i have a confession to make- a couple of weeks ago, my boyfriend and i went to the farmers market on a beautiful saturday morning. sunny, breezy, not too humid, a perfect day to be outside. we saw an old couple wearing masks and i lost it. i started yelling at them as we walked by which wasn't very nice of me.
obviously, they're covid terrified and probably will be for the rest of their lives. they should be enjoying their "golden years," smiling at people, smiling at each other, feeling the sun's warmth on their faces. and yet they now have this thing hanging over them- if you breathe air through your nose, you'll die. if you smile, you'll die.
i don't want to be a non-mask nazi like all those mask nazis. i'm supposed to be better than them.
but it got to me and i took a hissy fit. these people- the whole masked mass of them- are the reason we almost lost our constitutional rights, the reason this dangerous game went on for so long, the reason those at the top were able to grab so much power so easily. they're the reason i was fired from my job of 40 years, the reason my BF had to retire, the reason we lost friends, the reason we feel uncomfortable in our own neighborhood where no one knows our dark unvaccinated secret.
it's funny because down here, we see black people all the time wearing masks. they might be outdoors, walking alone, biking alone, driving alone and we suspect that they haven't been vaccinated (fears of Tuskegee) and are just doing whatever low tech, not permanently damaging thing they can do to protect themselves without resorting to the vaccine. of course, i don't have the courage to ask them as part of an informal poll. but i guess i think they have some justification for hanging onto this bizarre and ineffective behavior.
That's something I've noticed about masking that stands out now, more blacks wear them. I've come up with multiple theories about it, but the one that I have the most anecdotal evidence to back up is how influential black churches are in the community. And the ministers got the message from the councils and state and national leaders to push masks as a religious duty, citing a few passages of scripture about why it honors devotion to God and fellow man. They pushed masks hard from the pulpits of black churches. Never mind that the passages they cited were taken out of context, much other scripture can be cited more accurately to reject hiding faces before God...and man.
And a great many black women are church-going. And most black families have strong mothers who set the culture and values in their household. From which flows the high mask usage in the black community. Like I said, I've seen the same mask adoption rates you've seen. And I'm in black communities a lot, grew up in them, often been the only white face at parties and in bars. My default normal from the first moments I have memory. The black church angle is the most compelling reason to me based on the conversations I've had and the family culture I know. Church leaders got their marching orders and they were spectacularly successful getting their flocks to follow. Until a better theory comes along I'll stick with that one.
Nov 3, 2022·edited Nov 3, 2022Liked by Mark Changizi
When masking was first introduced official compliance officers were posted outside supermarkets and stores with high traffic in many jurisdictions. They observed mask compliance, checking boxes, mask on properly, mask on below nose, mask off the options. Local authorities issued fines on those businesses that fell below 93% compliance, with improper masking a gray area. Which is why you saw big box stores seemingly more tolerant of nonmaskers who ignored the signs and interdictions than small stores - 100 people an hour and 7 could enter without masks and no fines vs 10 people an hour in a small store and even one nonmasker resulted in fines. This is how it really went down early on. Video surveillance came along later.
But even states like Florida with mask penalties removed by order of the governor around September, 2020, provided a case study comparison with high enforcement states. The same compliance monitoring was observed, but without formal sanction. Florida provided a control study of how many people will comply as a result of direct government force vs voluntary compliance based on media and cultural stimuli, community norms. This data has actually been compiled and analyzed. Masks and pandemic NPI has all been behavioral science, you know, the observational results being the science data.
It's been fascinating to behold knowing this. You know when the media is pushing fear porn by observing mask usage. When cases not reported mask use goes down, when cases highlighted in news mask use goes up. After DeSantis rolled back the mandate fines mask use went down to about 40-50% from 80-90% compliance in D Broward. But when variants took over news mask use went back up to about 70%. Eventually coming down again. The media effect, the psychological manipulation efficacy is like a volume control on a stereo, higher/lower use as desired by volume of fear porn.
Florida's freedom experiment provided a control sample to the behaviorists studying how much threat of government sanction improves compliance with a desired behavior change in the public over purely psychological stimuli, applied behavioral science. Follow the science, they say. They study us, while we study them studying us.
I live in a rural location in South Dakota, on the border of MN. South Dakota never had any state-wide mask mandates. I stopped shopping in MN because they did require masks. So I went a couple minutes longer to a store further into SD. Most people I saw never wore masks. There were a few who decided to do so willingly. But it was rare for me to see anyone wearing them. None of my delivery people have ever worn them, which I find funny when I read their business' (Amazon, UPS, etc) rules state to give them space.
I always found it fascinating how few people actually wore masks when it wasn't mandated. That's a little different compared to your experience, but I will say I'm talking small-town rural SD. I imagine that larger cities had more compliance. I remember hearing of some larger cities in SD requiring masks (for their own location). So people in the cities might have been more willing to mask up than rural locations.
Mask use was down to about 10% for most of summer in D Broward. News cycle has prompted increase, now is up to 20% and growing...the efficacy of applied behaviorism. Propaganda.
Nov 3, 2022·edited Nov 3, 2022Liked by Mark Changizi
Mark - As a professional and college graduate it has got to burn your butt to see how there are still many in the medical profession willing to keep propping up the lie despite it being obvious to the majority of teh public that it's BS. Even though they don't represent you the fact that they are degree holders in medicine will mean that many will think the same of all like that based on how these few act.
What utter crap. That article is a dam great example of modern day propaganda. It will be great to see a Republican in teh Whitehouse again simply so as to force the News Media, which is supposed to be the 5th estate, that which helps keep the government in check, go back to doing that job instead of being a propaganda w9ing for the federal government.
i have a confession to make- a couple of weeks ago, my boyfriend and i went to the farmers market on a beautiful saturday morning. sunny, breezy, not too humid, a perfect day to be outside. we saw an old couple wearing masks and i lost it. i started yelling at them as we walked by which wasn't very nice of me.
obviously, they're covid terrified and probably will be for the rest of their lives. they should be enjoying their "golden years," smiling at people, smiling at each other, feeling the sun's warmth on their faces. and yet they now have this thing hanging over them- if you breathe air through your nose, you'll die. if you smile, you'll die.
i don't want to be a non-mask nazi like all those mask nazis. i'm supposed to be better than them.
but it got to me and i took a hissy fit. these people- the whole masked mass of them- are the reason we almost lost our constitutional rights, the reason this dangerous game went on for so long, the reason those at the top were able to grab so much power so easily. they're the reason i was fired from my job of 40 years, the reason my BF had to retire, the reason we lost friends, the reason we feel uncomfortable in our own neighborhood where no one knows our dark unvaccinated secret.
it's funny because down here, we see black people all the time wearing masks. they might be outdoors, walking alone, biking alone, driving alone and we suspect that they haven't been vaccinated (fears of Tuskegee) and are just doing whatever low tech, not permanently damaging thing they can do to protect themselves without resorting to the vaccine. of course, i don't have the courage to ask them as part of an informal poll. but i guess i think they have some justification for hanging onto this bizarre and ineffective behavior.
That's something I've noticed about masking that stands out now, more blacks wear them. I've come up with multiple theories about it, but the one that I have the most anecdotal evidence to back up is how influential black churches are in the community. And the ministers got the message from the councils and state and national leaders to push masks as a religious duty, citing a few passages of scripture about why it honors devotion to God and fellow man. They pushed masks hard from the pulpits of black churches. Never mind that the passages they cited were taken out of context, much other scripture can be cited more accurately to reject hiding faces before God...and man.
And a great many black women are church-going. And most black families have strong mothers who set the culture and values in their household. From which flows the high mask usage in the black community. Like I said, I've seen the same mask adoption rates you've seen. And I'm in black communities a lot, grew up in them, often been the only white face at parties and in bars. My default normal from the first moments I have memory. The black church angle is the most compelling reason to me based on the conversations I've had and the family culture I know. Church leaders got their marching orders and they were spectacularly successful getting their flocks to follow. Until a better theory comes along I'll stick with that one.
The mask of public obedience - A self-regulated ritual of subservience.
https://johnbotica.substack.com/p/the-mask-of-public-obedience
When masking was first introduced official compliance officers were posted outside supermarkets and stores with high traffic in many jurisdictions. They observed mask compliance, checking boxes, mask on properly, mask on below nose, mask off the options. Local authorities issued fines on those businesses that fell below 93% compliance, with improper masking a gray area. Which is why you saw big box stores seemingly more tolerant of nonmaskers who ignored the signs and interdictions than small stores - 100 people an hour and 7 could enter without masks and no fines vs 10 people an hour in a small store and even one nonmasker resulted in fines. This is how it really went down early on. Video surveillance came along later.
But even states like Florida with mask penalties removed by order of the governor around September, 2020, provided a case study comparison with high enforcement states. The same compliance monitoring was observed, but without formal sanction. Florida provided a control study of how many people will comply as a result of direct government force vs voluntary compliance based on media and cultural stimuli, community norms. This data has actually been compiled and analyzed. Masks and pandemic NPI has all been behavioral science, you know, the observational results being the science data.
It's been fascinating to behold knowing this. You know when the media is pushing fear porn by observing mask usage. When cases not reported mask use goes down, when cases highlighted in news mask use goes up. After DeSantis rolled back the mandate fines mask use went down to about 40-50% from 80-90% compliance in D Broward. But when variants took over news mask use went back up to about 70%. Eventually coming down again. The media effect, the psychological manipulation efficacy is like a volume control on a stereo, higher/lower use as desired by volume of fear porn.
Florida's freedom experiment provided a control sample to the behaviorists studying how much threat of government sanction improves compliance with a desired behavior change in the public over purely psychological stimuli, applied behavioral science. Follow the science, they say. They study us, while we study them studying us.
I live in a rural location in South Dakota, on the border of MN. South Dakota never had any state-wide mask mandates. I stopped shopping in MN because they did require masks. So I went a couple minutes longer to a store further into SD. Most people I saw never wore masks. There were a few who decided to do so willingly. But it was rare for me to see anyone wearing them. None of my delivery people have ever worn them, which I find funny when I read their business' (Amazon, UPS, etc) rules state to give them space.
I always found it fascinating how few people actually wore masks when it wasn't mandated. That's a little different compared to your experience, but I will say I'm talking small-town rural SD. I imagine that larger cities had more compliance. I remember hearing of some larger cities in SD requiring masks (for their own location). So people in the cities might have been more willing to mask up than rural locations.
Yep, that's the community norms part of voluntary compliance. Most rural is much less compliant than most urban.
Mask use was down to about 10% for most of summer in D Broward. News cycle has prompted increase, now is up to 20% and growing...the efficacy of applied behaviorism. Propaganda.
Did you see this in the LA Times? This is from today! #NoAmnesty
https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2022-11-03/are-the-unvaccinated-still-a-danger-to-the-rest-of-us-covid
So many false premises!
Mark - As a professional and college graduate it has got to burn your butt to see how there are still many in the medical profession willing to keep propping up the lie despite it being obvious to the majority of teh public that it's BS. Even though they don't represent you the fact that they are degree holders in medicine will mean that many will think the same of all like that based on how these few act.
What utter crap. That article is a dam great example of modern day propaganda. It will be great to see a Republican in teh Whitehouse again simply so as to force the News Media, which is supposed to be the 5th estate, that which helps keep the government in check, go back to doing that job instead of being a propaganda w9ing for the federal government.