Table of Contents:
1. Introduction
1.1 Resolution/Model
1.2 Burden of Proof
2. Constructive Arguments
2.1 Limiting The Transmission of Sickness
2.2 Protecting The Vulnerable
2.3 Living With COVID-19
1. Introduction
I thank RMM for accepting this debate and hereby bring forward the resolution THBT that mask mandates should remain indefinitely.
1.1 Resolution/Model
Mask mandates - "The requirement to wear a cloth/disposable mask in public spaces when there is no good reason not to."
Indefinitely - "Without a definite ending; remaining in place until there is no longer a need, there is a more effective method, and/or previously unknown a reason to stop due to any sufficient negative comes to light."
Public space - "Any space that any individual of the age of majority is free to enter under certain conditions (payment, being fully clothed, not causing a disturbance, etc...) that don't exclude/include anyone based solely on who they are, which can reasonably be expected to have a considerable amount of people in close proximity; a government institution and/or space open to the public with certain conditions."
This resolution assumes masks are available for free to public spaces and those entering a public space covered by the government. This resolution also does not inherently require mask mandates to look just as they do in most countries during the COVID-19 pandemic due to the subjective definition of 'good reason not to.' A 'good reason not to' generally refers to acts that are necessary (you can't eat or drink with a mask on), a situation where the inconvenience outweighs any conceivable benefit (you don't need to wear a mask if you're walking through a park with nobody around for a mile), or there is an evident, greater benefit from doing otherwise (not having mask mandates in K-4 to let kids learn facial cues).
1.2 Burden of Proof
Standard burden of proof. Pro must provide greater reason the resolution should stand than the reasons con provides that the resolution should not stand and vice versa. Failure for pro to provide any meaningful affirmation of the resolution constitutes a failure to meet their burden.
2. Constructive Arguments
In my speech I will be presenting three constructive arguments:
#1: Limiting The Transmission of Sickness
- Before the COVID-19 pandemic, society, in exchange for the ability to live our lives and participate in society, accepted a certain degree of transmission of sicknesses like the flu and the common cold. It's unreasonable to ask people to never leave their house, inevitably leading to transmission.
- Societal acceptance of transmission is based on the condition that the avenues for transmission that we allow to exist can not be reasonably avoided to a sufficient degree. It's unreasonable to maintain social distancing in times of normalcy, but it's reasonable to wash your hands after going to the bathroom.
- Masks wearing is reasonable and sufficiently prevent transmission.
#2: Protecting The Vulnerable
- Some people have weak immune systems or are chronically-ill. Every time they get sick, it not only represents a significant amount of time spent recovering, but also represents a much more severe illness than most would experience that has the potential of ending their life in some cases.
- As a result of this, certain people are forced to regularly endure severe sickness and the risk of death in order to be functioning members of society or to even participate in society at all.
- Masks will not completely prevent the transmission of illnesses, but they will limit their spread and potentially save the lives of thousands every year. Moreover, it would lead to a world that is more hospitable and livable for the most vulnerable. This is especially necessary in light of declining herd-immunity due to rising vaccine hesitancy.
#3: Living With COVID-19
- COVID-19 is more than likely going to continue spreading and mutating into the foreseeable future. At this time, eradicating COVID-19 any time soon seems unlikely.
- Even if COVID-19 becomes endemic, infects fewer people, or kills less of those infected by it, building upon arguments #1 and #2, masks should continue to be worn to ensure COVID-19 does not mutate into a super-virus and to avoid unnecessary deaths caused by the pandemic.
2.1 Limiting The Transmission of Sickness
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, society, in exchange for the ability to live our lives and participate in society, accepted a certain degree of transmission of sicknesses like the flu and the common cold. It's unreasonable to ask people to never leave their house, inevitably leading to some degree of transmission. Societal acceptance of transmission is based on the condition that the avenues for transmission that we allow to exist can not be reasonably avoided to a sufficient degree. It's unreasonable to maintain social distancing in times of normalcy, but it's reasonable to wash your hands after going to the bathroom.
We must keep in mind that our actions can lead to the deaths of people. This is not just a statistic, it is someone with a family, friends, hobbies, memories, and consciousness taking their final breath. Sure, you getting the flu might not be bad. Sure, you might really need to go into work. Sure, your colleague getting it might not be that bad. Sure, your colleague's mother getting it might be risky, but they should be okay. But when your colleague's grandmother gets it? Our choices, in that scenario, may very well be the indirect cause of their death.
It's important I say that, in the above scenario, it's not as though somebody decided "this thing at work is so important that I don't care if I have to kill someone for another day's worth of working on it." Humans have neither the mental and emotional capacity to think through if every one of their decisions may lead to a domino effect where they could hurt someone else, but nobody has the time either. If your boss asks "can you come into work today?" You have 30 seconds at most to decide if you are going to risk spreading your cold to your colleagues and to give an answer, and you must make that decision in the face of all the other pressures in life that you have (fear of not being able to eat if you don't work, fear of losing your job, fear of making your coworkers work harder due to your absence). That grandma's blood is not on the hands of anyone who decides to go to work, but nobody would disagree that said grandma having even just one more day of being alive is better than the alternative.
Nonetheless, our actions can hurt other people. I will expand upon the necessity to protect others in my second argument, but this puts into perspective the situation this resolution is about.
Is any given risk of hurting someone else large enough that it justifies doing what is required to prevent it? Mask wearing is not a very daunting task and represents very little inconvenience to most people. Two years ago, you could make the argument that it is a substantial annoyance to avoid a risk with so many dominoes that need to fall before that risk becomes a reality that it's hard to comprehend what each domino actually means, but that's not the case anymore. People have gotten used to wearing masks; many people even feel weird when they aren't wearing one.
Mask wearing can lead to a threefold reduction in the amount of virus breathed into the air in people who have the flu or a cold, and due to the fact most infections occur due to being in close-contact with somebody for a very short period of time, that is a monumental reduction
This is just like washing our hands to prevent the spread of germs. To roll up your sleeves, turn the water on, wet your hands, get soap, thoroughly scrub your hands, wash the soap off, and dry your hands takes a minute at most, and the result is that you aren't spreading fecal bacteria on everything that you touch (and, if you enter the bathroom, fecal bacteria is unavoidable).
According to the CDC, even such a small task can lead to:
- 40% less diarrhea-inducing sickness
- 58% less diarrheal illness in those with compromised immune systems
- 21% less colds
- 57% less absenteeism due to gastrointestinal illness in school children
- Many other benefits related to reduced proliferation of germs and fecal bacteria
If somebody asked me "Hey, would you be prepared to spend, at most, a few minutes every day so that over half of the people who would otherwise shit themselves sideways by 9:45 or your money back are able to, y'know, not do that?" I would say yes before they even finished the sentence even if just because otherwise I very well might, many times throughout my life, be in that 58% of people who would have to deal with that.
In summary, mask wearing is completely reasonable and does not cause a large inconvenience disproportionate to the risk it prevents (due in some part to already having widespread adoption due to the COVID-19 pandemic) and is capable of preventing transmission of respiratory illnesses. I surely hope we all wash our hands so we can reap the benefits of preventing the proliferation of germs and fecal bacteria (if you asked me if I thought hand-washing should be mandated most of the time, I'd say yes). With that fact in mind, mask wearing is a similarly effective method of preventing different kinds of illnesses and are similarly easy to implement, and due to the fact we should protect other people when we can easily do so, therefore masks should continue to be worn and should be mandatory in most cases.
2.2 Protecting The Vulnerable
Some people have weak immune systems or are chronically-ill. Every time they get sick, it not only represents a significant amount of time spent recovering, but also represents a much more severe illness than most would experience that has the potential of ending their life in some cases. That grandma mentioned in my first argument? Imagine if they were a 20 year old, fit, healthy person with a condition that lowered their white blood-cell count. Some may be prepared to accept a grandma dying as the result of the spread of the flu because, if the flu can kill them (just as
it kills 52,000 people yearly), then almost any sickness could and they will inevitably get sick eventually. That grandma already lived their life and their death at that age is natural.
But a 20 year old is different.
Chronically-ill people, even in cases where they don't die, should have the ability to live their lives unrestrained by the burdens of illnesses like the flu and cold. We may not be able to see this world through all the way, but it is critical to building a fair and equitable world that we do these easy little things that will make their lives easier. Even if not for them, just protecting other people from having to deal with the suckiness that is the common cold and protecting the economy from the lost GDP due to absenteeism and avoiding making ourselves have to work harder to make up for sick colleagues who can't come into work in exchange for such a minor inconvenience seems like a worthwhile exchange to me.
This is especially necessary in light of declining herd-immunity due to rising vaccine hesitancy. With fewer people getting their annual flu shot year by year, these measures become more and more necessary.
Due to the imperative to protect vulnerable individuals, mask wearing should be mandated.
2.3 Living With COVID-19
I'm kind of tired, so I'm going to make this part quick.
COVID-19 isn't going anywhere more than likely. We've all seen the headlines, so this isn't new information to us (I would hope). The more the disease spreads, the higher the chance it will mutate into a more deadly/transmissible virus and the more people have to die or deal with the potentially debilitating consequences of Long-COVID.
Upon COVID-19 becoming endemic, measures like social-distancing and capacity limits may no longer be necessary. Both of these have their own consequences (inconvenience, lost GDP, worsened mental health, lower chance for social interaction, less chance to exercise, etc...), and so when said consequences become disproportionate to the degree of transmission that they prevent and the risk said transmission brings with it, it makes sense to remove these measures. Mask wearing does not cause these consequences, since it amounts to no fundamental change in one's way of life other than in putting a piece of fabric on their face.
Mask's are harmless pieces of apparel that can avoid these pitfalls while still meaningfully preventing the spread of COVID-19 and ensuring people stay alive, don't need to deal with years-long Long-COVID, and that COVID-19 does not mutate into a significantly worse virus by preventing it from spreading in the first place. Even in the event COVID-19 becomes endemic, mask wearing will still speed up the process and save lives in the meantime.
For the need to prevent the spread of COVID-19 so we can ensure it does not have the opportunity to mutate again and to save lives, mask wearing should be mandated into the foreseeable future. If masks were not mandated, not as many people would wear them, and that's why I am arguing not just that masks are good, but that mandating their usage in most cases is a necessity.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. Vote pro.
I understand your thought process, but I figured that my definitions were sufficient because of the implication that there currently and into the foreseeable future is a need ("if there is NO LONGER a need"). If there is not a need presently and into the foreseeable future (excluding COVID-19, which is the obvious reason), I believed the resolution would fail because it doesn't meet the definition of indefinitely. I thought the resolution would then just be "is there a need for mask mandates currently and as far as we can reasonably see into the future (even if COVID-19 dies out)," but I can see how the definition could be abused.
That's my mistake and I thank you for pointing that out to me.
From my point of view this topic is a tautology for Pro. If it is needed, it exists. If it is no longer needed, it is gone. Mask mandates of course should continue until they are no longer needed. If most people hate it, that is another form of "it is no longer needed".
Look, I am a really humble person and I don't have much of an ego.
I honestly think you had a lot on your plate, and you didn't have time for this debate. That's 100% fine because we all have lives.
This is quite literally an extension of respect to your name because I know (and hopefully we can agree) that you should have won this debate.
Whatever your ego tells you.
Well we have to consider:
1. I have retired from debating
2. I am focusing on more challenging debates if i do decide to re-engage
Then try it
Yeah, this debate just seems like a really easy win from my perspective.
I think Rational Madman was just busy.
It was effectively a concession, I believe.
I assume this was a concession and I voted with that in mind. If this was not a concession, let me know and I will delete my vote or ask a mod to do so.
I'll compromise at 15k and 2 weeks.
At 10k characters and 2-week debate time, I'd take this as Con.
Challenge sent.
If this is unvoted in a couple weeks, someone remind me and I'll cast one.
good luck
I will debate you on the exact same topic
Especially with one week for arguments
Because of the resolution I feel that you should have won this debate.
It is weird btw, other than a vaccine mandate kritik, I couldn't come up with solid reasons to oppose the mandate that did not appeal to emotion
Ah shit gg
"indefinitely"
Even after humanity disappeared? LOL
You really are comical.
You've done plenty of Twitch streams without a mask, you hypocrite.
https://youtu.be/sBpkQfuQp9g
Holy shit, RMM! You sniped this literally the minute I posted it lmao