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To be fair, both COVID and nuclear threats are very legitimate issues. We can’t deny that we are living in a dark period. More Americans have died from COVID t

To be fair, both COVID and nuclear threats are very legitimate issues. We can’t deny that we are living in a dark period. More Americans have died from COVID than all American soldiers lost in combat in all military engagements combined in our history, and we like our wars. We surpassed that figure last summer, so we’re way past it at this point. We’re also consciously considering the possibility of nuclear war again, which came very close to happening the last time we engaged with Russia.

jokethrowaway 5y ago
I don't think we can clearly state covid deaths were counted correctly. There are many odd thing with the numbers, eg. no-one died of the flu during covid because they were all counted as covid, not to mention the emergency measures (I know of at least 2 european countries where this happened) that allowed even just presumption of covid to be counted as covid deaths, without a proper autopsy or the financial incentive that some hospitals / state actors had in having a certain number of covid deaths in order to get compensation. The age at which people died also matters. If covid just sped up the death of old people we lost significantly less years of life as a society than when young soldiers die. Overall if we focused on improving cardiovascular diseases or traffic related deaths instead of scrambling making emergency vaccines for covid, I believe we would have saved more years of life as a whole. Nuclear threats are just threats - if anyone actually fire nukes both sides would die. They're great for making your enemy panic and don't bother you during invasions, though.
ifyoubuildit 5y ago
> More Americans have died from COVID than all American soldiers lost in combat in all military engagements combined in our history, and we like our wars What happens to that comparison if you look at years of life lost rather than deaths that coincided with a covid infection? I don't know, but I have to assume it's not even close. Covid seemed (in the average case, of course there were exceptions) to push people who were near their life expectancy over the edge, whereas war takes young people with full healthy lives ahead of them and either kills or permanently damages them.

jokethrowaway 5y ago

I don't think we can clearly state covid deaths were counted correctly. There are many odd thing with the numbers, eg. no-one died of the flu during covid because they were all counted as covid, not to mention the emergency measures (I know of at least 2 european countries where this happened) that allowed even just presumption of covid to be counted as covid deaths, without a proper autopsy or the financial incentive that some hospitals / state actors had in having a certain number of covid deaths in order to get compensation. The age at which people died also matters. If covid just sped up the death of old people we lost significantly less years of life as a society than when young soldiers die. Overall if we focused on improving cardiovascular diseases or traffic related deaths instead of scrambling making emergency vaccines for covid, I believe we would have saved more years of life as a whole. Nuclear threats are just threats - if anyone actually fire nukes both sides would die. They're great for making your enemy panic and don't bother you during invasions, though.

ifyoubuildit 5y ago

> More Americans have died from COVID than all American soldiers lost in combat in all military engagements combined in our history, and we like our wars What happens to that comparison if you look at years of life lost rather than deaths that coincided with a covid infection? I don't know, but I have to assume it's not even close. Covid seemed (in the average case, of course there were exceptions) to push people who were near their life expectancy over the edge, whereas war takes young people with full healthy lives ahead of them and either kills or permanently damages them.