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Were they irrelevant? -- I see plenty doom and gloom in my history books and, hell, twitter feed. It was just a few decades ago that 80 million people died in

by noam87 9y ago

Were they irrelevant? -- I see plenty doom and gloom in my history books and, hell, twitter feed. It was just a few decades ago that 80 million people died in a single war.

ekianjo 9y ago
yet the world did not end. Countless prophecies aboutvthe absolute apocalypse have gone and passed. So yeah it is by large irrelevant.
- oddgoo 9y ago
  Their world did end for those 80 million people. If most of society dies in pain and hunger to climate change, would the survivors say "bah, just more fear mongering"? For me, humanity is the sum of human experiences, not the mere presence of the species. The end of the world being relative and analog.
  - wruza 9y ago
    This sum is already negative, btw. And it is hard to tell whether it is still negative or just negative. Few happy areas may put you into "it's everywhere like that" dream. But it's not, most species are simply present to supply to someone.
  - bobbybobbybob 9y ago
    9 million already due of hunger every year, what is the world doing about that presently?
    - ameister14 9y ago
      A lot. Billions of dollars are spent to combat it and research on food and agriculture to solve hunger has been going for years. >The vast majority of hungry people live in developing regions, which saw a 42 percent reduction in the prevalence of undernourished people between 1990–92 and 2012–14. http://www.worldhunger.org/2015-world-hunger-and-poverty-facts-and-statistics/ http://www.worldhunger.org/2015-world-hunger-and-poverty-fac...
    - ekianjo 9y ago
      > 9 million already due of hunger every year, what is the world doing about that presently? Most of it is because of conflicts. Poverty is decreasing fast across the globe and there were relatively a lot more people dying from hunger in the 80s.
  - bobbybobbybob 9y ago
    9 million already due of hunger every year, what is the world doing about that presently?
  - ekianjo 9y ago
    > Their world did end for those 80 million people. The world did not end for the other billion on Earth living at the same time. You can't just throw figures like that without putting them in perspective.
- holografix 9y ago
  It's not a given that it did not end... think to yourself what would happen if Nazi Germany had developed a nuclear bomb ahead of the Americans? If even the US government couldn't resist obliterating 2 cities in Japan with Nukes can you imagine what the Nazis would have done? There would have been zero consideration for the loss of human life, possibly large areas of continental Europe and the US would have been bombed. I think "the world did not end" meaning "it never will despite what's been said and done in the past" is a really dangerous miopic notion
  - wruza 9y ago
    I don't think there was economic in massive nuclear bombing, NWs were and are mostly psychological. E.g. the absense of nuclear bombs didn't stop "even" US from grilling Tokyo urban areas with incendiaries with total death toll equal to those in Hiroshima + Nagasaki. Yeah, it could be done much faster with modern delivery systems, but we also have lots of effective non-nuclear mass- and precise-destruction weapons today. In the end, though nazis didn't value non-arial lives, they were no idiots. Why would they destroy cities and pollute areas supposed to be the part of Reich? The end of the world is both hard and unprofitable. "Nazis would" is a scary tale nicely covering the actual face of war that always remained the same. What is really scary today is that some countries develop supreme air/space control systems, so those in the club become immune to any sort of dialog.
    - ajuc 9y ago
      > I don't think there was economic in massive nuclear bombing There was no economic in V1 and V2, yet they did it, harming themselves economicaly more than they harmed the targets. Additionally they knew losing WW2 is existential threat for most of them. If they could destroy London with one push of a button - they would.
  - ekianjo 9y ago
    > It's not a given that it did not end... think to yourself what would happen if Nazi Germany had developed a nuclear bomb ahead of the Americans? Nukes at the time were still weak weapons. You could inflict a lot more damage (and a lot more damage happened on Tokyo and many other Japanese cities) by regular firebombing. You did not need nuclear bombs to inflict catastrophic loss of life. Now when it came to thermonuclear weapons, the magnitude is entirely different, but that only occurred many years later. It would never have occurred at the time of WW2.
- bigbugbag 9y ago
  of course the world ended at the time. but the end of something is the beginning of another.
- MarHoff 9y ago
  You just made me realized that this sentiment of pending apocalypse is maybe exactly what drove humankind forward along the past. It just look like the notion is always morphing from generations to generations : the flood, the plague, the apocalypse, the nuclear winter and now climat change. From biblical hazards to scientific hazards, maybe humankind is finally like the high school student who only work great when under heavy pressure for it's exams. And maybe just maybe this is how you can best reconcile science with religion because no matter your beliefs, this is a test for all of us... Are we making enough "good" around to deserve joy for us, our children and all they children after them?

by noam87 9y ago

Were they irrelevant? -- I see plenty doom and gloom in my history books and, hell, twitter feed. It was just a few decades ago that 80 million people died in a single war.

ekianjo 9y ago

yet the world did not end. Countless prophecies aboutvthe absolute apocalypse have gone and passed. So yeah it is by large irrelevant.

oddgoo 9y ago
Their world did end for those 80 million people. If most of society dies in pain and hunger to climate change, would the survivors say "bah, just more fear mongering"? For me, humanity is the sum of human experiences, not the mere presence of the species. The end of the world being relative and analog.
- wruza 9y ago
  This sum is already negative, btw. And it is hard to tell whether it is still negative or just negative. Few happy areas may put you into "it's everywhere like that" dream. But it's not, most species are simply present to supply to someone.
- bobbybobbybob 9y ago
  9 million already due of hunger every year, what is the world doing about that presently?
  - ameister14 9y ago
    A lot. Billions of dollars are spent to combat it and research on food and agriculture to solve hunger has been going for years. >The vast majority of hungry people live in developing regions, which saw a 42 percent reduction in the prevalence of undernourished people between 1990–92 and 2012–14. http://www.worldhunger.org/2015-world-hunger-and-poverty-facts-and-statistics/ http://www.worldhunger.org/2015-world-hunger-and-poverty-fac...
  - ekianjo 9y ago
    > 9 million already due of hunger every year, what is the world doing about that presently? Most of it is because of conflicts. Poverty is decreasing fast across the globe and there were relatively a lot more people dying from hunger in the 80s.
- bobbybobbybob 9y ago
  9 million already due of hunger every year, what is the world doing about that presently?
- ekianjo 9y ago
  > Their world did end for those 80 million people. The world did not end for the other billion on Earth living at the same time. You can't just throw figures like that without putting them in perspective.
holografix 9y ago
It's not a given that it did not end... think to yourself what would happen if Nazi Germany had developed a nuclear bomb ahead of the Americans? If even the US government couldn't resist obliterating 2 cities in Japan with Nukes can you imagine what the Nazis would have done? There would have been zero consideration for the loss of human life, possibly large areas of continental Europe and the US would have been bombed. I think "the world did not end" meaning "it never will despite what's been said and done in the past" is a really dangerous miopic notion
- wruza 9y ago
  I don't think there was economic in massive nuclear bombing, NWs were and are mostly psychological. E.g. the absense of nuclear bombs didn't stop "even" US from grilling Tokyo urban areas with incendiaries with total death toll equal to those in Hiroshima + Nagasaki. Yeah, it could be done much faster with modern delivery systems, but we also have lots of effective non-nuclear mass- and precise-destruction weapons today. In the end, though nazis didn't value non-arial lives, they were no idiots. Why would they destroy cities and pollute areas supposed to be the part of Reich? The end of the world is both hard and unprofitable. "Nazis would" is a scary tale nicely covering the actual face of war that always remained the same. What is really scary today is that some countries develop supreme air/space control systems, so those in the club become immune to any sort of dialog.
  - ajuc 9y ago
    > I don't think there was economic in massive nuclear bombing There was no economic in V1 and V2, yet they did it, harming themselves economicaly more than they harmed the targets. Additionally they knew losing WW2 is existential threat for most of them. If they could destroy London with one push of a button - they would.
- ekianjo 9y ago
  > It's not a given that it did not end... think to yourself what would happen if Nazi Germany had developed a nuclear bomb ahead of the Americans? Nukes at the time were still weak weapons. You could inflict a lot more damage (and a lot more damage happened on Tokyo and many other Japanese cities) by regular firebombing. You did not need nuclear bombs to inflict catastrophic loss of life. Now when it came to thermonuclear weapons, the magnitude is entirely different, but that only occurred many years later. It would never have occurred at the time of WW2.
bigbugbag 9y ago
of course the world ended at the time. but the end of something is the beginning of another.
MarHoff 9y ago
You just made me realized that this sentiment of pending apocalypse is maybe exactly what drove humankind forward along the past. It just look like the notion is always morphing from generations to generations : the flood, the plague, the apocalypse, the nuclear winter and now climat change. From biblical hazards to scientific hazards, maybe humankind is finally like the high school student who only work great when under heavy pressure for it's exams. And maybe just maybe this is how you can best reconcile science with religion because no matter your beliefs, this is a test for all of us... Are we making enough "good" around to deserve joy for us, our children and all they children after them?