6 ms·

One example I could give right now is the US where mask-wearing has become a partisan issue. You don't need a deepfake video of some scientists claiming masks

One example I could give right now is the US where mask-wearing has become a partisan issue. You don't need a deepfake video of some scientists claiming masks are useless/evil/deadly. You just need to label masks as some kind of "liberal" hoax and half the country now hates mask-wearing. If that's all it takes to influence the population why are deepfakes a large concern?

mc32 6y ago
Foreword: I believe masks help. It doesn’t help that leading Health organizations have changed their point of view over time. It also doesn’t help that mask manufacturers place a disclaimer regarding effectiveness of the masks. That and very few people wear them right —which decreases their effectiveness such that they might as well be a good luck charm. Hygiene, distancing, minimizing contact time as well as wearing a mask and goggles help. But a mask by itself is of limited effectiveness though not useless.
- clairity 6y ago
  masks also give people who suspect they are sick, but are not sure, a license to go out in public, potentially spreading infection. instead, let's have assurance of basic care and necessities (pandemic welfare) for anyone even suspected of being sick or with elevated risk, and those folks would happily stay home. masks are a good backup to appropriate distancing, but not a good primary or always-on mitigation, because of their many failure modes, not the least of which is the enormous variety of human behavior.
  - vkou 6y ago
    No, they don't. More specifically, people who need to go out in public, because they need to: 1. Work for a living, and don't get sick days. 2. Can't get/afford <whatever it is they need delivered to them>. 3. Think COVID is a hoax. 4. Don't give a shit. Are going to do that, regardless of whether or not they have masks. The only people changing their behaviour because masks exist are employers, who think it is safe to sardine-can people in their workspaces, because everyone's wearing masks. (Never mind that so many people are wearing them incorrectly...)
    - clairity 6y ago
      > "(Never mind that so many people are wearing them incorrectly...)" at least we agree on one thing! i'm not nearly as cynical (or certain) about other people's motivations/behavior however.
- stouset 6y ago
  Changing your point of view over time as new data becomes available is the hallmark of integrity. Anyone who claims a position which doesn’t change at all as we learn more and more about a novel challenge should be viewed with less credibility, not more.
  - dx87 6y ago
    It doesn't sound like they changed their mind based on new data. In June, Fauci said that they knew masks would help, but deliberately downplayed their usefulness because they anticipated a shortage for medical workers. Telling people "Yeah, we were lying before, sorry, but you can totally trust us now" isn't integrity. https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/502890-fauci-why-the-public-wasnt-told-to-wear-masks https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-c...
    - stouset 6y ago
      You're making this out as if this was a simplistic decision where everyone in the medical community agreed that masks were beneficial but agreed not to tell anyone because of limited supply and that's simply not the case. In other interviews, Fauci clearly discusses how the community perspective changed as we saw greater asymptomatic spread: > When it became clear that we could get the infection could be spread by asymptomatic carriers who don't know they're infected, that made it very clear that we had to strongly recommend masks. > > And also, it soon became clear that we had enough protective equipment and that cloth masks and homemade masks were as good as masks that you would buy from surgical supply stores," Fauci added. "So in the context of when we were not strongly recommending it, it was the correct thing. So yes, while some hesitancy was due to (extremely legitimate) worries about exacerbating shortages of PPE, the other half is that they legitimately didn't think that mask-wearing would help the average person when the expectation was that symptomatic people would stay home and prevent the spread. As that turned out not to be reflective of how this virus spreads, the recommendations changed. Policy choices like these are almost never made for single, simplistic reasons. Even just these two points (effectiveness, limited supply) are almost certainly less than what they were considering. But when it became clear that both effectiveness was higher than expected and supply issues were resolved by the widespread use of simple cloth masks, those factors combined strongly shifted the balance toward pushing their use.
thu2111 6y ago
You could of course describe it the other way around. The population starts out hating mask wearing - don't see many people volunteering for that in America before 2020. And then it was labelled as "caring" and "protecting others" and despite vast piles of evidence indicating it achieves nothing, half the country is immediately influenced into hating non-mask-wearing.
- stouset 6y ago
  I think you misspoke. Masks have a clear, demonstrable, and scientifically-validated benefit. Not for the wearer, but for those who come in contact with the wearer.
  - dionian 6y ago
    I'm pro-mask personally... but the experts told us not to worry about masks as early as 3 months ago. I was pro-mask back then too. My point is, "the science" is not always so clear. https://www.clickondetroit.com/health/2020/07/03/us-surgeon-general-explains-why-hes-dramatically-changed-his-position-on-wearing-masks/ https://www.clickondetroit.com/health/2020/07/03/us-surgeon-...
    - stouset 6y ago
      And the reason for that is a something they've owned up to and apologized for. 3 months ago was ages given the recency of this catastrophe. And what we learned is that while masks don't help the wearer, they do help everyone around the wearer. Most of the medical profession wasn't operating from the current understanding we have about symptomless spread. As that became a dramatically more clear concern here, the scientific establishment quickly pivoted to pushing mask-wearking hard. Isn't that exactly the kind of behavior you'd like to see?
      - chrisco255 6y ago
        Do you have the data on asymptomatic transmission? Because I've seen conflicting reports on that.
rsynnott 6y ago
That worked in the US, but the US is... having a bit of a moment right now. Most democratic countries just don't have a single figure who can do no wrong in the eyes of half (well, 40%, really) of the country; if nothing else, they're not executive presidencies. And even in the US this wasn't historically normal.

mc32 6y ago

Foreword: I believe masks help. It doesn’t help that leading Health organizations have changed their point of view over time. It also doesn’t help that mask manufacturers place a disclaimer regarding effectiveness of the masks. That and very few people wear them right —which decreases their effectiveness such that they might as well be a good luck charm. Hygiene, distancing, minimizing contact time as well as wearing a mask and goggles help. But a mask by itself is of limited effectiveness though not useless.

clairity 6y ago
masks also give people who suspect they are sick, but are not sure, a license to go out in public, potentially spreading infection. instead, let's have assurance of basic care and necessities (pandemic welfare) for anyone even suspected of being sick or with elevated risk, and those folks would happily stay home. masks are a good backup to appropriate distancing, but not a good primary or always-on mitigation, because of their many failure modes, not the least of which is the enormous variety of human behavior.
- vkou 6y ago
  No, they don't. More specifically, people who need to go out in public, because they need to: 1. Work for a living, and don't get sick days. 2. Can't get/afford <whatever it is they need delivered to them>. 3. Think COVID is a hoax. 4. Don't give a shit. Are going to do that, regardless of whether or not they have masks. The only people changing their behaviour because masks exist are employers, who think it is safe to sardine-can people in their workspaces, because everyone's wearing masks. (Never mind that so many people are wearing them incorrectly...)
  - clairity 6y ago
    > "(Never mind that so many people are wearing them incorrectly...)" at least we agree on one thing! i'm not nearly as cynical (or certain) about other people's motivations/behavior however.
stouset 6y ago
Changing your point of view over time as new data becomes available is the hallmark of integrity. Anyone who claims a position which doesn’t change at all as we learn more and more about a novel challenge should be viewed with less credibility, not more.
- dx87 6y ago
  It doesn't sound like they changed their mind based on new data. In June, Fauci said that they knew masks would help, but deliberately downplayed their usefulness because they anticipated a shortage for medical workers. Telling people "Yeah, we were lying before, sorry, but you can totally trust us now" isn't integrity. https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/502890-fauci-why-the-public-wasnt-told-to-wear-masks https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-c...
  - stouset 6y ago
    You're making this out as if this was a simplistic decision where everyone in the medical community agreed that masks were beneficial but agreed not to tell anyone because of limited supply and that's simply not the case. In other interviews, Fauci clearly discusses how the community perspective changed as we saw greater asymptomatic spread: > When it became clear that we could get the infection could be spread by asymptomatic carriers who don't know they're infected, that made it very clear that we had to strongly recommend masks. > > And also, it soon became clear that we had enough protective equipment and that cloth masks and homemade masks were as good as masks that you would buy from surgical supply stores," Fauci added. "So in the context of when we were not strongly recommending it, it was the correct thing. So yes, while some hesitancy was due to (extremely legitimate) worries about exacerbating shortages of PPE, the other half is that they legitimately didn't think that mask-wearing would help the average person when the expectation was that symptomatic people would stay home and prevent the spread. As that turned out not to be reflective of how this virus spreads, the recommendations changed. Policy choices like these are almost never made for single, simplistic reasons. Even just these two points (effectiveness, limited supply) are almost certainly less than what they were considering. But when it became clear that both effectiveness was higher than expected and supply issues were resolved by the widespread use of simple cloth masks, those factors combined strongly shifted the balance toward pushing their use.

thu2111 6y ago

You could of course describe it the other way around. The population starts out hating mask wearing - don't see many people volunteering for that in America before 2020. And then it was labelled as "caring" and "protecting others" and despite vast piles of evidence indicating it achieves nothing, half the country is immediately influenced into hating non-mask-wearing.

stouset 6y ago
I think you misspoke. Masks have a clear, demonstrable, and scientifically-validated benefit. Not for the wearer, but for those who come in contact with the wearer.
- dionian 6y ago
  I'm pro-mask personally... but the experts told us not to worry about masks as early as 3 months ago. I was pro-mask back then too. My point is, "the science" is not always so clear. https://www.clickondetroit.com/health/2020/07/03/us-surgeon-general-explains-why-hes-dramatically-changed-his-position-on-wearing-masks/ https://www.clickondetroit.com/health/2020/07/03/us-surgeon-...
  - stouset 6y ago
    And the reason for that is a something they've owned up to and apologized for. 3 months ago was ages given the recency of this catastrophe. And what we learned is that while masks don't help the wearer, they do help everyone around the wearer. Most of the medical profession wasn't operating from the current understanding we have about symptomless spread. As that became a dramatically more clear concern here, the scientific establishment quickly pivoted to pushing mask-wearking hard. Isn't that exactly the kind of behavior you'd like to see?
    - chrisco255 6y ago
      Do you have the data on asymptomatic transmission? Because I've seen conflicting reports on that.

rsynnott 6y ago

That worked in the US, but the US is... having a bit of a moment right now. Most democratic countries just don't have a single figure who can do no wrong in the eyes of half (well, 40%, really) of the country; if nothing else, they're not executive presidencies. And even in the US this wasn't historically normal.