sailors fighting in the dance hall

[the_siobhan]

Today was the quarterly Town Hall at work, which meant going into a team meeting with the entire department at the Mothership. My first time there. I got lost. And I never did figure out how the passcards work.

It's days like today that make me wonder if I really am from fucking Mars.

There are thousands of people working in that building. The floor I was on was crammed solid - people sitting in rows and rows of desk, chairs jammed shoulder to shoulder. I was the only one in a mask.

They served snacks and coffee over break, my boss wanders by. "Aren't you having any coffee?" Um. I'm wearing a silicon sheath over the entire lower half of my face, do i look like I'm going to have a coffee?

This is where I start wondering if I'm the one who's crazy. How can it just be me? 

Comments

[redbird]

My sympathies. It's not just you, and I don't think they realize that this situation is a lot like jumping off a bridge because their friends are. There are situations where jumping off a bridge makes sense, but in those situations, the reason isn't that it's getting lonely up here on the bridge.

[the_siobhan]

Oh I'm not about to stop. It just feels so surreal.

[dissectionist]

I keep thinking that what I’m seeing now is the current-time version of how every atrocity has occurred. We are getting to watch in real time as a population is normalized to the death of those deemed expendable, and the simultaneous slow othering of those deemed expendable, so that by the time the deemed-expendables actually suffer their unnecessary deaths, most of the population can collectively shrug and be unbothered.

A lot of scientists recognize the toll; it’s just that they’re no longer being listened to by much of the government, and people don’t want to hear about it anymore because it’s uncomfortable and inconvenient to their plans. One of the doctors I follow actually just covered this lack of interest: https://insidemedicine.substack.com/p/data-snapshot-covid-has-faded-from?

[the_siobhan]

I think one of the things that is so jarring is that people don't know that they are making that choice. I'm sure that every single person I interacted with today would say they would rather protect their co-workers, given the choice.

One of the people on my team was recently off work for several years because he was going through cancer treatments. He wasn't wearing a mask today.

My father just turned 80. He finished a round of chemo less than six months ago. His wife isn't vaccinated. Last time I talked to him he said he was glad the pandemic is over.

I really think the problem is just ignorance. It's not like anti-vaxxers where I can say WELL YOU KNOW THIS WOULD HAPPEN when they get sick. They really don't know.

[jo]

I really think the problem is just ignorance. It's not like anti-vaxxers where I can say WELL YOU KNOW THIS WOULD HAPPEN when they get sick. They really don't know.

This. The government -- all levels of it, have pretty much abandoned the "public" part of public health. And you have to work really fucking hard to find the right people to follow on social media to learn about and keep up on the latest findings about Covid and just how much even a "mild" case fucks up every part of your body. People can't make informed choices when not provided with actual information to inform those choices. I read a CBC piece the other day that said over 76% of Canadians have had at least one Covid infection. That just floored me.

[dissectionist]

There’s something more to it than just lack of access to information, for two reasons:

1) At the time when mask mandates were lifted, there was still a lot of Covid discussions in the popular media, including a great deal about long-term Covid effects, and pleas from scientists and doctors about how this was too early. The information was very popularly present (in a way it no longer is). People still chose to abandon their masks anyway.

2) With my own friends’ group, I’d been acting as an informational resource through the whole pandemic, and many people were engaging with and using my information to help guide their decisions during much of the first few years of the pandemic. I continued to make new information available long after the mask mandates were lifted, but I saw engagement and interest drop massively. People no longer wanted it, because what they _wanted_ was to tell themselves things could go back to “normal” now. Then they actively began ignoring and avoiding anything that didn’t support that desire.

It may not be a conscious decision (I don’t think it is, in most cases), but I do believe there’s still been a decision made by many people to embrace what they want to be true and ignore anything that would go against that. It isn’t as simple as “they’d make better decisions if they had better information”. I wish it was, but all I have to do is look at my own family and friends - who definitely did have better information but chose en masse to ignore it - to know there’s more. I can’t even get my parents to keep masking around my antivax sister, despite them having had a terrible time the first time she gave them Covid, and me keeping them up-to-date on new research relevant to their age group. I believe they just got tired of the fear involved in having to care.

cognitive dissonance are us

[the_siobhan]

Conversation that happened a couple of days ago that I am still goggling over:

A group of people in a chat where one person starts talking about how they are experiencing low key kidney failure along with all the cascading health effects. They hypothesize that this is probably due to a recent covid infection.

Not twenty minutes later the entire group is talking about a planned get-together that will largely centre around clubs, pubs, restaurants, and concerts.

This is the kind of thing that makes me wonder if I'm the one who is missing something. How does my brain work so differently from other people?

Re: cognitive dissonance are us

[dissectionist]

I’ve read that neurodiverse brains are more likely to process risk appropriately, in that we think risks apply to us and are more likely to preemptively act appropriately to avoid the risk.

Neurotypical brains are more likely to subconsciously think, “Wow, bummer that that bad thing happened to you. It’s a good thing that that won’t happen to me because I Am Special and Somehow Protected.” Sometimes that sense of being above risks gets disrupted by having something bad happen to them; other times it just shifts to, “Bummer that that bad thing happened to me, but now that it’s already happened it’s finished and won’t happen again to me.”

[dissectionist]

I first read this article a couple months ago but I feel like some of the concepts they discuss, like the disruption of anomie (well-explained in the article) and widespread desperation for normalcy, more closely get at what’s going on than ignorance. People who need others to continue respecting the pandemic are up against powerful psychological drives that are driving many people to do the opposite and “move on”.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/02/22/magazine/covid-pandemic-oral-history.html

[the_siobhan]

New York Times paywall blocks me far more often than I think is warranted by how infrequently I read New York Times articles.

[dissectionist]

Ugh, I thought that one was un-paywalled since it didn’t bring one up for me either of the two times I looked at it.

I use this to get around paywalls when needed. https://txtify.it/

[the_siobhan]

Sorry, I wasn't kvetching at you, I just find NYT totally random about whether or not they block their site.

Thank you for that link! I will definitely be bookmarking that site.

[china_shop]

I know exactly what you mean! (I'm still masking indoors with anyone except my partner, and it can feel really awkward and also, like, has everyone just totally given up trying not to get sick? Like, whaaat?)

You're not alone

[brainwane]

I've had a very similar experience -- someone sees that I'm wearing a mask and still offers me food or drink, I suppose assuming that I might take off my mask to eat/drink it. Because a ton of people do that; they mask EXCEPT when eating/drinking. (On really long trips, I have learned how to lift my mask while holding my breath, sip or eat a bite, lower the mask back down, sharply exhale to clear out the air in the mask, and then chew/swallow.)

Lots and lots of people look to their neighbors and authority figures and society in general for indications of what to worry about, how to protect against it, and when to lower their guard. And they are not very conscientious about double-checking those messages. And there are ways of living, and parts of life, where that approach works just fine. It sure seems more relaxing.

But you are not alone. I'm right there with you.

[sabotabby]

That's every day at my work and I keep wondering if I'm crazy, if I'm reading the studies wrong, if my own trauma with disability is in the driver's seat. I don't know how people can see the risks and make the choices that they do.

[greylock]

I occasionally feel the "AM I crazy?" feeling. It's a low-key vibe.
And I rarely leave the house.
I can only imagine what it is like for people who do, and lack my stubbornness.

[greylock]

Today was the quarterly Town Hall at work
I assume this is like an all staff (or as Americans say: all hands) meeting?

The floor I was on was crammed solid You swiped in. Showed your face, would they know if you left?

This is where I start wondering if I'm the one who's crazy. How can it just be me?

It is not you, but there are dwindling numbers of us.

[the_siobhan]

My boss would have noticed.

[greylock]

Damn. I tried!

[solo]

People are so weird. I still wear my (KF94) masks in shops, train stations, trains, taxis... anywhere there's lots of people or poor ventilation. But I know precisely one other person in my circle who does this too, and she's from Taiwan.

People just want to forget about it all and pretend everything is back to normal. Attention spans are short...

[elusis]

I've been traveling for the past 2 weeks. I have a "mask wardrobe" - FloMask respirator for planes, MaskLab KN-95 for indoor situations, same but with SipMask valve installed for live music/performance situations where I might want to drink while partaking.

Hardly anyone I see is masking. Many people are doing it but poorly - I saw a worker in a restaurant working away at his station, mask warming his second chin ever so cozily, and wondered "why is he bothering?"

The hotel we're in right now in Manhattan is full of lawyers. Previously it was full of marathoners. Almost no masks.

[the_siobhan]

That brings up something I hadn't thought of, are the people cleaning the rooms wearing masks?

[elusis]

Some are, some aren't. But I have no need of daily cleaning of my room. I had zero cleanings for my 9 days in NOLA (just requested some more towels at one point) and we requested our first cleaning yesterday after already having been here four nights; probably we'll not need it cleaned again. Carts are in the hall all the time so we just find someone and ask for more glasses or washcloths or tissue boxes or w/e and then hand them our trash and recycling.

[houseof9cats]

Today in this house:

E: "I've routinely walked outside looking much weirder than this ... on purpose."

D: "That's why goths and nerds will be the last ones standing."

[disastrid]

Ha!

[houseof9cats]

BMO did some employee picnic a few months ago and sent everyone an Uber Eats voucher to eat at home. That was cute. Especially because we all got to share. Yeah, I think you're looking at a large subset. There's probably an equally large subset we're just not seeing in indoor spaces right now. My back-of-the-envelope a few months ago was about 30% of people on team fuck off with your mass infection plan. I'm eternally shocked at how many people trust authority.

[kest]

I often think, ok, but the people you see are the people going out, you don't see the people staying home. But a required meeting I assume everyone was supposed to come in, so that makes you being the only one in a mask even more unsettling. :/ I do not understand it. Like, it's not hard to wear a mask most of the time?? For me, anyway. I had a hard time at first, three fucking years ago, but I learned tricks. I have taken occasional extremely calculated risks to eat out a couple times, but most of the time I don't feel like I am losing anything by wearing a mask. Maybe occasionally some probably terrible coffee.

[kest]

Two more things...I got known-exposed a couple weeks ago. My friend got it, I didn't. I wore a mask the whole time, she ate lunch with the infectious person. This is her second time, I remain covid-free. Like, even if you're not super concerned about it, wouldn't you prefer to NOT get sick? But lately I've been thinking about it like cars. Cars are super dangerous and almost everyone regularly gets in them anyway, because the alternative is unpalatable. Tons of people didn't even want to wear seatbelts until they were made to. Our risk vs rewards assessments are maybe just not great.

[elusis]

You may appreciate Peste Magazine and articles like this. Also their Snowzzie awards were [chef's kiss].