6 ms·

Also we have some disadvantages we didn't had 1918. Like most people living in dense cities. Or it is harder to force people into quarantine.

falcor84 7y ago
>harder to force people into quarantine I don't think that's true, case in point being the (eventual) Chinese response in Wuhan, which appears to be extremely effective (if you trust their figures). It's all about government determination, which is mostly missing now, just as it was then, based on the article.
- jeromegv 7y ago
  You don't even need to trust China. Look at Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea.
  - dionian 7y ago
    Also, Taiwan
- ngcc_hk 7y ago
  Effectively ?!!?
usrusr 7y ago
And supply chains! There are many things that a 1918 city could manufacture in an emergency that a 2020 city can't.
- fock 7y ago
  example? I guess if you wanted it, the 2020 city can manufacture anything it could in 1918...
  - leadingthenet 7y ago
    Could it? We often no longer have random factories waiting around, ready to be repurposed. Neither do we have well functioning internal supply chains for the needed raw materials. I don't think people truly understand just how dependent any given country is on global trade (and especially Chinese manufacturing).
    - fock 7y ago
      yeah, but even in 1918 not every city had a refinery or blast furnace. And even back then, a lot of the basic stuff was imported (think opium, cocain (probably the top medicines back then...), rare metals...). On top of that, in 1918, a lot of the things you (and I) take for granted were not even found (for example antibiotica). And instead of random factories, each city (heck each small town) has like 10-15 CNC-machines ready to produce anything which was done in 1918 - a problem might be all things chemistry/mining related, but the real important stuff (which was known in 1918) also back then has been produced centrally (and still is)...
      - zxcmx 7y ago
        Not just cities. Countries. The hard part is the basics - things that get commoditised tend to get manufactured more efficiently, and at massive scale this tends towards centralisation. As a concrete example, in the entire country of New Zealand, no one manufactures window glass. Every window, everywhere in every building, ultimately gets shipped into that country in a container. We'd also miss shoes as there are no "real" factories locally anymore. I think we make nails but I can't tell if we can really make bolts. So I'm not talking about cars, computers or aircraft. No way. Windows. Shoes. Bolts. So OK, we're missing commodities, most industrial chemical processes, feedstocks, experienced manufacturing labour and plant expertise, all of which went south when NZ was one of the first countries to drop its pants and remove import tariffs. OK. I don't have a dog in that fight, there are reasonable arguments to stop subsidising things you'll never be internationally competitive at. That said if all imports stopped tomorrow for, let's say, 2 years, it's surprising what you can do without or improvise. The main thing I think we'd really miss is life sustaining medicine. A loss of exports would actually be more catastrophic since our farmers would a) have no reason to exist and b) not be able to keep the finance wheels turning. We're unbelievably wealthy compared to people in 1918 and we have a lot more slack and fat in our systems than we really know.
- simonh 7y ago
  I think that's a little overblown. It's true in the strict sense that general purpose manufacturing capacity was more common and the production of many goods was more distributed, but on the other hand that manufacturing capacity would have been very limited in capacity and scalability. I'm not convinced it would actually make a big difference in practice.
  - usrusr 7y ago
    Actually I was thinking more about scale than about absolute impossibility: simple things like emergency hospital beds and the like, a modern city could still make them at artisanal scale, but not in volume like they could back then. All those amazing efficiency gains we have from flatpacks, automation and specialisation come at the cost of reduced flexibility.
    - bluGill 7y ago
      There is still plenty of ability though. I have a table saw in my garage, If I'm needed to stop my computer job I can make a couple jigs and turn out bed rails, someone else in my town can turn out legs, (repeat for a lot of other parts), then the whole kit gets sent to other people with just a screwdriver.
      - Spooky23 7y ago
        Not for long. You could probably sustain that for a 3-5 weeks. I live in an area of upstate NY where this would be possible in 1918. Today, no sawmills, no regional tool and supply manufacturers, no regional raw materials. Iron ore from the lake Champlain area could be smelted in the Albany area and made into nails in many places. Today, you’re 100% dependent on diesel and open roads to Newark, the I-81 corridor and rail traffic from the west for food. 75% of the regional produce producers of gone. Most (50-70%) of whatever is left of dairy production will be driven into bankruptcy this year.
        bluGill 7y ago
        There is plenty of transport, and plenty of diesel fuel. Thus my city doesn't need to be self sufficient. I'd expect my beds to be exported to other nearby cities, while they work on making ventilator parts. I'm not sure if it is needed though: there is probably more than enough lumber in the local lumber yards currently intended for local construction projects but when nobody is building/remodeling... Actually I live in a manufacturing city so I'd expect we would be making ventilator parts, since I don't have machining experience I'd be repurposed to packing the parts into boxes. Any city has enough tablesaws to build beds, not every city has as many people who know how to run a lathe as mine.
- ksk 7y ago
  What manufacturing advantages would a city in 1918 have, to deal with today's situation for example?
dsfyu404ed 7y ago
I think there's a quantity/quality difference between the cities of 1918 and today. Even if we have more people in cities today cities in 1918 had much, much worse health and cleanliness practices and allowed much more opportunity for disease to spread.
gimboland 7y ago
> Or it is harder to force people into quarantine. From the article: > Harris believes that the rapid spread of Spanish flu in the fall of 1918 was at least partially to blame on public health officials unwilling to impose quarantines during wartime.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
jbay808 7y ago
Probably our biggest disadvantage compared with 1918 is widespread air travel.
moosey 7y ago
Enormous quantities of elderly people who will need to be hospitalized, and without will get added to the death toll.

falcor84 7y ago

>harder to force people into quarantine I don't think that's true, case in point being the (eventual) Chinese response in Wuhan, which appears to be extremely effective (if you trust their figures). It's all about government determination, which is mostly missing now, just as it was then, based on the article.

jeromegv 7y ago
You don't even need to trust China. Look at Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea.
- dionian 7y ago
  Also, Taiwan
ngcc_hk 7y ago
Effectively ?!!?

usrusr 7y ago

And supply chains! There are many things that a 1918 city could manufacture in an emergency that a 2020 city can't.

fock 7y ago
example? I guess if you wanted it, the 2020 city can manufacture anything it could in 1918...
- leadingthenet 7y ago
  Could it? We often no longer have random factories waiting around, ready to be repurposed. Neither do we have well functioning internal supply chains for the needed raw materials. I don't think people truly understand just how dependent any given country is on global trade (and especially Chinese manufacturing).
  - fock 7y ago
    yeah, but even in 1918 not every city had a refinery or blast furnace. And even back then, a lot of the basic stuff was imported (think opium, cocain (probably the top medicines back then...), rare metals...). On top of that, in 1918, a lot of the things you (and I) take for granted were not even found (for example antibiotica). And instead of random factories, each city (heck each small town) has like 10-15 CNC-machines ready to produce anything which was done in 1918 - a problem might be all things chemistry/mining related, but the real important stuff (which was known in 1918) also back then has been produced centrally (and still is)...
    - zxcmx 7y ago
      Not just cities. Countries. The hard part is the basics - things that get commoditised tend to get manufactured more efficiently, and at massive scale this tends towards centralisation. As a concrete example, in the entire country of New Zealand, no one manufactures window glass. Every window, everywhere in every building, ultimately gets shipped into that country in a container. We'd also miss shoes as there are no "real" factories locally anymore. I think we make nails but I can't tell if we can really make bolts. So I'm not talking about cars, computers or aircraft. No way. Windows. Shoes. Bolts. So OK, we're missing commodities, most industrial chemical processes, feedstocks, experienced manufacturing labour and plant expertise, all of which went south when NZ was one of the first countries to drop its pants and remove import tariffs. OK. I don't have a dog in that fight, there are reasonable arguments to stop subsidising things you'll never be internationally competitive at. That said if all imports stopped tomorrow for, let's say, 2 years, it's surprising what you can do without or improvise. The main thing I think we'd really miss is life sustaining medicine. A loss of exports would actually be more catastrophic since our farmers would a) have no reason to exist and b) not be able to keep the finance wheels turning. We're unbelievably wealthy compared to people in 1918 and we have a lot more slack and fat in our systems than we really know.
simonh 7y ago
I think that's a little overblown. It's true in the strict sense that general purpose manufacturing capacity was more common and the production of many goods was more distributed, but on the other hand that manufacturing capacity would have been very limited in capacity and scalability. I'm not convinced it would actually make a big difference in practice.
- usrusr 7y ago
  Actually I was thinking more about scale than about absolute impossibility: simple things like emergency hospital beds and the like, a modern city could still make them at artisanal scale, but not in volume like they could back then. All those amazing efficiency gains we have from flatpacks, automation and specialisation come at the cost of reduced flexibility.
  - bluGill 7y ago
    There is still plenty of ability though. I have a table saw in my garage, If I'm needed to stop my computer job I can make a couple jigs and turn out bed rails, someone else in my town can turn out legs, (repeat for a lot of other parts), then the whole kit gets sent to other people with just a screwdriver.
    - Spooky23 7y ago
      Not for long. You could probably sustain that for a 3-5 weeks. I live in an area of upstate NY where this would be possible in 1918. Today, no sawmills, no regional tool and supply manufacturers, no regional raw materials. Iron ore from the lake Champlain area could be smelted in the Albany area and made into nails in many places. Today, you’re 100% dependent on diesel and open roads to Newark, the I-81 corridor and rail traffic from the west for food. 75% of the regional produce producers of gone. Most (50-70%) of whatever is left of dairy production will be driven into bankruptcy this year.
      - bluGill 7y ago
        There is plenty of transport, and plenty of diesel fuel. Thus my city doesn't need to be self sufficient. I'd expect my beds to be exported to other nearby cities, while they work on making ventilator parts. I'm not sure if it is needed though: there is probably more than enough lumber in the local lumber yards currently intended for local construction projects but when nobody is building/remodeling... Actually I live in a manufacturing city so I'd expect we would be making ventilator parts, since I don't have machining experience I'd be repurposed to packing the parts into boxes. Any city has enough tablesaws to build beds, not every city has as many people who know how to run a lathe as mine.
ksk 7y ago
What manufacturing advantages would a city in 1918 have, to deal with today's situation for example?

dsfyu404ed 7y ago

I think there's a quantity/quality difference between the cities of 1918 and today. Even if we have more people in cities today cities in 1918 had much, much worse health and cleanliness practices and allowed much more opportunity for disease to spread.

gimboland 7y ago

> Or it is harder to force people into quarantine. From the article: > Harris believes that the rapid spread of Spanish flu in the fall of 1918 was at least partially to blame on public health officials unwilling to impose quarantines during wartime.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

jbay808 7y ago

Probably our biggest disadvantage compared with 1918 is widespread air travel.

moosey 7y ago

Enormous quantities of elderly people who will need to be hospitalized, and without will get added to the death toll.