Facebook. What a wonderful platform, full of trains, model railways, community sharing and all manner of cute cat pics but yet....
Facebook has billions of user, according to zephoria.com ;-
Facebook estimated that 2.89 billion people use Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, or Messenger each month and more than 2.26 billion people use at least one of the Facebook family of services every day on average
....... a huge proportion of these people are a bit thick and thus believe every item of news, advertising and agree with memes without question.
"Awww bless. However, did they teach that cat to play the Violin?"
Even more problematic is that even semi-thick people like my good self can be duped if we drop our guard.
Bloody hell, look at those dolphins swimming around the canals of Venice!"
For those of you that didn't realise, that was also fake news , and I was genuinely sad as it gave me a little smile of happiness to imagine flipper whizzing up and down the Grand Canal on his tail balancing a ball on his nose!
What's even worse though is that Facebook gets to decide exactly what we see and what we don't and is, therefore, able to influence the decision-making process of over half of the world's adult population. So many people these days use Facebook and other social media as their sole source of the world's news and current affairs. Do you think that North Korea is a propaganda riddled state full of brainwashed imbeciles? The rest of the world is the same, only with better haircuts.
The reason for my current state of ire is this.....
Facebook bans events that violate social distancing orders
That's right, Facebook has taken upon its self as a proxy world government to not allow billions of people to know when there is going to be an anti-quarantine protest.
Just who the fuck do they think they are?
If they made more of an attempt at fact-checking the shite that gets posted on their social media sites and the utter garbage that gets advertised there, they would at least gain a little more respect but whilst they insist on acting as the World Ministry for Information Dissemination then they are nothing more than a disgusting propaganda machine but sadly, it makes no difference. People like me will still use Facebook as it becomes an almost invaluable source of knowledge and information simply because there is no better way to connect with people around the world with similar interests.
But back to the protests...
Now I actually think the people protesting are a set of selfish half-witted knobheads but the very fact I can think that AND call them that on a public forum, automatically gives them the right to be able to protest and vice versa, it's a two-way street and that's how it should be and so I should explain why I think this way, so......
The second reason for my current state of ire is this.....
.... young lady.
What the sign should have read is "YOUR body, my choice"
because what little Miss Liberty with her single-digit IQ fails to realise is that the mask protects others from you. If you have the virus and are not showing symptoms but are breathing out droplets as we all do, it will be caught in your mask and not end up on a surface for someone else to touch and so if we ALL wore masks, Europe and the Americas would not be in the terrible state they are in.
What medical or Scientific evidence do you have for this?
NONE. I am just attempting to apply common sense based on what I see. Even I don't always need empirical evidence to make decisions but let me explain that there is a method behind my madness. I live in Thailand, and during January/ February, over 800,000 Chinese tourists visited around the time of Chinese New Year as they do every year. By Late February when the world was starting to take notice of COVID, most of Asia went into full mask mode as we often do anyway due to the air pollution, and then closed down sporting events, closed malls. Restaurants stayed open for take-away and delivery food only. Gyms, pools and other public places shut and we tried to stay indoors as much as possible. Schools had already closed for the annual end of year holiday. Since then, we have faced a few further travel restrictions. Borders are closed in both directions. There are no passenger flights into the country, Beer is banned and it is generally illegal to leave the house between 10pm and 4am.
Yes. It's shit but people are still out and about on the streets, going food shopping and going to work. It's not deserted, just quieter. When I go into a shop I have my temperature taken and they won't let me in if I'm not wearing a mask. That is THEIR freedom to do so, it's THEIR shop and MY choice whether to go in or not.
If this were in Thailand and the young lady wanted to buy something, she would not be able to. She chooses not to wear a mask, the shop chooses not to serve her. Again, freedom works both ways and it must be applied in the context of living within a civilised society.
A bit like Steem Basic Income, its a way to both give and receive in one simple gesture. Interdependency!!
Thailand is currently reporting (I don't actually believe the government here but it's still a massive difference) just 48 deaths in total. Looking at the rest of SE Asia, the number of casualties are nowhere near the incredibly heartbreaking numbers in Europe and the Americas. We all know that...
"Correlation does not imply causation"
but yet common sense is telling me there is more to these disproportionate numbers than just coincidence.
So why is there such opposition to masks from the World Health Organisation and western governments?
I have an answer to this but firstly, the official line from WHO is this:-
The World Health Organization (WHO) has said that only two groups of people should wear protective masks, those who are:
Sick and showing symptoms
Caring for people suspected to have coronavirus
It says medical masks should be reserved for healthcare workers.
Masks are not recommended for the general public because:
They can be contaminated by other people's coughs and sneezes, or when putting them on or removing them.
Frequent hand-washing and social distancing are more effective.
They might offer a false sense of security.
From the WHO website, Advice on the use of masks in the context of COVID-19
And from the governments who won't stand up and attempt to have the whole population wearing them?
Well, the British government says that mass mask-wearing adoption might take supplies away from the medical profession and adds that there is not enough medical evidence to suggest their use is effective, just like the WHO, who are of course funded by such governments. I can't believe that a month into this, it's still a discussion, but the biggest clue for me why governments don't want you wearing masks comes from Russia....
Russia uses facial recognition to tackle COVID-19
Perhaps the real reason Western Governments don't want their citizens wearing masks is that it would render their covert facial recognition systems impotent and therefore, little Miss Liberty protesting about her 'freedom' not to wear a mask is actually doing the government a favour! Isn't it Ironic, don't you think?
One last picture from the protests in the US last week.....
I don't have the words........