[throwaway75787]

Seeing the lower face is important to reading emotion. The masks muffle speech as well. I wonder if children, especially in that critical 2-4 year-old period, will have stunted language and interpersonal skills. It's not right.

[buscoquadnary]

So personal anecdote our two year old is behind on speech, we had someone come in to evaluate him and he mentioned that he has been seeing it a lot, citing that because so many people are wearing masks, and the kids weren't spending more time around other people it had created a trend he had noticed.

[earthboundkid]

Why is your two year old seeing a lot of people with masks? Kids aren't expected to wear masks until they turn two, and for under twos, most people I know just have nannies or relatives take care of them, maskless of course. I guess you could do center based care instead because it's sometimes cheaper, but even then the other under 2s will be maskless. My 1 yo doesn't like when I wear a mask, because it is an unusual thing to him. To be clear, where I am I wear masks indoors all the time, but I typically don't take the kids indoors with me, so he only sees it when I run into a cafe or something.

[swayvil]

That reply you replied to got flagged, downvoted, murdered.

And it was an extremely tame reply.

Is it just me or is the intolerance for dissent ramping up?

[Syonyk]

It is exceedingly hard to find places on the internet anymore where one can have a conversation between a range of viewpoints without it turning into an absolute shitshow, or the minority viewpoint being downvoted to oblivion.

It's one of many reasons I find myself using the internet less and less. Even the old forums I used to frequent and have the usual sparring conversations that were fun on the internet have fallen to one side or another, and anything outside the orthodoxy of the forum is treated with absolute hostility, "You are evil for evil's sake, I wish you dead" grade responses. There's no spirit of debate anymore, just a spirit of "Dogpile everyone who thinks differently." From any perspective!

It was a good 25 year run of internet, but I'm pretty much over the place. HN was one of the last sane places and it's been interesting seeing what sort of stuff gets flagged/killed. More and more, it's "That which isn't the groupthink." Which is sad. I'd rather read books from people I disagree with strongly than participate in an echo chamber. At least I'll have to either sharpen my ability to defend my views, or consider points of view I'd not considered before. Even if I decide they're junk, it's useful to understand how people get there and the viewpoints in more depth than shallow internet stuff.

[throwaway75787]

It's not just you.