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Again, the conclusions are the ones I highlighted, with weak evidence.
I should had pointed out from the beginning that for me the best we can have on this matter is this review by Cochrane but it is a communication mistake by me, I should know that people would pick everything they can just to contradict me.
My point has always been that making masks mandatory was criminal because there were no evidence of their effectiveness. Also people were made to believe masks were very important to the point of physically attack even who didn't wear them correctly.
Finally you admitted that there is no evidence in favour of masks and that is enough for me. Before, you insisted in saying that there are also studies in favour implying it was enough to justify such crimes.
You can accuse me of being a "conspiracy theorist" as much as you want, I don't care. I never mentioned any conspiracy. Thinking there must be a conspiracy to explain certain crimes is induced by an ideology called positivism.
You should instead ask yourself if people denoucing mass surveillance before Snowden deserved to be called "conspiracy theorists".
You should ask yourself if journalists today are free to report such crimes since what is happening to Julian Assange for revealing crimes by US army in Iraq and more.
And your attack on me is a way of admitting that you have no more arguments on the matter.
Today I eroded another piece of rhetoric: starting today you won't be able to say anymore "but there are also studies that say the opposite" and that's enough for me, for today.
The study is very clear when saying that *probably* the effectiveness of masks is close to zero. If they wanted to stress the need of more evidence to say anything like you are implying, they would just say that.
And you will never be able to influence my ideas with fear of what others think of me. In such a rotten world, being despised by the masses is a medal I gladly wear. People pass but ideas remain. Ask yourself if the people who in past centuries promoted the ideals that inspire you today were respected in their era.
Having said that, the fear that institutions are not loving parents towards citizens is understandable just as it is understandable that it leads to a suspension of rationality. And that's why I don't judge you or insult you and if I offended you as a person, it wasn't my intention.
@post At no point did they say or suggest that masks **probably** had an effectiveness close to 0.. in fact the report clearly states the opposite, that it cant draw any probable conclusions fromt he current data.
It's literally what the highlighted parts say:
https://qoto.org/@post/110310634909148296
There are three things in that abstract: 1) conclusions (highlighted by me) 2) details on what was evaluated and 3) mentions of the weakness of the evidence.
@freemo @feld @chiasm
There are not parts that disagree with me, they said that effectiveness of masks is close to zero but the evidence is weak.
This means that they valued studies against masks more than the one in favour of them and it was evident if you actually read the studies instead of just saying "there are also studies that say the opposite".
But they also pointed out that the ones against masks don't meet their requirements for strong evidence and I think this will never be the case since it is hard to produce such evidence.
Instead of accusing others of not reading the studies, admit that I was right when I told you that the studies against masks were better than the ones in favour of them.