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It's even weirder because in Asian cultures it's been perfectly normal pre-pandemic to wear a mask when the feel sick (or if they under no circumstances want to risk getting sick. e.g. Right before a big exam). So it's not like such behavior and recommendations are a radical idea in the world.

I guess this is another result of an individualistic culture? A lot of Americans really don't like being told what to do, wear, or say. Even if it's in their best interest to do so.

It’s actually a very weird combination. Many Americans won’t wear a mask even though they know their individual risk is greater, because they don’t want to appear as if they’re part of the wrong collective. Americans are very individual and very tribal at the same time. Hostility can come from either not respecting their right to individuality or by asserting your own right to individuality if your behavior conflicts with their in-group. [source: several decades of being American]

We were also lied to by capitalist mass media and both political parties of capital, which helped people double down in their cognitive dissonance to their own detriment:

https://www.thegauntlet.news/p/how-the-press-manufactured-co...

In America, wearing a mask is a political statement. For a while it was: “we don’t like Donald Trump”. But now, it’s basically, “we want to protest something, we don’t want to show our faces, if the situation gets out of control we’ll be unaccountable”.

There are plenty of others I see (admittedly less so, but still daily in the affluent Bay Area) who drive around in their cars, alone, with masks on (non-Uber) and people who show up at the gym everyday wearing a mask while walking on a treadmill. I toured a preschool earlier this week where the teachers were all still required(?) to wear masks in the classroom (a bilingual Chinese immersion Montessori program).

Admittedly, I’m pretty anti-mask, and for those reasons: it dehumanizes interactions. That said, (for those still reading) I wish masks were a norm for when people were sick and carried no additional activist messaging. I fully support that use case and appreciate my fellow humans who wear them in those circumstances.

But then also, I’d expect those interactions to be rare, because if you’re sick you shouldn’t be hanging out with others, but self isolating.

But why is it a problem if someone's wearing a mask alone in their car? It doesn't affect you at all. Your opinions on the matter are just unsolicited noise.

It shows they they are doing it to make a statement and not for any scientifically backed reason.

That being said, there are many situations where it still makes sense:

- Feeling sick and on your way to pick up someone else

- Just dropped someone off and haven't taken it off yet

- It's not easy to take on and off so you just leave it on

- You're only driving for a minute and will need it when you get out.

So they're still wrong, but I see why they said it.

The first one makes sense, but the other ones don't resonate for me. Is it hard to take off a mask? When would I ever need a mask when I get out of my car (I only ever exit to the outdoors, unless I'm parking my own garage). If I'm going to need to put it on before going into a store, I would just put it on before going into the store itself.

> But now, it’s basically, “we want to protest something, we don’t want to show our faces, if the situation gets out of control we’ll be unaccountable”.

I wear a mask when out in public and my reasons, which are multiple, include but are not limited to "I have an immune compromised family member and don't want to be the one who kills them" and "I myself have been sick only once in the last 4 years and I'm pretty happy about that".

“ For a while it was: “we don’t like Donald Trump”.”

I’m about as liberal they come, and so are many in my circle. But not one person wore a mask for the sole purpose of not liking Donald Trump and then using a mask as a statement. That’s a bizarre take.

Oh yeah, probably not causation. Definitely correlation. My point was that mask retention was greater in blue areas as compared to red areas.

It may have been absurd how quickly masks were given up in red areas (don’t know; wasn’t there), but our laggard approach in Santa Clara county certainly was and felt reactionary.

Don't these measures incentivize selection for organisms that can stay infectious in the body for longer? They would need to suppress or fight the immune system harder. If everyone coughed down each others throat the variations that spread do not need to have these super powers

My feeling is it became politicized because the left saw it as a chance to expose Trump, and the right downplayed it to avoid impacts on Trump's reputation. Like because one side took one stance, the other side inherently had to take a different stance.

The right started out as "Covid is bad, but so is crashing the economy to prevent it", which turned into "Covid isn't that bad, wearing a mask is excessive", which became "The vaccine is more harmful than the disease". The left went from "Causing people to die is worse than any economy hit" -> "You should do everything possible to prevent it" -> "You should wear a mask at all times in public".

I often feel the left would have taken reversed stances if the right had taken the pandemic seriously. If Trump had advocated shutting things down and pushed strongly for vaccines/masks, it seems pretty likely the left would have called this an authoritarian overreach and/or highly questioned the safety of the vaccines.

In short, I think our culture is so highly polarized that as soon as something becomes a major topic, people immediately divide into separate 'sides' on it.

EDIT: follow-up question -- was the pandemic as polarizing in other countries besides the US?

Both parties of capital have handled this pandemic terribly:

https://www.thegauntlet.news/p/how-the-press-manufactured-co...

Doesn't seem to have been as durably polarizing elsewhere, as far as I can tell.

EG: even European countries that were more draconian earlier in the pandemic returned to relative normalcy, with less fear/debate around school reopenings, mandatory testing, mandatory masking, etc, sooner than the US.

In the US, sticky "showy extreme COVID vigilance is my essential identity as a good citizen" or "showy nonchalance is my essential identity as a free person" partisanship lingers.

>it seems pretty likely the left would have called this an authoritarian overreach and/or highly questioned the safety of the vaccines.

Biden, Harris, and Pelosi all said in September 2020 that they won't trust any Trump vaccine. <https://www.newsweek.com/anti-vaccine-covid-trust-skepticism...>

I mean, given what he said about trying bleach in people, I think I'd be a bit skeptical about his vaccines as well.

> It still boggles my mind how we managed to make it so politicized.

Having been raised by 2 Republican extremists, I can tell you exactly why it was so politicized:

1. "YOU CANT TELL ME WHAT TO DO!" Is the refrain of government telling people what to do or not. And remember, that corporations are legally people, so the same applies.

2. Higher education leads to 'librul ideas', with things like gay people should have the same rights as straights, racism is still a thing, and other higher thinking. And this 'education' is seen as indoctrination.

3. Because of disdain for higher education (which is seen as indoctrination), comes the idea that "My upbringing is worth just as much as your book knowledge", throwing away bodies of evidence. Journals are equivalent to scribbles.

It doesn’t boggle my mind. It was explicitly used as a tool of cultural differentiation during an election year.

Masking/not masking became an overt way of signaling tribal association, and it was no accident whatsoever. Predictably, it caused untold numbers of unnecessary deaths.

One takeaway from all this is how willing and fervent people are to signal their group membership, even at the expense of personal life safety.

I wore one as a barrier against airborne particles. I’m sure it’s imperfect at that but also better than nothing. I also wear one when working with power tools that kick up dust that may be harmful to me. I can’t say that I feel particular political allegiance to anyone when I do so.

A lockdown is going to be controversial no matter what. Sides were chosen because almost any response would cause an economic slowdown, which looks bad for the party in power. They'd get no credit for lives saved. And if they had been right that it would vanish all by itself, like a flu season, they'd improve America's financial state compared to countries that took the economic hit.

Once the sides were drawn, American polarization kicked in. There's no room for mere difference of opinion. The other side must be evil, stupid, and intent on destroying America.

I'd argue that that's especially true for the party in power at the time, though you have to take that with a grain of salt since I'm on the opposite side.

> And if they had been right that it would vanish all by itself, like a flu season

This always seemed rather optimistic. Flu rates are seasonal, and COVID could have been seasonal. But pandemic flus and particularly nasty flu strains also fade away because enough people either get them or get vaccinated that they are usually no longer so significant the following year. COVID lockdowns largely prevented this.

If the vaccines had worked anywhere near as well as an optimistic interpretation of the trials suggested, the lockdowns would probably have looked better in hindsight.

(Which isn’t to say that lockdowns didn’t have some value. If nothing else, they bought time for the vaccines to roll out and they may have contributed to a lot of people getting Omicron instead of earlier strains. It seems like Omicron was a decent amount less nasty.)

> no clear reason I can pinpoint.

The virus has been naturally selected to make people this way. It's like cat owner brain parasites.

Cat parasites: Outrage! Downvote!

Cat people: We exist to serve.

There's some (very weak and contentious) evidence that the flu virus makes people more social and outgoing. So in theory Corona might encourage people to spread itself (and therefore not mask) before they get too sick.

Getting any type of evidence and research on this theory is impossible ethically and socially and even something like "are cat parasite infected humans more likely to oppose masks" is something that is impossible to test for even though its probably a factor because there's too many other strong social factors.

It's a fun science fiction theory at least and worth a think about how infections effect human behaviour.