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Comment by 7952 | Hacker News Reader

A hallmark of facism is the deliberate suppression of nuance. Every single thing is distorted to align with a particular narrative of fear. Fear of Jews, communists, or secret cabals of lefties using masks to destroy freedom.

There is more nuance to masks. They cover your face! They make it easier to avoid surveillance. Maybe the purpose is to prevent snot and phlegm from becoming air born. Because they are a terribe mechanism of control.

People can make personal choices to comply without it being driven by fear. But your attitude is driven by fear.

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So now that everyone is vaccinated we can just accept that the goalposts are infinitely far away and masks will be demanded forever. And anyone who doesn’t want that is a crazy conspiracy theorist who thinks it’s because of the secret cabal.

I am objecting to the ad hominem attack on mask wearers and the suggestion that it is indicative of some kind of moral failing. That does not mean I want masks forever (I don't). Or that I have a problem with people who choose not to wear a mask (I don't). Or that I even support legislation (I don't).

Who are you protecting with masks when a country is 98% vaccinated?

Wasn’t the promise in most countries that once that level of vaccination is achieved we can go back to normal?

Or can we just be clear that it’s masks for everyone forever from now on, because that’s what people who want to feel safe want.

This isn’t about COVID any more. It can’t be, because everyone’s had a chance to get vaccinated.

Vaccines aren't 100% effective in the short and especially the long term. The article itself talks about planning for vaccine booster shots.

I'd love for someone like yourself to explain to me what your vision of the future is, or what you see as a "good" world in the next few years.

At what point can we go back to pre covid regulations/laws? What level of booster effectiveness would make you feel comfortable?

Do you even want things to go back to pre covid? Or would you prefer everyone wear masks for common colds and flu (common colds kill the elderly too btw).

What death rate is acceptable to you for covid before things get back to normal? Should we lock down on severe flu seasons in the future?

I'd genuinely like to understand how you see the future, I'm not trolling you.

We already have tools for evaluating risk in health outcomes. We generally spend more to keep people healthy than merely alive, spend more on people with longer life expectancies etc

I work on the assumption that every nation's experts are working from similar frameworks.

We already encourage people to get flu vaccines, to be allowed time off work when infectious, run education campaigns on what does and doesn't help with flu, sanitize our hands when entering hospitals or care homes, wash our hands when preparing food and enforce a thousand minor laws, regulations and social customs around that to help keep people healthy from flu and a bunch of other things. All that takes money and time and we do it because the alternative would be worse.

It becoming common in more places to wear masks on public transport during flu season seems entirely reasonable to me and not something I'm particularly worried about especially as it might help with the next Covid, avian flu etc.

> I'd love for someone like yourself to explain to me what your vision of the future is, or what you see as a "good" world in the next few years.

Well, for one thing the rational choices are limited - it's not only up to us and our "vision of the future", there's a deadly pandemic that constrain us, and it doesn't care about the politics of masks, it's just looking for warm cells to infect.

It's foolish to think that we "can we go back to pre covid regulations" in a "vision" without evidence that the disease is under firm control. Getting it under control is step 1 to "good" - if that doesn't happen then the rest is noise;

None of our tools are perfect, but you must know the saying "You go to war with the army you have, not the army you want to have".

The places that are getting towards that good state are generally highly vaccinated and use the other measures a lot. Compare California to Texas for instance.

So my question for the people who don't like vaccines and vaccine mandates, and somehow also don't like masks and mask mandates is, what do you like in that regard? What is your plan?

> Or would you prefer everyone wear masks for common colds and flu

Some eastern countries have been doing this for a long time. Why would it be a bad idea if some western countries followed suit?

It is perfectly possible that face mask wearing is overcautious. That does not support your suggestion of facism.

What I am hearing is that you want people to stop wearing masks so that you feel safer. That the suggestion of a different perspective on something is fear inducing to you.

Maybe what is nice about Portugal is that people are less fearful in general than Anglo countries. People can exist without every little thing being turned into culture war scariness.

> Or can we just be clear that it’s masks for everyone forever from now on, because that’s what people who want to feel safe want.

Exactly! Just like how we were still wearing masks from the Spanish Flu outbreak 100 years ago.

You do realize your argument is a textbook example of a slippery slope fallacy?

> Or can we just be clear that it’s masks for everyone forever from now on

With the start of October, three days ago, masks are only mandatory in Portugal in select high-risk places: https://www.theportugalnews.com/news/2021-09-24/new-rules-fo...

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