20 ms·

How Apocalyptic Is Now?

95 points by jajag 6y ago

asaegyn 6y ago
Always amuses me how the apocalypse of Inidgenous Americans never seems to make the cut...
- netcan 6y ago
  amuses?
  - nkozyra 6y ago
    I doubt the op meant in a pleasurable sense. What's the saying? History is written by the victors? I don't think there will ever be a reconciliation in history for the elimination of native peoples across two continents.
    - JackFr 6y ago
      In a thousand years it will just be described as ‘a migration’.
  - asaegyn 6y ago
    Obviously not in a pleasurable way. It's disheartening / devastating / infuriating that the genocide of 120-40M people barely pierces the consciousness of the dominant culture when talking about apocalypses or genocides...
- buzzkillington 6y ago
  Winners don't talk about the people they murdered to win. Same thing about Australia, Canada and less so New Zealand. It is also hilarious that the USSR is the only country apart from Japan to successfully industrialize and avoid a colonial genocide from a Western power. If you could pick a place to live being a Russian in Moscow 1919 would give you a much better chance of surviving compared to being an Indian in Manhattan in 1624, Toronto in 1787 or Melbourne in 1835.
  - selimthegrim 6y ago
    Russia was a Western power as far as Central Asia and the Caucasus were concerned
    - buzzkillington 6y ago
      If having an empire is the definition of being Western than you need to include the Ottomans too. At which point the word means nothing.
  - lonelappde 6y ago
    Russians were genocided by their own government, not a foreign power (except for the many used as meatbags in WWII).
  - mobilefriendly 6y ago
    Please study the actual history of the USSR-- there were multiple genocides of different religions and ethnic groups. Most notable were the pogroms and the death of millions in the Ukraine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691152387/stalins-genocides https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691152387/st...
    - buzzkillington 6y ago
      Interesting how all the groups who had genocide perpetrated against them somehow ended up with a double population than when they were conquered with, meanwhile Ireland still has a smaller population than they had in 1800.
  - Hoasi 6y ago
    > the USSR is the only country apart from Japan to successfully industrialize and avoid a colonial genocide from a Western power. Thailand was never a colony either. Besides, USSR was not a country and formed after the colonial heydays.
- dntbnmpls 6y ago
  It's sad but true. People even deny native genocide. I had a comment yesterday saying the natives didn't experience genocide but were simply "moved off their land". But I guess I can understand it somewhat. It took me a long time to come to terms with it as well. The genocide of the natives didn't sink in until I saw a list of the native languages that were wiped out along with the natives. It was dozens and dozens of languages. Many times more languages than exists in the whole of europe.
  - netcan 6y ago
    Europe had many more dialects and languages than now... Some of extinction stories are genocidal as well. We have to assume a lot about what happened as Rome colonised southern europe, for example, but much of it probably rhymes what happened in the americas.
    - throwlaplace 6y ago
      this is like people comparing the indigenous african slave trade to the triangle trade - completely facile. >Rome colonised southern europe colonization in the ancient world wasn't rapacious like it was in the new world. conquered peoples maintained much of their way of life and simply became vassal. in the roman case (towards the end) they even got roman citizenship. Edit:I finally figured out hn downvotes - paper over a genocide nbd - use the word facile downvotes
      - Spooky23 6y ago
        Tell that to the Gauls!
        throwlaplace 6y ago
        >In the five centuries between Caesar's conquest and the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, the Gaulish language and cultural identity underwent a syncretism with the Roman culture of the new governing class, and evolved into a hybrid Gallo-Roman culture that eventually permeated all levels of society https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Gaul https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Gaul Can you point to symbiosis with native American culture that resembles that to any extent today in the US? All we have are racist football team mascots
benjaminwootton 6y ago
Unherd.com have had some of the best journalism of the crisis so far. In particular some of the interviews with epedimiologists: https://youtu.be/bfN2JWifLCY https://youtu.be/bfN2JWifLCY https://youtu.be/6cYjjEB3Ev8 https://youtu.be/6cYjjEB3Ev8 https://youtu.be/bl-sZdfLcEk https://youtu.be/bl-sZdfLcEk
- buboard 6y ago
  Indeed and they are lining up new ones next week https://mobile.twitter.com/freddiesayers/status/1261320137787019269 https://mobile.twitter.com/freddiesayers/status/126132013778...
diminish 6y ago
Russian civil war was also the result of the 400 years of continuous tsarist expansion (among many other reasons); absorbing that much occupied land from baltics to pacific, and a lot of diverse people should be hard. dramatically the ruling family (romanovs) among the 3 most successful expansionist dynasties next to english & spanish were totally annihilated at the end by their own people.
- phreeza 6y ago
  Should Djenghis Khan and his successors not also be on that list?
  - keiferski 6y ago
    Genghis and his descendants certainly conquered a huge area, but the empire quickly broke apart after Möngke (Genghis' successor) died, into the Ilkhanate, Yuan dynasty, Chagatai Khanate, and Golden Horde. Most of these didn't last more than a century, but more relevantly, the Mongols weren't particularly interested in spreading their culture and largely kept their language a private matter. Subsequently Mongolian (the language) basically doesn't exist outside of Mongolia/Inner Mongolia (China) and culturally there is far less influence as compared to say, the Russian or Spanish empires. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Division_of_the_Mongol_Empire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Division_of_the_Mongol_Empire
    - keiferski 6y ago
      Just a minor clarification/correction: Möngke wasn’t the direct successor to Genghis: there were two other leaders in between.
mathdev 6y ago
Interesting predictions. However, they do not fit the facts on the ground, at least here in Poland, which is some weeks ahead of the US with respect to the development of the epidemic. (I'm relieved that) people have gotten sick and tired of the restrictions, about 50% (and growing every day) are not wearing the masks inside anymore, or bother with the distancing, despite official requirements. All restaurants and bars are opening up on Monday, my favourite one described the prior atmosphere as a "psychosis of fear". It's interesting what happens when the second wave of infections occurs, which is becoming more and more likely. It's hard to imagine the population will be as fearful and obedient as the first time, should the government try to impose another lockdown. If, as Nassim Taleb believes, the lockdown was bottom-up, demanded by the people rather than imposed by the government, a repeat seems unlikely. Perhaps that's why the stock market is surging?
- netcan 6y ago
  Got a link for the taleb commentary?
  - mathdev 6y ago
    https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1258931279317405696 https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1258931279317405696 and there are more tweets on that if you scroll the feed.
    - Inthenameofmine 6y ago
      I fund it fascinating that in "developed" or "fully western" countries it is the youth that is disregarding the lockdown measures. In Kosovo/Albania it is the precise opposite. An acquaintance of mine in China told me that it is the genX and older generation there too that seems to not understand the gravity. How come this big difference?
      - mythrwy 6y ago
        Maybe older generations spend less time reading internet hysteria (or news or whatever you'd like to call it)?
_aleph2c_ 6y ago
When our immune system is over-fit to the wrong kind of thing, we call that an allergy. People who have been raised with animals or who have had to fight off parasites tend to have less allergies. I think this idea holds for our society; our societal immune system needs to be tested too, otherwise we attack ourselves (identity politics, the culture wars...) So I disagree with the author, I think we will be better off when this is done. We will go back to the bars and we will enjoy our lives more, we will think about our long term goals and make better efforts to get to them.
- lowwave 6y ago
  Herd immunity
- Craighead 6y ago
  Yeah once we're done fighting off propaganda and authoritarianism during a pandemic we'll maybe see a rise in civic understanding and critical thinking, but also hundreds of thousands of dead people because of one nation's inability to be honest.
ceilingcorner 6y ago
Comparing the coronavirus to the Russian Revolution is so overblown, I can't believe an academic would suggest it with a straight face. This fear-mongering really needs to stop.
yogthos 6y ago
The article seems to completely forget about climate change. The current pandemic is going to look like a tiny speed bump in a few years when we start seeing regular deadly heat waves, crop failures, and other natural disasters. Billions of people are going to be displaced, and we'll see wars for the remaining livable land. The effects of climate change are all around us already, and they're happening much faster than any of the models predicted: * new research indicates that parts of the Amazon and other tropical forests are now emitting more CO2 than they absorb https://e360.yale.edu/features/why-carbon-cycle-feedbacks-could-drive-temperatures-even-higher https://e360.yale.edu/features/why-carbon-cycle-feedbacks-co... * one billion people will suffer from “unliveable” heat within 50 years, study finds https://e360.yale.edu/digest/one-billion-people-will-suffer-from-unliveable-heat-within-50-years-study-finds https://e360.yale.edu/digest/one-billion-people-will-suffer-... * potentially fatal bouts of heat and humidity on the rise, study finds https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/08/climate-change-global-heating-extreme-heat-humidity https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/08/climate-... * study finds ocean ecosystems likely to collapse in 2020s and land species in 2040s unless global warming stemmed https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/08/wildlife-destruction-not-a-slippery-slope-but-a-series-of-cliff-edges https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/08/wildlife... * studies show drought and heat waves will cause massive die-offs, killing most trees alive today https://insideclimatenews.org/news/24042020/forest-trees-climate-change-deforestation https://insideclimatenews.org/news/24042020/forest-trees-cli... * multiple overlapping crises could trigger 'Global Systemic Collapse' https://www.sciencealert.com/hundreds-of-top-scientists-warn-combined-environmental-crises-will-cause-global-collapse https://www.sciencealert.com/hundreds-of-top-scientists-warn... * 246 academics call on government to act now to avoid global collapse https://www.nationalobserver.com/2020/02/04/opinion/246-academics-call-government-act-now-avoid-global-collapse https://www.nationalobserver.com/2020/02/04/opinion/246-acad... * Planet's largest ecosystems collapse faster than previously forecast https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-15029-x https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-15029-x World's oceans are also acidifying to a similar rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification#Rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification#Rate as the Permian extinction (but again in 100 years instead of 20k-60k), with an anoxic event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anoxic_event#Consequences https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anoxic_event#Consequences locked in after 1,000ppm or 360 gigatons https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/09/170920182116.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/09/170920182116.h..., which we will reach by 2100 at the latest. So that's whatever's left wiped out. And here's what's currently happening with food production. Two different groups of 200+ scientists and academics, separately from each other, each warned of near-term global collapse: * https://www.sciencealert.com/hundreds-of-top-scientists-warn-combined-environmental-crises-will-cause-global-collapse https://www.sciencealert.com/hundreds-of-top-scientists-warn... * https://www.nationalobserver.com/2020/02/04/opinion/246-academics-call-government-act-now-avoid-global-collapse https://www.nationalobserver.com/2020/02/04/opinion/246-acad... Examples of record-breaking crop failures currently happening: * https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/06/midwest-rain-climate-change-wrecking-corn-soy-crops/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/06/midwe... * https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/19/extreme-heat-wave-hits-us-farmers-already-suffering-from-flooding.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/19/extreme-heat-wave-hits-us-fa... * https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/may/15/australia-to-import-wheat-for-first-time-in-12-years-as-drought-eats-into-grain-production https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/may/15/austr... * https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jul/20/crop-failure-and-bankruptcy-threaten-farmers-as-drought-grips-europe https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jul/20/crop-fai... * https://www.zerohedge.com/health/historic-midwest-blizzard-has-farmers-seeing-massive-crop-lossesas-devastating-weve-ever https://www.zerohedge.com/health/historic-midwest-blizzard-h... * https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-02/low-rice-crop-leads-to-sunrice-job-losses/11566748?pfmredir=sm https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-02/low-rice-crop-lead... * https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/climate-and-people/climate-change-could-cut-fruit-production-almost-third-study/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/climate-and-people... * https://phys.org/news/2019-12-climate-whammy-corn-belt.html https://phys.org/news/2019-12-climate-whammy-corn-belt.html * https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/11/12/britain-facing-potato-shortage-failure-dredge-rivers-led-flooding/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/11/12/britain-facing-p... * https://weather.com/science/environment/news/2019-08-01-drought-dam-drive-mekong-river-to-lowest-level-in-100-years https://weather.com/science/environment/news/2019-08-01-drou... * https://phys.org/news/2020-01-atlantic-circulation-collapse-british-crop.html https://phys.org/news/2020-01-atlantic-circulation-collapse-... * https://phys.org/news/2019-12-climate-threat-global-breadbaskets.html https://phys.org/news/2019-12-climate-threat-global-breadbas... * https://phys.org/news/2019-12-large-atmospheric-jet-stream-global.html https://phys.org/news/2019-12-large-atmospheric-jet-stream-g... Scientific studies projecting future crop failures: * Schlenker and Roberts, 2009. Nonlinear temperature effects indicate severe damages to US crop yields under climate change. PNAS, 106(37), pp.15594-15598 https://www.pnas.org/content/106/37/15594.full https://www.pnas.org/content/106/37/15594.full * Mora et al, 2015. Suitable days for plant growth disappear under projected climate change: Potential human and biotic vulnerability. PLoS bio, 13(6), p.e1002167 https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002167 https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/jou... * Schauberger et al, 2017. Consistent negative response of US crops to high temperatures in observations and crop models. Nature Comms, 8, p.13931. https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms13931 https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms13931 * Sakschewski et al, 2014. Feeding 10 billion people under climate change: How large is the production gap of current agricultural systems?. Ecological modelling, 288, pp.103-111 https://booksc.xyz/book/30274837/03002c https://booksc.xyz/book/30274837/03002c * Liang et al, 2017. Determining climate effects on US total agricultural productivity. PNAS, 114(12), pp.E2285-E2292 https://www.pnas.org/content/114/12/E2285?collection= https://www.pnas.org/content/114/12/E2285?collection= News articles about projected crop failures: * UN says passing 2C will have a 'very high projected risk' of global food supply instabilities https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/news/climate-change-could-trigger-global-food-crisis-new-u-n-ncna1040236 https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/news/climate-change-could-trigg... * UN says passing 2C would cause 'multi-breadbasket failure' https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/08/climate/climate-change-food-supply.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/08/climate/climate-change-fo...) * UN says passing 2C would cause 60% of global wheat to be subjected to 'Severe Water Scarcity (SVS)' drought events https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/09/26/new-research-warns-severe-climate-related-droughts-could-threaten-60-global-wheat https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/09/26/new-research-wa... Given that our response to the pandemic has been to largely ignore the science and try to get back to business as usual and we're still largely pretending that climate change isn't happening, I don't really have much hope for continued existence of human civilization.
netcan 6y ago
IMO, trying to understand historical processes in terms of political theories is more noise than signal. Medieval english king alfred kept a chronicle of his time. Viking invasions such. His "political theories" were religious: righteous christians, pagans, heretics, divine justice & such. That's how they understood their history. Biblical "chronicles" like the book of kings, judges & such offer a similar take. Sin & righteousness determine wars, invasions, usurpations & coups.... apocalyptical or otherwise. Move into the French, American & derivitive revolutions of 1700-1800s: Reason, Industrialism, Enlightenment Philosophy & such. revolutions. Political theories. Liberty. Rights. etc. Instead of righteous & piety, radical liberals would build free & just societies. So... French liberty culminates in a pretty vicious and vindictive early republic which soon crowns an emperor. American liberty did not seem overly bothered by an institution of slavery that was vast and cruel enough to make a pharaoh uneasy. Liberty didn't apply to native americans and often "person" meant just male landowners. Meanwhile the theoretically opposite British, with their anti-liberal constitutional monarchy... Not really less "liberal" in practice, from a historical perspective. Liberal or conservative commentators from the period (even modern ones) seem to think everything is derivative of the political theories battling it out. It's not that different from ancient judeans or medieval saxons interpreting every event via their religious lens. IRL, the relationship between political theories, practice, & history is chaotic & uncorrelated. Liberalism, socialism, communism, etc.... theory does not generate into reality, hardly ever.
brenden2 6y ago
It's a shame that HN has become full doomer. The virus is nowhere near as bad as the clickbait factories want you to believe because fear is such a good profit generator for them.
drevil-v2 6y ago
Australia, 98 deaths and 16 people in ICU. Entire economy destroyed. Either we will make money meaningless by printing it out of thin air or coming decades will witness crushing tax. 5 million people unemployed out of population of 22 million. Someone fucked up.
- mrfusion 6y ago
  Sorry you’re getting downvoted. I’m with you.
- paulryanrogers 6y ago
  Hindsight is 20/20. Without lockdown it could have been significantly worse. And even if not there was no way to know beforehand. As restrictions are ended any future waves should provide more insight into their effectiveness.
  - drevil-v2 6y ago
    Unelected public officials and local/state politicians seem unwilling to give up their newfound powers. Any objections to or questioning of their rationale or edicts is immediately dismissed as ignorant death wishes of the unwashed masses.
    - moosey 6y ago
      You are exalting ignorance. That's what actually needs to stop.
      - airlines55 6y ago
        Well meaning overbearing incompetency seems little better. Has there been a more thorough refutation of the promised land of technocrats than these past couple months?
        moosey 6y ago
        Technocrats? Business leaders are selected at random by our economy, or are born wealthy. This has been proven over and over in studies. Your flowery language is designed so that you feel smart. The fact that you started the first sentence with 'overbearing incompetency' and then in the second sentence said 'technocrat' shows the disorganization in language, and demands that we define what a technocrat is. > Technocracy is an ideological system of governance in which decision-makers are selected on the basis of their expertise in a given area of responsibility, particularly with regard to scientific or technical knowledge. How tiresome.
eternalban 6y ago
unherd’s LockdownTV series — see “Interviews” section in main page — is balanced (in terms of view points) and highly recommended. On YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMxiv15iK_MFayY_3fU9loQ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMxiv15iK_MFayY_3fU9loQ
partomniscient 6y ago
I am the son, and the heir.... of an apocolypse that is criminally vulgar. I am the son and heir.... of nothing in particular. It actually kind of fits.
PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
I take exception to this analysis: "The numbers killed in terrorist incidents may be small. But the threat is endemic, and the texture of everyday life has altered profoundly. Video cameras and security procedures in public places have become part of the way we live." The author writes about this as if our response to terrorism is some sort of deterministic feature of the natural world. Instead, however, our response is series of distinct policy choices, none of which were ever inevitable and all of which are subject to change (even if that change is hard to accomplish). The security theater in (particularly US) airports is not a deterministic consequence of terrorism - it's the result of the policies of the GW Bush administration. The widespread use of CCTV cameras in the UK is not a deterministic response to crime and/or terrorism - it's the result of several governments worth of explicit policy, as evidenced by the remarkably lower use of such cameras in other nations affected by similar phenomena. Talking about "what has happened" as if it was inevitable, and not the result of choices made by the powerful is dangerous and dampens the possibility of a belief in other outcomes.
- dredmorbius 6y ago
  There is a diffeerence between modes of threat. A visible threat vs. an invisible one, an undirected threat vs. a directed one. Some years ago I realised that there are in fact two uses of the term "invisible* in Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. Among oths I find the significance of the more well-known one to be greatly overstated. But the other seems notable on several counts: "Regularity, order, and prompt obedience to command are qualities which, in modern armies, are of more importance towards determining the fate of battles than the dexterity and skill of the soldiers in the use of their arms. But the noise of firearms, the smoke, and the invisible death to which every man feels himself every moment exposed as soon as he comes within cannon-shot, and frequently a long time before the battle can be well said to be engaged, must render it very difficult to maintain any considerable degree of this regularity, order, and prompt obedience, even in the beginning of a modern battle. In an ancient battle there was no noise but what arose from the human voice; there was no smoke, there was no invisible cause of wounds or death. Every man, till some mortal weapon actually did approach him, saw clearly that no such weapon was near him. In these circumstances, and among troops who had some confidence in their own skill and dexterity in the use of their arms, it must have been a good deal less difficult to preserve some degree regularity and order... Smith, WoN, Book V, Chapter 1 https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations/Book_V/Chapter_1 https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations/Book_V/... That is, it's the loss of certainty and security which of itself is exceptionally disruptive of order. Terrorism is (generally) rare, but is specifically directed so as to inflict maximal disruption. Disease, especially epidemics, are trust attacks. We cannot be know with any certainty what otherwise innocent and trivial encounters or activities might. have major consequence. Entirely unaware individuals may be exposing others to grave harm. Paranoia is prudence.
naveen99 6y ago
Agree with the thesis. Change just accelerated. we are as likely to go back to our careless attitude about respiratory infectious disease as we are to doing surgeries without masks and gloves.
lcall 6y ago
Really, if one is thinking about the end of the world, it is good to prepare, but we don't have to fear as we can be OK. In my belief system we have living prophets (comparable to Noah with the ark, etc etc), and they provide much good advice and support for us in these times. But yes, it is good to be humble & wise, to learn, and to prepare. I've put notes on what/why and how I reliably learned for myself, at my simple site (deals w/ climate change but applies to the rest of it...). I am just me and can be wrong, but am very confident in this case: http://lukecall.net/e-9223372036854581820.html http://lukecall.net/e-9223372036854581820.html (ps: I realize this will seem wacko to most, but I'd appreciate it if you skim my reasoning, I worked hard to make it skimmable while saying in detail how I came to these conclusions, and add a reasoned comment, with any downvotes. Thanks.)
nil-sec 6y ago
I am sorry but this is a ridiculous thesis. This will be over eventually, either by developing a vaccine or by mutation into a more benign strain. Nobody in their right mind will practice social distancing just because they are used to it. No system that goes against basic human drives is stable. Right now there is a risk, benefit balance but once that risk is gone, what exactly will balance this? Laws? They are already in conflict with the constitution, good luck justifying any of this if there is no deadly pathogen around.
- Shared404 6y ago
  >They are already in conflict with the constitution... PATRIOT Act would like a word.
blumomo 6y ago
The author is wrong. Apocalyptic in religions means revelations, not necessarily end of the world. It rather means the revelation of what is good and what is evil. It will become clear to people even if they didn’t know that good and evil existed (religious people know that without an apocalypse). Given that, the article bases on a wrong foundation so that the author naturally reaches wrong conclusions. In today’s world some people and especially people in power do lie a lot, which has severe consequences in the bad conditions we‘re living right now. The wake people know that those lies will be disclosed very soon, hence we should see an apocalyptic with Christian eyes, who see the revelation in that the poor politics concerning Covid will not last for very long and we will be shown the truth as part of the revelation (=apocalyptic).

95 points by jajag 6y ago

asaegyn 6y ago

Always amuses me how the apocalypse of Inidgenous Americans never seems to make the cut...

netcan 6y ago
amuses?
- nkozyra 6y ago
  I doubt the op meant in a pleasurable sense. What's the saying? History is written by the victors? I don't think there will ever be a reconciliation in history for the elimination of native peoples across two continents.
  - JackFr 6y ago
    In a thousand years it will just be described as ‘a migration’.
- asaegyn 6y ago
  Obviously not in a pleasurable way. It's disheartening / devastating / infuriating that the genocide of 120-40M people barely pierces the consciousness of the dominant culture when talking about apocalypses or genocides...
buzzkillington 6y ago
Winners don't talk about the people they murdered to win. Same thing about Australia, Canada and less so New Zealand. It is also hilarious that the USSR is the only country apart from Japan to successfully industrialize and avoid a colonial genocide from a Western power. If you could pick a place to live being a Russian in Moscow 1919 would give you a much better chance of surviving compared to being an Indian in Manhattan in 1624, Toronto in 1787 or Melbourne in 1835.
- selimthegrim 6y ago
  Russia was a Western power as far as Central Asia and the Caucasus were concerned
  - buzzkillington 6y ago
    If having an empire is the definition of being Western than you need to include the Ottomans too. At which point the word means nothing.
- lonelappde 6y ago
  Russians were genocided by their own government, not a foreign power (except for the many used as meatbags in WWII).
- mobilefriendly 6y ago
  Please study the actual history of the USSR-- there were multiple genocides of different religions and ethnic groups. Most notable were the pogroms and the death of millions in the Ukraine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691152387/stalins-genocides https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691152387/st...
  - buzzkillington 6y ago
    Interesting how all the groups who had genocide perpetrated against them somehow ended up with a double population than when they were conquered with, meanwhile Ireland still has a smaller population than they had in 1800.
- Hoasi 6y ago
  > the USSR is the only country apart from Japan to successfully industrialize and avoid a colonial genocide from a Western power. Thailand was never a colony either. Besides, USSR was not a country and formed after the colonial heydays.
dntbnmpls 6y ago
It's sad but true. People even deny native genocide. I had a comment yesterday saying the natives didn't experience genocide but were simply "moved off their land". But I guess I can understand it somewhat. It took me a long time to come to terms with it as well. The genocide of the natives didn't sink in until I saw a list of the native languages that were wiped out along with the natives. It was dozens and dozens of languages. Many times more languages than exists in the whole of europe.
- netcan 6y ago
  Europe had many more dialects and languages than now... Some of extinction stories are genocidal as well. We have to assume a lot about what happened as Rome colonised southern europe, for example, but much of it probably rhymes what happened in the americas.
  - throwlaplace 6y ago
    this is like people comparing the indigenous african slave trade to the triangle trade - completely facile. >Rome colonised southern europe colonization in the ancient world wasn't rapacious like it was in the new world. conquered peoples maintained much of their way of life and simply became vassal. in the roman case (towards the end) they even got roman citizenship. Edit:I finally figured out hn downvotes - paper over a genocide nbd - use the word facile downvotes
    - Spooky23 6y ago
      Tell that to the Gauls!
      - throwlaplace 6y ago
        >In the five centuries between Caesar's conquest and the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, the Gaulish language and cultural identity underwent a syncretism with the Roman culture of the new governing class, and evolved into a hybrid Gallo-Roman culture that eventually permeated all levels of society https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Gaul https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Gaul Can you point to symbiosis with native American culture that resembles that to any extent today in the US? All we have are racist football team mascots

benjaminwootton 6y ago

Unherd.com have had some of the best journalism of the crisis so far. In particular some of the interviews with epedimiologists: https://youtu.be/bfN2JWifLCY https://youtu.be/bfN2JWifLCY https://youtu.be/6cYjjEB3Ev8 https://youtu.be/6cYjjEB3Ev8 https://youtu.be/bl-sZdfLcEk https://youtu.be/bl-sZdfLcEk

buboard 6y ago
Indeed and they are lining up new ones next week https://mobile.twitter.com/freddiesayers/status/1261320137787019269 https://mobile.twitter.com/freddiesayers/status/126132013778...

diminish 6y ago

Russian civil war was also the result of the 400 years of continuous tsarist expansion (among many other reasons); absorbing that much occupied land from baltics to pacific, and a lot of diverse people should be hard. dramatically the ruling family (romanovs) among the 3 most successful expansionist dynasties next to english & spanish were totally annihilated at the end by their own people.

phreeza 6y ago
Should Djenghis Khan and his successors not also be on that list?
- keiferski 6y ago
  Genghis and his descendants certainly conquered a huge area, but the empire quickly broke apart after Möngke (Genghis' successor) died, into the Ilkhanate, Yuan dynasty, Chagatai Khanate, and Golden Horde. Most of these didn't last more than a century, but more relevantly, the Mongols weren't particularly interested in spreading their culture and largely kept their language a private matter. Subsequently Mongolian (the language) basically doesn't exist outside of Mongolia/Inner Mongolia (China) and culturally there is far less influence as compared to say, the Russian or Spanish empires. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Division_of_the_Mongol_Empire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Division_of_the_Mongol_Empire
  - keiferski 6y ago
    Just a minor clarification/correction: Möngke wasn’t the direct successor to Genghis: there were two other leaders in between.

mathdev 6y ago

Interesting predictions. However, they do not fit the facts on the ground, at least here in Poland, which is some weeks ahead of the US with respect to the development of the epidemic. (I'm relieved that) people have gotten sick and tired of the restrictions, about 50% (and growing every day) are not wearing the masks inside anymore, or bother with the distancing, despite official requirements. All restaurants and bars are opening up on Monday, my favourite one described the prior atmosphere as a "psychosis of fear". It's interesting what happens when the second wave of infections occurs, which is becoming more and more likely. It's hard to imagine the population will be as fearful and obedient as the first time, should the government try to impose another lockdown. If, as Nassim Taleb believes, the lockdown was bottom-up, demanded by the people rather than imposed by the government, a repeat seems unlikely. Perhaps that's why the stock market is surging?

netcan 6y ago
Got a link for the taleb commentary?
- mathdev 6y ago
  https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1258931279317405696 https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1258931279317405696 and there are more tweets on that if you scroll the feed.
  - Inthenameofmine 6y ago
    I fund it fascinating that in "developed" or "fully western" countries it is the youth that is disregarding the lockdown measures. In Kosovo/Albania it is the precise opposite. An acquaintance of mine in China told me that it is the genX and older generation there too that seems to not understand the gravity. How come this big difference?
    - mythrwy 6y ago
      Maybe older generations spend less time reading internet hysteria (or news or whatever you'd like to call it)?

_aleph2c_ 6y ago

When our immune system is over-fit to the wrong kind of thing, we call that an allergy. People who have been raised with animals or who have had to fight off parasites tend to have less allergies. I think this idea holds for our society; our societal immune system needs to be tested too, otherwise we attack ourselves (identity politics, the culture wars...) So I disagree with the author, I think we will be better off when this is done. We will go back to the bars and we will enjoy our lives more, we will think about our long term goals and make better efforts to get to them.

lowwave 6y ago
Herd immunity
Craighead 6y ago
Yeah once we're done fighting off propaganda and authoritarianism during a pandemic we'll maybe see a rise in civic understanding and critical thinking, but also hundreds of thousands of dead people because of one nation's inability to be honest.

ceilingcorner 6y ago

Comparing the coronavirus to the Russian Revolution is so overblown, I can't believe an academic would suggest it with a straight face. This fear-mongering really needs to stop.

yogthos 6y ago

The article seems to completely forget about climate change. The current pandemic is going to look like a tiny speed bump in a few years when we start seeing regular deadly heat waves, crop failures, and other natural disasters. Billions of people are going to be displaced, and we'll see wars for the remaining livable land. The effects of climate change are all around us already, and they're happening much faster than any of the models predicted: * new research indicates that parts of the Amazon and other tropical forests are now emitting more CO2 than they absorb https://e360.yale.edu/features/why-carbon-cycle-feedbacks-could-drive-temperatures-even-higher https://e360.yale.edu/features/why-carbon-cycle-feedbacks-co... * one billion people will suffer from “unliveable” heat within 50 years, study finds https://e360.yale.edu/digest/one-billion-people-will-suffer-from-unliveable-heat-within-50-years-study-finds https://e360.yale.edu/digest/one-billion-people-will-suffer-... * potentially fatal bouts of heat and humidity on the rise, study finds https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/08/climate-change-global-heating-extreme-heat-humidity https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/08/climate-... * study finds ocean ecosystems likely to collapse in 2020s and land species in 2040s unless global warming stemmed https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/08/wildlife-destruction-not-a-slippery-slope-but-a-series-of-cliff-edges https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/08/wildlife... * studies show drought and heat waves will cause massive die-offs, killing most trees alive today https://insideclimatenews.org/news/24042020/forest-trees-climate-change-deforestation https://insideclimatenews.org/news/24042020/forest-trees-cli... * multiple overlapping crises could trigger 'Global Systemic Collapse' https://www.sciencealert.com/hundreds-of-top-scientists-warn-combined-environmental-crises-will-cause-global-collapse https://www.sciencealert.com/hundreds-of-top-scientists-warn... * 246 academics call on government to act now to avoid global collapse https://www.nationalobserver.com/2020/02/04/opinion/246-academics-call-government-act-now-avoid-global-collapse https://www.nationalobserver.com/2020/02/04/opinion/246-acad... * Planet's largest ecosystems collapse faster than previously forecast https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-15029-x https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-15029-x World's oceans are also acidifying to a similar rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification#Rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification#Rate as the Permian extinction (but again in 100 years instead of 20k-60k), with an anoxic event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anoxic_event#Consequences https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anoxic_event#Consequences locked in after 1,000ppm or 360 gigatons https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/09/170920182116.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/09/170920182116.h..., which we will reach by 2100 at the latest. So that's whatever's left wiped out. And here's what's currently happening with food production. Two different groups of 200+ scientists and academics, separately from each other, each warned of near-term global collapse: * https://www.sciencealert.com/hundreds-of-top-scientists-warn-combined-environmental-crises-will-cause-global-collapse https://www.sciencealert.com/hundreds-of-top-scientists-warn... * https://www.nationalobserver.com/2020/02/04/opinion/246-academics-call-government-act-now-avoid-global-collapse https://www.nationalobserver.com/2020/02/04/opinion/246-acad... Examples of record-breaking crop failures currently happening: * https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/06/midwest-rain-climate-change-wrecking-corn-soy-crops/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/06/midwe... * https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/19/extreme-heat-wave-hits-us-farmers-already-suffering-from-flooding.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/19/extreme-heat-wave-hits-us-fa... * https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/may/15/australia-to-import-wheat-for-first-time-in-12-years-as-drought-eats-into-grain-production https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/may/15/austr... * https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jul/20/crop-failure-and-bankruptcy-threaten-farmers-as-drought-grips-europe https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jul/20/crop-fai... * https://www.zerohedge.com/health/historic-midwest-blizzard-has-farmers-seeing-massive-crop-lossesas-devastating-weve-ever https://www.zerohedge.com/health/historic-midwest-blizzard-h... * https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-02/low-rice-crop-leads-to-sunrice-job-losses/11566748?pfmredir=sm https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-02/low-rice-crop-lead... * https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/climate-and-people/climate-change-could-cut-fruit-production-almost-third-study/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/climate-and-people... * https://phys.org/news/2019-12-climate-whammy-corn-belt.html https://phys.org/news/2019-12-climate-whammy-corn-belt.html * https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/11/12/britain-facing-potato-shortage-failure-dredge-rivers-led-flooding/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/11/12/britain-facing-p... * https://weather.com/science/environment/news/2019-08-01-drought-dam-drive-mekong-river-to-lowest-level-in-100-years https://weather.com/science/environment/news/2019-08-01-drou... * https://phys.org/news/2020-01-atlantic-circulation-collapse-british-crop.html https://phys.org/news/2020-01-atlantic-circulation-collapse-... * https://phys.org/news/2019-12-climate-threat-global-breadbaskets.html https://phys.org/news/2019-12-climate-threat-global-breadbas... * https://phys.org/news/2019-12-large-atmospheric-jet-stream-global.html https://phys.org/news/2019-12-large-atmospheric-jet-stream-g... Scientific studies projecting future crop failures: * Schlenker and Roberts, 2009. Nonlinear temperature effects indicate severe damages to US crop yields under climate change. PNAS, 106(37), pp.15594-15598 https://www.pnas.org/content/106/37/15594.full https://www.pnas.org/content/106/37/15594.full * Mora et al, 2015. Suitable days for plant growth disappear under projected climate change: Potential human and biotic vulnerability. PLoS bio, 13(6), p.e1002167 https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002167 https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/jou... * Schauberger et al, 2017. Consistent negative response of US crops to high temperatures in observations and crop models. Nature Comms, 8, p.13931. https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms13931 https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms13931 * Sakschewski et al, 2014. Feeding 10 billion people under climate change: How large is the production gap of current agricultural systems?. Ecological modelling, 288, pp.103-111 https://booksc.xyz/book/30274837/03002c https://booksc.xyz/book/30274837/03002c * Liang et al, 2017. Determining climate effects on US total agricultural productivity. PNAS, 114(12), pp.E2285-E2292 https://www.pnas.org/content/114/12/E2285?collection= https://www.pnas.org/content/114/12/E2285?collection= News articles about projected crop failures: * UN says passing 2C will have a 'very high projected risk' of global food supply instabilities https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/news/climate-change-could-trigger-global-food-crisis-new-u-n-ncna1040236 https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/news/climate-change-could-trigg... * UN says passing 2C would cause 'multi-breadbasket failure' https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/08/climate/climate-change-food-supply.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/08/climate/climate-change-fo...) * UN says passing 2C would cause 60% of global wheat to be subjected to 'Severe Water Scarcity (SVS)' drought events https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/09/26/new-research-warns-severe-climate-related-droughts-could-threaten-60-global-wheat https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/09/26/new-research-wa... Given that our response to the pandemic has been to largely ignore the science and try to get back to business as usual and we're still largely pretending that climate change isn't happening, I don't really have much hope for continued existence of human civilization.

netcan 6y ago

IMO, trying to understand historical processes in terms of political theories is more noise than signal. Medieval english king alfred kept a chronicle of his time. Viking invasions such. His "political theories" were religious: righteous christians, pagans, heretics, divine justice & such. That's how they understood their history. Biblical "chronicles" like the book of kings, judges & such offer a similar take. Sin & righteousness determine wars, invasions, usurpations & coups.... apocalyptical or otherwise. Move into the French, American & derivitive revolutions of 1700-1800s: Reason, Industrialism, Enlightenment Philosophy & such. revolutions. Political theories. Liberty. Rights. etc. Instead of righteous & piety, radical liberals would build free & just societies. So... French liberty culminates in a pretty vicious and vindictive early republic which soon crowns an emperor. American liberty did not seem overly bothered by an institution of slavery that was vast and cruel enough to make a pharaoh uneasy. Liberty didn't apply to native americans and often "person" meant just male landowners. Meanwhile the theoretically opposite British, with their anti-liberal constitutional monarchy... Not really less "liberal" in practice, from a historical perspective. Liberal or conservative commentators from the period (even modern ones) seem to think everything is derivative of the political theories battling it out. It's not that different from ancient judeans or medieval saxons interpreting every event via their religious lens. IRL, the relationship between political theories, practice, & history is chaotic & uncorrelated. Liberalism, socialism, communism, etc.... theory does not generate into reality, hardly ever.

brenden2 6y ago

It's a shame that HN has become full doomer. The virus is nowhere near as bad as the clickbait factories want you to believe because fear is such a good profit generator for them.

drevil-v2 6y ago

Australia, 98 deaths and 16 people in ICU. Entire economy destroyed. Either we will make money meaningless by printing it out of thin air or coming decades will witness crushing tax. 5 million people unemployed out of population of 22 million. Someone fucked up.

mrfusion 6y ago
Sorry you’re getting downvoted. I’m with you.
paulryanrogers 6y ago
Hindsight is 20/20. Without lockdown it could have been significantly worse. And even if not there was no way to know beforehand. As restrictions are ended any future waves should provide more insight into their effectiveness.
- drevil-v2 6y ago
  Unelected public officials and local/state politicians seem unwilling to give up their newfound powers. Any objections to or questioning of their rationale or edicts is immediately dismissed as ignorant death wishes of the unwashed masses.
  - moosey 6y ago
    You are exalting ignorance. That's what actually needs to stop.
    - airlines55 6y ago
      Well meaning overbearing incompetency seems little better. Has there been a more thorough refutation of the promised land of technocrats than these past couple months?
      - moosey 6y ago
        Technocrats? Business leaders are selected at random by our economy, or are born wealthy. This has been proven over and over in studies. Your flowery language is designed so that you feel smart. The fact that you started the first sentence with 'overbearing incompetency' and then in the second sentence said 'technocrat' shows the disorganization in language, and demands that we define what a technocrat is. > Technocracy is an ideological system of governance in which decision-makers are selected on the basis of their expertise in a given area of responsibility, particularly with regard to scientific or technical knowledge. How tiresome.

eternalban 6y ago

unherd’s LockdownTV series — see “Interviews” section in main page — is balanced (in terms of view points) and highly recommended. On YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMxiv15iK_MFayY_3fU9loQ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMxiv15iK_MFayY_3fU9loQ

partomniscient 6y ago

I am the son, and the heir.... of an apocolypse that is criminally vulgar. I am the son and heir.... of nothing in particular. It actually kind of fits.

PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago

I take exception to this analysis: "The numbers killed in terrorist incidents may be small. But the threat is endemic, and the texture of everyday life has altered profoundly. Video cameras and security procedures in public places have become part of the way we live." The author writes about this as if our response to terrorism is some sort of deterministic feature of the natural world. Instead, however, our response is series of distinct policy choices, none of which were ever inevitable and all of which are subject to change (even if that change is hard to accomplish). The security theater in (particularly US) airports is not a deterministic consequence of terrorism - it's the result of the policies of the GW Bush administration. The widespread use of CCTV cameras in the UK is not a deterministic response to crime and/or terrorism - it's the result of several governments worth of explicit policy, as evidenced by the remarkably lower use of such cameras in other nations affected by similar phenomena. Talking about "what has happened" as if it was inevitable, and not the result of choices made by the powerful is dangerous and dampens the possibility of a belief in other outcomes.

dredmorbius 6y ago
There is a diffeerence between modes of threat. A visible threat vs. an invisible one, an undirected threat vs. a directed one. Some years ago I realised that there are in fact two uses of the term "invisible* in Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. Among oths I find the significance of the more well-known one to be greatly overstated. But the other seems notable on several counts: "Regularity, order, and prompt obedience to command are qualities which, in modern armies, are of more importance towards determining the fate of battles than the dexterity and skill of the soldiers in the use of their arms. But the noise of firearms, the smoke, and the invisible death to which every man feels himself every moment exposed as soon as he comes within cannon-shot, and frequently a long time before the battle can be well said to be engaged, must render it very difficult to maintain any considerable degree of this regularity, order, and prompt obedience, even in the beginning of a modern battle. In an ancient battle there was no noise but what arose from the human voice; there was no smoke, there was no invisible cause of wounds or death. Every man, till some mortal weapon actually did approach him, saw clearly that no such weapon was near him. In these circumstances, and among troops who had some confidence in their own skill and dexterity in the use of their arms, it must have been a good deal less difficult to preserve some degree regularity and order... Smith, WoN, Book V, Chapter 1 https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations/Book_V/Chapter_1 https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations/Book_V/... That is, it's the loss of certainty and security which of itself is exceptionally disruptive of order. Terrorism is (generally) rare, but is specifically directed so as to inflict maximal disruption. Disease, especially epidemics, are trust attacks. We cannot be know with any certainty what otherwise innocent and trivial encounters or activities might. have major consequence. Entirely unaware individuals may be exposing others to grave harm. Paranoia is prudence.

naveen99 6y ago

Agree with the thesis. Change just accelerated. we are as likely to go back to our careless attitude about respiratory infectious disease as we are to doing surgeries without masks and gloves.

lcall 6y ago

Really, if one is thinking about the end of the world, it is good to prepare, but we don't have to fear as we can be OK. In my belief system we have living prophets (comparable to Noah with the ark, etc etc), and they provide much good advice and support for us in these times. But yes, it is good to be humble & wise, to learn, and to prepare. I've put notes on what/why and how I reliably learned for myself, at my simple site (deals w/ climate change but applies to the rest of it...). I am just me and can be wrong, but am very confident in this case: http://lukecall.net/e-9223372036854581820.html http://lukecall.net/e-9223372036854581820.html (ps: I realize this will seem wacko to most, but I'd appreciate it if you skim my reasoning, I worked hard to make it skimmable while saying in detail how I came to these conclusions, and add a reasoned comment, with any downvotes. Thanks.)

nil-sec 6y ago

I am sorry but this is a ridiculous thesis. This will be over eventually, either by developing a vaccine or by mutation into a more benign strain. Nobody in their right mind will practice social distancing just because they are used to it. No system that goes against basic human drives is stable. Right now there is a risk, benefit balance but once that risk is gone, what exactly will balance this? Laws? They are already in conflict with the constitution, good luck justifying any of this if there is no deadly pathogen around.

Shared404 6y ago
>They are already in conflict with the constitution... PATRIOT Act would like a word.

blumomo 6y ago

The author is wrong. Apocalyptic in religions means revelations, not necessarily end of the world. It rather means the revelation of what is good and what is evil. It will become clear to people even if they didn’t know that good and evil existed (religious people know that without an apocalypse). Given that, the article bases on a wrong foundation so that the author naturally reaches wrong conclusions. In today’s world some people and especially people in power do lie a lot, which has severe consequences in the bad conditions we‘re living right now. The wake people know that those lies will be disclosed very soon, hence we should see an apocalyptic with Christian eyes, who see the revelation in that the poor politics concerning Covid will not last for very long and we will be shown the truth as part of the revelation (=apocalyptic).