3 ms·

I don't think we need to worry about any new fancy technologies wiping us out. Nature is perfectly capable of doing that itself. My biggest question with the wh

I don't think we need to worry about any new fancy technologies wiping us out. Nature is perfectly capable of doing that itself. My biggest question with the whole COVID issue is why hasn't this happened sooner? And why only one single pathogen? Why aren't there dozens of COVIDs happening all the time? What happens when we get 2, 3, 4, 5 of them at once with a 10% IFR each? I don't think our civilization would be able to cope. Things would get medieval really quickly.

tshaddox 6y ago
I'm not quite sure what you're asking, but here are some responses. There have been many pandemics throughout human history, including recent human history, so it's odd to ask "why hasn't this happened sooner?" There are also, at any given time, many pathogens which can and do infect and harm humans. They vary a lot in their symptoms and infection rates, but most are endemic rather than epidemic or pandemic. "Pandemic" just means the pathogen is extremely widespread and is infecting large numbers of people in a relatively short period of time. Various health organizations and writers use different precise definitions, but some still consider HIV/AIDS to also be pandemic.
Mediterraneo10 6y ago
If COVID originated from bats or whatever, then the reason we don’t see multiple viruses going around simultaneously is because animal–human crossover, though it certainly does happen, happens more rarely than that. If COVID is a virus of whatever origin that escaped from a Chinese lab (only mentioning this because it’s a popular theory among ordinary netizens and the WHO expressly didn’t rule it out, though it called it not a likely scenario), then we don’t see multiple pathogens going around the world because all developed countries’ top-security bio labs are – thankfully – quite secure. Stephen King’s The Stand and Richard Preston’s The Hot Zone have kept readers awake at night with fear for decades now, but the labs they describe have managed to keep their pathogens from escaping. Also, some horrible pandemics of yore like bubonic plague were easy to stamp out by modern hygiene practices, which is why they only pop up today in undeveloped places with poor hygiene (e.g. prisons in Madagascar).
- airstrike 6y ago
  > even the WHO has said this theoretically remains a possibility, while not thought the most likely Try "extremely unlikely" instead. More like they can't rule it out with absolute certainty, but not a particularly reasonable hypothesis. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-55996728 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-55996728
  - reducesuffering 6y ago
    You should read the discussion on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26125145 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26125145 "Extremely unlikely" is quite the overstatement. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-escape-theory.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-esca...

tshaddox 6y ago

I'm not quite sure what you're asking, but here are some responses. There have been many pandemics throughout human history, including recent human history, so it's odd to ask "why hasn't this happened sooner?" There are also, at any given time, many pathogens which can and do infect and harm humans. They vary a lot in their symptoms and infection rates, but most are endemic rather than epidemic or pandemic. "Pandemic" just means the pathogen is extremely widespread and is infecting large numbers of people in a relatively short period of time. Various health organizations and writers use different precise definitions, but some still consider HIV/AIDS to also be pandemic.

Mediterraneo10 6y ago

If COVID originated from bats or whatever, then the reason we don’t see multiple viruses going around simultaneously is because animal–human crossover, though it certainly does happen, happens more rarely than that. If COVID is a virus of whatever origin that escaped from a Chinese lab (only mentioning this because it’s a popular theory among ordinary netizens and the WHO expressly didn’t rule it out, though it called it not a likely scenario), then we don’t see multiple pathogens going around the world because all developed countries’ top-security bio labs are – thankfully – quite secure. Stephen King’s The Stand and Richard Preston’s The Hot Zone have kept readers awake at night with fear for decades now, but the labs they describe have managed to keep their pathogens from escaping. Also, some horrible pandemics of yore like bubonic plague were easy to stamp out by modern hygiene practices, which is why they only pop up today in undeveloped places with poor hygiene (e.g. prisons in Madagascar).

airstrike 6y ago
> even the WHO has said this theoretically remains a possibility, while not thought the most likely Try "extremely unlikely" instead. More like they can't rule it out with absolute certainty, but not a particularly reasonable hypothesis. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-55996728 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-55996728
- reducesuffering 6y ago
  You should read the discussion on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26125145 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26125145 "Extremely unlikely" is quite the overstatement. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-escape-theory.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-esca...