Meanwhile, habits of brutally abusing strangers that have developed on anti-social media bleed out into the real world at an ever-increasing rate.
Mask rage: ‘One man told me I shouldn't be allowed out if I can't wear one’
In the past few weeks, Paul Feeley has been abused four times for not wearing a mask on public transport. “I have a disability lanyard, which signifies I have a hidden disability. I tried to show it … And all I got back was a complete torrent of abuse.”
This is a total non-surprise. My husband, whose asthma is sufficiently bad that he was put on the shielding list and struggles with mask-wearing for extended periods, is nonetheless lumbered with using a rag primarily for this reason. Although it is mercifully unlikely, if we do nonetheless encounter some self-righteous, beetroot-faced screamer in a shop or on a train then they aren't going to be interested in excuses, are they?
There's not a day goes by where we're not bombarded with messages about human rights, but the right that trumps all others would now seem to be the right to scream in somebody else's face if you feel offended about something - hence the fact that the ban on mass gatherings is deemed not to apply to angry protest marches. Johnson probably ought to go on TV and instruct the general public simply to desist from trying to police mask wearing themselves, but I doubt that this would do anything to discourage such vigilantism. The people doing it enjoy their petty power trip far too much.
Yes there are a lot of covid Karens around- Society is pretty depressing at the moment ,made worse by the order to wear ineffective masks
I recall a similar argument over seat belts in 1983. "Seat belts restrict my movement" was the complaint at the time. Well yes they did, in the event of sudden inertia they prevented "movement" through the windscreen of your Austin Ambassador at 70 mph.
Likewise masks, a little uncomfortable, however they might prevent transmission of a disease which could have a similar ultimate outcome.
Yes but seat belts dont cut you off from people (especially hard of hearing ones), create horrible debris and create such a miserable picture of life. All of these effects are hard to quantify unlike obsessively working out deaths from a illness that has a death rate below 0.5% and will spread anyway (see Australia) .The only way out is herd immunity and protecting the economy and people's sanity
Look, I don't like wearing a mask, and I don't have to wear one here in Wales, but if I am told so to do because it "might" benefit myself and my family, I will wear one.
Time to go, it is getting silly here again.
Anecadata from Sweden: still (almost) no masks here.
A couple of weeks ago I reported that I maybe saw one mask-wearer a week. That has crept up to maybe three a week. And I am out and about a lot.
They are still so rare that my wife and I usually comment if we see one.
Back to work tomorrow after my 6 weeks and 2 days (!!) summer hols, so I’ll soon find out what culture is prevailing at my workplace. There was some dissatisfaction with management over their Covid19 response before I left, but my expectations of change are very low. Almost nothing of note happens in Swedish workplaces during June-August.
(!! even in the annals of super-generous Swedish leave, I’ve just set a personal best in lazy summers.)
yes it seems like is coping without masks there and a lot more pleasant as well. Wake up the rest of the world .
In the Mail there is a report from Amsterdam, where nobody is wearing masks and there is no nauseating climate of intimidation and fear.
Their scientists do not believe masks work and they may even hinder the control of the virus.
In Germany there were vast protests yesterday against lockdown.
I posted yesterday that what threatens the Johnson government is evidence others are pulling out of this without any of the horrible stuff we are having to endure.
One SAGE guy yesterday threatened us with tanks on the streets and today's threat is house arrest for the over 50s.
Its running at a threat a day as the government and the SAGE politburo fight to retain the control they have had since March.
These people need to get a grip. They might not work, but they might. If there is even a small chance that they help, then we should be wearing them. There is literally no down side FFS.
The Dutch scientists believe there may be a downside in that masks give a false sense of security.
This may be the reason mask crazy Spain is having an upsurge in cases whereas Sweden and the Netherlands are simply trusting people to behave responsibly.
The science, I'm afraid, is not necessarily on your side.
Don’t talk bollocks about mask usage in Spain it’s been pointed out numerous times that this is not the cause of the uplift but you continue to spout your claptrap,
No. I will not be silenced by authoritarians like you who are getting ever shriller as the evidence turns against them and their control freakery is exposed.
Sweden and now the Netherlands. Other countries are managing much better without the horrible climate of fear and intimidation we have here.
I don’t get shriller just point out the truth, can’t work out your agenda, think counseling could help.
Ah I see, mental health smears now. You really are pulling out all the stops aren;t you?
Frankly there really is something slightly odd about people who can get so hysterical about being required to wear a mask when going into a shop. I can quite see why some people don't think it makes much difference either way but frothing about it day in day out is something else. I really do wonder what your agenda is.
The overly passionate views on masks seems to apply both ways imo. Perhaps we are all a bit stressed due a particularly malign virus.
I'm not sure it does. The vast majority of people comply with the mask wearing regulations with varying degrees of enthusiasm. A very small minority are vociferously anti-mask (the usual suspects, Katie Hopkins, Toby Young, Peter Hitchens),
People such as myself only get angry when people like Contrarian and State-go-away relentlessly spend their time trying to undermine the use of masks, frequently posting misinformation. I genuinely wonder what their agenda is because it goes way beyond being asked to wear a mask in enclosed public space.
I loathe wearing a mask with a passion that surprises me, but I do so because I feel I have to trust that the government is trying its best to do what is right and they have asked me to do so.
I can understand that people would want to find refuge in explanations that mask-wearing is ineffective - as indeed I, and government advisers, did in weeks not so long ago. And you do see people not wearing them correctly, etc, and wonder whether it's all a bit of Corona-theatre.
The idea that I might be putting myself through the trouble of mask-wearing for no benefit to anyone certainly has the potential to bring me out in a rage. So I'm not at all surprised by the intensity of debate.
In real life I don’t know anyone who’s bothered by it
I think I'd be bothered a lot less if I didn't wear glasses. I've been wondering whether I can send off for some disposable contacts to use, instead of glasses, when I need to use a mask.
Yes, my Mum had trouble with that. I meant I don't know anyone who is refusing to wear a mask or angry about it
Judging by the number of people not bothering to obey the law here there are plenty of people bothered by it. Perhaps they just don't tell you their views in case you might be a beetroot faced mask fascist?
Conservative MPs don't just think they are above the law, they are above the law, as are potential future Conservative MPs, not so much former!
Had it transpired that I had conspired with a friend to have a tabloid journalist "given a good going over" I would not be surprised to find myself defending my behaviour to 12 good men and women.
My local tourist town in Almeria having gone through the whole of the first wave with only 4 cases now has at least 20 all from a local discotheque which locals have warned for weeks was not enforcing the rules properly. Similar cases are happening all over the costas now. looks like the UK government action was ahead of the curve this time.
"Over recent years, I've become somewhat aware that technological progress combined with politically motivated social policies have had the effect of hollowing out the fabric of society—that which binds people together. This is an important topic and deserves a separate discussion, but the family in the western world has been broken. Working class people and culture have been discarded. Long established communities and ways of life have vanished.
My first experience of the Internet was in 1989. I am a programmer and was a relatively early adopter of social media in the early 2000s. You might think, therefore, that I would suggest that we look to life online as the future. But I do no such thing. I have come view social media as an insidious phenomena which, in its current form, is a threat to human well-being. It does not foster connection, but divides people into ever smaller bubbles of perceived reality. This is another deep topic which deserves separate discussion. Moreover, it is no substitute for authentic human socialisation and it disturbs me that so many seem to think that Zoom is the answer to lockdown."
On that basis we'd never use a telephone (a lot of people do a lot of the time) or write a letter as "authentic human socialisation" seems to be the only acceptable modus vivendi.
"People like people like themselves" is an adage I've always lived by. It's fascinating how often contributors on here claim everyone in their acquaintance holds the same views as they do and everyone in their Facebook groups thinks the way they do.
We avoid prolonged confrontation with people with whom we disagree or whose views we don't like or accept. Oddly enough, forums like this allow some kind of outlet for differing views but the range isn't as wide as it could be.
As a result. people withdraw into the chambers of the like-minded (echo chambers) where they can have their opinions validated and re-enforced. Has social media intensified this? Slightly but to imagine it never existed before the coming of the Internet is foolish.
I never met a real Brexiter till I came on PB (quite some years ago now).
And seven of them were SeanT.
There are two reasons why that is not true.
1) SeanT is not a Brexiteer, except on Thursdays before he gets pissed.
First, I'm genuinely not sure PL983 'L' ever had guns. This is one spectacularly SHITHOT take. Throw in a PBTory while you're there, will you?
second, I was walking down the A33 out of Basingstoke when it flew past - unexpectedly - and, yeah, it cheered me up immensely.
The implication that photo reconnaissance aircraft have nothing to do with the nasty business of getting people killed during wartime is a pretty warm take in itself.
Did the the 'Thank U NHS' add to, detract from or leave your immense cheerfulness about the same?
Of course, it's a biot anachronistic - but there wqouldn't be room for "thank you Highlands and Islands Medical Service" under the wings (arguably the first true NHS). You'd need a Lancaster. ..
Meanwhile, habits of brutally abusing strangers that have developed on anti-social media bleed out into the real world at an ever-increasing rate.
Mask rage: ‘One man told me I shouldn't be allowed out if I can't wear one’
In the past few weeks, Paul Feeley has been abused four times for not wearing a mask on public transport. “I have a disability lanyard, which signifies I have a hidden disability. I tried to show it … And all I got back was a complete torrent of abuse.”
This is a total non-surprise. My husband, whose asthma is sufficiently bad that he was put on the shielding list and struggles with mask-wearing for extended periods, is nonetheless lumbered with using a rag primarily for this reason. Although it is mercifully unlikely, if we do nonetheless encounter some self-righteous, beetroot-faced screamer in a shop or on a train then they aren't going to be interested in excuses, are they?
There's not a day goes by where we're not bombarded with messages about human rights, but the right that trumps all others would now seem to be the right to scream in somebody else's face if you feel offended about something - hence the fact that the ban on mass gatherings is deemed not to apply to angry protest marches. Johnson probably ought to go on TV and instruct the general public simply to desist from trying to police mask wearing themselves, but I doubt that this would do anything to discourage such vigilantism. The people doing it enjoy their petty power trip far too much.
Yes there are a lot of covid Karens around- Society is pretty depressing at the moment ,made worse by the order to wear ineffective masks
I recall a similar argument over seat belts in 1983. "Seat belts restrict my movement" was the complaint at the time. Well yes they did, in the event of sudden inertia they prevented "movement" through the windscreen of your Austin Ambassador at 70 mph.
Likewise masks, a little uncomfortable, however they might prevent transmission of a disease which could have a similar ultimate outcome.
Yes but seat belts dont cut you off from people (especially hard of hearing ones), create horrible debris and create such a miserable picture of life. All of these effects are hard to quantify unlike obsessively working out deaths from a illness that has a death rate below 0.5% and will spread anyway (see Australia) .The only way out is herd immunity and protecting the economy and people's sanity
Look, I don't like wearing a mask, and I don't have to wear one here in Wales, but if I am told so to do because it "might" benefit myself and my family, I will wear one.
Time to go, it is getting silly here again.
Anecadata from Sweden: still (almost) no masks here.
A couple of weeks ago I reported that I maybe saw one mask-wearer a week. That has crept up to maybe three a week. And I am out and about a lot.
They are still so rare that my wife and I usually comment if we see one.
Back to work tomorrow after my 6 weeks and 2 days (!!) summer hols, so I’ll soon find out what culture is prevailing at my workplace. There was some dissatisfaction with management over their Covid19 response before I left, but my expectations of change are very low. Almost nothing of note happens in Swedish workplaces during June-August.
(!! even in the annals of super-generous Swedish leave, I’ve just set a personal best in lazy summers.)
yes it seems like is coping without masks there and a lot more pleasant as well. Wake up the rest of the world .
In the Mail there is a report from Amsterdam, where nobody is wearing masks and there is no nauseating climate of intimidation and fear.
Their scientists do not believe masks work and they may even hinder the control of the virus.
In Germany there were vast protests yesterday against lockdown.
I posted yesterday that what threatens the Johnson government is evidence others are pulling out of this without any of the horrible stuff we are having to endure.
One SAGE guy yesterday threatened us with tanks on the streets and today's threat is house arrest for the over 50s.
Its running at a threat a day as the government and the SAGE politburo fight to retain the control they have had since March.
These people need to get a grip. They might not work, but they might. If there is even a small chance that they help, then we should be wearing them. There is literally no down side FFS.
The Dutch scientists believe there may be a downside in that masks give a false sense of security.
This may be the reason mask crazy Spain is having an upsurge in cases whereas Sweden and the Netherlands are simply trusting people to behave responsibly.
The science, I'm afraid, is not necessarily on your side.
Don’t talk bollocks about mask usage in Spain it’s been pointed out numerous times that this is not the cause of the uplift but you continue to spout your claptrap,
No. I will not be silenced by authoritarians like you who are getting ever shriller as the evidence turns against them and their control freakery is exposed.
Sweden and now the Netherlands. Other countries are managing much better without the horrible climate of fear and intimidation we have here.
I don’t get shriller just point out the truth, can’t work out your agenda, think counseling could help.
Ah I see, mental health smears now. You really are pulling out all the stops aren;t you?
Frankly there really is something slightly odd about people who can get so hysterical about being required to wear a mask when going into a shop. I can quite see why some people don't think it makes much difference either way but frothing about it day in day out is something else. I really do wonder what your agenda is.
The overly passionate views on masks seems to apply both ways imo. Perhaps we are all a bit stressed due a particularly malign virus.
I'm not sure it does. The vast majority of people comply with the mask wearing regulations with varying degrees of enthusiasm. A very small minority are vociferously anti-mask (the usual suspects, Katie Hopkins, Toby Young, Peter Hitchens),
People such as myself only get angry when people like Contrarian and State-go-away relentlessly spend their time trying to undermine the use of masks, frequently posting misinformation. I genuinely wonder what their agenda is because it goes way beyond being asked to wear a mask in enclosed public space.
I loathe wearing a mask with a passion that surprises me, but I do so because I feel I have to trust that the government is trying its best to do what is right and they have asked me to do so.
I can understand that people would want to find refuge in explanations that mask-wearing is ineffective - as indeed I, and government advisers, did in weeks not so long ago. And you do see people not wearing them correctly, etc, and wonder whether it's all a bit of Corona-theatre.
The idea that I might be putting myself through the trouble of mask-wearing for no benefit to anyone certainly has the potential to bring me out in a rage. So I'm not at all surprised by the intensity of debate.
In real life I don’t know anyone who’s bothered by it
I think I'd be bothered a lot less if I didn't wear glasses. I've been wondering whether I can send off for some disposable contacts to use, instead of glasses, when I need to use a mask.
Yes, my Mum had trouble with that. I meant I don't know anyone who is refusing to wear a mask or angry about it
Judging by the number of people not bothering to obey the law here there are plenty of people bothered by it. Perhaps they just don't tell you their views in case you might be a beetroot faced mask fascist?
I doubt anyone would think that
Mask wearing is simply another issue for some people to use to try and stir up division and hatred. Vlad would be proud
Comments
Conservative MPs don't just think they are above the law, they are above the law, as are potential future Conservative MPs, not so much former!
Had it transpired that I had conspired with a friend to have a tabloid journalist "given a good going over" I would not be surprised to find myself defending my behaviour to 12 good men and women.
NEW THREAD
1) SeanT is not a Brexiteer, except on Thursdays before he gets pissed.
2) He only has six identities.