Mask Wars

Just a short post tonight but I saw an interesting statistic about how many people are for or against masks. It looks like those against the mask mandates are a minority (31% against and 69% for, from an NPR article “The Topic Of Masks In Schools Is Polarizing Some Parents To The Point Of Violence”). Of course, the split between party is more dramatic: 92% of Democrats are for masks mandates whereas 44% of Republicans are for mask mandates. That 44% is a bit higher than expected, so we need to keep in mind not ALL Republicans are against mask mandates.

I bring this up because I do wonder if the mask mandates position reflects an ability to adapt to changes in the environment. The pandemic is a huge change and required some adaptation in order to survive. Does wearing a mask and trying to social distance reflect an ability to adjust to the conditions around you when necessary to save lives? Does the insistence that wearing a mask is too hard signify one’s inability to adapt?

If so, what does that portend for the anti-maskers’ future as automation and AI rolls on, “eating” up jobs and forcing everyone to learn new skills? If they can’t handle masks, how will they adjust to the new realities of new skills requirements or the new work landscape?

Does the insistence on freedom to go about without masks signify an inability parse the nuances between individual rights and society rights? We do have laws that determine the rules for traffic lights, car seatbelts, firecrackers in city, etc. We also have an unspoken law of being fully clothed in public. So why is wearing a mask so different from clothes or other rules? We don’t have a right to shoot firecrackers within city limits due to danger of starting a fire so why can’t they accept that wearing a mask is necessary to avoid inadvertently killing others with compromised immune systems?

Does this seeming inability to distinguish the nuances between individual rights and society rights mean a possible inability to think through more complex problems in a world full of automation and AI? Because the new world of work will not leave us with many “easy” jobs to do because they will be fully automated. What will be left will be the complicated ones.

Are those 56% Republican anti-maskers going to have a problem in the future new world?