Before 2020, nobody even thought they’d be effective against viruses, two years later we have even more evidence that they don’t work, and yet public health authorities won’t stop promoting them.
I'm pulling out what's left of my hair. How can science be this utterly broken?
We had a hypothesis. We tested it. We tested a million billion times, in every country, in every cohort. Our hypothesis failed. It failed when we tried two masks. When we tried n95s. When we tried it at nursing homes. It failed, and failed, and failed.
But we became so in love with our hypothesis, and it became such an easy way to get published if we could data-drudge our way through some retrospective bullshit study, that we kept up this charade, and now have only the weight of a hundred ridiculous studies as "evidence".
Now half the world is convinced this useless intervention has value. Beyond the damage we are doing to toddlers, think of the long term implications? How many PhDs and MPHs are going to conduct research beginning with the premise "That masks work"? How much detriment will that have to future decades of research when we begin with a baked-in assumption that falsely describes viral behavior? How much damage would have been done if we clung to elevation correlating to Cholera for another 50 years after Snow demonstrated otherwise?
Everyone looks to John Snow as the hero of Epidemiology, but what we need is the next William Farr.
Who among the Public Health establishment will concede, just as William Farr had done 160 years ago, that their pet theory turned out to be completely wrong?
This nonsense needs to end. We knew for 100 years that masks didn't stop bacteria much less viruses. We knew through RCT even in the operating room they had no measurable impact on asepsis.
Just because the "bad team" was against masks without having the evidence to back up why didn't work doesn't mean that we need to cling to this failed and unfalsifiable hypothesis out of spite or some moral obligation. Accepting that this is pseudoscience doesn't mean we are republicans.
What do we need to do? Resurrect the James Randi 1 million dollar prize to challenge practitioners of this pseudoscience to prove their claims? Or would people like Gorski just claim they are "above" having to demonstrate their claims [1] and simply point to that time some people in a salon in Georgia who agreed to be tested didn't get Covid while wearing loose fitting cloth masks as his mic drop?
The public health establishment has been thoroughly Gish Galloped. They point to the 100+ "pro" IVM studies as example of how something false can be Gish Galloping, but refuse to realize they too have fallen for the same logical fallacy.
Social Media Archaeologists will someday find the primary source of how something that doesn't work got 70 studies to "show" it does work [2], but we can't wait for them to catch up.
I have taken that original collection of Gishes and added to it over the last 18 months, including every study, notable article, or Bill Nye TikTok into this spreadsheet. Now I need the next William Farr to take over and shut down this nonsense once and for all.
4. Doing something. Anything. "Out of an abundance of caution." It seems for many the mask is a reflexive response to a vague sense of "Covid is out there." To not demand or wear it is to stop worrying about Covid. This is related to making Corona visible, but for the mask-lovers, it is also about holding on to a particular experience of being the smart and cautious ones who are "doing everything right."
And people still cling to their masks. I was just told by someone if I want to attend their religious service I should wear a mask. I politely said no thank you. Guess I’ll just keep praying and talking to God from home. I asked. Why doesn’t your congregation follow the science? No reply.
Alex Berenson’s book has a section on it. Masks were totally a psyops. Imposed. BY SAGE. An organization in London that advised such things. Intended to get us all to comply and to empower peers to yell at us all. And to encourage fear.
As I think I recall, the original stated purpose of masks was as the first rung on a compliance ladder, to make it more likely that people followed other restrictions too.
Of course, as with all things, it took on a life of its own and became something to be done just for its own sake.
I always thought it was because they realized they needed to give people some sense of control, something they could DO in the face of so much Terror and Uncertainty. It would deflect the crazy energy from themselves and what was going on. I still think this was true in the beginning, and they can't admit it. Think basic Psy-ops.
At this point, I believe our public health authorities have bad intentions / don’t have our best interest at heart.
I am more curious why the people are still following along.
Some of my potential reasons include:
Fear (thanks to the media and NO thanks to the vaccine): 41% of Democrats thought more than half of people with COVID-19 must be hospitalized. In reality, only 1-5% of people diagnosed with COVID-19 will be hospitalized… if the virus really was that deadly I MAY understand the masks
“For others” / Social Responsibility / Feel Morally-Superior: Public health officials discovered a really good marketing strategy. Their ads are designed to make you feel like a horrible person for NOT wearing a mask, while making the people wearing a mask feel like they are better than / care more about / are saving others when they wear a mask
Don’t want to be labeled conservative: After my college friends got vaccinated, and the CDC granted them permission to be maskless, they had a dilemma: they wanted to be maskless because they wanted people to know they were vaccinated, but they also did not want to be maskless because they didn’t want to be mistaken for an anti-masker, a.k.a. Trump Supporter. Ultimately, they chose (and still choose) to wear a mask. It’s so unfortunate that a piece of cloth became political.
Your #2 & #3 clearly were major reasons, I but I believe the forced wearing of masks was mostly to make people more susceptible to illness due to hypoxia and the suppression of immune system health, with the goal of boosting the infection numbers to maintain the fear and mass psychosis. Furthermore, masks are akin to a muzzle on a dog, to keep it controlled. Ergo, anyone not wearing one, is a defacto homicidal maniac, and must be exorcised from the "in" group, if not jailed. This was also to maintain the fear-based mass psychosis, and keep people suspicious of eachother, which is deleterious to community harmony. It all worked quite well for a while and still is to some extent. Now, its really all just about placating a few brainwashed covidiot holdouts, and the authorities sick enjoyment they get from exercising idiotic and arbitrary rules over their inferiors, primarily for their amusement. Keep your slaves scared, sick, and poor, and they will never revolt or leave the plantation, comrade...
As recently as 2019, less than three years ago, just months before masks were mandated masks were banned outright on public transportation. For good reasons upheld by international courts. Do those rational and legal justifications for banning them not apply today?
2014
"Judges at the European court of human rights (ECHR) have upheld France's burqa ban, accepting Paris's argument that it encouraged citizens to "live together".
The law, introduced in 2010, makes it illegal for anyone to cover their face in a public place...the law was not aimed at the burqa or veil but any covering of the face in a public place...
...The European judges decided...that the preservation of a certain idea of "living together" was the "legitimate aim" of the French authorities.
Isabelle Niedlispacher, representing the Belgian government, which introduced a similar ban in 2011 and which was party to the French defence, declared both the burqa and niqab "incompatible" with the rule of law.
Aside from questions of security and equality, she added: "It's about social communication, the right to interact with someone by looking them in the face and about not disappearing under a piece of clothing."
The French and Belgian laws were aimed at "helping everyone to integrate", Niedlispacher added."
"On August 1, 2019, the “Act Partially Prohibiting Face-Covering Clothing,”also known as the “Burqa Ban,” entered into force in the Netherlands. The Act prohibits the wearing of clothing that completely or partially conceals the face in spaces where people are expected to communicate with each other. Thus, face-covering clothing is banned on public transportation and in educational, governmental, and nursing care institutions, but is still allowed in such public spaces as on train platforms. The ban applies to burqas, niqabs, full-face helmets, balaclavas, and masks, but not to headscarves."
Until facial coverings are banned outright the manipulated and coerced psychosis that has taken hold of our society will remain. Faces are necessary, are a requirement for public life, for civil society. The rationale that international courts found true just before Covid still applies. It never stopped applying.
"This is because SARS-2 is primarily transmitted aerosols; it works like a gas that fills indoor spaces. Only N95 or FFP2 respirators have any chance of stopping the inhalation of these microscopic particles" - and unless you also wear a mask to protect your eyes the infection can atack through that method - your mucous membranes - this was also well know at the time.
Last summer when the CDC said that vaxxed people could go maskless, nearly everybody around here did so. The few people who were still wearing masks were VERY VERY uncomfortable being the ones standing out.
At some point, the 'go along' people will see that to go along, they need to ditch the masks. Once they do that, the 'true believers' will suffer the consequences of their actions. My guess is they will submit much quicker than we did. ;)
Masks amplify fear. Here's the science behind them, psychological. More precisely, behavioral science. Not medical science. Social sciences, not natural sciences. Our self-proclaimed betters use behaviorism to "fix" our ignorant, flawed perspectives - to protect us, of course, for our own good. These manipulators of the mind don white robes and stethoscopes masquerading as hard scientists who follow the scientific method of the natural world. This is the actual science of it. Some call it fear amplification as non pharmaceutical intervention. I call it compulsory terrorism.
This study gets into the scientific background on the importance of faces, visible expressions, for a healthy society and healthy social interactions. A 2009 research study titled, "Of snakes and faces: An evolutionary perspective on the psychology of fear." This study supports the very same rationale the international courts upheld the burqa bans for. A healthy society requires faces be seen. Not just eyes. Full facial expressions are an essential form of human communication and stabilizes society. And perhaps most importantly, human aggression is moderated by full faces.
In the study they refer to masked faces. Not in terms of an actual facial covering, but in terms of unnatural neutral faces that intentionally don't communicate any emotion in situations when facial expressions are customary and expected. Point is, yes, they've terrorized us no differently than if they've made us look at snakes all around us all day, every day. It takes constant higher reasoning reminders to self to push through the fear and anxiety masked faces creates just as surely as if surrounded by snakes all the time, even at an subconscious level.
4. CONTROL. The authorities wanted control. They wanted submission to their authority. They wanted to enforce obedience. (Especially when masks became an "us" vs "them" identifier, they wanted their enemies brought to heel.) And requiring masks was a thoroughly visible sign of obedience and submission.
Working on longer piece, a book review, which should be up tomorrow, hence nothing yesterday and shorter post today. Book reviews take a long time.
I'm pulling out what's left of my hair. How can science be this utterly broken?
We had a hypothesis. We tested it. We tested a million billion times, in every country, in every cohort. Our hypothesis failed. It failed when we tried two masks. When we tried n95s. When we tried it at nursing homes. It failed, and failed, and failed.
But we became so in love with our hypothesis, and it became such an easy way to get published if we could data-drudge our way through some retrospective bullshit study, that we kept up this charade, and now have only the weight of a hundred ridiculous studies as "evidence".
Now half the world is convinced this useless intervention has value. Beyond the damage we are doing to toddlers, think of the long term implications? How many PhDs and MPHs are going to conduct research beginning with the premise "That masks work"? How much detriment will that have to future decades of research when we begin with a baked-in assumption that falsely describes viral behavior? How much damage would have been done if we clung to elevation correlating to Cholera for another 50 years after Snow demonstrated otherwise?
Everyone looks to John Snow as the hero of Epidemiology, but what we need is the next William Farr.
Who among the Public Health establishment will concede, just as William Farr had done 160 years ago, that their pet theory turned out to be completely wrong?
This nonsense needs to end. We knew for 100 years that masks didn't stop bacteria much less viruses. We knew through RCT even in the operating room they had no measurable impact on asepsis.
Just because the "bad team" was against masks without having the evidence to back up why didn't work doesn't mean that we need to cling to this failed and unfalsifiable hypothesis out of spite or some moral obligation. Accepting that this is pseudoscience doesn't mean we are republicans.
What do we need to do? Resurrect the James Randi 1 million dollar prize to challenge practitioners of this pseudoscience to prove their claims? Or would people like Gorski just claim they are "above" having to demonstrate their claims [1] and simply point to that time some people in a salon in Georgia who agreed to be tested didn't get Covid while wearing loose fitting cloth masks as his mic drop?
The public health establishment has been thoroughly Gish Galloped. They point to the 100+ "pro" IVM studies as example of how something false can be Gish Galloping, but refuse to realize they too have fallen for the same logical fallacy.
Social Media Archaeologists will someday find the primary source of how something that doesn't work got 70 studies to "show" it does work [2], but we can't wait for them to catch up.
I have taken that original collection of Gishes and added to it over the last 18 months, including every study, notable article, or Bill Nye TikTok into this spreadsheet. Now I need the next William Farr to take over and shut down this nonsense once and for all.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ahaJui6Af0kGYMwHgAtnKCE6-bHbCLxnrQxuMC0kygA/edit?usp=sharing
Who's it going to be?
[1] https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/debate-me-bro-debate-challenges-by-science-deniers-in-the-age-of-covid-19/
[2] https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=202002698114314&id=101805971467321
Masks reinforced the subconscious awareness of a threat. It was the only visible evidence a pandemic was actually happening.
4. Doing something. Anything. "Out of an abundance of caution." It seems for many the mask is a reflexive response to a vague sense of "Covid is out there." To not demand or wear it is to stop worrying about Covid. This is related to making Corona visible, but for the mask-lovers, it is also about holding on to a particular experience of being the smart and cautious ones who are "doing everything right."
And people still cling to their masks. I was just told by someone if I want to attend their religious service I should wear a mask. I politely said no thank you. Guess I’ll just keep praying and talking to God from home. I asked. Why doesn’t your congregation follow the science? No reply.
Alex Berenson’s book has a section on it. Masks were totally a psyops. Imposed. BY SAGE. An organization in London that advised such things. Intended to get us all to comply and to empower peers to yell at us all. And to encourage fear.
As I think I recall, the original stated purpose of masks was as the first rung on a compliance ladder, to make it more likely that people followed other restrictions too.
Of course, as with all things, it took on a life of its own and became something to be done just for its own sake.
I always thought it was because they realized they needed to give people some sense of control, something they could DO in the face of so much Terror and Uncertainty. It would deflect the crazy energy from themselves and what was going on. I still think this was true in the beginning, and they can't admit it. Think basic Psy-ops.
At this point, I believe our public health authorities have bad intentions / don’t have our best interest at heart.
I am more curious why the people are still following along.
Some of my potential reasons include:
Fear (thanks to the media and NO thanks to the vaccine): 41% of Democrats thought more than half of people with COVID-19 must be hospitalized. In reality, only 1-5% of people diagnosed with COVID-19 will be hospitalized… if the virus really was that deadly I MAY understand the masks
“For others” / Social Responsibility / Feel Morally-Superior: Public health officials discovered a really good marketing strategy. Their ads are designed to make you feel like a horrible person for NOT wearing a mask, while making the people wearing a mask feel like they are better than / care more about / are saving others when they wear a mask
Don’t want to be labeled conservative: After my college friends got vaccinated, and the CDC granted them permission to be maskless, they had a dilemma: they wanted to be maskless because they wanted people to know they were vaccinated, but they also did not want to be maskless because they didn’t want to be mistaken for an anti-masker, a.k.a. Trump Supporter. Ultimately, they chose (and still choose) to wear a mask. It’s so unfortunate that a piece of cloth became political.
Your #2 & #3 clearly were major reasons, I but I believe the forced wearing of masks was mostly to make people more susceptible to illness due to hypoxia and the suppression of immune system health, with the goal of boosting the infection numbers to maintain the fear and mass psychosis. Furthermore, masks are akin to a muzzle on a dog, to keep it controlled. Ergo, anyone not wearing one, is a defacto homicidal maniac, and must be exorcised from the "in" group, if not jailed. This was also to maintain the fear-based mass psychosis, and keep people suspicious of eachother, which is deleterious to community harmony. It all worked quite well for a while and still is to some extent. Now, its really all just about placating a few brainwashed covidiot holdouts, and the authorities sick enjoyment they get from exercising idiotic and arbitrary rules over their inferiors, primarily for their amusement. Keep your slaves scared, sick, and poor, and they will never revolt or leave the plantation, comrade...
As recently as 2019, less than three years ago, just months before masks were mandated masks were banned outright on public transportation. For good reasons upheld by international courts. Do those rational and legal justifications for banning them not apply today?
2014
"Judges at the European court of human rights (ECHR) have upheld France's burqa ban, accepting Paris's argument that it encouraged citizens to "live together".
The law, introduced in 2010, makes it illegal for anyone to cover their face in a public place...the law was not aimed at the burqa or veil but any covering of the face in a public place...
...The European judges decided...that the preservation of a certain idea of "living together" was the "legitimate aim" of the French authorities.
Isabelle Niedlispacher, representing the Belgian government, which introduced a similar ban in 2011 and which was party to the French defence, declared both the burqa and niqab "incompatible" with the rule of law.
Aside from questions of security and equality, she added: "It's about social communication, the right to interact with someone by looking them in the face and about not disappearing under a piece of clothing."
The French and Belgian laws were aimed at "helping everyone to integrate", Niedlispacher added."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/01/france-burqa-ban-upheld-human-rights-court
2019
"On August 1, 2019, the “Act Partially Prohibiting Face-Covering Clothing,”also known as the “Burqa Ban,” entered into force in the Netherlands. The Act prohibits the wearing of clothing that completely or partially conceals the face in spaces where people are expected to communicate with each other. Thus, face-covering clothing is banned on public transportation and in educational, governmental, and nursing care institutions, but is still allowed in such public spaces as on train platforms. The ban applies to burqas, niqabs, full-face helmets, balaclavas, and masks, but not to headscarves."
https://www.loc.gov/item/global-legal-monitor/2019-08-27/netherlands-burqa-ban-enters-into-force/
Until facial coverings are banned outright the manipulated and coerced psychosis that has taken hold of our society will remain. Faces are necessary, are a requirement for public life, for civil society. The rationale that international courts found true just before Covid still applies. It never stopped applying.
Control of the sheeple.
"This is because SARS-2 is primarily transmitted aerosols; it works like a gas that fills indoor spaces. Only N95 or FFP2 respirators have any chance of stopping the inhalation of these microscopic particles" - and unless you also wear a mask to protect your eyes the infection can atack through that method - your mucous membranes - this was also well know at the time.
There is hope, however.
Last summer when the CDC said that vaxxed people could go maskless, nearly everybody around here did so. The few people who were still wearing masks were VERY VERY uncomfortable being the ones standing out.
At some point, the 'go along' people will see that to go along, they need to ditch the masks. Once they do that, the 'true believers' will suffer the consequences of their actions. My guess is they will submit much quicker than we did. ;)
Masks amplify fear. Here's the science behind them, psychological. More precisely, behavioral science. Not medical science. Social sciences, not natural sciences. Our self-proclaimed betters use behaviorism to "fix" our ignorant, flawed perspectives - to protect us, of course, for our own good. These manipulators of the mind don white robes and stethoscopes masquerading as hard scientists who follow the scientific method of the natural world. This is the actual science of it. Some call it fear amplification as non pharmaceutical intervention. I call it compulsory terrorism.
This study gets into the scientific background on the importance of faces, visible expressions, for a healthy society and healthy social interactions. A 2009 research study titled, "Of snakes and faces: An evolutionary perspective on the psychology of fear." This study supports the very same rationale the international courts upheld the burqa bans for. A healthy society requires faces be seen. Not just eyes. Full facial expressions are an essential form of human communication and stabilizes society. And perhaps most importantly, human aggression is moderated by full faces.
In the study they refer to masked faces. Not in terms of an actual facial covering, but in terms of unnatural neutral faces that intentionally don't communicate any emotion in situations when facial expressions are customary and expected. Point is, yes, they've terrorized us no differently than if they've made us look at snakes all around us all day, every day. It takes constant higher reasoning reminders to self to push through the fear and anxiety masked faces creates just as surely as if surrounded by snakes all the time, even at an subconscious level.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1467-9450.2009.00784.x
4. CONTROL. The authorities wanted control. They wanted submission to their authority. They wanted to enforce obedience. (Especially when masks became an "us" vs "them" identifier, they wanted their enemies brought to heel.) And requiring masks was a thoroughly visible sign of obedience and submission.