If you wear a mask for any reason

[Soothsayer]

Masks help. The weight of evidence from authoritative academic sources increasingly favors this statement. Do your fellow countrymen a favor and just wear the damn mask. Are some of you really so utterly selfish that you're willing to selectively ignore this and potentially endanger the lives of others? Do you honestly not care about your fellow man enough to at least do something that may very well protect him or her? Go ahead - cherry-pick the articles that support your point of view. Hell, I could cherry-pick an article that says microwaved food causes cancer. Does that make it so?

The fact that masks are a hot-button political issue in the United States is a stunning testament to our collective moral failure as a nation. And unless you're a researcher with truly in-depth knowledge of how disease transmission works, do what the overall academic consensus tells you to do. I'm willing to bet that most of you have no credentials and no expertise on the subject.

[douglas1999]

Originally Posted by Soothsayer [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Masks help. The weight of evidence from authoritative academic sources increasingly favors this statement. Do your fellow countrymen a favor and just wear the damn mask. Are some of you really so utterly selfish that you're willing to selectively ignore this and potentially endanger the lives of others? Do you honestly not care about your fellow man enough to at least do something that may very well protect him or her? Go ahead - cherry-pick the articles that support your point of view. Hell, I could cherry-pick an article that says microwaved food causes cancer. Does that make it so?

The fact that masks are a hot-button political issue in the United States is a stunning testament to our collective moral failure as a nation. And unless you're a researcher with truly in-depth knowledge of how disease transmission works, do what the overall academic consensus tells you to do. I'm willing to bet that most of you have no credentials and no expertise on the subject.

Is this post about the flu, sars cov-1 or sars cov-2? I need to know which one you're talking about before I can berate you for being a bad person.

[cd288]

Originally Posted by douglas1999 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Is this post about the flu, sars cov-1 or sars cov-2? I need to know which one you're talking about before I can berate you for being a bad person.

Again, neither of you selfish and moronic individuals have been able to make a coherent and intelligent argument for why it's an issue for you to occasionally have to put on a mask (i.e. when you're indoors in a public place and not eating/drinking) just in case the data about it helping to reduce spread is accurate. Still waiting.

[douglas1999]

Originally Posted by cd288 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Again, neither of you selfish and moronic individuals have been able to make a coherent and intelligent argument for why it's an issue for you to occasionally have to put on a mask (i.e. when you're indoors in a public place and not eating/drinking) just in case the data about it helping to reduce spread is accurate. Still waiting.

I have repeatedly stated that I *do* wear a mask and I don't particularly mind it. My arguments have all been about why we don't treat similarly-risky diseases in this way, or respond societally to them in this way. At all. The response is completely out of proportion to the risk. You guys have yet to formulate an argument as to why this one is worthy of this response, outside of "it's more transmittable". It's also overwhelmingly not dangerous for the overwhelming majority of people. That's the asymmetry that hasn't been addressed.

I already pointed out that the flu killed more kids, in only one flu season, which only lasts 4 months. Covid has killed significantly fewer kids than that in an entire year, yet we don't have mask mandates and lockdowns for a bad flu season. If you're arguing in good faith, you should say "Well, we SHOULD mask up for the flu season". That would at least be consistent. But that's never the response, it's always some handwaving "well this is magically worse because of authoritative sources of medical professionals" word salad garbage.

[cd288]

Originally Posted by douglas1999 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I have repeatedly stated that I *do* wear a mask and I don't particularly mind it. My arguments have all been about why we don't treat similarly-risky diseases in this way, or respond societally to them in this way. At all. The response is completely out of proportion to the risk. You guys have yet to formulate an argument as to why this one is worthy of this response, outside of "it's more transmittable". It's also overwhelmingly not dangerous for the overwhelming majority of people. That's the asymmetry that hasn't been addressed.

I already pointed out that the flu killed more kids, in only one flu season, which only lasts 4 months. Covid has killed significantly fewer kids than that in an entire year, yet we don't have mask mandates and lockdowns for a bad flu season. If you're arguing in good faith, you should say "Well, we SHOULD mask up for the flu season". That would at least be consistent. But that's never the response, it's always some handwaving "well this is magically worse because of authoritative sources of medical professionals" word salad garbage.

Well, personally I would love if mask wearing became a thing for the flu and other diseases.

Although it's not really accurate that the flu always kills more kids. In the past 16 years, there have only been 3 years where the flu killed more children than COVID (in some years, the flu killed less than half of the amount of children who have died from COVID; in others significantly less, i.e. less than 100). And, of course, we're not out of the woods with COVID yet so some of those years will likely be surpassed by COVID since they're only like 10 deaths higher than the current COVID death child death toll. COVID has also killed vastly more people this year than the flu has in any of the past 10 years. Studies also show that even if you survive COVID (and even in some cases where you were completely asymptomatic) that there is decent potential that you are going to have various different health issues during the course of your life as a result (heart damage, lung damage, kidney damage, etc.; oftentimes significant levels of damage).

Again though, I would be totally fine if they said everyone needs to wear masks during flu season too. That would only be a positive thing. However, that's not really relevant to an anti-mask argument when it comes to COVID. People can argue we should mask up for other diseases/seasons too and I'm all for that. But if someone tried to argue that we shouldn't wear a mask for a worse disease because we don't require it for lesser diseases, that doesn't really make logical sense.

[Raev]

Originally Posted by Soothsayer [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Are some of you really so utterly selfish that you're willing to selectively ignore this and potentially endanger the lives of others?

Approximately 300,000 people in the US have died "of" COVID. Most of them are octogenarians with multiple comorbidities, and the official numbers are that they have some 5-10 years of life left at most. 300,000 * 10 * 365 / 300,000,000 = 3.65. In other words, if all of the COVID deaths were distributed evenly we would have each lost under 4 days of life, and probably more like 2.

Now, are you seriously claiming that someone who would prefer to see the smile on a friend's face while eating at a nice restaurant over living four more days can only be a selfish, morally reprehensible, anti-citizen?

Originally Posted by Soothsayer

Go ahead - cherry-pick the articles that support your point of view

The AAPS page quotes some 30 articles if I am eyeballing it correctly. Please remember that the scientific consensus up till about 8 months ago was that masks don't work. Fauci is literally on record as stating that the average person should not wear a mask and that asymptomatic people are never the primary drivers of an epidemic.

Originally Posted by Soothsayer

do what the overall academic consensus tells you to do. I'm willing to bet that most of you have no credentials and no expertise on the subject.

I have a PhD in Computer Science. I've seen how the academic sausage is made. Peer reviewed papers are more interesting than random internet pages . . . but not by much. Mostly they just reflect the interests of their corporate donors, and those are not always aligned with the truth . . .

[imperiouskitten]

Originally Posted by Raev [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Approximately 300,000 people in the US have died "of" COVID. Most of them are octogenarians with multiple comorbidities, and the official numbers are that they have some 5-10 years of life left at most. 300,000 * 10 * 365 / 300,000,000 = 3.65. In other words, if all of the COVID deaths were distributed evenly we would have each lost under 4 days of life, and probably more like 2.

Now, are you seriously claiming that someone who would prefer to see the smile on a friend's face while eating at a nice restaurant over living four more days can only be a selfish, morally reprehensible, anti-citizen?



The AAPS page quotes some 30 articles if I am eyeballing it correctly. Please remember that the scientific consensus up till about 8 months ago was that masks don't work. Fauci is literally on record as stating that the average person should not wear a mask and that asymptomatic people are never the primary drivers of an epidemic.



I have a PhD in Computer Science. I've seen how the academic sausage is made. Peer reviewed papers are more interesting than random internet pages . . . but not by much. Mostly they just reflect the interests of their corporate donors, and those are not always aligned with the truth . . .

Nice, more minimizing, more "comorbidities".

I'm 30 and I have "comorbidities" but they wouldn't affect my covid survival. If I died, you'd scratch me from your cherrypicked stats.

Fuck grandma, she had high blood pressure so she doesn't count.

[douglas1999]

Originally Posted by imperiouskitten [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Nice, more minimizing, more "comorbidities".

I'm 30 and I have "comorbidities" but they wouldn't affect my covid survival. If I died, you'd scratch me from your cherrypicked stats.

Fuck grandma, she had high blood pressure so she doesn't count.

Comorbidities are an extremely relevant and important detail in assessing the threat of any disease, especially when drafting public policy to respond to that disease.

If being obese and having diabetes makes you much more likely to die of covid, should we not draft policy to reduce obesity and diabetes first? Let's have a government mandated maximum daily caloric intake. Let's have government mandated administration of blood pressure medication to all citizens. These measures would reduce mortality more than wearing a shitty mask.

Again this is all beside the point, all of life is a risk assessment. The question is whether the risk is worth the sacrifice, and many including myself don't think that it is.

[Cassawary]

Originally Posted by douglas1999 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Comorbidities are an extremely relevant and important detail in assessing the threat of any disease, especially when drafting public policy to respond to that disease.

If being obese and having diabetes makes you much more likely to die of covid, should we not draft policy to reduce obesity and diabetes first? Let's have a government mandated maximum daily caloric intake. Let's have government mandated administration of blood pressure medication to all citizens. These measures would reduce mortality more than wearing a shitty mask.

Again this is all beside the point, all of life is a risk assessment. The question is whether the risk is worth the sacrifice, and many including myself don't think that it is.

What about the betus? You can't morally recommend masks for covid without curing all other illness first. It's hypocritical!