I’ve been somewhat puzzled why the covid-denying anti-vax, anti mask bunch get so much pleasure out of posting on groups like this–i had the following reply on another forum:-
" Why do these people get so upset about a very simple means of protecting our communities, it’s all about point of view, you should listen to some of them when they deride masks, in the face of all evidence they will assert that masks ‘do not work’ what they mean is that cloth or surgical masks will not protect them, personally, individually, selfishly, and yeah they are right cloth and surgical masks will give them very limited protection, it’s not zero but it is very low.
But there you see the entire problem with these people, they can only see their immediate short term interest but they are too dumb and/or too mean to go out and spend the money on the selfish masks that would actually protect them, i.e. FFP3 or the American equivalent that is better than an N95 mask (FFP3 is way way better than N95) so they deride masks because they think they get nothing from them.
It never occurs to them that seeing everyone else around them wearing a mask is the thing that is protecting them because they basically don’t give a sh** about anyone else other than themselves, mask wearing of lower quality masks like surgical or even cloth face coverings work only if the majority of people sharing an environment wear them, wearing that mask means you are reducing the chance that the virus will infect those around you and that protects you, your family and everyone else.
With Omicron we may well have reached a point where ordinary masks make no difference but that has not been the case for the last two years and even now some form of barrier is better than none, from a selfish viewpoint FFP3 masks will, even now, reduce your viral load and even though infection via the mucus membranes and tear ducts of the eyes is still a possibility it is likely to be slower and deliver a lower overall viral load even if you do get infected via your eyes, any mask is better than none for society but these people don’t care about society they only care about themselves.
The Anti-vaxxers. it’s pretty much the same reasoning but now it is about opinion, they have been taught for decades now that their opinion is every bit as valid as the next guy or gal, that has been the educational and political thrust for decades now, the problem is that way too many people take that as licence to think that their opinion is equally as important as provable facts and that is the root of entitlement, opinion trumps reality because that is what they have been taught, what was missed is the bit about corroboration and supporting evidence and facts being tested against their opinion, hence we live in a world where facts are what you want to believe, facts are no longer reality.
This is more immediately obvious in USA society and politics but it is everywhere now and this debasement of reality is entirely deliberate because by devaluing reality you can more easily tribalise a population and this is an extremely powerful way to subvert democratic institutions everywhere.
If you were going to write an instruction manual in how to undermine a democratic society over decades, promotion of conspiratorial thinking and debasement of factual reality would be right up there at the start in chapter one, and the reality is that it has happened we already live in that world."
I think it sums it up rather well.
