Cognitive pollution in equal balance with esthetic pollution, together garnished with ignorance

I occasionally dwell on an increasing sense of a loss of competence in society, in our government, competence from our institutions, mainline religious institutions, even competence in corporations.  

You look at the Budweiser fiasco and just shake your head.  Who was manning the deck?  Who was steering the ship?  How could this consumer product corporation choose to simultaneously insult its massive existing customer base while wooing a near non-existent customer segment?  That was incompetence on a titanic scale.  

Of course the CDC/FDA/NIH response to Covid-19 was incompetence on a titanic scale as well, with nearly every discretionary decision being wrong for the context or the goals.

Defunding the police and decarceration have been an example of titanic incompetence.

The list goes on and on.  Government, companies, institutions, religious institutions, education, health.  Everywhere we look we can see more technology, more money being invested and yet often less and less adequate service.  Less capability to deliver the promised outcomes.  

I think about it a lot and noodle on the definitions, the categories, the data, the causal system relationships, and try and figure things out.  

Then along comes such a crisply stunning example of near pure incompetence.  

The dancing TikTok nurses are back except this time it’s for “climate change”

Do these people not realize they’re singlehandedly ruining the reputation of the medical industry?

Humiliating

pic.twitter.com/ApI6LG3TRG

— DC_Draino (@DC_Draino) July 24, 2023

I am guessing that these might not be real healthcare personnel but given the similarities of real healthcare personnel pushing bad policies during Covid-19, who knows.  Maybe these are healthcare people.

What struck me though, was . . . the manifest and comprehensive incompetence.  Sure, this is performance politics for a particular advocacy of policy.  Agree or disagree with the message, at least deliver it well.

Instead, we have a bunch of people who seem reasonably unfit, physically inert, who can't dance, who cannot carry a tune, who cannot sing together, who can't convey passion for their message, who can't even articulate the words of their song.  A production which has no showroom appeal.  Which then lumberingly tries to mimic a national disaster with the singing nurses ministering last rites like the Angel of Death.  Then there's the stupidity of coopting the military Taps over civilian pretend death, tarnishing the production and disrespecting the service and sacrifices of the military.  

The piece-de-resistance?  The bare smattering of applause from the on-lookers, apparently mostly just the production personnel.  

This is so cringe-making it makes you squirm.  And it is thorough incompetence.  A high school glee club could have put on a more artful, tuneful, better choreographed production given even just a couple of days to prepare.  The high school theater club could have easily crafted a more dramatic arc.  The high school video club could have recorded and spliced together a far more engaging and esthetic production given a couple of days.

This was just a lumpen, untalented, amateurish melange of incapacity mixed with incompetence.  A slapdash stab at getting attention with no commitment to message or to audience.  Cognitive pollution in equal balance with esthetic pollution, together garnished with ignorance.