4 ms·

> Other people not wearing a mask makes me less safe Yes, but that's been true for a long time, even before covid. I'm betting you didn't mistrust non-mask-wea

by umvi 6y ago

> Other people not wearing a mask makes me less safe Yes, but that's been true for a long time, even before covid. I'm betting you didn't mistrust non-mask-wearers pre-covid even though I'm sure several millions have died in the US alone since early 1920s because people with the flu or other contagious diseases didn't wear a mask and went to work sick, etc. You just didn't notice because it happened at a rate that didn't overload hospitals. > If they can't even take a basic precaution during a deadly pandemic then their judgement seems dangerously impaired. Well imagine all of your news sources downplay covid and even when you get it yourself it's not as bad as the hysteria led you to believe - just some mild flulike symptoms and loss of smell and taste. You start to mistrust all of the zealots forcing you destroy the economy^, handicap an entire generation of students, destroy the mental wellbeing of many millions, in order to extend the lives of the elderly and immunocompromised by a few years. It's hard to put the blame 100% on the anti-masker. Plus, just because someone isn't wearing a mask doesn't automatically make them an anti-masker. I don't wear a mask when social distancing is possible, for example (like when going on runs). ^ Yes I know stock market is at all time high right now, but you can't just keep running an economy on printed money. If you aren't actually producing, soon all that paper you've printed will become a lot less valuable ("inflation") and the bubble will burst and you'll see what a real crisis looks like.

roywiggins 6y ago
> You start to mistrust all of the zealots forcing you destroy the economy^, handicap an entire generation of students, destroy the mental wellbeing of many millions, in order to extend the lives of the elderly and immunocompromised by a few years Wearing a mask doesn't destroy the economy or hurt students. It's the cheapest possible intervention. If wearing a mask helps, it actually sucks the wind out of the sails of people who want draconian lockdowns. People with a libertarian bent should be even more pro-masks, since it's very nearly the only thing that everyone can do in their personal lives to try stave off massive government interventions. If people can't mentally separate masks from the other interventions then that seems like a problem in itself.
- Nasrudith 6y ago
  I feel like I am taking crazy pills whenever people bring up the economy with COVID responses. The virus doesn't and cannot care about the economy or holidays, or any other irrelvancy brought up for arguments. Not to mention the obvious - sick people and people trying to avoid being sick aren't good for the economy. It is just such blatant illogic you would expect from primary schoolers and not adults with college degrees and sought after positions to use. Like declaring "but there is a picnic scheduled today!" and proceeding to go and hold a picnic in the middle of a record breaking forest fire.
  - umvi 6y ago
    > The virus doesn't and cannot care about the economy or holidays, or any other irrelevancy brought up for arguments This is an overly simplistic view. The virus doesn't care, but policy makers should care, because if you optimize too much for saving lives from the virus at the cost of everything else, you might find the cure is worse than the disease. Say you are a policymaker and a new disease emerges that will kill 1% of the population if left unchecked over time, mainly in the elderly. Also say that draconian control measures will cause suicide rate, unemployment, and mental health cases to go up 1% for every day they are in effect, mainly in young people. What's your policy? Are you going to do everything you can to save the elderly at the expense of the youth? Or are you going to make sure the youth are good at the expense of the elderly? Something else entirely? As far as I can tell in the US, we are optimizing for saving the elderly and throwing everyone else under the bus in pursuit of that goal. We can expect to see a very large increase in suicides, unemployment, and mental health issues above and beyond what we saw in 2020 (including substance abuse) in coming months if we stay the course.
ripe 6y ago
> Well imagine all of your news sources downplay covid and even when you get it yourself it's not as bad as the hysteria led you to believe - just some mild flulike symptoms and loss of smell and taste. You start to mistrust all of the zealots... If you'd rather believe Fox News than scientists who are telling you this is much worse than the flu, then while you might not be a bad person, you've earned my mistrust. You can drop your mask if you want, but you can't really blame the OP for not trusting you.
- umvi 6y ago
  > If you'd rather believe Fox News than scientists who are telling you this is much worse than the flu... Scientists say it is much worse than the flu. For the vast majority who actually experience the disease, it is not much worse than the flu. Thus, people start to mistrust the science because there's a disparity between the statistics on paper and what people actually experience in reality. I think most people understand now that covid is basically like the flu 99% of the time, and much worse than the flu for a tiny subset (and for the most part, the tiny subset can self-identify).
  - roywiggins 6y ago
    I dunno. It's worse than flu for more than 1%, about 1% die from it. A much larger proportion need to be hospitalized than from flu in a normal flu season.
    - umvi 6y ago
      Yes, you are right, it would have to be higher than 1%, but I think it would still be a minority. I searched around a bit, but it was super hard to find hard numbers. The closest I found was this[0] which seems to suggest that hospitalization rate of covid positive whites (including asians) is around 1%, but closer to 3-4% for other groups like blacks and latinos. I could be reading the charts wrong though. [0] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidview/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidvi...
  - ripe 6y ago

by umvi 6y ago

roywiggins 6y ago

> You start to mistrust all of the zealots forcing you destroy the economy^, handicap an entire generation of students, destroy the mental wellbeing of many millions, in order to extend the lives of the elderly and immunocompromised by a few years Wearing a mask doesn't destroy the economy or hurt students. It's the cheapest possible intervention. If wearing a mask helps, it actually sucks the wind out of the sails of people who want draconian lockdowns. People with a libertarian bent should be even more pro-masks, since it's very nearly the only thing that everyone can do in their personal lives to try stave off massive government interventions. If people can't mentally separate masks from the other interventions then that seems like a problem in itself.

Nasrudith 6y ago
I feel like I am taking crazy pills whenever people bring up the economy with COVID responses. The virus doesn't and cannot care about the economy or holidays, or any other irrelvancy brought up for arguments. Not to mention the obvious - sick people and people trying to avoid being sick aren't good for the economy. It is just such blatant illogic you would expect from primary schoolers and not adults with college degrees and sought after positions to use. Like declaring "but there is a picnic scheduled today!" and proceeding to go and hold a picnic in the middle of a record breaking forest fire.
- umvi 6y ago
  > The virus doesn't and cannot care about the economy or holidays, or any other irrelevancy brought up for arguments This is an overly simplistic view. The virus doesn't care, but policy makers should care, because if you optimize too much for saving lives from the virus at the cost of everything else, you might find the cure is worse than the disease. Say you are a policymaker and a new disease emerges that will kill 1% of the population if left unchecked over time, mainly in the elderly. Also say that draconian control measures will cause suicide rate, unemployment, and mental health cases to go up 1% for every day they are in effect, mainly in young people. What's your policy? Are you going to do everything you can to save the elderly at the expense of the youth? Or are you going to make sure the youth are good at the expense of the elderly? Something else entirely? As far as I can tell in the US, we are optimizing for saving the elderly and throwing everyone else under the bus in pursuit of that goal. We can expect to see a very large increase in suicides, unemployment, and mental health issues above and beyond what we saw in 2020 (including substance abuse) in coming months if we stay the course.

ripe 6y ago

> Well imagine all of your news sources downplay covid and even when you get it yourself it's not as bad as the hysteria led you to believe - just some mild flulike symptoms and loss of smell and taste. You start to mistrust all of the zealots... If you'd rather believe Fox News than scientists who are telling you this is much worse than the flu, then while you might not be a bad person, you've earned my mistrust. You can drop your mask if you want, but you can't really blame the OP for not trusting you.

umvi 6y ago
> If you'd rather believe Fox News than scientists who are telling you this is much worse than the flu... Scientists say it is much worse than the flu. For the vast majority who actually experience the disease, it is not much worse than the flu. Thus, people start to mistrust the science because there's a disparity between the statistics on paper and what people actually experience in reality. I think most people understand now that covid is basically like the flu 99% of the time, and much worse than the flu for a tiny subset (and for the most part, the tiny subset can self-identify).
- roywiggins 6y ago
  I dunno. It's worse than flu for more than 1%, about 1% die from it. A much larger proportion need to be hospitalized than from flu in a normal flu season.
  - umvi 6y ago
    Yes, you are right, it would have to be higher than 1%, but I think it would still be a minority. I searched around a bit, but it was super hard to find hard numbers. The closest I found was this[0] which seems to suggest that hospitalization rate of covid positive whites (including asians) is around 1%, but closer to 3-4% for other groups like blacks and latinos. I could be reading the charts wrong though. [0] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidview/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidvi...
- ripe 6y ago