Jean Galea

Health, Wealth, Relationships, Wisdom

Are LASIK Eye Surgeries Safe?

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I’m currently doing some research on LASIK (Laser-Assisted In Situ Keratomileusis) surgeries, and this includes related procedures too.

I’d love to know from any readers who have done such surgeries, so please leave a comment below or contact me via email. I’d really appreciate your thoughts as I am considering having this procedure done myself.

The post serves as a handy place for me to record the research I’ve done so far.

There are millions of people who have been treated over the past 25 years or so that the technique has been in use to correct myopic vision (and similar conditions).

I’ve used lenses since I was 16 and by and large, am fine wearing them. The only major discomforts are the wintertime when it’s dry and windy, as my eyes feel dry very easily in those conditions. And of course, you’re always aware that your ability to function is wholly dependent on these delicate items you have in your eyes. I’ve never had any accidents with lenses, but still, the sense of dependence on them is not great. I know that without my lenses or glasses I would not be able to perform any of my daily activities, and I don’t like that feeling. From that perspective, surgery like Lasik would indeed be life-changing, and that is what I keep reading on forums and other outlets from people who had successful outcomes.

Now that I have kids, I also have much closer contact with them (hugging, playing etc) and glasses are a major nuisance in those situations. I also feel psychologically much better without glasses, but there are situations where they don’t perform as well as having good vision, for example while working at a computer.

Types of Refractive Laser Surgery

SMILE, LASIK, LASEK, and PRK are all refractive surgical procedures that use laser technology to correct vision problems such as nearsightedness, farsightedness, and astigmatism. Here’s a brief overview of each procedure:

  1. SMILE (Small Incision Lenticule Extraction): This is a minimally invasive procedure that uses a laser to create a small lenticule, or disc of corneal tissue, which is then removed through a small incision. The remaining cornea is reshaped, improving vision.
  2. LASIK (Laser-Assisted In Situ Keratomileusis): This is the most common refractive surgical procedure. During LASIK, a laser is used to create a corneal flap, which is then lifted to allow the underlying corneal tissue to be reshaped with the laser. The corneal flap is then repositioned over the reshaped tissue.
  3. LASEK (Laser-Assisted Subepithelial Keratectomy): Similar to LASIK, LASEK involves reshaping the cornea using a laser, but instead of creating a corneal flap, the top layer of the cornea, called the epithelium, is removed and then replaced after the laser treatment.
  4. PRK (Photorefractive Keratectomy): This is an older refractive surgical procedure that involves removing the top layer of the cornea and then reshaping the underlying corneal tissue with a laser. Unlike LASIK and LASEK, PRK does not involve the creation of a corneal flap.

Each procedure has its own advantages and disadvantages, and the best choice depends on the patient’s individual needs and anatomy.

The Risks

While I’ve always heard that it is a fairly safe procedure, I also know that many optometrists and ophthalmologists don’t take undergo the surgery themselves, so I wanted to really dig a bit deeper to find out what the risks are and how many people are affected.

What I uncovered is that pretty much every country has its own associations of people who have come forward to share that they have had issues after undergoing the surgeries (see the one in Spain, or the one in the USA), some of them having quite horrific side effects, and some even being driven into depression and suicide. I feel deeply for people who have tried to improve their lives through surgery, only to bring on themselves a heap of misery. I’ve gone through similar experiences myself and I totally understand the despair and regret that can eat you from the inside in such situations.

The websites of such associations are a good place to start, however, they are not the best place to obtain a balanced opinion on the subject. Reading through such websites will inevitably leave you depressed and doubtful about the surgery. You can find such websites about many other types of surgeries, and I’ve even encountered several websites

Now I’ve seen many dubious clinics offering refractive surgeries here in Spain, and with those, you’re really asking for trouble. They usually don’t have the latest machinery and you might get operated on by someone who has only been recently trained.

Sure, they might have a special offer in place, or just be significantly cheaper than other centers, but do you really wanted to be cheap when it’s your eyesight you’re gambling?

The lack of experience comes into play in the pre-operative consultancy phase. A good surgeon will be able to identify which patients he should operate and which don’t meet the pre-requisites for LASIK and should be directed to other methods of vision correction, or even dissuaded from doing any surgery. Unfortunately, some don’t have the experience needed to make these judgment calls, while others are just happy to operate on even those that are obvious 50/50 cases if it means pocketing a few more thousand euros.

So far, from my research, it definitely seems like this is a surgery that has risks, like any other surgery. These risks are compounded by the fact that the eyes are some of the most sensitive parts of the body, and are deemed absolutely essential to one’s quality of life.

I find it very believable when patients say that they have not been given full information before undergoing procedures. I’ve been to many doctors in my life and had my fair share of serious surgeries, and it’s a rare case when you find a doctor that really walks you through what they will actually to do to you, why, and also go through the possible side effects. The latter is the point most doctors ignore, in my opinion. Regulation is not always a good thing.

Yes, we can add more pages to a form explaining all the potential risks, but whenever I tried to read those consent forms, I always felt that things were overboard to the point that you just sign and hope for the best. That’s what happens when more emphasis is given to the legal side of things than common sense. The EU cookie policy comes to mind, as well as the terms and conditions of companies like Google and Facebook.

According to a 2009 study that the FDA conducted to understand the potential risks of severe problems that can result from LASIK, up to 46% of patients reported at least one visual symptom (like glare or blurred vision) at three months post-surgery. Up to 28% of patients reported dry eye symptoms, and less than 1% experienced “a lot of difficulty” with or inability to do usual activities because of side effects from their surgery.

There’s also a risk of infection after laser eye surgery. One recent study shows that this risk is somewhere between 1 in 15,000 and 1 in 30,000. The risk of infection from contact lenses, by comparison, is about 1 in 400. About 2% of people who undergo these procedures may require a second procedure.

On the other hand, according to the American Academy of Ophthalmology, 90% of LASIK patients see their vision improve to somewhere between 20/20 and 20/40.

The most vocal anti-LASIK doctor worldwide is Morris Waxler, although he ends up jeopardising his position through obvious conflict of interest, given that he runs a clinic aimed squarely at helping those who claim to have been injured by LASIK procedures. His claim to fame is that he was on the FDA committee that approved the procedure in 1996, and is now calling for it to be banned.
At the end of the day, like many other things in life, it’s a question of risk. If you’re happy wearing glasses and lenses, and have a small amount of myopia, I see no reason to risk it.

On the other hand, if your level of myopia is such that you are 100% dependent on having a pair of glasses around or using lenses, plus you have a problem wearing either of those and the condition is affecting your enjoyment of life (sport can be a pain with lenses or glasses, for example), then you are more than justified in seeking a solution like LASIK.

Lasik is generally a safe procedure, but like any surgery, there are some risks involved, including:

  1. Dry eyes: temporary or long-lasting dryness of the eyes, which can cause discomfort and visual problems.
  2. Glare, halos, and double vision: these visual symptoms can occur after lasik and affect nighttime vision.
  3. Corneal ectasia: this is a rare but serious condition in which the cornea bulges out and becomes thin after lasik.
  4. Regression: this occurs when the eye resumes its original shape, causing a loss of visual acuity and a need for additional surgical intervention.
  5. Starbursts around lights: this is a visual symptom in which lights appear as starbursts and can be caused by the laser reshaping of the cornea.
  6. Over or under correction: the laser may not remove enough or too much corneal tissue, leading to a need for additional surgical procedures.
  7. Flap complications: the corneal flap created during lasik can become dislodged, displaced or wrinkled, causing vision problems.

Researching Clinics

If you’re in Barcelona, the top expert seems to be Dr. Jose Luis Guell, who is a co-founder of IMO, one of the best eye clinics in Barcelona.

The best clinics in Barcelona seem to be:

  • IMO
  • Quiron
  • Clinica Baviera

In Malta, the best clinic is St James.

I’ve been to one of the more well-known clinics (not IMO) in Barcelona for a study that would determine whether I would be a candidate for Lasik or other similar surgeries. The equipment and clinic were top notch and I was treated very well, however, I got a distinct impression that this was a mass-production system, and I only got a few minutes with the doctor at the end of my two-hour session, where all he said was that I am a good candidate and there would be no problems.

This was followed by a lengthier session with the customer care lady who did the sales talk and assured me how safe it was, how life-changing, etc. I found this last part of the study to be the one that really put me off. I don’t want to discuss anything with a customer care person, I want the doctor to fully explain the risks and evaluate with me whether this is the right choice for my lifestyle and even current life conditions. I’d be ready to pay as much as needed for the doctor’s time, but sadly the whole system seems to be set up to very efficiently pass through a number of patients through the process every day with no further thought to it.

A friend of mine did the same study at another of the top clinics and came out with exactly the same impression.

My questions

  • What technique is best suitable for me and why? What about the newer Smile technique vs Lasik?
  • I have a big fear/reflex of anyone holding my eyes open and putting drops in, will this be a problem?
  • Is there any test to determine whether I have dry eyes and whether this could be an issue that would make me not a good candidate for the operation?
  • Which are the best machines for LASIK and does the center have them?
  • What side effects or potential complications should I be wary of and when should I be worried about them?
  • Will the treatment last forever?

Additional Reading

The Best Alternatives to Watching Netflix

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Many people, including myself, like to unwind in the evenings by watching something or even reading.

A lot of these people default to streaming services such as Netflix, and for a while, I also did the same. However, I realized that is not the best use of my time, so I did some research and thinking and came up with these alternatives, which I now use depending on my mood on the day.

  1. Reading – this is the ideal thing to do since it doesn’t mess with your sleep and is the best bang for your buck. Reading good books has been the biggest factor on my success in life, so it is very important for me to be constantly reading several books.
  2. Take an online course – you can use Linkedin Learning, Saylor Academy, Udemy or Coursera. There are other platforms available either for free or at very low prices. I also use Wondrium a lot. Brilliant is another top choice.
  3. Watch documentaries – many documentaries are available for free on YouTube. You can use TopDocumentaryFilms or OpenCulture. Alternatively, there are premium services such as Curiositystream that will give you access to hundreds of documentaries for a cheap price per year. Nebula gives you access to top documentary channels on YouTube without the ads and sometimes featuring extra content. It’s worth it just to escape from YouTube’s suggestion engine alone.
  4. Watch sports – I personally like to watch padel matches, which are thankfully streamed and available on-demand for free on YouTube. I play padel so it’s always nice to see the pros perform and learn a thing or two. At other times I just watch padel tutorial videos by some of the best coaches, and that also helps my game. This is more fun than work, let’s be clear, but I see no harm in it as long as I’m not watching sports every day. For example, I quit my addiction to football a long time and no longer feel compelled to watch my favorite team play. Every now and then I watch the highlights and that’s it.

Netflix remains a great service and I’m even an investor in the company, but I wouldn’t suggest defaulting to it when you feel like watching something on TV or chilling out in the evening. Better to go and have a nice dinner and chat with a friend, read, take a course, or practice any kind of hobby (I like building Lego kits, for example, and find it highly relaxing).

Are Acquisitions in the WordPress Space a Good or Bad Thing?

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This is an article that reflects on the high number of acquisitions we’ve seen happen in the past few years (2018-2021) within the WordPress space. There are basically a handful of companies behind all the big acquisitions, so there is no doubt that the product space is becoming more centralized, and these big companies now wield enormous power.

This article is an adaptation from a comment I left on the article on the WP Mayor blog entitled Is There a Future for Small WordPress Businesses?. Check that out as well.

Having moved out of WordPress myself (aside from being a normal user, running my own blogs on it) a few years ago, I can empathize with Pippin’s reasons for selling. It’s never easy to let go of a successful business, even if there is good money to be made in selling it, and I’m really happy for him. I remember when Pippin was just starting out in WordPress, and he’s been a massive positive influence on WordPress over many years, putting a lot of energy into not only building his products but also educating thousands through his articles on development and later his insights on running a WordPress business. He deserved every bit of success while running his businesses and the handsome payout one gets when selling a company of this scale.

I happened to write some of my thoughts on WordPress last year, so check out that article for my opinions, which remain relevant today.

While the streak of acquisitions we’ve been seeing in the WordPress space are to be expected, they are also a sign that the space has changed a lot over the almost two decades since WordPress’ inception. Particularly the last 5-10 years have seen accelerated growth. Leaving aside any emotional reactions one might have, I think it’s important for everyone involved with WordPress to be clear on what WordPress is nowadays and where it stands in the grand scheme of things.

For that, we need to start with an understanding of the web’s history and where WordPress fits in. WordPress caught the wave of the transition between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0.

Web 1.0 refers to the read-only, static, version of the internet, where there were relatively few sources of information and there were high barriers to publishing your own content and obtaining visibility. The web in those days was just an extension of traditional one-way media like TV and radio.

Web 2.0 changed everything, and it became known as the read-write web, meaning that now we could interact with things on the web and more importantly publish our own content. That’s where WordPress and other similar open-source projects came in. WordPress eventually came to dominate the open-source blogging and CMS market.

At that point in time, it was very cool to have your own website or blog, and people were relishing the prospect of being able to share their thoughts online. The revolution was huge, and we saw a big shift in information decentralization, moving from the big-money media to independent small publishers and individual bloggers. Knowing HTML and CSS as well as your way around domains and hosting was a badge of honor, this stuff was very cool back then.

Over the years, however, many of the ideals that WordPress and Web 2.0 stood for were lost by the wayside. Users started preferring the ease-of-use of centralized platforms like Facebook and Instagram, and web blogging itself went into a decline. Of course, WordPress moved beyond being just a blogging platform, and the addition of e-commerce capabilities made it a very nice all-rounder tool. However, it also lost its way for a few years (more on that in my blog post) before the big push for Gutenberg in a last-ditch attempt to stay relevant in the publishing space when faced with formidably polished publishing interfaces by Squarespace, Wix and other hosted platforms. Only time will tell whether this move was even successful, as the Gutenberg plugin is literally one of the most hated plugins I’ve ever seen, with an overwhelming number of 1-star reviews in the WP repository as of today.

In any case, I think that WordPress is by no means the web darling it once was. The spate of acquisitions we see happening definitely increase centralization and move away from one of the core ideals that the early WordPress community espoused – that of decentralization and power to the small guy. Let’s remember that WordPress enabled thousands of young web enthusiasts from all over the world to make a living online and even start their own web businesses selling themes, plugins or related services. In those early WordPress years, it was one of the only avenues for geographically or financially disadvantaged people to get out of the rut they were in. It was definitely a lifesaver for me and I will forever be grateful to WordPress as an open-source project and the wonderful people I met in this community.

Now, the big deal is that we are moving towards Web 3.0. It’s already happening, driven mainly by the invention of Bitcoin, which paved the way to more expansive blockchains like Ethereum that enable smart contracts, decentralized finance and even governance structures through DAOs.

In many ways, I feel the same about crypto and Web 3.0 as I did when WordPress and the shift to Web 2.0 happened. The focus is again on the principles of decentralization, permissionless access, censorship resistance, as well as the new ideas of monetization and privacy.

For the technically-inclined, here’s a nice overview of Web 3.0 architecture. If you haven’t yet dabbled with Web 3.0 apps and want to know more, it’s a great read. It requires quite a paradigm shift and from a development standpoint, I feel that it’s a bigger leap to make compared to the one we made from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 and I don’t think many people in WordPress are taking notice. WordPress is a tool built by and for millennials, but the new generations are used to different ways of publishing online. Within the WordPress space, meanwhile, we just obsess about the market share that magically grows year after year, but I don’t think that metric is that relevant anymore. WordPress is no longer a sexy and revolutionary tool as it once was, and that’s the more important fact to keep in mind.

Zooming back into the WordPress space, I do believe that these acquisitions are not great news for product owners in general. In this particular case, there are the specific hazards that Carl Hancock and Mark mention. This is one reason why I feel that the WordPress space has grown a lot but at the same time remained very immature in certain areas. The lack of an official plugin store (app store) has driven almost all premium plugin developers to use either EDD or Freemius. These two businesses in turn become excellent acquisition targets, and if you’re worried about the EDD acquisition, wait till Freemius gets acquired. The latter is a hosted service, so they hold all the important data and metrics on their end, and they’d be visible to any company that acquires them. The founders of Freemius are friends of mine, and again, they provided a sorely needed product in the WordPress space, and worked extremely hard at making it a success, but this big danger remains in the case of an eventual acquisition, which in my opinion is only a question of time.

Now, whether you like it or not, the future of WordPress involves many more acquisitions and centralization. With the big players getting bigger, it is undoubtedly harder for the traditional single web enthusiast or developer to develop a product that generates meaningful income. This is not something new, however, it’s already been the case for several years. There will be success stories, but they will be fewer and further between.

The first decision you need to take, in my opinion, is whether you want to be in the WordPress space at all. As I mentioned, personally I find Web 3.0 much closer to my ideals and so I’m devoting my time there. You could also be building apps for Shopify or other platforms, or building a SAAS. I don’t see any special advantages in building a WordPress business over some of the alternatives I mention. It used to feature a lower barrier of entry technically and financially speaking, but I don’t think this is the case anymore.

If you still love WordPress and feel strongly that you want to build products for WP, then perhaps it’s time to focus more on building businesses that are “built to sell”, as Pippin himself mentioned in his announcement post. You might want to think twice about building a competitor to EDD, Yoast SEO, AffiliateWP, and other major plugins, because it’s extremely hard for you to compete. Instead, you might want to focus on businesses that the big companies in the space will find interesting as an acquisition target. That will provide you with a potential big payday as well as a very probably job with a successful company should you accept that proposition.

I hope this was helpful, as always I like to be honest about things with no bad intentions. I am really curious to see what’s in store for WordPress in the years to come, and as a user I hope it remains a major player as a publishing tool, not only in the much-touted market share, but in actual functionality and ease-of-use. Who knows, maybe WordPress also somehow crosses over to Web 3.0 as well.

Making Money in the Second Wave

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Over the years I’ve come to realize that my best investments happen during the second wave of the product or industry lifecycle.

The idea is loosely based on the Gartner Hype Cycle curve, the No products found. concept, the Hero’s Journey and the theory of Diffusion of Innovations. Let’s take an abbreviated at these models that have inspired my strategy.

This style of investing is also driven by the fact that by nature I love being somewhat of a contrarian, and am quite unlikely to invest in something when it’s in hype mode and everybody is getting in on it.

Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference. — Robert Frost

So let’s take a closer look at the concepts and models that have (mostly at a subconscious level – I rarely feel I’m being very methodical with my strategies) been framing my investment decisions over the past few years.

Gartner Hype Cycle

The Gartner Hype Cycle aims to visualize the typical path that most new technologies go true until they reach mass adoption.

In the Gartner Hype Cycle, we find 5 main stages for a new technology:

  1. Emergence: “The Technology Trigger”
  2. Excessive enthusiasm: “The Peak of Inflated Expectations”
  3. Excessive disappointment: “The Trough of Disillusionment”
  4. Gradual adoption: “The Slope of Enlightenment”
  5. Mainstream adoption: “The Plateau of Productivity”

I’m most interested in the 3rd and 4th phases. Let’s see how they’re defined by Gartner:

  • Trough of Disillusionment: Interest wanes as experiments and implementations fail to deliver. Producers of the technology shake out or fail. Investments continue only if the surviving providers improve their products to the satisfaction of early adopters.
  • Slope of Enlightenment: More instances of how the technology can benefit the enterprise start to crystallize and become more widely understood. Second- and third-generation products appear from technology providers. More enterprises fund pilots; conservative companies remain cautious.

Now let’s take Bitcoin as an example. Perhaps it is a bad example as the whole cycle has not yet played out, but it’s the best example I have right now. After the 2017-2018 peak that crypto went through, there was a bit drop in both asset prices as well as media coverage and public opinion. Clearly we hit the “trough of disillusionment” at that point. In the meantime, nothing changed for the builders in the Bitcoin space, and that was an amazing time to get interested in the technology and educate yourself as well as get invested.

Investing in Amazon after the dot com bubble is another example of second-wave investing in the trough of disillusionment.

Hero’s Journey

This monomyth is not typically used in relation to new technology lifecycles, however, I think it also fits in quite well, especially as I consider my own personal journey with new technologies.

Humans react to great story-telling because we are programmed to respond to an elemental story arc. The Book of Jonah, The Odyssey, Rocky or Star Wars: the details don’t matter because although the contexts are different, the story is the same. They appeal to the masses because of our deep desire to progress from the mundane, fight through challenges and then achieve a great victory.

Taking Bitcoin again as my example, it started its “call to adventure” as a result of the financial crisis of 2007-2008. It then went through its own challenges and temptations, with the scaling wars that lasted a couple of years, as well as the Abyss of 2020 (huge drop in price) and the rebirth and fast adoption by both public corporations, institutional funds and even countries.

The Chasm

The “crossing the chasm” model is based on the theory of diffusion of innovations. This is a theory that seeks to explain how, why, and at what rate new ideas and technology spread. It was Everett Rogers, a professor of communication studies, who popularized the theory in his book “Diffusion of Innovations”. He argues that diffusion is the process by which an innovation is communicated over time among the participants in a social system.

In most product adoption curves, there’s a point that can make or break the success of the product. It’s called the chasm. It’s the point between the early adopter stage and the early majority stage.

As the chart above represents, crossing the chasm means breaking into the mainstream market.

Again, with Bitcoin, I believe that as of 2023 we are just beyond the chasm, or possibly on the way to crossing it the final part of it. I’ve long held the belief that in order for Bitcoin to be successful, it would need to be properly regulated and also adopted by big institutions and possibly even countries.

Over the past few years, we’ve simultaneously seen governments and regulators all around the world take strong and detailed positions on the crypto space, as well as huge investments by public companies and even countries (El Salvador is the first).

Having looked at those models and theories, I will come back to my simplified way of describing when I’m most likely to be interested in investing in a product or technology.

Let’s take a look at the first wave first and why I’m rarely that early.

The First Wave

In the very early stages the stakeholders and investors tend to be a mix of the following:

  • builders of the technology
  • rich people with money to burn on new things (e.g. venture capital and angels)
  • those who happen to be in the right place at the right time, or have friends deeply immersed in the technology

If you don’t possess one or more of those characteristics it is very hard to get in on something very early. Chances are you won’t even know the product or niche exists until the first wave has already passed. If you do happen to catch an early glimpse at the new technology, I feel that it will be an extremely time-intensive process to decide whether to invest at that stage, and even then, it would be a very risky investment.

Therefore, at the first stage, the risk-reward-work ratio is not worthwhile for me. To take an example with the internet, this first wave would be the 90s decade. Typical big risks, even though the technology would be wonderful, include:

  • not gathering enough traction, or being too early to market
  • regulation risks
  • scams
  • ridiculous valuations

Many products never make it beyond the first wave and there is a very real risk of your investment going to zero. Think ICOs in 2017, and Kozmo.com, Garden.com, Pets.com, Flooz.com, Webvan.com during the Dot Com boom and bust years.

Typically, during the first wave, a subset of people become immensely rich in very short periods, and they make the

The Second Wave

Almost every new product or technology that gathers enough traction to become well-known then experiences a period of hype, and it is usually during this period (typically earlier rather than later since I read a lot) that my interest is piqued. However, rather than rushing in to invest along with the rest, I tend to go deep and isolate myself from the news and hype to truly understand the tech, the main players and ideas behind the technology.

By the time I have developed a decent understanding, the hype is usually gone, prices have plummeted and the technology is bordering scam or trash status in popular opinion. On the other hand, because I would have invested a lot of time into the subject, provided that I was convinced about the future of the technology, I would be pretty bullish myself.

That means that when there is the next growth phase (growth is much slower and almost imperceptible at first), I am able to go all in and take a sizeable position that looks like madness to most others who didn’t do their homework properly.

While some technologies or products fit this idea perfectly, others share similar properties but are not that easy to explain. For example, I feel that I entered the WordPress space back in 2006 at an excellent time. Rather than the product itself having been through an early hype cycle, however, it was the overall theme of self-publishing, blogs and website creation that had gone through it.

WordPress was the phoenix that emerged from the flames produced by the downfall of highly centralized products like Movable Type and the closed-source CMS solutions of the time. I had been creating websites and blogging for a few years already and I remember there being a peak of excitement about the “power to the people” idea of giving a voice to anyone to create a space online and publish their thoughts, closely followed by a deep sense of frustration with the expensive or inadequate tools available at the time.

When WordPress came along it ticked all the boxes for me and I immediately left everything I was doing at the time to focus on building things within that space, which proved to be a winning move over time.

What’s your take on the above? Let me know in the comments section below.

Notes about the Pandemic and the Future

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Much has been written about the pandemic and I don’t want to litter the web further with my own opinions.

Clearly, the rise and spread of the virus have been a terrible blow for humanity. There have been some who profited wildly from the changes, but overall we are undoubtedly worse off from the effects of COVID.

On the other hand, the pandemic has made things that were somewhat clear and made them blatantly so, while also accelerating trends that had been building up for many years in the background.

We Are Being Brainwashed and Manipulated

The one thing that definitely stands out to me is the fact that governments and media companies have extreme power of manipulation, and the vast majority of the population acts with a herd mentality, blindly following others and their own governments’ mandates. To think independently and critically is almost demonized.

The rise of pandemic lockdowns will go down in history as one of the worst examples of global oppression caused by states to their own citizens. Never before have the day-to-day lives of so much of humanity been so radically upended. And, outside of wartime, never before has there been such a widespread and extreme rollback of human freedom.

The extreme fear instilled by governments is shameful. Sadly, the majority of citizens went into full panic mode instead of doing some thinking first, but I’ve learned that this is typical human behavior.

The fact that Twitter parody accounts sometimes make you wonder if they are actually being serious is proof enough of how idiotic behavior has become.

There are hundreds of such examples. For example, it’s beyond me why anyone would think a mask is of any use when walking alone in the countryside, or even while driving in a closed car.

I grew up with an inherent disdain for imposed authorities of all forms. Perhaps it was due to the way my parents brought me up, the fact that I was an avid reader from an early age, or the reality that I never quite fit in within school and felt misunderstood and coerced into behaving the way the authorities wanted me to behave, even though deep down I knew it wasn’t the best thing for me.

As an adult, I learned more about how the world really works and refined my thinkings and beliefs, and I understood what level of brainwashing takes place on a daily basis through political party propaganda, religions, and company advertising, and how effective they are at manipulating our behavior.

However, never before 2020 has it been clearer to me who is on each side of the fence. This alone is a brilliant silver lining to this whole shitshow that has been the COVID pandemic so far.

Here are some partial notes for me, my family, and anyone else on the same wavelength to keep in mind going forward. This is by no means an exhaustive list of conclusions, and I might come back to this post and flesh it out further in the coming months.

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Jean Galea

Investor | Dad | Global Citizen | Athlete