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Comment by capableweb | Hacker News Reader

I truly cannot tell if your comment is sarcastic or not. What is the downside to using mask if you feel like it?

I get that some might want to use masks forever, but to me it's alienating. We are already quite isolated from our community in our homes and in our cars, if everyone starts wearing masks at normal places to meet other people in the community I think that would be a bit sad.

Exactly. In all of the mask discussions, there should be more focus on the kind of life we want and less on the science of masks. I think it's pretty obvious that masks have immediate infection control benefits, and always will.

But it's a perfectly valid opinion that the benefits do not outweigh the societal impact of treating each other like infection vectors instead of having normal social behavior (as well as the option to wear a mask or stay away from people if your priorities are different).

I would rather risk death than live the rest of my life in a bubble, and there needs to be more of a discussion of what people value and the tradeoffs we're making.

"I would rather risk death than"

Whose?

Normally I'd ignore that, but yes, that's the classic argument to try and short circuit real debate by making us think that one death anywhere is worse than small actions we can take. I disagree, just like I think we should be able to create other social policies that don't save everyone but that try to compromise between the kind of world we want and the safety of its inhabitants. It's hard to think about and takes strong leadership to navigate, but instead of talking about that we focus of hyperbole and hashtags

It’s not black and white. If you drive you also risk other people’s deaths.

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