My experience talking to the other side during this administration is that they are completely unable and often unwilling to consider any argument or information that conflicts with their views. How do you debate with people who don't care about facts or reason?
Your comment about "facts or reason" is sort of odd given your post gives no details concerning what you consider these to be. I mean, I could fill in some but it seems like without you giving a clue as to what you're referring to, people can only shout for you or against you.
Here's an example. My facts, which I think are shared by almost all people for at least hundreds of years (at least anywhere there has ever been a plauge):
1) Sometimes human spread illness to each other via spit, like when they talk
2) A piece of cloth in the path of spit will probably block some or all of the spit
That is the entire argument for wearing masks. Wearing a mask costs almost nothing, and you know it might help save lives if you believe 1 and 2. I live in a state where not wearing a mask is very common. Most people don't even have them on in something like a gas station. People are dying here at 2x the national average.
My neighbors, whom I have known for a decade, told me that my personal wearing of a mask was a politically-motivated attack on their beliefs. Millions of people have similar beliefs.
This is the thing that truly drives me crazy about the political deadlock, and the replies to this comment are a good example of it: Democratic politicians propose a common-sense, obvious measure that would be objectively good for society (e.g. healthcare; slowing down climate change; addressing a global pandemic ravaging our country; providing money to the people now out of work due to the economic recession caused by the pandemic). In turn Republicans (politicians and right-wing pundits, that is; not referring to constituents), respond by fighting tooth and nail opposing it, using nonsensical buzzwords and ad hominem attacks on whomever sponsored the bill, and make it one of "The Issues" for political points, further subverting any real, meaningful discussion on policy issues. I've watched the GOP degenerate from "kind of annoying, but valid counter-points" to "blatantly obstructionist" staring with the Tea Party during the Obama Admin, and only getting worse from there.
Today there's the "Let's actually do our jobs and keep the country running" party and the "Let's destroy our country and blame it on the other side because corporate lobbyists pay us to do so" party. And somehow we need to find common ground and unity when the other side is more interested in bullying and obstructing the Democrats than it is trying not to kill another 200K people. There's compromise, and then there's calling a spade a spade.
To be clear, I won't pretend the Dems are fine (and if there were a way to vote third party without throwing away my vote, I would do so in a heartbeat). But the Democrats aren't even particularly progressive anymore. Bad-faith concession after bad-faith concession to the GOP over the course of decades has slowly dragged the Democrats to the center, while the GOP's actual extremists making a mockery of our democracy have the gall to label providing healthcare as the real extremism.
Have you forgotten that we couldn't buy masks or other medical equipment for months because of China, and everyone, including WHO, Fauci, Obama, etc. were advising people against using masks due to shortage?
- January 14, WHO: Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China🇨🇳(https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152)
- January 31, Trump suspends travel from China: Proclamation on Suspension of Entry as Immigrants and Nonimmigrants of Persons who Pose a Risk of Transmitting 2019 Novel Coronavirus(https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/proclamation...). A move condemned by many, including WHO and Biden.
- February 1, Biden: We are in the midst of a crisis with the coronavirus. We need to lead the way with science — not Donald Trump’s record of hysteria, xenophobia, and fear-mongering. He is the worst possible person to lead our country through a global health emergency.(https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1223727977361338370)
- Feburary 2, Health Commissioner of New York City: As we gear up to celebrate the #LunarNewYear in NYC, I want to assure New Yorkers that there is no reason for anyone to change their holiday plans, avoid the subway, or certain parts of the city because of #coronavirus.(https://mobile.twitter.com/NYCHealthCommr/status/12240431558...)
- Feburary 24, Pelosi: You should come to Chinatown. Precautions have been taken by our city, we know that there's concern about tourism, traveling all throughout the world, but we think it's very safe to be in Chinatown and hope that others will come.(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAEfSHeH4Lc)
- Feburary 29, U.S. Surgeon General: Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!(https://twitter.com/Surgeon_General/status/12337257852839321...)
- Feburary 29, WHO: Travel bans to affected areas or denial of entry to passengers coming from affected areas are usually not effective in preventing the importation of cases but may have a significant economic and social impact.(https://www.who.int/news-room/articles-detail/updated-who-re...)
- March 3, Bill de Blasio (NYC Mayor): Since I’m encouraging New Yorkers to go on with your lives + get out on the town despite Coronavirus, I thought I would offer some suggestions. Here’s the first: thru Thurs 3/5 go see "The Traitor" @FilmLinc. If "The Wire" was a true story + set in Italy, it would be this film.(https://twitter.com/BilldeBlasio/status/1234648718714036229)
- March 8, Fauci (Director of NIAID): People should not be walking around masks. There's no reason to be walking around with a mask. When you're in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little better, but it's not providing the perfect protection people think it is, and often there are un-intentioned consequences(https://youtu.be/PRa6t_e7dgI)
China brought up medical equipment all over the world, which is why you couldn't buy any masks and other medical equipment for many months. This was not just a result of Daigo (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3gNQ9JnJ90), but rather, China had its overseas companies send their employees all over the country to buy up all the medical equipment they could find:
- Chinese property developing group Greenland scoured Australia to purchase bulk medical supplies - including masks, gloves and thermometers - which were flown to China. "Basically all employees, the majority of whom are Chinese, were asked to source whatever medical supplies they could," one company insider told the Herald. This exercise went on for weeks through January and February, he said. The entire accounts department, contract managers, the human resources team and even receptionists were sent on a mission to find bulk supplies of surgical masks, thermometers, antibacterial wipes, hand sanitisers, gloves and Panadol. According to a company newsletter, the Greenland Group sourced 3 million protective masks, 700,000 hazmat suits and 500,000 pairs of protective gloves from "Australia, Canada, Turkey and other countries."(https://www.smh.com.au/national/chinese-backed-company-s-mis...)
- Sydney-based Mr Kuang, former officer in the People's Liberation Army, imported 35,000 sets of protective medical suits, 200,000 pairs of gloves and 10 tonnes of disinfectant from Australia to China.(https://www.smh.com.au/national/former-chinese-military-man-...)
If Biden/the democrats were interested in uniting the nation then perhaps they should’ve united with Trump against China instead of pushing CCP propaganda to attack Trump and blame him for everything. Perhaps they should’ve been honest about why they didn’t want people to wear masks for the first many months. Accept responsibility for the fact that USA is so heavily reliant on China, largely thanks to the likes of Biden. Perhaps they should acknowledge that they were wrong to encourage people to gather, wrong to attack Trump for limiting flights from China.
Literally everyone has a little piece of cloth they could put over their mouth, and literally everyone should if it has a a reasonable chance of saving a life, to say nothing of many lives.
The fact that there’s any controversy about this at all leads me to believe that many have abandoned all reason.
>literally everyone should if it has a a reasonable chance of saving a life
This is a moral judgement and not everybody shares the same values as you, especially regarding what a "reasonable" chance is. Some people don't believe they should inconvenience themselves just because it would contribute to a tiny decrease in deaths. There's also an absence of data: given we've got months of data on death rates and mask usage rates in different areas, it should be possible to quantify exactly how strong the correlation is, but nobody's even done this.
- humans can spread viruses to each other just by breathing,
-a piece of cloth won't stop the aerosol particles you exhale! Even a mask won't stop them.
Furthermore there is no good experimental evidence that masks work for anything other than surgery (for which they were intended, designed and tested).
What DOES work? Distancing, e.g., keeping away from each other.
Distancing is about disease; masks are an exercise in political theatre and political control.
> However, the size and concentrations of SARS–CoV-2 in aerosols generated during coughing are unknown. Oberg and Brousseau (3) demonstrated that surgical masks did not exhibit adequate filter performance against aerosols measuring 0.9, 2.0, and 3.1 μm in diameter. Lee and colleagues (4) showed that particles 0.04 to 0.2 μm can penetrate surgical masks. The size of the SARS–CoV particle from the 2002–2004 outbreak was estimated as 0.08 to 0.14 μm (5); assuming that SARS-CoV-2 has a similar size, surgical masks are unlikely to effectively filter this virus.
...and that's the least problematic part of the study.
The study is done on a sample size of n=4 (!!), and tests the immediate effects of masks against coughing. It does not test the longer term effect of staying in a non-ventilated room (like a mall or a train) with non-coughing (normal breating) infected people.
I'm sorry, but we've known that masks work for literally a century. They were also recommended during the 1918 pandemic. There is a wealth of literature on this topic; it is scientific consensus.
It's great that you're thinking critically about the ways that this individual study might fall short, but trying to poke holes in a study here or there does not undo the (literally) century of research underlying the efficacy of cloth masks in preventing the spread of airborne illnesses (or epidemiology in general).
This article clearly shows evidence that masks reduce the spread of covid.
In your critique you've changed the question you are debating (again) to 'does a surgical mask filter particles of the size we assume covid to have'. Because the answer 'not flawlessly' and the critique 'sample size 4' (when there were <100 cases in the country at the time!) support the answer you already had before your even read the article.
This is the conservative (and to be fair most people's) response to information that disagrees with whatever narrative hold.
Coupled with the amplification of a conspiracy presented with no evidence "masks are an exercise in political theatre and political control" and you have the right's playbook on pretty much every issue these days. Climate change, abortion, economics, disenfranchisement - experts say one thing, the right pulls out slivers of factoids "what about volcanoes and methane from cows" "what about pregnancies that have gone to 24 weeks" "what about communism", all micro-facts with almost no relevance to the overall discussion, designed to distract, enflame and stall in order to preserve the status quo.
On the left, there are similar issues, but at the end of the day, the left acknowledges and defers to experts on the subjects. The right has propagated such distrust and anti-intellectualism we have reached Trump as the ultimate demonstration of idolizing agreement over effectiveness.
This response shows exactly why Trump won, and more generally what the problems with today's society are. People cannot separate discussion from politics.
When I have to use public transport, I wear a N95 respirator. I avoid getting out as much as it is feasible. I have gifted many N95 respirators to friends and family. On a social level, I have been involved with arguing for, and implementing stronger measures against COVID-19. Specifically, getting the damn face shields and chin guards banned. And somehow you have managed to think that I am a COVID-19 conspiracy theorist because I dare to point out the flaws of what people think are solutions against the pandemic.
I’m confused about what your disagreeing with - fundamental physics? you’re saying that when you cough, covering your mouth with your hand or arm does nothing? The aerosolized spit and mucous leaving your mouth passes through your hand unaffected by matter? If so, what are you doing wasting your time on HN? You have singlehandedly disproved vast swaths of scientific research, go claim your Nobel prize!
The claim is only that a little piece of cloth in front of your mouth will block some moisture. Less bodily fluids expelled into the environment means less risk of transmitting disease. It’s not perfect but it cost almost nothing and will save peoples lives. Even if it’s only very marginally effective, why would you not suck up the very very small personal discomfort if it would save even a few lives?
To be fair, a lot of reasonable people would say "no witness could change my mind" if I asked them "what witness testimony would convince you that politicians are secretly Lizard People from the planet Venus?" So I don't think this is really about rejecting facts & reason... it's more about having really strong priors that the rest of us don't share.
Yeah, the mainstream Democrats in particular engaged in crap arguments like the dubious, hyper-partisan impeachment effort. Impeachment just distinctly wounded the anti-Trump efforts and only Trump's fumbling Covid was enough to get it back on track.
But the super mainstream Democrats are one of 3-4 distinct factions who want Trump out. Those actually even the mild left were only partially on this train.
So to cover what you're washing over here: The US President and his subordinates attempted to use the office of the President's powers to compel a foreign country to "discover" evidence against the President's domestic political opponents, under the auspices of denying military aid for the defense of that country from invasion by one of the US's global antagonists.
That's what you're covering under "hyper-partisan". You know, just so we're all clear on that.
Your comment about "facts or reason" is sort of odd given your post gives no details concerning what you consider these to be. I mean, I could fill in some but it seems like without you giving a clue as to what you're referring to, people can only shout for you or against you.