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Need to let loose a primal scream without collecting footnotes first? Have a sneer percolating in your system but not enough time/energy to make a whole post about it? Go forth and be mid: Welcome to the Stubsack, your first port of call for learning fresh Awful you’ll near-instantly regret.

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If your sneer seems higher quality than you thought, feel free to cut’n’paste it into its own post — there’s no quota for posting and the bar really isn’t that high.

The post Xitter web has spawned soo many “esoteric” right wing freaks, but there’s no appropriate sneer-space for them. I’m talking redscare-ish, reality challenged “culture critics” who write about everything but understand nothing. I’m talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. They’re inescapable at this point, yet I don’t see them mocked (as much as they should be)

Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldn’t be surgeons because they didn’t believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I can’t escape them, I would love to sneer at them.

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That's how I remember it too. Also the context about conserving N95 masks always feels like it gets lost. Like, predictably so and I think there's definitely room to criticize the CDC's messaging and handling there, but the actual facts here aren't as absurd as the current fight would imply. The argument was:

  1. With the small droplet size, most basic fabric masks offer very limited protection, if any.
  2. The masks that are effective, like N95 masks, are only available in very limited quantities.
  3. If everyone panic-buys N95 the way they did toilet paper it will mean that the people who are least able to avoid exposure i.e. doctors and medical frontliners are at best going to wildly overpay and at worst won't be able to keep supplied.
  4. Therefore, most people shouldn't worry about masking at this stage, and focus on other measures like social distancing and staying the fuck home.

I think later research cast some doubt on point 1, but 2-4 are still pretty solid given the circumstances that we (collectively) found ourselves in.

this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2025
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