4 ms·

Spot on. This is why at the beginning, I was the weirdo yelling at everyone "put a damn mask on, the CDC only is saying what they're saying about avoiding masks

by vokep 5y ago

Spot on. This is why at the beginning, I was the weirdo yelling at everyone "put a damn mask on, the CDC only is saying what they're saying about avoiding masks because of baseless claims of lack of masks for hospitals if you buy them" and now I'm strongly anti-mask (the social cost has gone far beyond the cost of covid itself)

stopping 5y ago
What is the social cost of wearing masks? Genuinely curious.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- bradleyjg 5y ago
  My 70 year old mother doesn’t want to leave the house despite being fully vaccinated because it’s hard for her to breathe in a mask. How much of the rest of her life does she need to be a shut in?
  - sundaeofshock 5y ago
    She should see a doctor about underlying medical conditions if she finds it difficult to breathe through a cloth mask.
    - bradleyjg 5y ago
      Why do you assume she hasn’t? Not everything is fixable, especially as you get older.
      - stevewodil 5y ago
        It would be assumed that she hadn't seen a doctor about it because she wouldn't have to wear a mask if she has a legitimate medical condition
hobs 5y ago
So all we have learned about you is that you like doing the opposite of whatever they say.
- rajup 5y ago
  Or that he prefers not to take everything they say at face value and applies his own judgement as an adult before blindly following anything and everything that is thrown out there.
  - hobs 5y ago
    Sure, but there's no real explanation of why, just a performative explanation of their own brilliance.
- vokep 5y ago
  No, I like doing what makes sense based on the information I have to the best of my ability. At the beginning that was an assessment of claims about mask supply being based purely in fear and unconnected to any ongoing issues. The hospital isn't buying masks from the grocery store. Everyone buying packs of n95 on amazon ought to exhaust the same supply chains the hospitals use, but thats irrelevant if the threat is real, since the supply would (and did) simply ramp up to match demand. Time goes on and the reality of the virus sets in, I have friends who get it, a number of elderly people I know some quickly trying to follow CDC and WHO guidelines to a T, others saying it doesn't add up and they'll go about their life as afraid of it as they are of a cold or flu. And so more time goes on and I'm checking in with these people, those who got covid, it certainly wasn't pleasant but they never complained about symptoms that were anything more than typical of getting sick, and the elderly people I know, those who are all about following the rules to the T, seem to be full of anxiety about it and declining in (primarily mental) health as a result. Wheres the others not believing in it as much (one lady I know strongly anti-mask, another just sort of blase about it) seem to be enjoying their lives day to day far more. So thats some of where I'm coming from.
98codes 5y ago
What social cost is far beyond so many dead?
- vokep 5y ago
  Very similar to the cost we would incur of avoiding driving due to how many it kills constantly. The benefits of accepting the risk outweigh the risk itself. I believe I can stick to this well enough with the official numbers of deaths, but the truth is I am extremely skeptical of the legitimacy of those numbers considering how deaths get reported, in some cases with decapitations in motor accidents being included in the count because they had covid when it happened, as well as the funding incentives hospitals have to exaggerate their claims of patients dieing of covid. No I'm not claiming some conspiracy theory here, I mean, I think it is a conspiracy but not a deliberate one, its mostly everyone trying to do the right thing, it makes sense to divert more funds to hospitals dealing with a new deadly pandemic, but that also unfortunately creates an incentive to exaggerate to get more funds. Not some sinister plan, just the result of people behaving as people do.
  - borramakot 5y ago
    I understand cause of death statistics can be calculated, but do you have an article on what happened with a decapitation being counted as a covid death?
    - vokep 5y ago
      https://www.abc10.com/article/news/verify/covid-deaths-car-crash-comorbidities-coronavirus-death-total-counts-john-hopkins-study/65-e3842ed2-f753-4a15-8b97-c2ae75c2b2ce https://www.abc10.com/article/news/verify/covid-deaths-car-c... There's at least one widely known case specifically a motorcycle accident listed there, which due to being widely known was corrected. This comes down to how you fill in unknowns in your model of the world, many seem to be just trusting authoritative reports. I would like to trust official reporting, but direct knowledge via peers involved in various industries has proven to me or at least created a confident opinion that trusting things at face value is absurd and a near guarantee of inaccurate conclusions. Its amazing how many seem to experience Gell-Mann amnesia in regards to this sort of thing. Since there's only one public report of this which easily is found on google (which is what I linked), I'd assume such extreme (decapitation) false labeling of cause of death is not so common. However cases of elderly who had multiple conditions being reported as covid deaths appears likely as a fairly massive distortion of the reported death count. The motorcycle case just serves to show how extreme that can get, you've got to ask just how a report like that even occurred, and also note that it seems to only have been corrected after public scrutiny. (I can't be sure it was corrected due to public scrutiny, but I'm leaning towards that since explanation of how it was corrected is dismissive and vague, no clear suggestion that it would have been corrected if not for publicity of it, seems an easy extra few words to add if it were the truth) I can understand if this way if thinking isn't yours and if accepting official numbers is preferred, but what I can't understand is the absolute certainty that any other perspective is wrong.

by vokep 5y ago

stopping 5y ago

What is the social cost of wearing masks? Genuinely curious.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
bradleyjg 5y ago
My 70 year old mother doesn’t want to leave the house despite being fully vaccinated because it’s hard for her to breathe in a mask. How much of the rest of her life does she need to be a shut in?
- sundaeofshock 5y ago
  She should see a doctor about underlying medical conditions if she finds it difficult to breathe through a cloth mask.
  - bradleyjg 5y ago
    Why do you assume she hasn’t? Not everything is fixable, especially as you get older.
    - stevewodil 5y ago
      It would be assumed that she hadn't seen a doctor about it because she wouldn't have to wear a mask if she has a legitimate medical condition

hobs 5y ago

So all we have learned about you is that you like doing the opposite of whatever they say.

rajup 5y ago
Or that he prefers not to take everything they say at face value and applies his own judgement as an adult before blindly following anything and everything that is thrown out there.
- hobs 5y ago
  Sure, but there's no real explanation of why, just a performative explanation of their own brilliance.
vokep 5y ago
No, I like doing what makes sense based on the information I have to the best of my ability. At the beginning that was an assessment of claims about mask supply being based purely in fear and unconnected to any ongoing issues. The hospital isn't buying masks from the grocery store. Everyone buying packs of n95 on amazon ought to exhaust the same supply chains the hospitals use, but thats irrelevant if the threat is real, since the supply would (and did) simply ramp up to match demand. Time goes on and the reality of the virus sets in, I have friends who get it, a number of elderly people I know some quickly trying to follow CDC and WHO guidelines to a T, others saying it doesn't add up and they'll go about their life as afraid of it as they are of a cold or flu. And so more time goes on and I'm checking in with these people, those who got covid, it certainly wasn't pleasant but they never complained about symptoms that were anything more than typical of getting sick, and the elderly people I know, those who are all about following the rules to the T, seem to be full of anxiety about it and declining in (primarily mental) health as a result. Wheres the others not believing in it as much (one lady I know strongly anti-mask, another just sort of blase about it) seem to be enjoying their lives day to day far more. So thats some of where I'm coming from.

98codes 5y ago

What social cost is far beyond so many dead?

vokep 5y ago
Very similar to the cost we would incur of avoiding driving due to how many it kills constantly. The benefits of accepting the risk outweigh the risk itself. I believe I can stick to this well enough with the official numbers of deaths, but the truth is I am extremely skeptical of the legitimacy of those numbers considering how deaths get reported, in some cases with decapitations in motor accidents being included in the count because they had covid when it happened, as well as the funding incentives hospitals have to exaggerate their claims of patients dieing of covid. No I'm not claiming some conspiracy theory here, I mean, I think it is a conspiracy but not a deliberate one, its mostly everyone trying to do the right thing, it makes sense to divert more funds to hospitals dealing with a new deadly pandemic, but that also unfortunately creates an incentive to exaggerate to get more funds. Not some sinister plan, just the result of people behaving as people do.
- borramakot 5y ago
  I understand cause of death statistics can be calculated, but do you have an article on what happened with a decapitation being counted as a covid death?
  - vokep 5y ago
    https://www.abc10.com/article/news/verify/covid-deaths-car-crash-comorbidities-coronavirus-death-total-counts-john-hopkins-study/65-e3842ed2-f753-4a15-8b97-c2ae75c2b2ce https://www.abc10.com/article/news/verify/covid-deaths-car-c... There's at least one widely known case specifically a motorcycle accident listed there, which due to being widely known was corrected. This comes down to how you fill in unknowns in your model of the world, many seem to be just trusting authoritative reports. I would like to trust official reporting, but direct knowledge via peers involved in various industries has proven to me or at least created a confident opinion that trusting things at face value is absurd and a near guarantee of inaccurate conclusions. Its amazing how many seem to experience Gell-Mann amnesia in regards to this sort of thing. Since there's only one public report of this which easily is found on google (which is what I linked), I'd assume such extreme (decapitation) false labeling of cause of death is not so common. However cases of elderly who had multiple conditions being reported as covid deaths appears likely as a fairly massive distortion of the reported death count. The motorcycle case just serves to show how extreme that can get, you've got to ask just how a report like that even occurred, and also note that it seems to only have been corrected after public scrutiny. (I can't be sure it was corrected due to public scrutiny, but I'm leaning towards that since explanation of how it was corrected is dismissive and vague, no clear suggestion that it would have been corrected if not for publicity of it, seems an easy extra few words to add if it were the truth) I can understand if this way if thinking isn't yours and if accepting official numbers is preferred, but what I can't understand is the absolute certainty that any other perspective is wrong.