Ave, Charles!

My buddy Charles is sounding pretty red-pilled, at least about masks. Now, to expand the question: what else might the government be lying about?

I'll be as frank as a smelly fart: Charles has been a lot quieter and more circumspect about all this than I have. He seems, at long last, to have finally had enough of the bullshit. I, meanwhile, have been pretty loudly anti-mask for almost two years. Why? Because of where I get my news from. I follow alt-media sources, which I've found to be far more reliable than the mainstream media. Alt media has its faults: Tim Pool can be an excellent journalist, for example, but he's saddled with an enormous ego. Styxhexenhammer666 knows a hell of a lot about politics, but he's constantly misusing and mispronouncing words in a way that shows he's just a college dropout. That said, I'll take Tim Pool and Styx over the likes of CNN talking heads Don Lemon, Brian Stelter, Wolf Blitzer, Anderson Cooper, Christiane Amanpour, Jim Acosta, or any of the other lying cockroaches at that shitheap of a network. Alt-media people like Tim Pool, Styx (real name: Tarl Warwick), Lauren Chen, and even the seemingly red-pilled Russell Brand (whose love of Baudrillard makes me cringe) are far more likely to bring the truth than anyone from the mendacious alphabet-soup organizations: CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, and so on, not to mention fellow lying-leftie outlets like The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Huffington Post, Vox, Slate, and so on. All of those rotten establishments cower behind reality-distortion fields, where they generate fear and paranoia to be swallowed by the masses. And these same organizations have the gall to say it's the righties who are the scaremongers. If there's one thing lefties do well, it's project.

My point is that I've been "following the science" more closely and more accurately than anyone who's been naively getting their news from mainstream sources. The mainstream wants you masked up, four-times vaccinated, locked down, and meekly obedient. They don't want you listening to alternative opinions and thinking for yourself. So while I wear a mask indoors because the mask is essentially a passport (no mask, no service in Korean subways, cabs, buses, restaurants, etc.), I never mask up when I'm distance walking, and I don't bother with a mask in my tiny, cramped little office, either, even though half of our immediate staff got infected with COVID. Why? Because following the actual science means knowing that COVID, even in its more virulent forms, really isn't all that serious an illness, and it also means knowing that, while masks might partially prevent you from spreading the virus (assuming you're infected, of course), they're shit at protecting you from a microorganism that can get in through your eyes. Following the actual science also means knowing that the chance of catching COVID while outside is pretty much zero, making masks superfluous.

In his post, Charles mentions the Korean government's policy regarding wearing masks outside. It was Charles who actually pointed me to that policy online, and it basically says that masks outside are unnecessary except in situations where it's impossible to engage in social distancing, e.g., in a crowd, at a concert, at a demonstration, etc. I was floored when I learned this: all this time, I had thought I was being rebellious by not masking up while walking, but in fact, I was in perfect consonance with government policy. Charles and I had had a difference of opinion regarding why Koreans continue to mask up while outside; Charles averred that Koreans tended to imitate each other because no one wanted to be ostracized for acting differently; I stated that Koreans were—like me until Charles pointed out the policy—unaware of what the policy actually was; we merely assumed we knew. In the end, I concluded that Charles's contention wasn't wrong, but that my own contention wasn't wrong, either: I'd had several personal encounters with Koreans who sincerely thought the policy was to mask up while outside. But that has never been the case.

So on the one hand, I'm sorry I wasn't the rebel I'd thought I was. But on the other hand, it was almost a relief to know that I'd been doing the right thing all along by not masking up during my walks. (And, to be fair, I should give the South Korean government credit for remaining fairly relaxed, all this time, about masking up outdoors.) In theory, if I had had to rebel to retain my freedom, I would have done so. But as it turns out, that wasn't necessary. I'm not a hero, but in the eyes of the law, I'm still a law-abiding citizen.

Anyway, it's with a sense of relief that I see Charles getting red-pilled. People should be wary of their governments. Authorities lie, and they do so routinely, and for the most part, we citizens are dumb sheep who are okay with being jerked around by our leaders. At some point, though, you have to put your foot down, take a brave step forward into the light, and realize you're being lied to on a daily basis—and the rest of us alt-media consumers who've known all this for some time aren't just tin-foil-hat-wearing conspiracy theorists.