and quashing dissent. And when you put it all together, it's hard for a part of me to not miss the possitive changes I experienced during the pandemic. Of course, I also remember what it costed to some of my friends and neighboors and understand that this wish is not rational. But still, a part of me does miss it a bit.

IMO There’s quite a few folks on Lemmy that hate everyone and just wanna sit in their room on their computer. And starting a small business is not even in their realm of thought

Also it’s the internet so people say fucked up shit then say they were just joking if it’s not received

I don’t take things as jokes if they’re isn’t some attempt at being funny