Luke, while I appreciate your goal, I'm afraid you're letting idealism get in the way of objective reality.
There is a steadily increasing body of objective scientific evidence that wearing a mask does little to protect you from catching COVID19 from others. It does, however, dramatically reduce the chance of them catching it from you.
It's not a matter of "just virtue signaling your side." The bothsiderism you're showing here, while I'm sure is well-intentioned, is misguided and dangerous.
If you walk down the street without a mask and smile at someone, it's not you respecting their view. It's you actively signaling "I don't know if I am going to get you sick and possibly have you die by not mildly inconveniencing myself, but I'm going to do it anyway because I don't care about your health."
The idea that "trying to not kill other people accidentally" is reduced to just tribal signaling is itself actively dangerous. Of course, that is actively being pushed by those who benefit from creating a deeper right/left divide, and it's working. And you, in this post, are buying into it, by saying the science doesn't matter and it's "just tribalism."
To @apshamilton below (above?), mask wearing is quite common and boring in China and many other East Asian countries that have spent more time dealing with disease outbreaks. The idea that it is "depersonalizing" or "undermining social cohesion" is simply not born out there, as many of those countries have much stronger social cohesion than the US does. And "make people look scary and ugly," yeah, I'm not even going to dignify that with a response.
Wearing a mask is a form of social cohesion, because you're showing respect for your community members.
Bothsiderism isn't a solution to tribalism; it's just further undermining of the concept that objective fact and truth actually exist, which is one of the great sicknesses of our day.
I think my reply here probably covers some of your post as well. "Bothsiderism" is an interesting term, but when it comes to relationships with people I care about who are convinced they are right, I'm willing to engage them respectfully instead of assuming they are idiots, immoral, or stupid, as I've discussed before.
I don't see it as "dangerous" because people who believe strongly enough about their views are going to do whatever they want. The only path forward I see for any chance of consensus is to have respectful dialogue, even if I don't agree with someone.
I don't think open dialogue is dangerous.
I think not having open dialogue is dangerous. I think shaming, shunning, etc people for their views before having open dialogue with them is dangerous.
This is my way, and I know it's not for everyone. Some prefer to just sever relationships and move on when people are strongly in disagreement. I prefer to respect both sides as to where they are at talk about it.
I respect that; unfortunately, it requires the other person to also be willing to engage. Prisoner's Dilemma.
This isn't entirely hypothetical. A person in my close social circle has recently decided to double down on Trump, Fox News, All Lives Matter, the whole 9 yards, and actively refuses to even discuss or speak about it, going as far as "don't confuse me with facts, my mind is made up." (Nearly a direct quote.) There's really nothing you can do at that point, but people are still dying, so...
This may be a data point for you to know your approach isn't working. People convince themselves of things via biases. Even the most unbiased person, if truthful, will admit this. We like to think the scientific method is without bias, but it is not. It's maybe the best thing we have going but it has limits. Some people need to be connected to relationally before they will ever understand you factually. "People need to know that you care before they care what you know."
This is inefficient, frustrating, and at times annoying. It simply is. No way around it. We can either disconnect and hope for the best, or we can try different approaches which are more relationally based. I'm reminded of the dude who hung out with KKK members and befriended them in order to win them over to his perspective.
Love your enemies.
Everything that frustrates you.
It's a hard call to action and not for everyone, but I do see the value in trying, and I don't think it validates anything or makes things worse. Open, truthful, respectful, dialogue with true humility (not feigned humility where you really know you're right and they are completely wrong) can create results.