3 ms·

I don't see any "belittling" comments here, except perhaps yours. People enjoy talking about the stuff they read. Discussion is part of how one learns. If you

by scribu 6y ago

I don't see any "belittling" comments here, except perhaps yours. People enjoy talking about the stuff they read. Discussion is part of how one learns. If you don't find value in reading non-expert commentary, then don't read it.

GavinMcG 6y ago
> The real reason must be... > When something makes little sense it's probably based in religion. > Maybe nobody thought of it so far. Plus a good handful of comments that don't acknowledge the countervailing evidence in the Wikipedia article much less evidencing any familiarity with the broader literature. Not gonna quibble about whether "belittling" is the right word, but there's certainly some casual hubris in some of these threads. Bigger picture: it isn't about enjoying amateur commentary or not. There's arguably been a rise, with the democratization of information access, of poorly-grounded self-confidence about understanding every topic one encounters. This attitude, for example, rejects mask-wearing on the grounds that the virus is too small to be caught by the mask (ignoring that the virus is carried in larger droplets/particles). An intelligent person armed with a factoid sometimes needs a reminder like the comment you replied to.
- clairity 6y ago
  > "...poorly-grounded self-confidence about understanding every topic one encounters. This attitude, for example, rejects mask-wearing on the grounds that the virus is too small to be caught by the mask..." deliciously ironic, considering your continued focus on exactly the wrong thing when it comes to mask effectiveness and policy. you're looking at the base of a tree and trying to draw conclusions about the forest by assuming frictionless cylindrical planes.
  - GavinMcG 6y ago
    I didn't say anything about mask-wearing itself - just offering an example of naive but faulty reasoning. You're looking for a fight that I'm not interested in having.
    - clairity 6y ago
      then there's plenty of ways to phrase what you said without insinuation and hubris. or perhaps use a less-fraught example.
  - nate_meurer 6y ago
    > your continued focus on exactly the wrong thing when it comes to mask effectiveness and policy. What is the right focus? Is this a running discussion between you two?
    - GavinMcG 6y ago
      No; as far as I can tell, they're just trolling.
      - nate_meurer 6y ago
        I've developed an obsessive fascination with the social and political aspects of masks. I think very little of our masking behavior is related to actual scientific evidence, on either side of the debate. Many people feel like wearing a mask and cleaning surfaces obsessively is the obvious response to a disease of any sort, even though the evidence overwhelmingly says that COVID is not effectively spread on surfaces, or outside of confined spaces with people sharing breathing air for extended periods of time. On the other side there are people who associate masks with the political left, and would be so humiliated to appear cowed by "liberal" authority figures, that they'd refuse to wear a mask even if they were convinced of the medical risk. I think I'm coming to the conclusion that the majority of mask adherence and refusal isn't rational, but rather religious, in the sense that it's shaped by beliefs that are immune to evidence.
    - clairity 6y ago
      understanding that the issue, like most issues, is multi-faceted at the very least, but that certainly too much consideration and mindshare has been lost to them due to mediopolitical coercion playing on our fears and anxieties. masks have limited utility in most common situations, beyond the fluid mechanics/dynamics at play. they're primarily only useful when you can't (or won't) distance in close quarters, but they've become a totem for cargo-culting all sorts of inane rituals and behaviors en masse, in the service of various forms of power (as a small but pertinent example, medical professionals' career advancements are based on how well they toe the official narrative). masks might snag a given virus particle in a controlled experiment, but they're not going to stop, or even meaningfully slow, this pandemic despite the mediopolitical rhetoric.

by scribu 6y ago

GavinMcG 6y ago

> The real reason must be... > When something makes little sense it's probably based in religion. > Maybe nobody thought of it so far. Plus a good handful of comments that don't acknowledge the countervailing evidence in the Wikipedia article much less evidencing any familiarity with the broader literature. Not gonna quibble about whether "belittling" is the right word, but there's certainly some casual hubris in some of these threads. Bigger picture: it isn't about enjoying amateur commentary or not. There's arguably been a rise, with the democratization of information access, of poorly-grounded self-confidence about understanding every topic one encounters. This attitude, for example, rejects mask-wearing on the grounds that the virus is too small to be caught by the mask (ignoring that the virus is carried in larger droplets/particles). An intelligent person armed with a factoid sometimes needs a reminder like the comment you replied to.

clairity 6y ago
> "...poorly-grounded self-confidence about understanding every topic one encounters. This attitude, for example, rejects mask-wearing on the grounds that the virus is too small to be caught by the mask..." deliciously ironic, considering your continued focus on exactly the wrong thing when it comes to mask effectiveness and policy. you're looking at the base of a tree and trying to draw conclusions about the forest by assuming frictionless cylindrical planes.
- GavinMcG 6y ago
  I didn't say anything about mask-wearing itself - just offering an example of naive but faulty reasoning. You're looking for a fight that I'm not interested in having.
  - clairity 6y ago
    then there's plenty of ways to phrase what you said without insinuation and hubris. or perhaps use a less-fraught example.
- nate_meurer 6y ago
  > your continued focus on exactly the wrong thing when it comes to mask effectiveness and policy. What is the right focus? Is this a running discussion between you two?
  - GavinMcG 6y ago
    No; as far as I can tell, they're just trolling.
    - nate_meurer 6y ago
      I've developed an obsessive fascination with the social and political aspects of masks. I think very little of our masking behavior is related to actual scientific evidence, on either side of the debate. Many people feel like wearing a mask and cleaning surfaces obsessively is the obvious response to a disease of any sort, even though the evidence overwhelmingly says that COVID is not effectively spread on surfaces, or outside of confined spaces with people sharing breathing air for extended periods of time. On the other side there are people who associate masks with the political left, and would be so humiliated to appear cowed by "liberal" authority figures, that they'd refuse to wear a mask even if they were convinced of the medical risk. I think I'm coming to the conclusion that the majority of mask adherence and refusal isn't rational, but rather religious, in the sense that it's shaped by beliefs that are immune to evidence.
  - clairity 6y ago
    understanding that the issue, like most issues, is multi-faceted at the very least, but that certainly too much consideration and mindshare has been lost to them due to mediopolitical coercion playing on our fears and anxieties. masks have limited utility in most common situations, beyond the fluid mechanics/dynamics at play. they're primarily only useful when you can't (or won't) distance in close quarters, but they've become a totem for cargo-culting all sorts of inane rituals and behaviors en masse, in the service of various forms of power (as a small but pertinent example, medical professionals' career advancements are based on how well they toe the official narrative). masks might snag a given virus particle in a controlled experiment, but they're not going to stop, or even meaningfully slow, this pandemic despite the mediopolitical rhetoric.