6 ms·

The Great Mortality

39 points by kawera 8y ago

petermcneeley 8y ago
Plague basically hasnt existed in developed societies for quite some time. The traditional transmission vectors for plague have basically been cut down to zero. The only one that remains is airborne. All this fear is just dark fantasy. The only rampant plague I see is plethora extremely poorly written articles with vague socially suicidal liberal elitist positions.
- peter303 8y ago
  Wrong. Plagues still occur unfortunately in the developing world as the Gates Foundation has been gloriously struggling against. And even in the developed world as AIDS and flu epidemics have shown. Even more insidious is that microbes have been suggested in the common scourges of the 21st century such as artheoscelosis, cancer and Alzheimers, though far from proven.
  - petermcneeley 8y ago
    If I write "Plague basically hasnt existed in developed societies for quite some time." and you write "Wrong. Plagues still occur unfortunately in the developing world as the Gates Foundation has been gloriously struggling against." What is my response suppose to be?
bambax 8y ago
> Why can’t we or won’t we save ourselves? Because we only care about the short term. The very short term. It's a great paradox that many philosophies tell us to only care about the present moment ("seize the day!") when in fact many if not all of our problems come from that exact behavior. What we want, we want it now, and if a price will have to be paid in the future, whatever the actual amount, we regard it as zero. But we're wrong.
- lpcam33 8y ago
  Marcus Aurelius had the quote "Confine yourself to the present". He was one of the most respected roman emperors, and a famous stoic. Today living the present is associated with reckless living but for the old philosophies it was about questioning every day "what can I do today to improve myself as a human being?"
Senderman 8y ago
Maybe my attention span let me down here, but did I miss the part where the alleged taste-altering virus was identified? I enjoyed the article, but I was really interested in finding out more about that particular point.
- m_mueller 8y ago
  Not sure whether it's my attention span or just this article's style of jumping around between subjects - I couldn't get past a third into it. This may just be my taste but even in long form articles I want the central hypothesis stated right at the beginning. Don't waste my time with your personal annecdotes, except if the annecdote is so interesting that your whole article is about it, at least then I'll know what you're talking about right from the start. Otherwise it's like a film starting with a bunch of backstory instead of an inciting incident.
- Ancalagon 8y ago
  Purely anecdotal on my part, but I noticed my taste preferences changed a bit after I had mono. Again, totally my own experience, not bounded in fact at all, but it is interesting...
- thedailymail 8y ago
  When I first saw that section I guessed maybe she had eaten pine nuts, but having experienced the taste disturbance (metallogeusia) those can cause, I decided her symptoms were much less unpleasant. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_nut#Taste_disturbances https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_nut#Taste_disturbances
atemerev 8y ago
I don't understand the phenomenon of "liberal guilt" described in this article. To me, it sounds anti-humanistic, life-hating, cruel and borderline sociopathic. I love life, I love human civilization, and all things that technical and civil progress gave to us. I will work to get a better future for myself, my daughter, and everybody else. It saddens me deeply that there are people who want the civilization to end with some epidemic, who basically want people to die. What made them this cruel?
- scoggs 8y ago
  From my POV it screams of, "If I can't have it my way than nobody else will have it their way!"
  - ahartmetz 8y ago
    No, I think that's an American conservative misinterpretation on the level of "because they hate freedom". You take a mocking admission of own irrationality and turn it into a desire to control everyone. Certain instances of the former may turn into some form of the latter (environmental laws, let's say), but they are not the same, and your interpretation is as malicious as it gets.
    - scoggs 8y ago
      Just what?
- pjc50 8y ago
  I think that's a mischaracterisation of guilt, especially if you think it implies they want other people to die. It's based (as the article says) around survivor's guilt, and the worry that your life exists only because someone else's doesn't. Or is comfortable because of their suffering. Or the vegetarian impulse: at what cost in animal suffering is your life, and does it matter? (Having this discussion work is going to require a certain minimum amount of empathy and non-assumption of malice)
  - 8y ago
dredmorbius 8y ago
Diseases and host populations co-evolve. Disease co-opts a human civilisation's own behaviours and vectors of exchange for itself. Kyle Harper's The Fate of Rome develops this idea in the context of the Roman empire, showing how the co-development of trade, commerce, urbanisation, and medical knowledge (or ignorance), interacted with other factors, including wars, climate change, financial crises, and religion, to provide the conditions for the emergence and spread of disease. Thinking we are beyond diseases' reach strikes me as extreme hubris. https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/kyle-harper/the-fate-of-rome/ https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/kyle-harper/the-f...
noonespecial 8y ago
A little bit of Douglas Adams in there. We say we need to control global warming to "save the earth". Save it for what? Well us of course. But nature doesn't think or plan. There's no grand design. It's just as valid to assume our rabid desire for the latest iThing is merely the ant crawling to the top of the blade of grass. We were just the necessary step to get the earth hotter for the next phase in microbe and insect development. We are not the finished product, we're just the heater.

39 points by kawera 8y ago

Plague basically hasnt existed in developed societies for quite some time. The traditional transmission vectors for plague have basically been cut down to zero. The only one that remains is airborne. All this fear is just dark fantasy. The only rampant plague I see is plethora extremely poorly written articles with vague socially suicidal liberal elitist positions.

peter303 8y ago
Wrong. Plagues still occur unfortunately in the developing world as the Gates Foundation has been gloriously struggling against. And even in the developed world as AIDS and flu epidemics have shown. Even more insidious is that microbes have been suggested in the common scourges of the 21st century such as artheoscelosis, cancer and Alzheimers, though far from proven.
- petermcneeley 8y ago
  If I write "Plague basically hasnt existed in developed societies for quite some time." and you write "Wrong. Plagues still occur unfortunately in the developing world as the Gates Foundation has been gloriously struggling against." What is my response suppose to be?

bambax 8y ago

> Why can’t we or won’t we save ourselves? Because we only care about the short term. The very short term. It's a great paradox that many philosophies tell us to only care about the present moment ("seize the day!") when in fact many if not all of our problems come from that exact behavior. What we want, we want it now, and if a price will have to be paid in the future, whatever the actual amount, we regard it as zero. But we're wrong.

lpcam33 8y ago
Marcus Aurelius had the quote "Confine yourself to the present". He was one of the most respected roman emperors, and a famous stoic. Today living the present is associated with reckless living but for the old philosophies it was about questioning every day "what can I do today to improve myself as a human being?"

Senderman 8y ago

Maybe my attention span let me down here, but did I miss the part where the alleged taste-altering virus was identified? I enjoyed the article, but I was really interested in finding out more about that particular point.

m_mueller 8y ago
Not sure whether it's my attention span or just this article's style of jumping around between subjects - I couldn't get past a third into it. This may just be my taste but even in long form articles I want the central hypothesis stated right at the beginning. Don't waste my time with your personal annecdotes, except if the annecdote is so interesting that your whole article is about it, at least then I'll know what you're talking about right from the start. Otherwise it's like a film starting with a bunch of backstory instead of an inciting incident.
Ancalagon 8y ago
Purely anecdotal on my part, but I noticed my taste preferences changed a bit after I had mono. Again, totally my own experience, not bounded in fact at all, but it is interesting...
thedailymail 8y ago
When I first saw that section I guessed maybe she had eaten pine nuts, but having experienced the taste disturbance (metallogeusia) those can cause, I decided her symptoms were much less unpleasant. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_nut#Taste_disturbances https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_nut#Taste_disturbances

atemerev 8y ago

I don't understand the phenomenon of "liberal guilt" described in this article. To me, it sounds anti-humanistic, life-hating, cruel and borderline sociopathic. I love life, I love human civilization, and all things that technical and civil progress gave to us. I will work to get a better future for myself, my daughter, and everybody else. It saddens me deeply that there are people who want the civilization to end with some epidemic, who basically want people to die. What made them this cruel?

scoggs 8y ago
From my POV it screams of, "If I can't have it my way than nobody else will have it their way!"
- ahartmetz 8y ago
  No, I think that's an American conservative misinterpretation on the level of "because they hate freedom". You take a mocking admission of own irrationality and turn it into a desire to control everyone. Certain instances of the former may turn into some form of the latter (environmental laws, let's say), but they are not the same, and your interpretation is as malicious as it gets.
  - scoggs 8y ago
    Just what?
pjc50 8y ago
I think that's a mischaracterisation of guilt, especially if you think it implies they want other people to die. It's based (as the article says) around survivor's guilt, and the worry that your life exists only because someone else's doesn't. Or is comfortable because of their suffering. Or the vegetarian impulse: at what cost in animal suffering is your life, and does it matter? (Having this discussion work is going to require a certain minimum amount of empathy and non-assumption of malice)
- 8y ago

dredmorbius 8y ago

Diseases and host populations co-evolve. Disease co-opts a human civilisation's own behaviours and vectors of exchange for itself. Kyle Harper's The Fate of Rome develops this idea in the context of the Roman empire, showing how the co-development of trade, commerce, urbanisation, and medical knowledge (or ignorance), interacted with other factors, including wars, climate change, financial crises, and religion, to provide the conditions for the emergence and spread of disease. Thinking we are beyond diseases' reach strikes me as extreme hubris. https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/kyle-harper/the-fate-of-rome/ https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/kyle-harper/the-f...

noonespecial 8y ago

A little bit of Douglas Adams in there. We say we need to control global warming to "save the earth". Save it for what? Well us of course. But nature doesn't think or plan. There's no grand design. It's just as valid to assume our rabid desire for the latest iThing is merely the ant crawling to the top of the blade of grass. We were just the necessary step to get the earth hotter for the next phase in microbe and insect development. We are not the finished product, we're just the heater.