40 ms·
Perhaps in another 25 years, after they've seen a few more rounds of "we're all going to die" (from Ebola, H1N1, AIDS, Killer Bees, Zika, etc...), they'll becom
by excessive 7y ago
Perhaps in another 25 years, after they've seen a few more rounds of "we're all going to die" (from Ebola, H1N1, AIDS, Killer Bees, Zika, etc...), they'll become a bit more suspicious of doom and gloom predictions.
- nguoi 7y agoI think I remember a similar statistic about most people during the cold war believing humanity would soon be extinct but I can't find anything about it.
- wgerard 7y agoMost of those "doom and gloom" predictions never came true because of tireless work by people to prevent it from happening. For example, the amount of effort that went into making AIDS more treatable is astronomical. See also: Ozone holes, Y2K, etc.
- excessive 7y agoThere's no way for me to win an argument like this. If I dare question how much effort was really spent avoiding any particular apocalypse, I'll just get labelled insensitive, stupid, tone deaf, and/or something worse. I've probably already said too much to avoid that. We can't even talk about talking about disagreement sanely. However, maybe you'll pay attention to all the dire predictions in the next ten years, and maybe ten years after that you'll notice that the world just keeps getting better despite all the people claiming it's worse and will end soon. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think so.
- wgerard 7y ago> There's no way for me to win an argument like this The way for you to win would be to counter my argument: Show the amount of money/time/etc. that went into resolving the AIDS crisis was minimal (and of course, you'll have to argue what minimal means). I can easily find resources to the contrary [0] [1]. > However, maybe you'll pay attention to all the dire predictions in the next ten years, and maybe ten years after that you'll notice that the world just keeps getting better despite all the people claiming it's worse and will end soon. It keeps getting better because people keep devoting time, energy, and money into resolving these problems. "The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance" and all that. We've seen what happens when people stop being vigilant: Things like the return of measles in the US. I'm mostly shocked to hear this sentiment on HN of all places; IT is notorious for encountering "the servers run fine and never go down, what do we pay you for?" attitudes. Surprised you don't understand how it applies to other areas of life. 0: http://www.healthdata.org/news-release/first-long-term-study-finds-half-trillion-dollars-spent-hivaids http://www.healthdata.org/news-release/first-long-term-study... 1: https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPcap/1999-11/18/077r-111899-idx.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPcap/1999-11/18/077r-...
- refurb 7y agoProblem is that every 25 years you have a fresh new generation that needs to be taught the same lessons.