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(speaking generally here at those I've seen share the same rage, not accusing you directly) I just cannot wrap my head around being so upset that a public offi

(speaking generally here at those I've seen share the same rage, not accusing you directly) I just cannot wrap my head around being so upset that a public official lied you're willing to sever friendships, familial ties, and sacrifice your career because you refuse to follow sane and frankly manageable guidelines to prevent the spread of COVID-19. It's not even that the messaging is currently or has been conflicting now. It's like carrying a grudge for years over the smallest of infractions. Are people so bored, they have nothing going on other than to get in a big tizzy about having to wear a mask? My life has been far more impacted by university security towing my car back when I was 19 and me using a credit card to get it back. Leaving me with debt I couldn't afford for the next year or so. I clearly remember my parents, and all adults in my life, telling me to "suck it up" when I complained how unfair it was. I believe I was far more justified using the parking space at a place I paid 6 grand a semester to attend than any of those adults are now to enter private property for free without wearing a mask. Why is it only during a global pandemic, with millions of lives on the line, do these same people all of a sudden care about the tiniest bits of hypocrisy and unfairness of our society? Of all the things to be upset about, they choose the one thing that has been proven since mid-2020 to SAVE lives? I literally cannot wrap my head around it. Just wear the fucking mask! Not wearing a mask is such a weird hill to die on...

hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
I agree with you pretty much 100%. My anger is that, by not being truthful, I feel like health authorities played right into the hands of the conspiracy theorists and everyone trying to sow doubt that this is some big power grab.
- UnFleshedOne 5y ago
  To be fair, with policies like mandating masking outside, or banning outdoor activities long after it was known there virtually no outdoor transmission, or forcing vaccinations on people who had covid already, or deafening silence on any health improving measures people can take (did we really need studies showing exercise improves covid outcomes? well we have them now, after 2 years passed), or no mitigation of aerosol transmission (we have dentists installing HEPA filters, and nothing in hospitals), it is really easy to play right into the hands of conspiracy theorists...
- psychlops 5y ago
  Well, it's also a big power grab so that doesn't help.
  - h2odragon 5y ago
    Everyone is grabbing for their own power, for their own reasons; they feel this tailwind but they assume that it means they're right, not that they're temporarily useful to other parties with their own agendas.
  - atatatat 5y ago
    Never waste a crisis.
  - hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
    A power grab by who? Mask manufacturers? People who don't like to look at lips? I am baffled by the belief that asking people to wear masks, in the middle of a pandemic, is a power grab by anyone. If anything, an intervention that would make it safer to open up more businesses and public spaces should be seen as a great thing for reducing the power needed to shut these spaces in the first place.
    - psychlops 5y ago
      I wasn't specifically referring to masks, but now see that the thread had gone that way. I would say, however, that doing good and grabbing power are not mutually exclusive. I, too, am baffled by beliefs (in general) and would suggest any new powers given to authority be viewed with extreme suspicion and of limited duration before enacted.
nielsbot 5y ago
It doesn't have to be rational. Vaccines mandates are already common for school children, nurses, (and maybe teachers, but I'm not sure about that one) The rage over masks (and things like "CRT") is being intentionally stoked to win elections. The plan is to make it an us vs them issue. Again, it's intentional and cynical. If you stoke rage about mask wearing (and vaccines) you can position yourself as also being a valiant anti-mask/anti-vax candidate and win elections on this issue.
- dominotw 5y ago
  > The plan is to make it an us vs them issue. Again, it's intentional and cynical. Why doesn't everyone see things clearly for what they are. If its obviously 'the plan' .
  - Jensson 5y ago
    Because they started labelling such arguments as right/left wing propaganda. Labelling any criticism against you as enemy propaganda is a common strategy in authoritarian regimes, and it works really well as long as you have sowed enough hate against the enemy in people. So even though the plan might not be obvious to those who live in the authoritarian regime, it is often very obvious for outsiders that for example the democratic peoples republic of Korea isn't really a democratic republic.
  - nielsbot 5y ago
    I'd argue it's because propaganda works.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- danhak 5y ago
  Government-imposed vaccine mandates were never common for access to private establishments, as is now the case in NYC and LA Philosophically speaking, It's one thing for the government to say you must be vaccinated to attend public school. It's quite another thing for them to say you must be vaccinated to enter a privately-owned gym.
BitwiseFool 5y ago
>"because you refuse to follow sane and frankly manageable guidelines to prevent the spread of COVID-19." As a point of order we can't treat "manageable guidelines" as a monolith as there have been a ton of "guidelines" and rules imposed over the last three years that were dubious, farcical, or overly intrusive. Like supermarkets cordoning off the greeting card aisle because social gatherings like parties were prohibited. Or gyms being told not to play music above a certain BPM because more intense exercise could enable Covid to spread more easily [1]. Going to the beach alone can get you arrested, but standing in a crowded Costco is acceptable. And so on. There's a lot more to the resentment and outrage than people simply being upset at the inconvenience of wearing a mask. Plenty of small business owners and restaurateurs had their livelihoods destroyed because the government went back and forth on restrictions and enforcement. [1] South Korea to ban music over 120bpm in gyms, in response to Covid spike : www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20210712000804
- johnchristopher 5y ago
  I often hear criticisms like this (and it's perfectly sound criticisms). My counter-argument is that, at the time, given our resources and our understanding we had to take wide scale measures and a lot of compromises were made and negotiations happened between people, institutions, governments, etc. so that we wouldn't just shut down everything. I believe most of the time these oddities and weirdness are consequences of those compromises and it's still the case. Sometimes it's easy to frame things like that and sometimes it's not (especially when the measures is only put in place for 3 days or a week. Eg when they asked people to sit alone next to train windows, rather than all next to each other or when they cordoned off books in supermarkets so bookstores that just reopened could have clients). I don't know how far off the mark I am.
rajin444 5y ago
You're probably overestimating covid risk (there are other polls similar to this one - this is the most recent): https://news.gallup.com/opinion/gallup/354938/adults-estimates-covid-hospitalization-risk.aspx https://news.gallup.com/opinion/gallup/354938/adults-estimat... The media's addiction to "scare articles" as well as the government's willingness to promote noble lies puts a lot of weight towards covid risk being heavily propagandized. On top of that, complying with government orders simply because you're afraid is a dangerous way to live. The scariest thing is how quickly propaganda can convince people others are not worth of life. The cheering of unvaccinated covid deaths is abhorrent.
- somewhereoutth 5y ago
  Begads! A Selfawarewolf in the flesh!!
- Clubber 5y ago
  >The scariest thing is how quickly propaganda can convince people others are not worth of life. The cheering of unvaccinated covid deaths is abhorrent. I like to study history and I recall an interview with a German who lived during the holocaust. He was asked if he thought the holocaust could ever happen in the US and replied that it could happen anywhere, it's just it wouldn't necessarily happen the same way as it did in Germany. If it ever happened in the US, it would be its own unique flavor of holocaust. It was pretty chilling. People don't even realize the moral road they are traveling when they praise deaths for political "gotchas"; I guess that's what makes going down that road so easy.
- nzealand 5y ago
  Ironically that comes up with wildly inaccurate estimates itself. > we take the average population totals over the relevant periods for each population (March 1, 2020-Aug. 9, 2021 for the unvaccinated population and Dec. 15, 2020,-Aug. 9, 2021, for the vaccinated population). The adjusted population of vaccinated people comes to 83 million and 295 million for the [un]vaccinated population 330 million Americans, less 83 million vaccinated Americans equals 247 million unvaccinated people, not 295 million. They are also deliberately ignoring CDC estimates. > CDC epidemiologists estimate that the actual number of hospitalizations may be 1.8 times higher than the reported number.
saiya-jin 5y ago
Emotions can, and often do guide people to do stupidest decisions of their lives that will effectively ruin it, or even kill them. You can't reason with such a person. And getting through the firewall of those emotions, for somebody often on the opposite side of the argument is practically impossible. I suspect IQ level plays a role too (critical thinking not only towards the world but also oneself). The more you push, the more resistance there is. Doesn't matter how right you are and how wrong they are. What covid highlighted like thermonuclear blast is how many people in general population are weird, naive, paranoid and basically... dumb, for the lack of better words. Also how internet amplifies the good and the bad equally. 200 years ago it would be just some random quiet weird dude that you don't have desire to talk to, today its a self-proclaimed patriot who thinks got the ultimate truth in contrary to general population. In their own echo chambers, this spirals into some pretty weird crowd mechanics. There is no win of argument. There is no going back. In this regard we moved a bit back to the middle ages. And yes, politicians fucked up pretty big time, almost every single one.
- spookthesunset 5y ago
  The wonderful thing about your statement is it is unclear just what “side” is correct. You say “ The more you push, the more resistance there is. Doesn't matter how right you are and how wrong they are.” That applies a ton to a bunch of ”pro mitigation” people out there who absolutely refuse to look at the data and science. Both strongly show that covid “badness” is very strongly correlated with age to the extent that the median age of death is higher than the average human life expectancy. Kids are almost completely unaffected by covid.
  - 18pfsmt 5y ago
    One only need look at Sweden and their results. They took minimal action, allowed the youngest to remain in school w/o masks, and only canceled large events. We are now starting to see the all-cause mortality stats and they are proving Sweden's approach minimized the most harm.
    - SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
Izkata 5y ago
> I just cannot wrap my head around being so upset that a public official lied you're willing to sever friendships, familial ties, and sacrifice your career because you refuse to follow sane and frankly manageable guidelines to prevent the spread of COVID-19. It's not even that the messaging is currently or has been conflicting now. It's like carrying a grudge for years over the smallest of infractions. Are people so bored, they have nothing going on other than to get in a big tizzy about having to wear a mask? It's rare, but some of us developed actual health issues from the mask itself, be it the reduced airflow or excess humidity from trapped exhalation. I didn't make the connection for myself until this spring when the mandate was lifted and my problems completely went away. So, I have no intention of wearing masks ever again, regardless of mandates. It's not just a grudge or being stubborn when people are asking you to actively hurt yourself.

hn_throwaway_99 5y ago

I agree with you pretty much 100%. My anger is that, by not being truthful, I feel like health authorities played right into the hands of the conspiracy theorists and everyone trying to sow doubt that this is some big power grab.

UnFleshedOne 5y ago
To be fair, with policies like mandating masking outside, or banning outdoor activities long after it was known there virtually no outdoor transmission, or forcing vaccinations on people who had covid already, or deafening silence on any health improving measures people can take (did we really need studies showing exercise improves covid outcomes? well we have them now, after 2 years passed), or no mitigation of aerosol transmission (we have dentists installing HEPA filters, and nothing in hospitals), it is really easy to play right into the hands of conspiracy theorists...
psychlops 5y ago
Well, it's also a big power grab so that doesn't help.
- h2odragon 5y ago
  Everyone is grabbing for their own power, for their own reasons; they feel this tailwind but they assume that it means they're right, not that they're temporarily useful to other parties with their own agendas.
- atatatat 5y ago
  Never waste a crisis.
- hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
  A power grab by who? Mask manufacturers? People who don't like to look at lips? I am baffled by the belief that asking people to wear masks, in the middle of a pandemic, is a power grab by anyone. If anything, an intervention that would make it safer to open up more businesses and public spaces should be seen as a great thing for reducing the power needed to shut these spaces in the first place.
  - psychlops 5y ago
    I wasn't specifically referring to masks, but now see that the thread had gone that way. I would say, however, that doing good and grabbing power are not mutually exclusive. I, too, am baffled by beliefs (in general) and would suggest any new powers given to authority be viewed with extreme suspicion and of limited duration before enacted.

nielsbot 5y ago

It doesn't have to be rational. Vaccines mandates are already common for school children, nurses, (and maybe teachers, but I'm not sure about that one) The rage over masks (and things like "CRT") is being intentionally stoked to win elections. The plan is to make it an us vs them issue. Again, it's intentional and cynical. If you stoke rage about mask wearing (and vaccines) you can position yourself as also being a valiant anti-mask/anti-vax candidate and win elections on this issue.

dominotw 5y ago
> The plan is to make it an us vs them issue. Again, it's intentional and cynical. Why doesn't everyone see things clearly for what they are. If its obviously 'the plan' .
- Jensson 5y ago
  Because they started labelling such arguments as right/left wing propaganda. Labelling any criticism against you as enemy propaganda is a common strategy in authoritarian regimes, and it works really well as long as you have sowed enough hate against the enemy in people. So even though the plan might not be obvious to those who live in the authoritarian regime, it is often very obvious for outsiders that for example the democratic peoples republic of Korea isn't really a democratic republic.
- nielsbot 5y ago
  I'd argue it's because propaganda works.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
danhak 5y ago
Government-imposed vaccine mandates were never common for access to private establishments, as is now the case in NYC and LA Philosophically speaking, It's one thing for the government to say you must be vaccinated to attend public school. It's quite another thing for them to say you must be vaccinated to enter a privately-owned gym.

BitwiseFool 5y ago

>"because you refuse to follow sane and frankly manageable guidelines to prevent the spread of COVID-19." As a point of order we can't treat "manageable guidelines" as a monolith as there have been a ton of "guidelines" and rules imposed over the last three years that were dubious, farcical, or overly intrusive. Like supermarkets cordoning off the greeting card aisle because social gatherings like parties were prohibited. Or gyms being told not to play music above a certain BPM because more intense exercise could enable Covid to spread more easily [1]. Going to the beach alone can get you arrested, but standing in a crowded Costco is acceptable. And so on. There's a lot more to the resentment and outrage than people simply being upset at the inconvenience of wearing a mask. Plenty of small business owners and restaurateurs had their livelihoods destroyed because the government went back and forth on restrictions and enforcement. [1] South Korea to ban music over 120bpm in gyms, in response to Covid spike : www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20210712000804

johnchristopher 5y ago
I often hear criticisms like this (and it's perfectly sound criticisms). My counter-argument is that, at the time, given our resources and our understanding we had to take wide scale measures and a lot of compromises were made and negotiations happened between people, institutions, governments, etc. so that we wouldn't just shut down everything. I believe most of the time these oddities and weirdness are consequences of those compromises and it's still the case. Sometimes it's easy to frame things like that and sometimes it's not (especially when the measures is only put in place for 3 days or a week. Eg when they asked people to sit alone next to train windows, rather than all next to each other or when they cordoned off books in supermarkets so bookstores that just reopened could have clients). I don't know how far off the mark I am.

rajin444 5y ago

You're probably overestimating covid risk (there are other polls similar to this one - this is the most recent): https://news.gallup.com/opinion/gallup/354938/adults-estimates-covid-hospitalization-risk.aspx https://news.gallup.com/opinion/gallup/354938/adults-estimat... The media's addiction to "scare articles" as well as the government's willingness to promote noble lies puts a lot of weight towards covid risk being heavily propagandized. On top of that, complying with government orders simply because you're afraid is a dangerous way to live. The scariest thing is how quickly propaganda can convince people others are not worth of life. The cheering of unvaccinated covid deaths is abhorrent.

somewhereoutth 5y ago
Begads! A Selfawarewolf in the flesh!!
Clubber 5y ago
>The scariest thing is how quickly propaganda can convince people others are not worth of life. The cheering of unvaccinated covid deaths is abhorrent. I like to study history and I recall an interview with a German who lived during the holocaust. He was asked if he thought the holocaust could ever happen in the US and replied that it could happen anywhere, it's just it wouldn't necessarily happen the same way as it did in Germany. If it ever happened in the US, it would be its own unique flavor of holocaust. It was pretty chilling. People don't even realize the moral road they are traveling when they praise deaths for political "gotchas"; I guess that's what makes going down that road so easy.
nzealand 5y ago
Ironically that comes up with wildly inaccurate estimates itself. > we take the average population totals over the relevant periods for each population (March 1, 2020-Aug. 9, 2021 for the unvaccinated population and Dec. 15, 2020,-Aug. 9, 2021, for the vaccinated population). The adjusted population of vaccinated people comes to 83 million and 295 million for the [un]vaccinated population 330 million Americans, less 83 million vaccinated Americans equals 247 million unvaccinated people, not 295 million. They are also deliberately ignoring CDC estimates. > CDC epidemiologists estimate that the actual number of hospitalizations may be 1.8 times higher than the reported number.

saiya-jin 5y ago

Emotions can, and often do guide people to do stupidest decisions of their lives that will effectively ruin it, or even kill them. You can't reason with such a person. And getting through the firewall of those emotions, for somebody often on the opposite side of the argument is practically impossible. I suspect IQ level plays a role too (critical thinking not only towards the world but also oneself). The more you push, the more resistance there is. Doesn't matter how right you are and how wrong they are. What covid highlighted like thermonuclear blast is how many people in general population are weird, naive, paranoid and basically... dumb, for the lack of better words. Also how internet amplifies the good and the bad equally. 200 years ago it would be just some random quiet weird dude that you don't have desire to talk to, today its a self-proclaimed patriot who thinks got the ultimate truth in contrary to general population. In their own echo chambers, this spirals into some pretty weird crowd mechanics. There is no win of argument. There is no going back. In this regard we moved a bit back to the middle ages. And yes, politicians fucked up pretty big time, almost every single one.

spookthesunset 5y ago
The wonderful thing about your statement is it is unclear just what “side” is correct. You say “ The more you push, the more resistance there is. Doesn't matter how right you are and how wrong they are.” That applies a ton to a bunch of ”pro mitigation” people out there who absolutely refuse to look at the data and science. Both strongly show that covid “badness” is very strongly correlated with age to the extent that the median age of death is higher than the average human life expectancy. Kids are almost completely unaffected by covid.
- 18pfsmt 5y ago
  One only need look at Sweden and their results. They took minimal action, allowed the youngest to remain in school w/o masks, and only canceled large events. We are now starting to see the all-cause mortality stats and they are proving Sweden's approach minimized the most harm.
  - SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago

Izkata 5y ago

> I just cannot wrap my head around being so upset that a public official lied you're willing to sever friendships, familial ties, and sacrifice your career because you refuse to follow sane and frankly manageable guidelines to prevent the spread of COVID-19. It's not even that the messaging is currently or has been conflicting now. It's like carrying a grudge for years over the smallest of infractions. Are people so bored, they have nothing going on other than to get in a big tizzy about having to wear a mask? It's rare, but some of us developed actual health issues from the mask itself, be it the reduced airflow or excess humidity from trapped exhalation. I didn't make the connection for myself until this spring when the mandate was lifted and my problems completely went away. So, I have no intention of wearing masks ever again, regardless of mandates. It's not just a grudge or being stubborn when people are asking you to actively hurt yourself.