[nkrisc]

> You can't seriously expect asymptomatic people to wear masks in public forever.

Why not? Many societies expect that you wear clothes in public, and most people willingly comply every day. In many places it's actually mandated by law! Where are the anti-clothers protesting in state capitals? Oh yeah, they're nudists and most people don't take them seriously.

Why is being required to wear a mask in public any different than being required to wear pants?

[shockeychap]

> Where are the anti-clothers protesting in state capitals?

> Why is being required to wear a mask in public any different than being required to wear pants?

I was one of the people defending the mitigations early on, speaking out against the "conspiracy theorists" - those who said the new controls by those in power would never be given up and that this would be the new normal.

I slowly came to see that they were right. Sentiments like this prove it.

[afavour]

Perspectives like this baffle me. Why would those in power never give up the power to… make people wear masks? It’s a pretty shitty power. It also makes ubiquitous surveillance more difficult because you can’t scan people’s faces reliably.

I also don’t understand why sentiments like this prove anything. Is the OP a person in power? Nothing suggests that. They’re just a person that’s being (overly) cautious. FWIW I don’t agree with them but I also don’t think they’re a lizard person.

[claytongulick]

Because it's an incremental step along the path to reducing or eliminating the right to self-ownership.

If you can normalize something like mask wearing, there's a strong psychological effect. There's a sort of built-in obedience that's a clear signal to those around you. Arm bands also come mind.

Is it then such a leap to grant the power of forced vaccination? I mean, it's all for the public good right?

Flu is a deadly killer. We should probably go ahead and mandate that vaccine too, while we're at it.

Traffic accidents are a leading cause of death in the U.S. - why are we allowing private car ownership? We could save tens of thousands of lives per year if we centralized control of transportation.

Guns? They're right out.

While we're at it, there's no good reason to allow fast food restaurants to continue to exist. Obesity is an epidemic and costs the U.S. billions, if not trillions and is a leading cause of heart disease. Let's get rid of all fast food restaurants.

Since we're doing that, we should also probably mandate that every restaurant remove the deep fried. They can make something more healthy.

And on. And on.

This never ends.

You say that the perspective baffles you. I'm trying to illustrate the perspective that those of us who believe in maximizing personal liberty hold.

Incrementalism is a real thing. An affront to liberty must be stopped at the beginning, if it is to be stopped at all.

Many people reading through what I just wrote actually believe doing all of those things would be a good idea, and they may be right.

I think a better idea is to allow people to live their lives the way they chose.

[nkrisc]

And yet that very liberty that you take for granted today is the result of a continuous slippery slope from hereditary monarchies to a world where you're even allowed to choose who leads you or have a right to be free at all. Incrementalism is what gave us the liberty we have. It wasn't that long ago that women were incrementally given the right to vote. What's next? Allowing dogs and cats to vote too?

> I think a better idea is to allow people to live their lives the way they chose.

I'm not allowed to recklessly speed down any road I please. I'm not allowed to fire guns wherever I please. I'm not allowed to build my house in any way I please. I'm not allowed live in any house I please. I'm not allowed to build bombs in my garage. I'm not allowed to dump waste in the local water system. If I walk around downtown without any clothes I'll almost certainly be arrested. There are countless things we're all forbidden from doing by society. We are not free to live as we please with no regard for anyone else. That is the price of participating in a society.

Liberty is an artificial construct that we, as a society, have agreed upon and set the boundaries for. There is no natural state of liberty that exists, it must be explicitly defined and agreed upon. It's OK to disagree on the boundaries of liberty. We can arbitrarily choose where to draw the line as we please. So we can choose to mandate masks and yet allow fast food to exist.

[shockeychap]

These "I'm not allowed" assertions are all over the map.

You can't "recklessly speed" down a road, but are you not generally allowed to drive along any public road for any reason - or no reason - so long as you're not "reckless"? Should you be made to justify your need to be on the road, or your choice to drive rather than ride a bus? After all, these things impact public safety and the climate.

You're not allowed to fire guns wherever you please, but you're also not allowed to even HAVE a lawfully obtained gun in many settings simply because those in power have deemed it so. Try getting a concealed carry permit in NYC. Should it be that way everywhere?

You can't live in "any house you please" perhaps, but you're certainly allowed to live in any house that you can afford. Are you trying to justify bringing back things like redlining or neighborhood exclusionary rules?

I won't go over every single "I'm not allowed" item. But I'll finish by saying that "recklessly speed" and "drive where I please when I please" are different things. Almost every rule in existence finds SOME degree of justification in necessity, which is why "necessity" has always been the go-to justification for any authoritarian regime or ruler throughout history. And it never stops until people push back.

[nkrisc]

> These "I'm not allowed" assertions are all over the map.

So what? Is that a bad thing or something? Opinions on what is an acceptable amount of laws and regulations is all over the map. Some think we should have no laws. Some think everything should be regulated. Many are somewhere in between. Mask mandates are not a slippery slope towards authoritarianism, it's a step on the spectrum toward some equilibrium on the spectrum of anarchy and total authoritarianism that society, on average, finds acceptable.

Some reductions in liberty are beneficial: speed limits, private property rights, bans on exclusionary lending practices. The question is always, "is it worth it?" Many people believe that mandating the wearing of a mask in public is part of an acceptable definition of "liberty." There is no natural state of liberty (other than complete anarchy) that is violated by a mask mandate, there is only the degree of liberty we choose to grant ourselves. Even the right to life is a man-made right, granted only by mutual assent.

[afavour]

> Incrementalism is a real thing

And so is the slippery slope fallacy.

If you can normalize something like seatbelt wearing, there's a strong psychological effect. There's a sort of built-in obedience that's a clear signal to those around you. Life jackets also come to mind.

Measles, mumps and rubella are deadly killers. We should probably go ahead and mandate that vaccine too, while we're at it. Oh wait, we already do with school kids. Have done for decades.

And on. And on.

Human beings love to see patterns. In reality A does not necessarily lead to B, and to C. You can evaluate individual decisions according to how beneficial they are and say yes or no.

[claytongulick]

Take a look at the number of comments on HN and elsewhere that use the Jacobson [1] decision in 1918 to justify the current vaccine mandates, even though it was completely different.

Take a look at all of the federal powers that have been seized based on Wickard [2] interpretation of the ICC.

These are just a couple obvious cases of incrementalism.

The entropic state of humanity is to allow power to accumulate and centralize.

It takes active energy to resist this.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobson_v._Massachusetts

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn

[dageshi]

In England it was optional to wear masks during the summer, I would estimate about 75% of people I saw in places like supermarkets chose not to wear them.

So society, in England at least has already decided that if it's their choice, they'd rather not wear them.

[ericd]

Being able to see each others’ faces is pretty central to communication.