To be upfront, I'm not OP of the Lemmygrad thread. Masking obviously is important and a good thing to do for your community. Personally, however, living in a place like Texas where almost nobody still masks though, 54 months (4.5 years) after the initial declaration, and everybody says COVID is relatively a non-issue like the flu, I understand why the OP would be demoralized.
クロスポスト: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/5723508
Basically, wanted to know where people are at with mask wearing (as it relates to containing covid and all), I know it's been a while since it started. And I've seen people who say covid can still be threatening, like through long covid and such, even if the initial impact doesn't tend to be as bad. Being in the US, it's especially hard to tell what makes sense because the gov sorta gave up on containment a while back and only ever half-assed pushing mask wearing. And wearing a mask alone was a controversial thing in some places, even in the very beginning. Then there's vaccines, which of course help, but seems to be a thing like the flu where you have to get boosters to be fully covered for variant strains.
So in general, I'm wondering stuff like:
Do you still wear a mask or not and why? And do you have distinctions like large crowds or anything like that?
How does mask wearing compare by country, from what you know? For example, I'm sure China has a more pro-mask-wearing culture and policy overall, but I'm not clear on where they're at this late into it.
Partly asking cause I want to re-assess my own position on it, see if it makes sense to change it at all by now. I've still been doing it, in part out of inertia, but the US management of it is such a mess, in gov and culture, it's hard to tell when it makes sense to stop vs. just caving to peer pressure of people who were never acting responsibly to begin with.
The Communists didn't march across thousands of kilometers of rough terrain in China, all while being chased by nationalists, just so western "communists" in 2024 could stop wearing a mask after only 4 years of mass disabling disease that threatens the lives of all immunocompromised and elderly comrades. If you can't wear a mask to protect the lives of your comrades you're not even 1/100th of the way to having the discipline required for mass struggle. Get real.
Someone on that thread mentioned my own argument there and had this to say about it:
Someone elsewhere in the thread brought up the Chinese Long March and the dedication necessary for that. That comparison would be apt if masking was widespread, but masking while no one else is is about as useful as trekking through the Tibetan plateau alone.
It's since been removed by a mod, and I couldn't reply to it when I initially saw it because the thread was locked, but I think that my comparison is kinda silly at its face and they have a point so I feel the need to elaborate.
Yes, we are trekking through the Tibetan plateau alone. The social costs of COVID are absolutely monstrous and the fact that I wear a mask is only meaningfully protecting me, not the people around me, because they are constantly exposed to others who do not mask and whose probability of being infectious is already orders of magnitude higher than mine. The difference I make as an individual is measured only in the respect that I am a bridge between the outside world and my parents, who are both retired and go to indoors locations with less frequency than me. What benefit does me masking have? A significant one for my family, an infinitesimal one for society.
But let's get back to the point. "that comparison would be apt if masking was widespread" is a phrase that caught my attention, because masking was widespread worldwide, then gradually became decidedly-not-widespread. What were the social forces at play during the transition from the state where masking was widespread, and now? Each individual person makes a calculation, subconsciously, between a number of costs and benefits. Masking has a discomfort cost, a social appeal cost, and an economic cost. It has a perceived health benefit, a social health benefit, and a social appeal benefit. When one person perceives that most people around them are masking up, there's a force that compels them to do the same to fit in, and the opposite is true. The personal and social health benefit from masking is proportional to one's perceived risk of catching COVID. All the others are approximately constant. So, which of these changed in that transition? Perceived health benefits dropped off because COVID minimization was the prevailing narrative in media. More importantly, the social appeal cost replaced the social appeal benefit as a function of how many other people stopped masking. This led to a self-perpetuating positive feedback loop where the perceived benefits of masking dropped off more and more as other people stopped masking.
But there's an interesting insight we can draw that pertains to what an individual's choice is when inside this system: there's a point where the costs outweigh the benefits for me, but when I decide to change my behavior, that has a marginal effect on the calculation for everyone else who's still masking. It means that everyone who stops masking during that transition is part of a chain reaction, the spread of a memetic pathogen.
However, the dynamic works backwards, too. Telling people around you about Long COVID, recent COVID deaths, wastewater data, information about the effectiveness of N95 respirators, etc etc is essential because it increases the perceived benefits of masking for them. If they start masking, and spreading information about why others should, then it has the same chain reaction effect, but backwards.
So, starting with a small number of people who are dedicated to a long struggle, who rely on making their case to others about how they can benefit from joining in that struggle to eventually grow into a popular resistance movement? Is this not dissimilar to the July 26th movement, who started with 22 people after regrouping from their first failed landing in Cuba, but achieved victory over the Batista regime? Isn't our role as socialists to be that vanguard, that can synthesize scientific knowledge of social realities with the necessary tactics to affect social change? Aren't we the ones that should be committed to engaging in that long struggle against overwhelming odds?
Someone elsewhere in the thread brought up the Chinese Long March and the dedication necessary for that. That comparison would be apt if masking was widespread, but masking while no one else is is about as useful as trekking through the Tibetan plateau alone.
Did this plague rat seriously think the majority of China went on the Long March or something lmao?
Chairman Mao made 1 billion people do cardio with his comically large training whistle.
Do you still wear a mask or not and why? And do you have distinctions like large crowds or anything like that?
Yup; I can't afford to get taken off the pace I'm making money at, otherwise I'm definitely going under the surface-- which means I can't even joke about courting COVID. I avoid large crowds of unmasked crackers the same way a cracker'll cross the street in front of a singular Black person at this point. Those settler petri dishes ain't worth risking my health or money for their 'comfort'.
So infuriating to see your shit get removed but the little fucking weasels get to call us “virtue signaling” and “uncivil” unimpeded after we call them out for literally risking our lives for the sake of assimilation! That is plague rat behavior!!
Incredible, incredible stuff, truly. If I hadn’t lived in America my whole life I’d almost be surprised.
Shit like that that just reinforces my beliefs about these comfortable-assed settlers. There is no facet or facility in which Amerika and the crackers who uphold it are salvageable. The rest of the world may do with them what they will, and I hope they burn this plague mire; for they are not mine.
I stand ten fuckin toes down on what I said to both that cantaloupe fuck and Ghost of Faso; every smug-assed cracker motherfuck who refuses to understand why I go as hard for my friends and my actual comrades should go ahead and catch them a good, debilitating, "put they ass in a hospital bed"-level case of the shit so they can live what I lived, what my partner lived, and what half my fuckin family lived.
I believe (without any serious research into the subject) that when people ask for super granular masking directions they are looking for a way out. So they can say, “Well that’s too complicated! I’m not going to mask at all now!”
How hard is it really to put on a mask when you’re at risk of getting the virus? When people ask I kind of refuse to be specific. I just say, “indoors and away from your home.”
So they can say, “Well that’s too complicated! I’m not going to mask at all now!”
I think not quite, I think it's about trying to find a scheme that allows them to wear the mask the minimum amount possible.
I was really disappointed with the mod response to this thread. Locking the thread and removing comments from people being hostile towards those who are being covid minimizers, yet leaving up posts that are anti-science liberalism is absurd. How can you expect people to be respectful to those whose actions directly threaten you? Also people on lemmygrad are constantly making flippant comments about any number of people and topics, but apparently calling people plague rats is too far? I guess the folks there can dish it but can’t take it. Just an absolutely shameful display from a community of marxists. Sorry for the disorganized rant but this has been pissing me off all morning.
Also people on lemmygrad are constantly making flippant comments about any number of people and topics, but apparently calling people plague rats is too far? I guess the folks there can dish it but can’t take it. Just an absolutely shameful display from a community of marxists.
I'm genuinely considering folding my lemmygrad account and moving to hexbear after that bullshit. I've never seen such comfortable settlerism in my life. I expect those kinds of Nurgle-tier takes out of suburban-Amerikan whites. I expect that out of crackers that skid mark their drawers after they shit; not out of people who think they're my "comrades" while demanding they get to opt out of not spreading their pathogens.
"Fucking shameful" is correct and you should say it louder.
For the record this is why I migrated my lemmygrad account to hexbear, eventually. Y’all got your fair share of libs here too but I still get a generally better vibe here. The mods over there removing the pushback but none of the anti-social, anti-science shit tells me all I need to know, anyway, and is at least vindicating.
I’ll say the same thing I said there: I don’t care how much of a struggle it is to mask in public anymore, because I do not get a choice. My immune system has been fucked up for the last 20 years due to biological lottery. I mask, or I die. You’re not saving the world by masking alone, but you are saving every sick person who has to go to the grocery store and brave the odds again for the 1500th day in a row (if they’re one of the lucky ones) from getting it from you, another potential risk vector. If your actions could swing the pendulum even slightly, if they could marginally tip the odds toward saving even one life in a tidal wave, why wouldn’t you do it? When you tell me your masking does nothing in the face of an apathetic society, when you tell me masking is “virtue signaling”, you tell me you are not serious. You tell me to my face that you are throwing your lot in with my enemy; you are ok with leaving me behind, for them. So I will treat you with the seriousness — and vitriol — you actually deserve, a grace not given to me or people like me as you kill us.
Maybe I should just make the switch too. There’s a lot of “I’m an edgy teenager” vibes from there. Sucks because I like the more serious tone of a lot of the comms. But when you got people saying that “only anarchists mask because they’re concerned about optics” you are playing team sports. You are a liberal at that point. I’m so fucking embarrassed.
Getting angry over the tone of 'plague rats' but not the actual eugenics rhetoric is pretty
Yeah just came here from that thread to regain some sanity. Some disheartening shit in those comments…
They deserve the harshest socialist insult there is:
They’re deeply unserious people.
I’m normally not too embarrassed by my home instance, but Jesus H. Christ some of those takes.
Thank you to everyone that laid down facts in that thread. You’re the real comrades.
Could you link or report those takes? I looked over the thread and I can only find one person defending not masking (and they're not a lemmygrad user) : https://lemmygrad.ml/comment/5136253
Looks like a lemmygrad user also caught a temp ban for saying that they hope a hexbear user gets covid.
Unless I'm reading the thread wrong.
I will try hard to make time to report some comments and explain why those comments should be reported. As you can imagine, it will take time to do that. Please understand that I will find that a personally frustrating process, but I’ll try.
This thread offers a lot of insight you might find informative.
In general we are not angry at individuals for not wearing masks. What’s discouraging is the comments that attempt to justify not masking because it’s supposedly fruitless or ineffective. That sentiment is in that thread, a lot. Practically nobody in this comm is going to claim that your individual efforts in COVID mitigation are more important than widespread public health measures. But until public health is prioritized by governments we have an obligation to do what we can to keep each other safe. Does that make sense?
I don't see any comments that disagree with this, so I'm not following what this is all about.
EDIT: I went through and found a few more and removed them, but strangely they weren't the comments being responded to, and no one reported them.
I did report a couple comments that were more blatant misinformation, but i was a little wordy in my reports so maybe they didn’t go through? Regardless I appreciate you taking a look. The general attitude in many of the comments of “No one masks so why bother” and the one or two people calling it “virtue signaling” were particularly annoying. Should I not confront racism or misogyny in my workplace just because everyone around me is racist/misogynistic? Should I not reject the attitude of lesser-evilism just because everyone around me are chauvinistic liberals? Of course not. I don’t understand why so many cannot make that same connection with masking. Yes, our governments, especially the US government, have severely dropped the ball with Covid. But masking is only one step towards a community response to protect the vulnerable, and the most basic one at that. If we can’t clear that bar, how can we expect to accomplish anything?
I don’t want to come at you too hard because I understand moderation is a thankless job, and that you are bound to piss off someone regardless of what you do. But like I said in my other comment in this thread, it was really disappointing to see chauvinistic and ableist attitudes about health left untouched, but those who (very understandably, imo) lost their temper on those with those attitude removed. Again, I’m sorry for the long disorganized rant, but I hope you can understand where I and many of the users here are coming from.
I do see two reports from you, and the one towards a lemmygrad user was removed (the other is towards a hexbear user).
The general attitude in many of the comments of “No one masks so why bother” and the one or two people calling it “virtue signaling” were particularly annoying.
Could you link those comments so I can remove them, because I don't see any: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/5723508
This is the most egregious one to me. The entire thread. https://lemmygrad.ml/post/5723508/5136253
This one: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/5723508/5133914
Basically I think anyone that makes light of wearing a mask/ever having worn one is extremely, extremely suspicious to me no matter the reasoning. This is life or death for me, so asking me to respect their opinions as equal to mine (or somehow more civil) in discourse is absurd. Wear a mask or people die. I die. It is that simple. Any rhetoric minimizing this has no place in a dialectical materialist outlook. Never.
The top one is a hexbear user, not a lemmygrad user. Both were unreported. I've removed them both now tho, thx.
ah yeah one of my reports was a hexbear user. i’m at work now so i won’t have a chance to go through the thread again but when i’m off i can go through whatever’s still up and report anything that remains. again appreciate you taking the effort to fix things, this is far from the first time i’ve seen you doing good work on lemmygrad so just want to say thanks and that i’m sorry if i was too harsh in my comments on this topic, it’s just unfortunately i have (usually unproductive at best) conversations about covid and masking just about every day, so i have very little patience around the topic any more, especially when it’s with fellow communists.
No probs! Totally understandable, I'm one of the only people who masks around me too, and its equally frustrating after having some family members who almost died from it.
Can I interest you in an information dump I dropped yesterday that may give you some insight as to why so many of us consider anti-maskers to be ignorantly proponents of eugenics?
https://hexbear.net/comment/5406396
Hexbear link to the Lemmygrad thread: https://hexbear.net/post/3497199
those comments were largely a real bummer 😞
@frauddogg@lemmygrad.ml take my energy for your curses
i have been trying to be less prone to going claws out on people here and at LG, but honestly: what's the point of a communist who doesn't care for the most vulnerable?felt like walking into a den of sneering liberals
If they act like a
and spout eugenics like a they're probably a
@ClimateChangeAnxiety@hexbear.net you asked in the Lemmygrad thread about how to get a free shot if you're uninsured – check with your local health department.
I talked to mine in late August and learned they'd have the updated shot in mid-September and confirmed it would be free for the uninsured.
unfortunately, covid got to me first – wishing you better luck ❤️
I’m sorry you got it :(. I hope you’re feeling okay.
Are you waiting a few weeks to get the updated booster? I’ve read some time ago that’s recommended. Not sure how accurate that is now though.
I'll call them when I'm finally testing negative and find out what they recommend. idk what the protocol is.
Not really, but you have to build it. If you are organizing in your city, make mask required spaces. Its up to us to make community, not find it.
Not that I know of. China gave me hope for a while. Tbh I was pretty crushed when they abandoned Zero Covid as I could see where the mass Immune Dysregulation and brain damage was gonna lead us and hoped they would hold out long enough for a sterilizing vaccine.
How much money do you people spend on masking every day? Cheapest ffp2 masks I can buy are like 50 cents per piece so if I were to wear one every day I’d have to spend 15 euros a month which is pretty expensive. And that’s not taking into account that you’re supposed to change your mask every 3 hours. (I’m stuck at home a lot of the time which is why I don’t mask daily)
I don't have an exact number but I watch for deals on Amazon for aura n95s. Give a couple days between use to air out and reuse them till the strap breaks. Been thinking it might be more cost effective to get an elastomeric though.
I reuse them. I use one per for example travel and put the mask in a box on our balcony to chill out for a few days. My kid was at school at the start of this and I had this whole system of numbered weekly paper bags for him for one mask per bag and a chill out box for the ffp2 masks where we circulated them from. Afaik good masks can easily be reused for quite a while and any masking is better than none.
Edit. To answer your question I think I've spent maybe 100€ on masks during the entire pandemic, but then again we have dropped all unnecessary socializing for good. A box of 20 is 5,90€ and these days a box will last me for months.
Edit. 2 I do work and travel to meet clients in public transport sometimes several times/day and study at uni. I do remote work as much as I can, but there is still plenty of mask use. They still last me for months. The total cost is for a family of 3, two working adults and a kid in school.
It’s more up front cost, but you can save a lot in the long run with an elastomeric respirator, plus it has a lower environmental impact. Before that we were buying 3M N95s from a bulk reseller and splitting the cost between my wife and I, and our roommate, which was a lot cheaper in the long run. I wish I had more specific numbers for you but unfortunately I don’t at the moment. Depending on where you are, there may be a covid conscious mutual aid group nearby that could help as well.
And that’s not taking into account that you’re supposed to change your mask every 3 hours.
Do you have a source for this? Not trying to interrogate you, just want to make sure I’m doing the right thing and giving people in my life good advice. I’m pretty sure an N95 filter should last a lot longer than that, although the elastic straps on disposable ones will wear out much sooner so maybe that’s why?
National health agencies of different countries have different advices for mask use. The 3 hours comes from my own national health agency but I found an Australian agency that says 4 hours https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/environment/factsheets/Pages/face-mask.aspx
Most US sources I could find say that you can use them until they become dirty or moist, but that you can wear them several times (I would assume if you use them for short duration). Personally my masks become smelly and moist after a few hours so that’s when I throw them away.
