This World Was Doomed From the Start
Interesting post yesterday. u/SwornThane posits that the antiparahuman movement could have been avoided if the parahuman authorities (ie. the Wardens) had revealed the truth about Gold Morning, Scion, Endbringers, S-class threats, etc. He suggests that the parahuman decision to withhold information is justified entirely by a selfish desire to avoid "short term problems this would cause", and that because of this secrecy, antiparahuman sentiments and concerns have "metastasized into a full blown disaster/insurgency [over] the last few months at the worst possible times." The specific antiparahuman complains which he cites are as follows:
I want to analyze these claims because I think it's key that we get a better understanding of why the antiparahumans are acting the way they are, not just because it's integral to our understanding of the story, but also because (as was outlined by several commenters on the thread) it is integral to our understanding of antiauthoritarian movements around the world. To do, I'm going to break this up into several questions.
Is it selfish?
Was it avoidable?
In all Dinah's possible futures, was there ever a world in which the issues cited by the antiparahumans did not come to pass? For this, I think we need to analyze each complain by itself.
Little to no representation or a say in how things are run
Little to no power over their daily lives
This is like blaming shelter volunteers for limiting your options in the aftermath of a hurricane. The metropolis is still just a big post-crisis catchment area, struggling to get civilization back on its feet, and the parahumans happen to be the people who had the power to step in as volunteers to right the ship. What seems to have been missed is that the crisis isn't over yet, and you still need these 'emergency powers' at hand to deal with the evolving situation and keep getting things back on track. If the humans feel powerless it's because, in the grand scheme of things, and through no fault of their own, they are.
Too much power in the hands of parahumans
Parahumans being first class citizens with perks and benefits for literally doing nothing
Soft balling of Parahumans compared to non powered people
Absolutely no information about the end of the world or what the Wardens are fighting
No communication between non powered people and the wardens regarding city wide discussions or priorities
Lack of accountability from parahumans, and the neutering of non powered organizations such as the police
A truce and golden ticket for every parahuman regardless of their crimes against people
I think this one was inevitable. To overcome the initial threat (Scion) required drastic measures, including the involvement of many parahumans who did not deserve a second chance. Since an unstopped Scion would have destroyed everyone and everything, I can imagine that everyone, human and parahuman alike, would not be able to argue that this was not a necessary sacrifice. It was quite literally do-or-die, and even if the solution was ultimately something else, that could not have been known at the time. Afterwards, there was no infrastructure in place to reimprison or control all of these criminals. Better to put a positive spin on a bad situation than try to crack down on these criminals and immediately get a backlash you are in no position to respond to. It should be noted that this positive spin actually had some good results - Fume Hood, for example. Then, later, once the infrastructure might have been established, the resources to track down and reimprison all of these criminals while simultaneously handling new existential threats did not exist. The blank slates were an inevitable result of an unfortunate situation.
Gary Nieves
To summarize, those entities really did a number on humanity. Sure, powers are cool, but when they come with so much BOOM that they inevitably crush an entire civilization under their strain... yikes.