5 ms·

And now they changed their mind, since 2008. Perhaps it was due to the real nature of a pandemic that killed a large number of people. What is the problem?

refurb 5y ago
Are you saying that, in their original argument, they never considered the scenario where an epidemic killed a large number of people?
- chrisgd 5y ago
  I imagine it is easier to deal with in the abstract than confronted in the real thing I find the argument that my civil liberties are being more impacted if you don’t wear a mask more impactful than the reverse.
  - refurb 5y ago
    I mean the article explicitly lays out that their position is based on prior polio, smallpox and Spanish flu epidemics, so they aren’t dealing with the abstract. At all.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - foerbert 5y ago
      Only if you believe those drafting that opinion actually lived through polio, smallpox, and the Spanish flu. Otherwise, yes, it was absolutely abstract to them. Just because you're dealing with a real event or real data doesn't mean you're not dealing with it in the abstract. Humans react very differently when they're just thinking about something real hard and when they actually experience the thing directly.
    - sufehmi 5y ago
      "Spreading pandemic is not considered a constitutional right" - Supreme Court https://twitter.com/michaelharriot/status/1432069918397194244 https://twitter.com/michaelharriot/status/143206991839719424...
  - halfjoking 5y ago
    But masks work (at least N95) at completely stopping transmission. The covid shot does not. If you have a breakthrough case you’re just as infectious. So mandate better masks. Incentivize contact tracing and properly following quarantine measures. Governments around the world are picking the most authoritarian, least effective option out of mitigation policies. ACLU should be ashamed supporting it.
    - timr 5y ago
      > But masks work (at least N95) at completely stopping transmission. The covid shot does not. If you have a breakthrough case you’re just as infectious. No part of this sentence is true. Masks (even N95) do not "completely stop transmission". We don't have great evidence that they work at all. The evidence for vaccines, on the other hand, is incredibly strong, and we know they are very effective at preventing transmission -- on the order of 70% against the Delta variant -- and much better than that at preventing severe illness (>90%). If you have a symptomatic breakthrough infection -- a huge if, as this isn't common -- all current evidence is that the vaccines will reduce your overall infectiveness. This study out of Singapore is an excellent example of the advantages conferred by vaccination on breakthrough infections: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.28.21261295v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.28.21261295v... They found that vaccination reduced severe disease (>90% reduction) and caused cycle counts to increase faster than in unvaccinated people. The vaccines work, and work well. Masks...are maybe better than nothing.
      - spfzero 5y ago
        Recent data is pretty clear that the vaccines, while certainly very effective at reducing severity, don't affect transmissibility. Which is logical since transmission occurs before antibody response can be brought to bear. Masks are barely helpful, preventing 1 or 2 transmissions out of a hundred. Makes a difference in large numbers, so if everyone wore one everywhere, some thousands of transmissions would fail to occur, and thus some lives would be spared. Mask wearing is mostly ineffective on an individual level, but at least you can see the benefit to society at large. It's small, and should be weighed against downsides with schoolchildren for instance, but as a minor inconvenience for adults I'm all for it.
  - saurik 5y ago
    One might alternatively argue that it is much easier to be rational about an abstract position than one that you are actively involved in :(.
    - jollybean 5y ago
      Yes, but I think the OP makes a very fair point, and it's impossible to rationalize about events that took place a century ago and graft them into today's situation with all sorts of other unknowns. In particular, some of the 'historical' vaccines were almost entirely about preventing individual infection, whereas we're now facing clearly a very systematic issue and we have an odd problem of ~90% thresholds for achieving certain kinds of tipping points etc. (of course that remains to be seen but theoretically there's an opportunity there). That said, it doesn't mean that there hasn't been an ideological shift or even some kind of political nuance in the organization. Both can be true, I'd guess that's at least a little bit the case.
  - thinkingemote 5y ago
    People were very eager after the twin towers were bombed to also go against their principles when confronted with reality. That there is a legacy to this choice should be known and considered for.
  - QuizzicalCarbon 5y ago
    Pretty much everything is easier said than done, especially in the sphere that the ACLU operates in. Should we expect them to waffle every time the real-world proves more complicated than their stated principles?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

refurb 5y ago

Are you saying that, in their original argument, they never considered the scenario where an epidemic killed a large number of people?

chrisgd 5y ago
I imagine it is easier to deal with in the abstract than confronted in the real thing I find the argument that my civil liberties are being more impacted if you don’t wear a mask more impactful than the reverse.
- refurb 5y ago
  I mean the article explicitly lays out that their position is based on prior polio, smallpox and Spanish flu epidemics, so they aren’t dealing with the abstract. At all.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - foerbert 5y ago
    Only if you believe those drafting that opinion actually lived through polio, smallpox, and the Spanish flu. Otherwise, yes, it was absolutely abstract to them. Just because you're dealing with a real event or real data doesn't mean you're not dealing with it in the abstract. Humans react very differently when they're just thinking about something real hard and when they actually experience the thing directly.
  - sufehmi 5y ago
    "Spreading pandemic is not considered a constitutional right" - Supreme Court https://twitter.com/michaelharriot/status/1432069918397194244 https://twitter.com/michaelharriot/status/143206991839719424...
- halfjoking 5y ago
  But masks work (at least N95) at completely stopping transmission. The covid shot does not. If you have a breakthrough case you’re just as infectious. So mandate better masks. Incentivize contact tracing and properly following quarantine measures. Governments around the world are picking the most authoritarian, least effective option out of mitigation policies. ACLU should be ashamed supporting it.
  - timr 5y ago
    > But masks work (at least N95) at completely stopping transmission. The covid shot does not. If you have a breakthrough case you’re just as infectious. No part of this sentence is true. Masks (even N95) do not "completely stop transmission". We don't have great evidence that they work at all. The evidence for vaccines, on the other hand, is incredibly strong, and we know they are very effective at preventing transmission -- on the order of 70% against the Delta variant -- and much better than that at preventing severe illness (>90%). If you have a symptomatic breakthrough infection -- a huge if, as this isn't common -- all current evidence is that the vaccines will reduce your overall infectiveness. This study out of Singapore is an excellent example of the advantages conferred by vaccination on breakthrough infections: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.28.21261295v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.28.21261295v... They found that vaccination reduced severe disease (>90% reduction) and caused cycle counts to increase faster than in unvaccinated people. The vaccines work, and work well. Masks...are maybe better than nothing.
    - spfzero 5y ago
      Recent data is pretty clear that the vaccines, while certainly very effective at reducing severity, don't affect transmissibility. Which is logical since transmission occurs before antibody response can be brought to bear. Masks are barely helpful, preventing 1 or 2 transmissions out of a hundred. Makes a difference in large numbers, so if everyone wore one everywhere, some thousands of transmissions would fail to occur, and thus some lives would be spared. Mask wearing is mostly ineffective on an individual level, but at least you can see the benefit to society at large. It's small, and should be weighed against downsides with schoolchildren for instance, but as a minor inconvenience for adults I'm all for it.
- saurik 5y ago
  One might alternatively argue that it is much easier to be rational about an abstract position than one that you are actively involved in :(.
  - jollybean 5y ago
    Yes, but I think the OP makes a very fair point, and it's impossible to rationalize about events that took place a century ago and graft them into today's situation with all sorts of other unknowns. In particular, some of the 'historical' vaccines were almost entirely about preventing individual infection, whereas we're now facing clearly a very systematic issue and we have an odd problem of ~90% thresholds for achieving certain kinds of tipping points etc. (of course that remains to be seen but theoretically there's an opportunity there). That said, it doesn't mean that there hasn't been an ideological shift or even some kind of political nuance in the organization. Both can be true, I'd guess that's at least a little bit the case.
- thinkingemote 5y ago
  People were very eager after the twin towers were bombed to also go against their principles when confronted with reality. That there is a legacy to this choice should be known and considered for.
- QuizzicalCarbon 5y ago
  Pretty much everything is easier said than done, especially in the sphere that the ACLU operates in. Should we expect them to waffle every time the real-world proves more complicated than their stated principles?

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]