4 ms·

Having antibiotic failure as the method for arresting the massive human population (7B people) would require carnage that makes World War II (~70M deaths) pale

by vacri 10y ago

Having antibiotic failure as the method for arresting the massive human population (7B people) would require carnage that makes World War II (~70M deaths) pale in comparison, even if you correct for the lower global population of the day.

dredmorbius 10y ago
Disease has typically killed more than wars. The Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918 killed 50-100 million people, several percent of the total world population. By comparison, total military and civilian dealths in WWI were about 16 million.
- vacri 10y ago
  Oh, I agree - I just used WWII as it's a more commonly-understood datapoint. The Spanish Flu epidemic only took a couple of years as well, as opposed to the half-decade of WWII.
trhway 10y ago
why carnage? just some sterilizing effect of some bacterial infection would do it.
- vacri 10y ago
  People dying of infection is not pretty, especially at scale.
  - trhway 10y ago
    "sterilizing" means destroying the ability to produce next generation. No dying involved. It may be some very light infection, just with a sterilizing side-effect for example.