3 ms·

Excellent summary. I'm double-vaxxed and generally wear a mask. My social circle (work/ friends/family) is the upper-middle-class liberal set. My life is pretty

by boppo1 5y ago

Excellent summary. I'm double-vaxxed and generally wear a mask. My social circle (work/ friends/family) is the upper-middle-class liberal set. My life is pretty set with this group of people and I'm not throwing anyone out of it over covid-opinion silliness. However I'm routinely disgusted by their self satisfaction on this topic. An exchange I heard yesterday between two people close to me, spoken with no irony: Q: "Why won't people just get the vaccine?" A: "Fear of Democrats." Back in 2020 when this was all new, I encouraged them to wear masks while shopping, because that's what I saw people in asian countries doing and figured it wasn't unreasonable. They wanted none of it! Them: "The CDC says we shouldn't wear masks." Me: "Fuck the CDC! They don't know what's going on any better than we do. Wear masks, they will probably help" Now, they conveniently have no memory of that exchange and regularly evaluate others on whether or not they're properly 'masking'. After all the BS around this, I don't at all begrudge people their choice to not get vaccinated, even though I recognize that is probably responsible for hospitals hitting capacity.

mindslight 5y ago
IMO the way to avoid being resentful to an arbitrary half of people is to continue distancing yourself from the herd until you're at odds with most everyone. From my perspective, people who don't wear masks AND people who continue to wear ersatz surgical masks are all ignorant. Since this ends up being 97% of the population, I obviously cannot carry this opinion prominently. I just wear my own functional respirator in public, quietly model them as the petri dish they are, and deflect their questions with empathizable breadcrumbs.
- boppo1 5y ago
  >functional respirator What do you use? N95?
  - mindslight 5y ago
    Half face silicone (3M 7503) with P100 filters (#2297). When/where masks are mandated, I disable the valve functionality by removing all the check valve flaps and sealing up the output with gaff tape. When they're not, I wear a second one without that mod because breathing is much easier. I'm aware this isn't perfect and I'm not invulnerable - it's not a bunny suit with PAPR. I coast on my glasses taking care of most face droplets (similar to how I coast using many power tools), and admittedly haven't done the work to go beyond that. It's definitely an impediment to appearance and speaking, and in medium-engagement social situations I do have an N95 I fall back on to not be too obtuse.
    - colechristensen 5y ago
      This is what I did at the beginning, but as the risks became more clear I see no reason to keep it up. I’m happy to take many much more serious risks than catching covid and it’s become clear that covid is never going away and I’m not going to spend my life in a darth vader mask.
      - mindslight 5y ago
        I don't see a reason to stop doing so for errands (eg grocery store) - public places are high fan out, with people that I don't particularly need to socialize with, and keeping defenses up there helps my main goal of being more comfortable within my close circle. Furthermore if the pandemic did disappear tomorrow (I agree it won't), I would still wear something in public to mitigate facial recognition. Close friends and family I've come around to wearing no face covering (vaxxed) - you're kind of already committed by being in each others' homes - and separating such visits by time. I agree that heavyweight masks don't really work for medium social engagements (like say a hobby group, or incidental conversation when picking something up from someone, etc), which is why I've moved towards the N95 on that front. I hate their small tight bands though. At least it's not a KN95 with the over-the-ear straps.
    - boppo1 5y ago
      Neat
vaxxz 5y ago
[flagged]

by boppo1 5y ago

mindslight 5y ago

IMO the way to avoid being resentful to an arbitrary half of people is to continue distancing yourself from the herd until you're at odds with most everyone. From my perspective, people who don't wear masks AND people who continue to wear ersatz surgical masks are all ignorant. Since this ends up being 97% of the population, I obviously cannot carry this opinion prominently. I just wear my own functional respirator in public, quietly model them as the petri dish they are, and deflect their questions with empathizable breadcrumbs.

boppo1 5y ago
>functional respirator What do you use? N95?
- mindslight 5y ago
  Half face silicone (3M 7503) with P100 filters (#2297). When/where masks are mandated, I disable the valve functionality by removing all the check valve flaps and sealing up the output with gaff tape. When they're not, I wear a second one without that mod because breathing is much easier. I'm aware this isn't perfect and I'm not invulnerable - it's not a bunny suit with PAPR. I coast on my glasses taking care of most face droplets (similar to how I coast using many power tools), and admittedly haven't done the work to go beyond that. It's definitely an impediment to appearance and speaking, and in medium-engagement social situations I do have an N95 I fall back on to not be too obtuse.
  - colechristensen 5y ago
    This is what I did at the beginning, but as the risks became more clear I see no reason to keep it up. I’m happy to take many much more serious risks than catching covid and it’s become clear that covid is never going away and I’m not going to spend my life in a darth vader mask.
    - mindslight 5y ago
      I don't see a reason to stop doing so for errands (eg grocery store) - public places are high fan out, with people that I don't particularly need to socialize with, and keeping defenses up there helps my main goal of being more comfortable within my close circle. Furthermore if the pandemic did disappear tomorrow (I agree it won't), I would still wear something in public to mitigate facial recognition. Close friends and family I've come around to wearing no face covering (vaxxed) - you're kind of already committed by being in each others' homes - and separating such visits by time. I agree that heavyweight masks don't really work for medium social engagements (like say a hobby group, or incidental conversation when picking something up from someone, etc), which is why I've moved towards the N95 on that front. I hate their small tight bands though. At least it's not a KN95 with the over-the-ear straps.
  - boppo1 5y ago
    Neat

vaxxz 5y ago

[flagged]