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Humanity also didn't have widespread intercontinental travel for most of the past 1 million years. We all live in a single Petri dish now. A few thousand years
by zarzavat 5y ago
Humanity also didn't have widespread intercontinental travel for most of the past 1 million years.
We all live in a single Petri dish now. A few thousand years ago humanity existed in many many isolated communities and was much more resilient to disease. Regular pandemics every ~10 years are very much a side effect of technology.
- bawolff 5y agoI don't think that's true. Look at the death count by various years https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics . Better health care seems to more than offset the extra risk from air travel.
- zarzavat 5y agoNot only air travel. Sea travel. A thousand years ago there was an entire backup continent (the new world). And plenty of isolated communities were decimated when explorers came and brought alien diseases. Air travel just accelerated the process so that pandemics can spread within days rather than years and the effects can be seen in real time.