The “noble lie” on masks probably wasn't a lie
The post says that Fauci and others did not lie (probably) because they actually believed what they were saying at the time - at the start of the covid-19 pandemic (March-ish 2020 in the US when things started really heating up here).<p>The evidence is months&#x27; worth of UK government discussion docs which presumably show most UK government officials, experts, and others stating -- presumably in self-belief -- that covid was not spreading through the air.<p>There are several problems, imo, with this train of thought.<p>The first is that, if it were true, then Fauci and myriad other US government officials, scientists, public health experts, and others intended to lie initially, but were too stupid to do it correctly, then to conceal their initial stupidity, started to try to cover it up by starting to change their expert advice to say that mask-wearing was good&#x2F;necessary to prevent covid transmission.<p>I believe experts are just as fallible as regular folks, and even moreso in many situations, but I don&#x27;t think it&#x27;s credible in this case.<p>To me, you just have to look at the power dynamics in the situation.<p>Every time Fauci or others tried to tell the truth, they got beat down by Trump and his supporters, so they relented -- most famously, if unfairly, Dr. Deborah Birx, seemingly backing up Trump&#x27;s claims that injecting bleach into your body could prevent or cure Covid.<p>Fauci and Birx and others were responding to power -- to incentives -- nothing more.<p>The &#x27;probably&#x27; in this post&#x27;s title looks wishy-washy -- similar to how Fauci and others have tried to explain away their treachery -- or incompetence, if you prefer to believe all these people are truly, wonderously, actually stupid.<p>One of the scary parts, to me, is that many people, experts, opinion leaders, health leaders, etc. still seem to believe that lying to the public, even or especially in matters of public health, is good and necessary.<p>That is, that Fauci intended to lie, and maybe even did lie intentionally (if you agree with that), was right and good. Because his intentions were right and good.<p>To that, I would say -- doesn&#x27;t everyone who get busted for lying claim that their intentions were noble, and therefore right?<p>Zeynep Tufekci has some articles at the NYT that talk about all of this.<p>I usually agree with her on most things, but i feel like she doesn&#x27;t go in hard enough on the individuals&#x2F;systems that need it. Of course, maybe she&#x27;s just reponding to incentives, too -- get a little too direct, and you won&#x27;t be published in the NYT for long.<p>This first one from last year addressed the duplicity and its harms:<p><i>Why telling people they don&#x27;t need masks backfired</i><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2020&#x2F;03&#x2F;17&#x2F;opinion&#x2F;coronavirus-face-masks.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2020&#x2F;03&#x2F;17&#x2F;opinion&#x2F;coronavirus-face-...</a><p>And this one from a couple weeks ago talks about what to do about it -- specifically, how to change agencies like the WHO and CDC so that they actually work for public health instead of against it, especially in these BIG situations:<p><i>Why did it take so long to accept the facts about covid transimission?</i><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2021&#x2F;05&#x2F;07&#x2F;opinion&#x2F;coronavirus-airborne-transmission.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2021&#x2F;05&#x2F;07&#x2F;opinion&#x2F;coronavirus-airbo...</a><p>I agree-ish in both cases, but also feel she leaves out crucial context -- the &#x27;power dynamics&#x2F;incentives&#x27; argument.<p>Maybe she&#x27;s right that the potential to upend the business community&#x2F;billionaires&#x2F;power&#x2F;social structures has little to nothing to do with the reasons why advice about covid is still, more than a year later, largely incorrect in much of the world, including America -- but I doubt it.<p>I believe that institutional knowledge and processes and all that are part of the problem, but I also think you have to talk about the underlying problems. Why is the CDC head, for instance, selected by the POTUS?<p>If the head of the USPS is somewhat independent, then shouldn&#x27;t the head of the CDC be too??<p>Just one other problem with the post&#x27;s theory of Fauci&#x27;s and others&#x27; incompetence&#x2F;ignorance&#x2F;stupidity is that many of these experts -- possibly Fauci himself -- have talked privately about what they actually believed for months -- even while they were publicly lying.<p>At the CDC alone, people resigned, people were demoted, presumably people were pushed out, etc. The stories of malfeasance -- of punishing people trying to do the right thing -- will continue to become public for years to come.<p>Another reason the author&#x27;s post is not credible, imo -- we would have had to believe, that the US&#x27;s most expert and public officials -- often foreign-born or born to American immigrants (Asian&#x2F;Chinese, Indian, etc.) -- were so racist that they could not believe their Asian&#x2F;Chinese colleagues who were warning since last year that covid was airborne.<p>I get that people can be racist against their own, classist and&#x2F;or supremacist against Chinese medical experts&#x2F;training&#x2F;doctors&#x2F;system&#x2F;etc., but it&#x27;s just not credible to me that that alleged racism&#x2F;classism&#x2F;supremacy overrode commonsense and truth in so many cases.<p>Many public officials who showed up on and continue to show up on CNN and MSNBC and other channels would often couch their comments in very careful indirect language -- &quot;well, i&#x27;m not saying what the CDC director is saying is wrong, per se, but i&#x27;m just saying that i think it might be a good idea maybe sometimes maybe to sometimes wear a mask possibly if you feel like it maybe&quot;.<p>That&#x27;s just responding to power, wanting to stay on tv, wanting to not generate viewer and corporate complaints, etc.<p>It is _not_ because they did not know the truth of the situation. I fully believe that they did. Maybe they convinced themselves that they were fighting the good fight from within.<p>Other experts could be much less careful -- that is, they could be much more direct and truthful -- by showing up for interviews on programs like Democracy Now, which is not sponsored by corporations, but largely by individuals.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.democracynow.org&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.democracynow.org&#x2F;</a><p>I suspect listeners of Democracy Now had a much better chance of being informed correctly of the actual transmission method of covid.