A related (and underdiscussed) lesson is that some people just absolutely love conformity. What else could explain all the doctors/academics getting behind the 100% definite "masks don't work" stuff in Feb/March? They're not daft. They knew there wasn't a good case for that. https://twitter.com/s8mb/status/1344218228470460417

The "evidence has changed since then" excuse can't explain it, because... it hasn't, really. It's not like a solid RCT has come along that definitively shows they work: a combination of theory and modelling strongly implies they're useful.

The "they knew what they were saying was wrong, but were trying to avert a PPE shortage for medical personnel" explanation is hard to contemplate because it means lots of experts were actively lying to the public about a crucial health matter. I don't believe that.

I think it's just pure, reflexive conformity. The people who said things like "masks don't work and are in fact dangerous" did so because they believed it - because other experts/authority figures had said it, and they never thought to question it.

But it also works the other way: an extreme *lack* of conformity turns you into a "lockdown sceptic" - or even an anti-vaxxer. God forbid.

The fact that lockdown sceptics were also opposed to all the measures that would've lessened the lockdowns (like masks, which they call "face nappies") shows that their position is just a reflexive *anti*-conformity. Whatever the authority figures say must be wrong by default.

So there's a happy medium where your questioning of authority figures is enough to catch them when they do go wrong (masks; airborne transmission; non-vaccine herd immunity; etc) but is still tethered to reason & evidence, and you don't turn into an obsessive. The lesson of 2020.