the masquerade will always be with us
and preventing the spread of this mind virus requires standing up to it
“stop being such a self centered science denier!” said the obviously well adjusted human…
winter is back, and with it the calls for masking coming from all the predicable safety karen quarters of pseudoscience and superstition.
one might wonder how, in the face of the literal proven fraud or nonsensicality in essentially all the studies used to support this made up mitigation it still possesses so many adherents of such striking devotion and durability.
i mean, it’s pretty clear that you will never again in your lifetime be on a commercial airplane where no one is wearing these odd visage vestments despite the fact that pre 2020, unless you were in asia, you had probably never seen anyone on a plane wear one before.
the data for inefficacy is utterly overwhelming (read HERE for summary) for masks (n95 or otherwise) and yet some subset of society appears irretrievably attached to this halloween hilarity of cosplay “caretaking.”
in 2019, everyone, every expert, every agency knew this. the WHO published a large metastudy on it. this was not even really argued anymore.
and yet in 2022, these same people have gone all in on this nonsense NPI as though it were somehow settled science and continue with the intrusive ethical inversions of “your mask protects me” to strip rights and impose duty based on a bunch of charlatanry and scheisterdom.
you’re just going to keep seeing this sort of thing over and over.
it is now a clear addiction in every sense of the word.
the people promulgating it are addicts looking for a mask fix. acceding to them is like having “just a couple drinks” with your alcoholic friend to “help them feel more comfortable.” it is neither aid nor alliance, it’s complicity in self-harm.
masks feel like “safety” to these people in the same manner that submission to authority does. they were likely always somewhat anxious and frightened and agoraphobic and 3 years of being literally terrorized by an abusive relationship with public health has made it far, far worse.
and like so many in abusive relationships, they have become attached to and dependent upon their abusers.
and that can get really, really ugly.
and part of how one helps such people is to assist them in the realization that the abuser is, in fact, abusive and is playing the predator, not the protector.
and to help them see that everything these people say is a lie.
they do not believe this and never did. it was a position of convenience adopted for power and partisan politics. and it contradicted every single thing these people had ever said before.
seriously, try to find ANY of them promoting masks in 2019 or earlier. i’ll wait.
the “science” did not change. it became FAR more clear.
only these people changed. and they did not do it out of concern for you.
the effects for which this was adopted were not about a virus, they were about psychology.
masks create a sense of crisis because they impede human empathy and mirroring which feels alienating and they provide a plain proof, everywhere you look that “things are not normal.” and the more you wear one, the more you must tell yourself that there must be a great crisis ongoing for why else would you be doing this? why would everyone be doing this? the combination of behavioral and herd conditioning is very powerful. it becomes a sort of downspiral and many cannot escape it.
medical professionals and visitors are still being forced to mask in offices and hospitals all over the world. this is a complete nonsense, but it “feels” like doing something and keeps the ideas of “masks are real medical gear” alive.
but did you ever see a doctor (apart from a dentist seeking a splatter guard) do this in their office before 2020?
perhaps more telling, have you seen what doctors are doing when they gather in large groups for conferences right now?
(this just ended yesterday in new orleans. see any masks?)
this whole “doctors wear masks in surgery = proof masks work as source control” argument has been bunk since day one. first off, you’re talking about a highly controlled environment with trained users in fitted masks for short periods. trying to compare that to “3rd grade” is an absurdity. but secondly, the real kicker is this: even then, it doesn’t work.
and lest you presume this study to be some sort of outlier gatopal™ federico tackled this head on recently in a wonderful thread about the actual data on masks as source control.
you should really read the whole thing, it cites about a dozen strong studies.
3 emergent points:
masks are not viral source control. the data refutes that claim convincingly.
a great many doctors do not know this and have beliefs on the topic rooted in superstition, not science to the point of being outright ignorant of what the data says
this certainly does not stop them from making woo-woo style circular logic claims to appeal to their own authority.
but this lacks basis. it’s just past practice mistaken for proof. “it must work because it’s what we do” is the literally definition of an appeal to practice fallacy.
and yet this whole chain of roundabout reasoning is being used to justify ongoing harm, especially in children whose all day school masking has been such a disaster while clearly having no effect whatsoever.
this is not kindness, it’s cruelty. perhaps it is not intended as such, but harm is hardly made less harmful by well intentioned incomprehension.
it is simply time this stopped.
there is a real illness going around on this topic and as those who love masks and want to mandate that you wear them too to keep this happy place alive grow fewer and lower status, they will become ever more shrill and then turn vicious. it will seem like self defense. they will experience your free face as assault.
this will be a delicate time. if we care about some of these people, we need to sort of gentle them through these savage DT’s.
it’s not going to be a rational process or an easy one.
it’s worth remembering that many are victims here.
and for many of them, i have some quite deep sympathy.
but for those who are still using credential, authority, and power to keep this abuse going, i have little but scorn.
so many of them outright know better and just don’t care. they want to look like they are “doing something” and would rather pile drive the public under pseudoscience that admit that they lied.
ridicule is powerful weapon against such people as is evidence of hypocrisy. every video of one of these folks putting on mask right before the camera rolls and taking it off the instant it stops, flouting their own rules, and admitting they always knew this was ineffective helps.
spread them. let people’s own words and actions indict them.
i have real doubts that there are many who can, at this stage, be convinced by data anymore.
the opinions are too ossified and public points to pinned.
but, just in case, i will offer one more study of better quality than any used by the CDC.
you have to admit, the data here is pretty conclusive…
The amount of doctors I've spoken to, that won't even entertain the idea that masks don't work, shows how we got here and what a difficult fight we all have.
In my professional opinion, wearing masks is very beneficial. I never work without one. It provides very high levels of protection. For professional bank robbers like me, masks are essential.