7 ms·

Learning about Terror Management Theory [0] has definitely been an eye-opener. Anecdotally, it seems to me that most people cope with fears of mortal threats ei

Learning about Terror Management Theory [0] has definitely been an eye-opener. Anecdotally, it seems to me that most people cope with fears of mortal threats either with self-delusion and denial; or, with extreme over-correction and self-soothing "rain dances" that may or may not have any correlation with increased survival odds. With COVID, we've seen the former play out with anti-maskers and conspiracy denialists, and the latter with over-cleaning and somewhat arbitrary/inconsistent safety precautions, often with little empirical basis. From WW2 isolationism, to McCarthyism, to the Terrorism Panic of the Bush era, I dare say we've seen patterns of simultaneous under- and over-reaction play out repeatedly in history. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terror_management_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terror_management_theory

nickthemagicman 6y ago
The evidence that masks work at a community level (outside of medical institutions) is very questionable as well so that could fall into the 'rain dance' category. https://swprs.org/face-masks-evidence/ https://swprs.org/face-masks-evidence/ https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/4/e006577 https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/4/e006577
- bluefirebrand 6y ago
  This kind of reminds me of an infographic at my doctors office about birth control. It shows stats on how many unwanted pregnancies happen when using each form of birth control. It's split into two-columns: How many pregnancies when it is used perfectly, vs how many pregnancies when it used typically. One could look at it and conclude that most birth control isn't very effective at a community level, which is more like the "typical use" column. The stat that's missing is the rate of pregnancies caused by not using any birth control at all. I imagine that compared to that stat, even the worst of the typical use stats look pretty good. Then you would conclude that you should probably wear a condom. Same goes for a mask, in my opinion.
  - nickthemagicman 6y ago
    A condom is the perfect example. A condom is typically used once and has pores small enough to block designated particles. This is how medical masks in a medical establishment is used. Cloth masks at a community level are basically wearing the same condom everyday and the condom is full of holes. Its a 'rain dance', and just makes people feel better, which does have it's benefits, like religion or nationalism. That's why Fauci is saying to double or triple up on cloth masks, because cloth masks reused daily are minimally effective, which is what the vast majority of the population does. Here's a real actual scientific article about it. https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/4/e006577 https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/4/e006577
    - aqme28 6y ago
      That article doesn't support any kind of conclusion that masks are ineffective. It ranks the effectiveness of masks, but has no "maskless" group to compare against.
      - nickthemagicman 6y ago
        "Penetration of cloth masks by particles was almost 97% and medical masks 44%." How do you test particle penetration in a 'maskless' group? Isn't it implied that the 'maskless' group would have 100% particle penetration?
        mapme 6y ago
        Isn’t that direct evidence that medical masks work? Which doesn’t support your assertion that groups all masks together. Thus, your argument appears against cloth masks, not medical grade (surgical, n95). https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/bmjopen/5/4/e006577/F2.large.jpg https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/bmjopen/5/4/e006577/F2.large...
        nickthemagicman 6y ago
        Yes absolutly. There is evidence that masks do work if combined with proper usage. The evidence shows that changing masks frequently combined with using medical grade material is effective. The current mask recommendations for the USA though... is folk science akin to using leeches or trepanation. And no one demands any scientific rigour they just follow along blindly trusting whoever is on the T.V.
- Tarsul 6y ago
  well, rain-dancing works against covid. What I mean is that being cautious works, just thinking about masks (which means most probably that you're taking also other measures like keeping a good distance to people) helps.
  - astrange 6y ago
    Keeping a specific distance to people doesn't really matter though. That rule just satisfies a demand for a rule that can be easily implemented at scale, like moving school desks so they're farther apart. An actual better rule is "don't be inside with other people without masks".
    - spookthesunset 6y ago
      A far more effective rule would be government backed paid sick leave. That might actually do something to slow the spread of covid. Masks and lockdowns are trivial for politicians to implement. Especially with emergency powers. They don't have to go through any political process to get done. It doesn't even matter if they work at all. It shows they are "taking it serious" and "saving lives". Even if the measures harm society far more than if they did nothing at all. Actual non-pharmaceutical things that would truly slow covid require 10 or 100x more political willpower than masks or lockdowns. Masks and lockdowns will very much be looked upon the same way we look at rain dances and goat sacrifices.... it's just humans fooling themselves into thinking they have more control over mother nature than they actually do.
      - astrange 6y ago
        > A far more effective rule would be government backed paid sick leave. That might actually do something to slow the spread of covid. We did that, it was called PPP and PUA. But many people were "essential workers" or didn't want to quit their jobs just because we were paying them to.
- sixothree 6y ago
  I’m not sure that’s the correct interpretation from the link you provided.
- sharken 6y ago
  Not sure why you have been down voted, the only recent large-scale study of face masks worn by regular people, did not reach any consensus. Common sense would say that wearing something covering your nose and mouth is better than nothing at all, but this fails to take into account how the masks are treated by regular people. I firmly believe that masks do not change anything significantly, at least until a study can prove the opposite. What matters now is getting back to the pre-corona situation without restrictions. Those who wants to be vaccinated on a yearly basis should absolutely do so, but those who choose not to should absolutely be free to enjoy all aspects of life without restrictions.
  - spookthesunset 6y ago
    According to "smart people who believe in science" groupthink, masks work. Period. It's settled science. Don't ask questions. Only deniers ask questions. Despite all the pro-mask science being based on in-the-heat-of-the-moment research done in the middle of a highly politicized pandemic. Prior to all this, the science on masks was completely inconclusive. And there was literally no research done on the effectiveness of shutting down large swaths of human life for more than a year. Though it shouldn't take an expert to deduce that it has profound negative impacts on economic, social and mental health. We are in the middle of a massive, uncontrolled experiment with billions participating without any consent. The idea that smart well meaning people are supposed all just fall in line and agree with the prevailing groupthink is almost despotic. I shudder to think of what would happen if "the experts" even so much as hinted at it being okay for people to use violence against non believers. It's terrifying, honestly.
    - amanaplanacanal 6y ago
      Unfortunately, by the time we could actually do all the experiments to find the best ways to handle the pandemic, it would already be over. Everybody is just doing the best they can with the knowledge they have. With any luck, we will learn some things that will help us deal better with the next pandemic.
      - 6y ago
bluefirebrand 6y ago
For a pandemic it's probably reasonable to err on the side of caution with the over-cleaning and arbitrary/inconsistent safety precautions, but I do wish we could have found a slightly less restrictive approach than we did. I have a lot of friends very angry at the anti-maskers for their behavior, showing up in stores unmasked and such. And that's reasonable to be mad I suppose. But I also know the anti-mask people are just as mad at the rest of us, and from their perspective they are just as justified in it. Wonder if knowing more about Terror Management Theory could help us navigate this friction better, and find some common ground. Or if we need different approaches altogether
- lukifer 6y ago
  Yes, context matters, and sometimes even irrational instincts can end up being correct, especially under uncertainty, which was definitely true of the first few months of COVID. I'm less concerned about purely useless interventions, than counter-productive ones (or: a useless intervention A, which creates a psychological security blanket that subsumes motivation for high-yield intervention B). Even stranger, I've also seen individuals under-react and over-react at the same time! ("Sure, I attended $LARGE_PUBLIC_EVENT, but we all wore masks, except while eating, and I've been taking lots of Vitamin D.") For the over-reactors, I think aligning social norms with the best-science-for-now is achievable with simple rules and consistent messaging (that cohort wants to keep busy with rituals and precautions and social enforcement). For better or worse, our culture got a few simple memes to stick: wears masks in public, six-feet social distancing, outdoors is safer than indoors, limit socializing to "pods". For those in denial, that's a thornier problem, and I frankly don't have any ideas. Whatever the context, challenging someone in denial tends to result in them doubling-down on it. Sometimes social pressure or law enforcement can cajole someone into adopting a rule they don't like; but it can just as easily backfire into tribal counter-signaling, or individual "bravery signaling" (itself a sort of psychic ward against fear). And in fairness: it's not hard to imagine counter-factuals where the official recommendations really are useless or worse ("duck and cover").
- Yhippa 6y ago
  Throughout history the way these pandemics were dealt with was through quarantine. The fact that people were going into stores at all during this thing seems to be an affordance we never had in the past so I'm okay with arbitrary restrictions until it's proven wrong.
Logon90 6y ago
Hahaha Dunning Kruger or variant thereof at its finest
ismaildonmez 6y ago
I had the same experience with TMT and I think everybody should read their book. On top of TMT, the Meaning Maintenance Model (MMM) [0] is another theory with TMT could explain 99% of human behavior. [0] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1207/s15327957pspr1002_1 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1207/s15327957pspr1002_1

nickthemagicman 6y ago

The evidence that masks work at a community level (outside of medical institutions) is very questionable as well so that could fall into the 'rain dance' category. https://swprs.org/face-masks-evidence/ https://swprs.org/face-masks-evidence/ https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/4/e006577 https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/4/e006577

bluefirebrand 6y ago
This kind of reminds me of an infographic at my doctors office about birth control. It shows stats on how many unwanted pregnancies happen when using each form of birth control. It's split into two-columns: How many pregnancies when it is used perfectly, vs how many pregnancies when it used typically. One could look at it and conclude that most birth control isn't very effective at a community level, which is more like the "typical use" column. The stat that's missing is the rate of pregnancies caused by not using any birth control at all. I imagine that compared to that stat, even the worst of the typical use stats look pretty good. Then you would conclude that you should probably wear a condom. Same goes for a mask, in my opinion.
- nickthemagicman 6y ago
  A condom is the perfect example. A condom is typically used once and has pores small enough to block designated particles. This is how medical masks in a medical establishment is used. Cloth masks at a community level are basically wearing the same condom everyday and the condom is full of holes. Its a 'rain dance', and just makes people feel better, which does have it's benefits, like religion or nationalism. That's why Fauci is saying to double or triple up on cloth masks, because cloth masks reused daily are minimally effective, which is what the vast majority of the population does. Here's a real actual scientific article about it. https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/4/e006577 https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/4/e006577
  - aqme28 6y ago
    That article doesn't support any kind of conclusion that masks are ineffective. It ranks the effectiveness of masks, but has no "maskless" group to compare against.
    - nickthemagicman 6y ago
      "Penetration of cloth masks by particles was almost 97% and medical masks 44%." How do you test particle penetration in a 'maskless' group? Isn't it implied that the 'maskless' group would have 100% particle penetration?
      - mapme 6y ago
        Isn’t that direct evidence that medical masks work? Which doesn’t support your assertion that groups all masks together. Thus, your argument appears against cloth masks, not medical grade (surgical, n95). https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/bmjopen/5/4/e006577/F2.large.jpg https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/bmjopen/5/4/e006577/F2.large...
        nickthemagicman 6y ago
        Yes absolutly. There is evidence that masks do work if combined with proper usage. The evidence shows that changing masks frequently combined with using medical grade material is effective. The current mask recommendations for the USA though... is folk science akin to using leeches or trepanation. And no one demands any scientific rigour they just follow along blindly trusting whoever is on the T.V.
Tarsul 6y ago
well, rain-dancing works against covid. What I mean is that being cautious works, just thinking about masks (which means most probably that you're taking also other measures like keeping a good distance to people) helps.
- astrange 6y ago
  Keeping a specific distance to people doesn't really matter though. That rule just satisfies a demand for a rule that can be easily implemented at scale, like moving school desks so they're farther apart. An actual better rule is "don't be inside with other people without masks".
  - spookthesunset 6y ago
    A far more effective rule would be government backed paid sick leave. That might actually do something to slow the spread of covid. Masks and lockdowns are trivial for politicians to implement. Especially with emergency powers. They don't have to go through any political process to get done. It doesn't even matter if they work at all. It shows they are "taking it serious" and "saving lives". Even if the measures harm society far more than if they did nothing at all. Actual non-pharmaceutical things that would truly slow covid require 10 or 100x more political willpower than masks or lockdowns. Masks and lockdowns will very much be looked upon the same way we look at rain dances and goat sacrifices.... it's just humans fooling themselves into thinking they have more control over mother nature than they actually do.
    - astrange 6y ago
      > A far more effective rule would be government backed paid sick leave. That might actually do something to slow the spread of covid. We did that, it was called PPP and PUA. But many people were "essential workers" or didn't want to quit their jobs just because we were paying them to.
sixothree 6y ago
I’m not sure that’s the correct interpretation from the link you provided.
sharken 6y ago
Not sure why you have been down voted, the only recent large-scale study of face masks worn by regular people, did not reach any consensus. Common sense would say that wearing something covering your nose and mouth is better than nothing at all, but this fails to take into account how the masks are treated by regular people. I firmly believe that masks do not change anything significantly, at least until a study can prove the opposite. What matters now is getting back to the pre-corona situation without restrictions. Those who wants to be vaccinated on a yearly basis should absolutely do so, but those who choose not to should absolutely be free to enjoy all aspects of life without restrictions.
- spookthesunset 6y ago
  According to "smart people who believe in science" groupthink, masks work. Period. It's settled science. Don't ask questions. Only deniers ask questions. Despite all the pro-mask science being based on in-the-heat-of-the-moment research done in the middle of a highly politicized pandemic. Prior to all this, the science on masks was completely inconclusive. And there was literally no research done on the effectiveness of shutting down large swaths of human life for more than a year. Though it shouldn't take an expert to deduce that it has profound negative impacts on economic, social and mental health. We are in the middle of a massive, uncontrolled experiment with billions participating without any consent. The idea that smart well meaning people are supposed all just fall in line and agree with the prevailing groupthink is almost despotic. I shudder to think of what would happen if "the experts" even so much as hinted at it being okay for people to use violence against non believers. It's terrifying, honestly.
  - amanaplanacanal 6y ago
    Unfortunately, by the time we could actually do all the experiments to find the best ways to handle the pandemic, it would already be over. Everybody is just doing the best they can with the knowledge they have. With any luck, we will learn some things that will help us deal better with the next pandemic.
    - 6y ago

bluefirebrand 6y ago

For a pandemic it's probably reasonable to err on the side of caution with the over-cleaning and arbitrary/inconsistent safety precautions, but I do wish we could have found a slightly less restrictive approach than we did. I have a lot of friends very angry at the anti-maskers for their behavior, showing up in stores unmasked and such. And that's reasonable to be mad I suppose. But I also know the anti-mask people are just as mad at the rest of us, and from their perspective they are just as justified in it. Wonder if knowing more about Terror Management Theory could help us navigate this friction better, and find some common ground. Or if we need different approaches altogether

lukifer 6y ago
Yes, context matters, and sometimes even irrational instincts can end up being correct, especially under uncertainty, which was definitely true of the first few months of COVID. I'm less concerned about purely useless interventions, than counter-productive ones (or: a useless intervention A, which creates a psychological security blanket that subsumes motivation for high-yield intervention B). Even stranger, I've also seen individuals under-react and over-react at the same time! ("Sure, I attended $LARGE_PUBLIC_EVENT, but we all wore masks, except while eating, and I've been taking lots of Vitamin D.") For the over-reactors, I think aligning social norms with the best-science-for-now is achievable with simple rules and consistent messaging (that cohort wants to keep busy with rituals and precautions and social enforcement). For better or worse, our culture got a few simple memes to stick: wears masks in public, six-feet social distancing, outdoors is safer than indoors, limit socializing to "pods". For those in denial, that's a thornier problem, and I frankly don't have any ideas. Whatever the context, challenging someone in denial tends to result in them doubling-down on it. Sometimes social pressure or law enforcement can cajole someone into adopting a rule they don't like; but it can just as easily backfire into tribal counter-signaling, or individual "bravery signaling" (itself a sort of psychic ward against fear). And in fairness: it's not hard to imagine counter-factuals where the official recommendations really are useless or worse ("duck and cover").
Yhippa 6y ago
Throughout history the way these pandemics were dealt with was through quarantine. The fact that people were going into stores at all during this thing seems to be an affordance we never had in the past so I'm okay with arbitrary restrictions until it's proven wrong.

Logon90 6y ago

Hahaha Dunning Kruger or variant thereof at its finest

ismaildonmez 6y ago

I had the same experience with TMT and I think everybody should read their book. On top of TMT, the Meaning Maintenance Model (MMM) [0] is another theory with TMT could explain 99% of human behavior. [0] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1207/s15327957pspr1002_1 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1207/s15327957pspr1002_1