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Comment by severino | Hacker News Reader

Maybe we can keep using masks? Now that we already got used to them, we may reduce the effects of pollution with good filtering masks. Of course this doesn't mean we shouldn't address what's causing the pollution in the first place.

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This is really the reason why masks were common in Asia. Except Japan.

But their pollution is a lot higher than ours. Pollution here in Barcelona is not high enough that I'd consider wearing a mask for it. And the upcoming bans of old diesels and two stroke scooters will make things even better.

I'll never get used to masks anyway. They'll always be an extreme annoyance. I wear them because it's mandatory and I agree right now they make sense. But as the pandemic turns endemic they have to stop. I'd rather live 10 years less than have to wear them for the rest of my life. Especially outside.

>Especially outside.

Who wears masks outside? That's never been required in the UK.

I do.

I have on most occasions throughout the pandemic, except last summer right after the second jab when I thought everything was finally over (and even then continued to wear them in crowded places).

IIRC I only forgot 2 or 3 times even for solitary walks, and some of those were 5 hours long.

To my ongoing confusion, me talking here about my intention to continue wearing masks beyond the point of it being needed resulted in someone going to my blog and posting a few abusive messages on an unrelated entry: https://kitsunesoftware.wordpress.com/2021/06/14/why-do-some...

Ties though, I really don’t like wearing ties.

Where I live in Spain it was mandatory again until last Friday and a lot of people still do..

>I'll never get used to masks anyway. They'll always be an extreme annoyance.

I'm definitely in this category, I can't stand the things and haven't worn one since the mandate in England ended. Something about blocking my mouth and nose is just a really unpleasant sensation, it's not the type of mask or the fit rather the essential nature of having something stuck to my face. I think a lot of people really downplayed just how unpleasant mask-wearing actually is for many, charitably this was for the greater good but now I think we have to be open about the downsides too. The pollution from plastic masks is a big issue too, lots of very long-lived litter that's pretty gross in the streets and bad for the marine environment where they eventually wash up into as well.

I too would accept the greater risk of death than wear them for the rest of my days. I'm glad that in my country at least we're not letting this turn into the same kind of ritualistic safety theatre we've seen at airports for the last two decades.

Thanks, it's really good to hear I'm not the only one. For me it feels like I'm choking after a while, like an hour or so (less when I talk or exercise). But it's also because I had a childhood disease where I actually almost choked for real several times. It brings the feeling back.

Unfortunately I live in Spain where they have been really relaxed this wave but here they just love their masks. It's like virtue signaling and a feeling of safety for them I guess. They were even mandatory on the streets again and still are in shops and public transport, and work all day long. About 50% of people still wear them on the street.

I really hope that they will relax it soon because I'm ready to find another country again. Too bad because until 2019 I was really happy here.

It seems to be working totally fine in other countries which have stopped them completely and sometimes even have lower vaccination rates. I wouldn't care if they locked down 3 months a year but this masking is just so difficult :(

You can do that! No places that dropped mask mandates have made a law against wearing masks.

Just leave the decision to individuals.

A few countries in Europe ban face coverings in public. Mainly driven by fear of people wearing burkas.

This does not apply to surgical or ffp2 masks generally.

I'm only aware of a small subset of laws existing in Europe, but every single example of restrictions to face hiding I can think of predates Muslim presence by many decades. No, those are not driven by fear of people wearing burkas.

Denmark introduced a ban in 2018.

https://outline.com/BUzZLq

Netherlands 2019 https://www.government.nl/topics/ban-on-face-coverings-refer...

France 2011 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_ban_on_face_covering

Denmark 2018 https://www.dw.com/en/denmark-bans-full-face-veils-in-public...

Austria 2017 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-41457427

etc

I was thinking about the german Versammlungsgesetz and requirements to stay identifiable while operating dangerous machinery in public ("driving"), but apparently I was completely wrong about their age (actually late 20th and late 2010s, I was assuming "possibly leftover from some reich"). Still, those two were not motivated at all by rejection of imported culture, but in terms of timing they might very well have been.

'predates Muslim presence by several decades'?

When exactly do you think 'Muslims appeared' in Europe?

711 if we ignore the failed siege of Constantinople. But I don't think that's in any way related to what gp was talking about?

Correction: no, the examples I was thinking of are much younger than I thougt (but nonetheless not aimed at burkas at all, aimed at leftist protesters and at reckless drivers)

At the start of this, I saw a claim that New York failed to repeal their no-face-coverings requirement when making the new masks-are-mandatory requirement.

(No idea if this was accurate or a colossal misunderstanding of how things work, but the claim was made).

No i did not get used to them. You can have it all if you want. Id rather have this as an individual choice

Of course this should be an individual choice. Nobody cares about decisions which only affect yourself. It's different from the use of masks for, e.g., covid, where you can harm other people by not wearing yours.

our brains are wired to read faces because weve been doing that since we were apes, theres no way masks dont have a negative psychological and social impact on our lives when used longterm

That's interesting. However, it's not like we're not reading faces all the time anyway, even if we use masks like we've been doing lately. Family, friends, internet, videocalls, remote meetings... I suppose the impact could be greater for kids in school ages, but I wonder what effects could the long term use of masks of those last 2 years produce in our lives.

I doubt masks are even all that important with regard to ability to read faces, because eye muscles are at least as important as mouth muscles in displays of emotional affect.

You can also see this in the difference between Eastern and Western emoticons, the former may use :) as smileys while the latter uses ^_^

i speculate.. anti social behaviours, insecurity issues, (mis)communication issues.

im not sure i follow, we do read faces daily, even in voice/video chat we do. Body and facial language matter.

Cutting off 50% of that as sibling comment points out... even if it doesnt totally prevent us from reading peoples face via the the eyes, that only highlights how important reading faces is, when we cant see the entire face we exclusively look for cues in the eyes.

Well the good thing is that here people can protect themselves by wearing masks, if they want.

Not all of us are used to them. I think they are absurd, and I'm never going to live my life wearing a mask.

It's completely unnatural.

I get your point. But pollution is completely unnatural, too. We got to a point where few things are still natural in this world. I don't know if masks are effective against this kind of diseases, but I guess those 9M who die prematurely every year would have chosen to use them.

All clothing is completely unnatural.

I don’t think I’ve ever really felt any emotional resonance to an appeal to nature. Not even in my hippie-Wiccan late teens and early twenties.

But I’m endlessly curious about how minds work:

Is “unnatural is the same as bad” a foundational position for you, or is it that you dislike masks and this argument is a metaphorical soldier you’re sending out to do memetic battle for you to support that dislike?

Or is it something else entirely? Like I said, I never “got” this type of appeal. The unnatural is too commonplace and too useful.

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