Someone on that thread mentioned my own argument there and had this to say about it:

Someone elsewhere in the thread brought up the Chinese Long March and the dedication necessary for that. That comparison would be apt if masking was widespread, but masking while no one else is is about as useful as trekking through the Tibetan plateau alone.

It's since been removed by a mod, and I couldn't reply to it when I initially saw it because the thread was locked, but I think that my comparison is kinda silly at its face and they have a point so I feel the need to elaborate.

Yes, we are trekking through the Tibetan plateau alone. The social costs of COVID are absolutely monstrous and the fact that I wear a mask is only meaningfully protecting me, not the people around me, because they are constantly exposed to others who do not mask and whose probability of being infectious is already orders of magnitude higher than mine. The difference I make as an individual is measured only in the respect that I am a bridge between the outside world and my parents, who are both retired and go to indoors locations with less frequency than me. What benefit does me masking have? A significant one for my family, an infinitesimal one for society.

But let's get back to the point. "that comparison would be apt if masking was widespread" is a phrase that caught my attention, because masking was widespread worldwide, then gradually became decidedly-not-widespread. What were the social forces at play during the transition from the state where masking was widespread, and now? Each individual person makes a calculation, subconsciously, between a number of costs and benefits. Masking has a discomfort cost, a social appeal cost, and an economic cost. It has a perceived health benefit, a social health benefit, and a social appeal benefit. When one person perceives that most people around them are masking up, there's a force that compels them to do the same to fit in, and the opposite is true. The personal and social health benefit from masking is proportional to one's perceived risk of catching COVID. All the others are approximately constant. So, which of these changed in that transition? Perceived health benefits dropped off because COVID minimization was the prevailing narrative in media. More importantly, the social appeal cost replaced the social appeal benefit as a function of how many other people stopped masking. This led to a self-perpetuating positive feedback loop where the perceived benefits of masking dropped off more and more as other people stopped masking.

But there's an interesting insight we can draw that pertains to what an individual's choice is when inside this system: there's a point where the costs outweigh the benefits for me, but when I decide to change my behavior, that has a marginal effect on the calculation for everyone else who's still masking. It means that everyone who stops masking during that transition is part of a chain reaction, the spread of a memetic pathogen.

However, the dynamic works backwards, too. Telling people around you about Long COVID, recent COVID deaths, wastewater data, information about the effectiveness of N95 respirators, etc etc is essential because it increases the perceived benefits of masking for them. If they start masking, and spreading information about why others should, then it has the same chain reaction effect, but backwards.

So, starting with a small number of people who are dedicated to a long struggle, who rely on making their case to others about how they can benefit from joining in that struggle to eventually grow into a popular resistance movement? Is this not dissimilar to the July 26th movement, who started with 22 people after regrouping from their first failed landing in Cuba, but achieved victory over the Batista regime? Isn't our role as socialists to be that vanguard, that can synthesize scientific knowledge of social realities with the necessary tactics to affect social change? Aren't we the ones that should be committed to engaging in that long struggle against overwhelming odds?

So infuriating to see your shit get removed but the little fucking weasels get to call us “virtue signaling” and “uncivil” unimpeded after we call them out for literally risking our lives for the sake of assimilation! That is plague rat behavior!!

Incredible, incredible stuff, truly. If I hadn’t lived in America my whole life I’d almost be surprised.

I believe (without any serious research into the subject) that when people ask for super granular masking directions they are looking for a way out. So they can say, “Well that’s too complicated! I’m not going to mask at all now!”

How hard is it really to put on a mask when you’re at risk of getting the virus? When people ask I kind of refuse to be specific. I just say, “indoors and away from your home.”

Maybe I should just make the switch too. There’s a lot of “I’m an edgy teenager” vibes from there. Sucks because I like the more serious tone of a lot of the comms. But when you got people saying that “only anarchists mask because they’re concerned about optics” you are playing team sports. You are a liberal at that point. I’m so fucking embarrassed.

They deserve the harshest socialist insult there is:

They’re deeply unserious people.

Could you link or report those takes? I looked over the thread and I can only find one person defending not masking (and they're not a lemmygrad user) : https://lemmygrad.ml/comment/5136253

Looks like a lemmygrad user also caught a temp ban for saying that they hope a hexbear user gets covid.

Unless I'm reading the thread wrong.

Which comments are those, so I can remove them.

i have been trying to be less prone to going claws out on people here and at LG, but honestly: what's the point of a communist who doesn't care for the most vulnerable?

felt like walking into a den of sneering liberals

I’m sorry you got it :(. I hope you’re feeling okay.

Are you waiting a few weeks to get the updated booster? I’ve read some time ago that’s recommended. Not sure how accurate that is now though.

I don't have an exact number but I watch for deals on Amazon for aura n95s. Give a couple days between use to air out and reuse them till the strap breaks. Been thinking it might be more cost effective to get an elastomeric though.

I reuse them. I use one per for example travel and put the mask in a box on our balcony to chill out for a few days. My kid was at school at the start of this and I had this whole system of numbered weekly paper bags for him for one mask per bag and a chill out box for the ffp2 masks where we circulated them from. Afaik good masks can easily be reused for quite a while and any masking is better than none.

Edit. To answer your question I think I've spent maybe 100€ on masks during the entire pandemic, but then again we have dropped all unnecessary socializing for good. A box of 20 is 5,90€ and these days a box will last me for months.

Edit. 2 I do work and travel to meet clients in public transport sometimes several times/day and study at uni. I do remote work as much as I can, but there is still plenty of mask use. They still last me for months. The total cost is for a family of 3, two working adults and a kid in school.

It’s more up front cost, but you can save a lot in the long run with an elastomeric respirator, plus it has a lower environmental impact. Before that we were buying 3M N95s from a bulk reseller and splitting the cost between my wife and I, and our roommate, which was a lot cheaper in the long run. I wish I had more specific numbers for you but unfortunately I don’t at the moment. Depending on where you are, there may be a covid conscious mutual aid group nearby that could help as well.

And that’s not taking into account that you’re supposed to change your mask every 3 hours.

Do you have a source for this? Not trying to interrogate you, just want to make sure I’m doing the right thing and giving people in my life good advice. I’m pretty sure an N95 filter should last a lot longer than that, although the elastic straps on disposable ones will wear out much sooner so maybe that’s why?