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[–]StillLessons 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Ask yourself this:

If masks work, why stop at coronavirus?

These are not a barrier against this virus. They are a barrier against everything that is outside your lungs getting into your lungs. Think of it! Miracle! No more viral diseases! Bacteria are larger. We're sure as hell done with bacterial disease!

The people promoting mask use seemingly have no concept of the thousands of viruses and bacteria with which we come in contact every day. This has been true as long as life itself. It's what having an immune system means. Our body is miraculously skilled at figuring out good bugs from bad. It comes in contact with both all the time. Literally all the time. A physical barrier between "us" and "the outside biome" is an absurdity.

Either we live in harmony with our environment or we don't live.

That's personally what pisses me off. People subconsciously are working with this model that a mask "stops covid", like it can tell "covid" from "non-covid". This is pure human ignorance. The purest.

[–]Insider 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

If masks work, why stop at coronavirus?

Because the r0 of other viruses/bacteria aren't as high. The incubation time and asymptomatic symptoms also play a large factor in COVID-19's spread.

Well-organized Asian countries with compliant populations saw a dip in other respiratory infections during their COVID-19 protocols.

People subconsciously are working with this model that a mask "stops covid", like it can tell "covid" from "non-covid".

That's not the point. Point is reduction in transmission rate. Masks won't stop COVID-19 from spreading through aerosols and improper use renders it useless. Normal masks prevent your water droplets from spreading to others. That's it. They don't need to tell apart COVID from non-COVID, that's not their function. If a dude with COVID is spraying it, a mask would help prevent his water droplets from going all over the place. End of story.

[–]StillLessons 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I understand the mechanisms you're talking about, and I will not argue that masks don't prevent some droplet-associated virus from traveling in the environment. For the first few months of mask use, in fact, although I already was uncomfortable with the concept, I gave the mask promoters the benefit of the doubt. I thought, "well, this is a new virus, maybe there's something in the way this particular virus travels and behaves that is conducive to mask effectiveness." I kept my mouth shut. Then, watching the data from the parts of the world where masks were the religion and other parts of the world where they took a more hands-off approach, it became clear that masks in the "laboratory of real life" make ZERO difference in disease transmission, which is their only function. If the disease is still spreading and infecting people identically in a statistical sense in masked and non-masked areas, that's all masks can do. The whole argument of "Well, people get less sick" was horseshit from the beginning. It was clear as soon as the comparisons started coming online that masks make fuck all difference.

But my point is beyond that. It's how people perceive them. My point is about Scientism the religion. The people wearing masks have this religious faith in the process that "masks stop covid". There is a rational block on the actual mechanism of what masks are doing. It's such a fucking simple story: masks filter out all particles above a certain size. That brute "hammer" approach is thoroughly inelegant. Masks are not about covid. They are about all particles above a certain size. Forget the fact that the aerosols themselves are significantly smaller than that size (I know, I know, water droplets carrying, blah, blah, blah), most people can't seem to absorb that such a brute force approach is a radically simplistic approach to a hyper complex interaction between the human body and the biome with which we have been in contact for thousands of years.

The human body WILL be in contact with a practical infinity of viral and bacterial populations. It's what it means to have a biological existence. This idea that we can "stop" that process must be discarded before we can have a serious discussion on how to help the body in its natural ability to maintain its balance within the biological matrix in which we live. Funny how there has been zero messaging about immune system health outside of forcing the immune system with a shock exposure to a toxic protein. There are a lot of strategies to gently aid the immune system in its natural tension with pathogenic bacteria and viruses that surround us. Instead, all we got was the mRNA shots which rather than strengthening the general immune response appear to damage it long term.

We ARE inherently engaged in a dance with that natural world around us. We need to stop this mentality of we can "keep it out". It represents super simplistic spitting in the wind.

[–]RichardsonDavis[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Sounds like something I'd find at a Tumblr screenshot post on Pinterest. The kind where it's a thread discussing what masks are and why they're useless. I have not seen one, unfortunately. Maybe it's there but not very around.

As far as human ignorance is concerned, I'm not sure how to address that.