Are you an anarchist? The answer may surprise you (2000)
I have never believed in anarchism, as I don&#x27;t believe that &quot;human beings are capable of behaving in a reasonable fashion without having to be forced to&quot;. But with COVID-19, I am seeing more proof than ever.<p>In my country (but I guess it&#x27;s the same in most, except perhaps some Nordic countries) bars, pubs and discos only reduce seating or close indoor spaces when forced to by law, in spite of the evidence that they cause lots of outbreaks. A large chunk of people only started wearing masks when forced to by law, and take any chance the law allows to remove them. The government recommended remote work whenever possible but many companies just ignored it in spite of having many workers that could perfectly work remotely, and just implement it when forced by law. And so on.<p>Tell me again that &quot;human beings are capable of behaving in a reasonable fashion without having to be forced to&quot;... it&#x27;s not that &quot;most politicians are selfish, egotistical swine&quot;, it&#x27;s that many people are. I&#x27;d rather have a politician mandate masks or restrict bar&#x2F;pub capacity (not because politicians are any better than the average person, but because they tend to have at least a bare minimum of education, access to advisors, some positive incentives -the next election- and no high stakes on the decision like, say, a bar owner) than have mask deniers and careless people spread the virus around by gathering in closed spaces without masks.