Clarissa's Blog

I have zero hope for today’s SCOTUS debate on the constitutionality of the COVID vaccine mandates. These are pretty old people on the court. There’s very little chance that they will figure out that these vaccines work very differently from the polio or measles vaccines AND that they’ll be able to process that these vaccines don’t stop infection and spread.

Sotomayor has already asked how “a human spewing virus is different from a machine spewing sparks.” As one’s brain ossifies with age, one begins to perceive the world through analogy. Everything gets referred back to one’s past experience. Everything is “just like.” Accepting that anything can be genuinely new means facing that one is outdated, possibly even mortal. And no, not every old person is like that. There are rare but important exceptions. For the most part, though, this is exactly how it works. If you don’t subject your brain to rigorous daily training in processing new information from new sources, you will become that sad old fart who “justlikes” every conversation into the ground.