Imagine going about your life, when a virus develops into a pandemic. Suddenly the rulers of your country are like "We're going to let the virus infect us, don't listen to the outside world".

Most people in your country are like "Awesome!", and ridicule you if trying to opt out

You hear about all these stuff like chronic health issues the virus causes, in different research papers available on the internet. It appears to be a serious problem, likely to ruin many lives. You do however never hear it mentioned in the debate in your country.
On the news you hear people with fancy titles, downplaying the virus, and ridiculing other countries for trying to stop it.

The resistance is futile, they say. We are all going to get infected in the end anyways.
You see the schools in other countries closing down, but in your own country they remain open. Parents are not allowed to keep their children at home. If they do, they are punished by the government, shunned as bad parents by those who think the herd immunity strategy is awesome.
You later find out that the people leading the response to the pandemic, reasons around how it is beneficial to keep schools open in e-mails with each other. They reflect on the benefits of open schools, for children getting infected, thus contributing to the herd immunity.
You find out that the minister of education in the government, has been advising with people who had signed a petition that proposes to let the virus roam freely among schoolchildren and young people.
You see advisors to the minister of education, make statements such as "The wisest thing we can do, is to get the children infected". You see the minister mentioning the person claiming that it's wise to get children infected, in the context of press release for open schools.
Other people than you, also feels something is wrong. Many of these people, are scientific minded individuals. Some of these are academics, professors in virology and such. Some try to raise awareness, but when they do, they get viciously attacked in the media, and by the media.
Campaigns are performed, to get researchers that question the rulers decisions fired from their jobs. There is a high cost to speak out, many are silent. If you question the most powerful people in your country, you get an army of haters after you.
You also see the very same people that you see destroying your country, and causing many deaths that could be avoided, going on some sort of marketing tour around the world, propagating for their strategy.
You hear people in other countries, start to reference your country as a good example, stating things that you know is just not true.

Schools are kept open in the beginning of the second wave in other countries, based on information communicated from rulers in your country.
You know that the information being communicated about your country, is painting a false picture of things. You have looked at the data. You have found many strange things.
You notice that claims of children not being infected in schools, is only supported by the number of children tested positive not being high compared to another country. In that country however, all children could get tested. In your country, only children hospitalized was tested
The data supporting the claims that made their way around the world, had been sampled in a biased way. The manipulated sampling provided data, that was used in very inproper ways. The sampled data, was used to support claims of the rulers having acted right, in terms of schools.
Other countries believe the misinformation that you see being spread, and uses it as a basis for decisions regarding schools. After a while, they find out that schools actually was of relevance for the community transmission.
In your own country, more children can now get tested. Now the data shows that the spread information about schools from officials was incorrect. When not using as biased of a sampling model, the data now shows this in your own country. That also goes for teachers infections.
The rulers ruining your country, have now allowed for sampling of data regarding outbreaks in schools. Soon it appears like a significant portion of the outbreaks, are related to schools. People start discussing it, then the rulers decide not to publish that data anymore.
They are also tasked with investigating the effects of the pandemic on the public health of your people. But for some reason, they choose not to look at the long-term health consequences of the many infections that for some reason....Happened in your country.
The outcome is not what the rulers had expected. The failure is obvious. It is obvious that the significantly higher number of people who lost their lives in your country, is because of the strategy that the rulers enforced.

Not once however, you hear them admit any wrongdoing.
You now hear that the outcome in your country, is due to bad luck. Avid fans of the government, still believe we were successful. You also hear it claimed that the reason your country had higher number of deaths than similar neighboring countries, can be due to immigrants.
It was nothing wrong with the strategy they say, but now when they speak about the strategy, they say it was another strategy than what was communicated said earlier. They say it was the same strategy as all other countries. They admit no mistakes at all.
This has been Sweden during the pandemic.

This is my country, I was born here, I grew up here. It breaks my heart to see what happened. Most of my countrymen are good people, but they got fooled and taken advantage of, by lousy assholes in power, calling the shots.
What happened in Sweden during the pandemic, is way beyond what can be considered honest mistakes. More information is bound to be released in the future, many books will be written about what happened. Had the virus spread as the rulers believed, we would have a lot more deaths.
I hope that the people outside of Sweden, that have understandably been chocked about what was going on here, can understand that what happened here is not the work of Sweden nor my people. It was a crime against my people, by assholes that somehow ended up in power they abused.
The combination of the situation, actions by assholes in power, and the complexity of humans, sparked some strange group psychology stuff, I would call it mass psychosis.

Sweden will become what it should be. Those who did this to my people, will be held accountable in time.

More from Life

1/“What would need to be true for you to….X”

Why is this the most powerful question you can ask when attempting to reach an agreement with another human being or organization?

A thread, co-written by @deanmbrody:


2/ First, “X” could be lots of things. Examples: What would need to be true for you to

- “Feel it's in our best interest for me to be CMO"
- “Feel that we’re in a good place as a company”
- “Feel that we’re on the same page”
- “Feel that we both got what we wanted from this deal

3/ Normally, we aren’t that direct. Example from startup/VC land:

Founders leave VC meetings thinking that every VC will invest, but they rarely do.

Worse over, the founders don’t know what they need to do in order to be fundable.

4/ So why should you ask the magic Q?

To get clarity.

You want to know where you stand, and what it takes to get what you want in a way that also gets them what they want.

It also holds them (mentally) accountable once the thing they need becomes true.

5/ Staying in the context of soliciting investors, the question is “what would need to be true for you to want to invest (or partner with us on this journey, etc)?”

Multiple responses to this question are likely to deliver a positive result.

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