despite REVELATION after REVELATION the “follow the science! mask up!” crowd simply will not stop.
their self-congratulatory propaganda for having learned the proper pseudoscientific virtue signaling cues continues unabated. humans are bad at this, so, once more, it falls to the internet felines to fix it:
there. that’s better.
there is simply no sound epidemiological or virological argument for masks and never was. the same drones screaming that we needed randomized controlled trials for any and every possible treatment, no matter how safe, suddenly accept the mask religion despite the total lack of RCT’s to support it. there are none, the CDC said so themselves. (see 2nd link above) and masks are not SAFE. they have real costs.
new CDC mask POLICY makes no sense and was never supposed to. the studies they have pushed are junk science to form a flimsy pretext for a public disinformation campaign to allow politicians to look like they are “doing something” and “saving you” and as an enabler to the neurotic virtue signalers that seem to make up such a significant and vocal wedge of US society and twitter histrionics.
masks have been woven so deeply into so many people’s identities because masking the face of a human has a major effect on the perception and expression of identity.
being rendered faceless and robbed of non-verbal communication and socialization cues is not a small thing. it’s a longstanding tool of interrogation and brainwashing.
just as one would predict, this fractured the brains of many among us through an unending cavalcade of bugbears and hobgoblins and a relentless narrative of MOAR FEAR juxtaposed against tangible talismanic mitigation and in-group signaling.
this broke them to the mask like you’d break a horse to the saddle.
it begins as pavlovian conditioning, but then sets as deep, instinctual preference tuning as cognitive dissonance takes hold and the aggravation of wearing a mask actually becomes the reason you become more and more convinced that it works, saves lives, and expresses virtue. human brains are trixy that way.
the science goes begging because reading and accepting it would mean admitting that you’ve been taken for a fool and have been acting like a preachy rube conned by a shady traveling ministry. the more you wear a mask, the more the information that wearing a mask is pointless just convinces you that you need to mask harder and so must everyone else.
you will not engage with data, you’ll dismiss it as anti-science and anti-social because your brain would rather twist reality into a hallucinatory landscape where you are the virtuous hero and all your hectoring and posing was noble and brave than admit that you were a dope and got taken in by a scam.
and the longer you do it, the more intense this gets.
this is the sound of cognitive dissonance ice starting to crack. we are virtuous! we believe in science! we have been through hell!
no, you haven’t. not from covid. the hell was all from the policy reaction. new york’s hospitals were no more jammed from covid than they were from the 2018 flu season. this is the outlandish dramatization of facts to justify the insane actions taken and the monstrous price they exacted.
again, that’s cognitive dissonance for you. lockdowns never worked and the costs were probably the most egregious peacetime imposition in human history. to look back on that and realize you bought nothing is not emotionally easy.
it’s a stark admission that you sold the family cow for what you thought were magic beans but turned out to be little pellets of rabbit poo.
at a certain point, what you did is so embarrassing that you just keep eating poop and claiming you like it.
this will be the pathology of the recovery. the real "long covid” threat comes from the sputterings of psychological derangement trying to right themselves. for many, this will get worse before it gets better. this is why the vaccinated still want masks. they are too committed to the narrative and have woven it into the structures of their internal psychology and self-justification.
it has, for all intents and purposes, become a facet of identity, filling the gap that being faceless left.
for these people, they are not just ending a habit, they are having to unpick the seams on who they have become and re-weave themselves back into something possessed of human identity and human agency.
this is the part where the cult gets twice as devout because the world failed to end as prophesied.
brace for it, because it’s coming.
but do not cede your sovereignty or reason to it, because it’s wrong.
Completely agree. Tried to have a rational conversation with a coworker to just agree that we can’t wear masks forever. Greeted with, we should to protect the immune compromised, “it’s not just about covid”. My mom was immune compromised since I was about 10. She lived her life and didn’t expect people to alter their lives for her. Too many people don’t think for themselves.
once you create an entity called "society" that can be professed to want and need things, any performative act can be reconstrued as "social duty." this process is one of the clear planks and identifiers in marxist, fascist, and totalitarian states.
the individual must be subjugated to the society. it's the antithesis of rights and freedom and the end of human flourishing.
This is the most accurate prediction of re-opening I’ve read. It used to be that cults were the minority. With Covid, they were the majority - soaring away w Xenu to the afterlife.
As they realize the starship is imaginary, some will fall from the sky back to earth. Thinking about how we get more and more to fall each day, and show them a gentle landing, the faster we get back to normal.
It starts by showing normal parts of the world functioning without ultra-covid-death. Travel is very compelling in changing views.
wonderful stuff Bad Cat! Now suddenly, it's all and sundry telling me "but look at India".
I have never masked up except to go into the supermarket, (and that under heavy protest) and never will. Masks are mandatory indoors and out here for the last seems like forever (six or eight months at least) and never will. But I think people will never come back down to earth.
I see people masked up walking in the countryside.
Your essay just makes it plain why. It will be masks until the dieoff is complete.
india is being outlandishly misrepresented. their death counts are incredibly low on any sort of per capita metric and they have never had much of a covid wave. these pictures of "people dying in the streets" keep getting revealed to be recycled images from years ago being used to fear-monger.
"the variants" is a grift. none have thus far been more dangerous.
I had a question for you. I’m generally against masks and I absolutely don’t wear one when I have to. I was in Florida recently and I found it odd that there still appeared to be a good bit of mask wearing. Now I was in Orlando and Jacksonville but do you make anything of that and their numbers or am I confused?
there's no evidence that masks ever worked to slow or stop covid in any way.
mechanistically, it does not work. the trials done on it all show that it does not work. the comparisons of masked and unmasked places confirm this as does the lack of any change in disease curves when mask mandates are imposed or lifted.
some people are wearing them in lots of places, but i see no case that's doing anything to affect the epidemiology. if it were, there would be some stark curve separation by now. the lack of such speaks strongly to non-efficacy.
I understand that masks mechanistically don’t work. Florida, notwithstanding their statewide rules, still allows localities to mandate masks although without civil or criminal penalty. What is to to be said to the people who’d insist that even though they dont have mandâtes per se, people there are still acting as if they do? I think that this is where the resistance to removing the masks could ultimately lie from the people’s standpoint. I feel that if the almighty CDC says they can go sometime in the next decade, the people may be hesitant. I feel like this is where the war must be waged.
It was still less mask wearing than where I’m from in Pittsburgh, but more than I was expecting. Mask wearing here in Pittsburgh is 100% in public stores such as grocery. Not many people wear them in the parks.
I was also shocked at the amount of voluntary masking in FL. There were lots of places that were without masks--such as beaches and bars--but many, if not most businesses in Fort Lauderdale and Tampa, still had the "wear a mask" signage on the door. Now, in the grocery stores, I just ignored it, but in the malls, they also had security guards telling you to put your mask on! And, of course, the airport was playing the totalitarian tune, complete with the threat, "failure to comply will result in removal and denial of service." Welcome to America?
I just got back from a few days in the Florida panhandle, and virtually no one was wearing masks there. The Class D airport in Destin had the same FAA-issued "masks required" signs that were plastered all over Baltimore, Atlanta, and Charlotte, but no one was obeying them -- including all the airport employees. Being from the People's Democratic Republic of Maryland, it was a welcome sight and I was happy that it only took a few hours for it to seem completely normal to be in public without one.
I was expecting and hoping my experience would be more like yours. Orange County, FL has an unenforceable mask mandate and a lot of the people there just go with it. There were signs everywhere except for a few Wawa stores. I’m also familiar with the PDRM as I frequently travel thru there to visit family in DMV area. Had some good friends move out of Montgomery county in order to get their kids into a school where they weren’t just over zoom.
I think the thing that gets me more than anything is how sanctimoniously the maskers act. Oddly or not, and not to cast aspersions on people’s religious beliefs or lack thereof, but it seems that a large portion of the mask brigade are big city types who claim to not be religious. Maybe that’s a foolish observation but I’m willing to bet it’s right more often than not.
very well put! I am observing the cognitive dissonance cracking in real time in NYC today. Still majority masked up, but fewer than yesterday, and central park today seemed (again--just like before the summer madness) majority unmasked. I didn't even get looks today maskless in the subway. I still wait for the collective shoe drop on how ruinous the policies were all the good maskers supported.
Completely agree. Tried to have a rational conversation with a coworker to just agree that we can’t wear masks forever. Greeted with, we should to protect the immune compromised, “it’s not just about covid”. My mom was immune compromised since I was about 10. She lived her life and didn’t expect people to alter their lives for her. Too many people don’t think for themselves.
once you create an entity called "society" that can be professed to want and need things, any performative act can be reconstrued as "social duty." this process is one of the clear planks and identifiers in marxist, fascist, and totalitarian states.
the individual must be subjugated to the society. it's the antithesis of rights and freedom and the end of human flourishing.
> My mom was immune compromised since I was about 10.
I’m Celiac and have eaten gluten free for 15 years - I could never imagine that all of society would eat GF, or think that anyone would ask.
“Don’t get fat! Hit the gym!” Those would be more useful than “wear the mask!”
Totally true. My husband also celiac. I wouldn’t complain about more GF food choices though. Some are quite terrible tasting. Ha!
> “ this will be the pathology of the recovery.”
This is the most accurate prediction of re-opening I’ve read. It used to be that cults were the minority. With Covid, they were the majority - soaring away w Xenu to the afterlife.
As they realize the starship is imaginary, some will fall from the sky back to earth. Thinking about how we get more and more to fall each day, and show them a gentle landing, the faster we get back to normal.
It starts by showing normal parts of the world functioning without ultra-covid-death. Travel is very compelling in changing views.
<gracias, gato malo, por su ayuda >
Soaring away with Xenu!!! Thanks to you and Gato for a sanity check this morning! LOL!
wonderful stuff Bad Cat! Now suddenly, it's all and sundry telling me "but look at India".
I have never masked up except to go into the supermarket, (and that under heavy protest) and never will. Masks are mandatory indoors and out here for the last seems like forever (six or eight months at least) and never will. But I think people will never come back down to earth.
I see people masked up walking in the countryside.
Your essay just makes it plain why. It will be masks until the dieoff is complete.
india is being outlandishly misrepresented. their death counts are incredibly low on any sort of per capita metric and they have never had much of a covid wave. these pictures of "people dying in the streets" keep getting revealed to be recycled images from years ago being used to fear-monger.
"the variants" is a grift. none have thus far been more dangerous.
yes, and they just stopped the distribution of Ivermectin, I have heard. But haven't seen proof
"We" want them scared" is their operational vision.
"We" want them to crave safety.
Then "we" can do what Hitler did and lead them bc "it's for your safety".
There is no benign in the "we": US, media, nor most levels of rulers.
I had a question for you. I’m generally against masks and I absolutely don’t wear one when I have to. I was in Florida recently and I found it odd that there still appeared to be a good bit of mask wearing. Now I was in Orlando and Jacksonville but do you make anything of that and their numbers or am I confused?
i'm not sure i understand your question. are you asking if this mask wear might be affecting the covid outcomes? if so, no, i don't think so.
i wrote on this yesterday.
this is also a good comp as is much of his data. the curves are all gompertz. (though i do wish he would control for testing rates)
https://twitter.com/ianmSC/status/1386771636569841666?s=20
there's no evidence that masks ever worked to slow or stop covid in any way.
mechanistically, it does not work. the trials done on it all show that it does not work. the comparisons of masked and unmasked places confirm this as does the lack of any change in disease curves when mask mandates are imposed or lifted.
some people are wearing them in lots of places, but i see no case that's doing anything to affect the epidemiology. if it were, there would be some stark curve separation by now. the lack of such speaks strongly to non-efficacy.
I understand that masks mechanistically don’t work. Florida, notwithstanding their statewide rules, still allows localities to mandate masks although without civil or criminal penalty. What is to to be said to the people who’d insist that even though they dont have mandâtes per se, people there are still acting as if they do? I think that this is where the resistance to removing the masks could ultimately lie from the people’s standpoint. I feel that if the almighty CDC says they can go sometime in the next decade, the people may be hesitant. I feel like this is where the war must be waged.
It was still less mask wearing than where I’m from in Pittsburgh, but more than I was expecting. Mask wearing here in Pittsburgh is 100% in public stores such as grocery. Not many people wear them in the parks.
I was also shocked at the amount of voluntary masking in FL. There were lots of places that were without masks--such as beaches and bars--but many, if not most businesses in Fort Lauderdale and Tampa, still had the "wear a mask" signage on the door. Now, in the grocery stores, I just ignored it, but in the malls, they also had security guards telling you to put your mask on! And, of course, the airport was playing the totalitarian tune, complete with the threat, "failure to comply will result in removal and denial of service." Welcome to America?
I just got back from a few days in the Florida panhandle, and virtually no one was wearing masks there. The Class D airport in Destin had the same FAA-issued "masks required" signs that were plastered all over Baltimore, Atlanta, and Charlotte, but no one was obeying them -- including all the airport employees. Being from the People's Democratic Republic of Maryland, it was a welcome sight and I was happy that it only took a few hours for it to seem completely normal to be in public without one.
I was expecting and hoping my experience would be more like yours. Orange County, FL has an unenforceable mask mandate and a lot of the people there just go with it. There were signs everywhere except for a few Wawa stores. I’m also familiar with the PDRM as I frequently travel thru there to visit family in DMV area. Had some good friends move out of Montgomery county in order to get their kids into a school where they weren’t just over zoom.
I think the thing that gets me more than anything is how sanctimoniously the maskers act. Oddly or not, and not to cast aspersions on people’s religious beliefs or lack thereof, but it seems that a large portion of the mask brigade are big city types who claim to not be religious. Maybe that’s a foolish observation but I’m willing to bet it’s right more often than not.
so good! they are very dug in
Beautifully explained Gato!
Muy bien, el gato.
very well put! I am observing the cognitive dissonance cracking in real time in NYC today. Still majority masked up, but fewer than yesterday, and central park today seemed (again--just like before the summer madness) majority unmasked. I didn't even get looks today maskless in the subway. I still wait for the collective shoe drop on how ruinous the policies were all the good maskers supported.
The flip side of Romeo's advice on Tin Cup: "Their brain was getting in the way!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5CkmKGQDb0