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I tend to be labeled a pessimist. When covid came, I was not surprised. If anything, I was surprised that it was not more deadly. At the same time (March 2020),

I tend to be labeled a pessimist. When covid came, I was not surprised. If anything, I was surprised that it was not more deadly. At the same time (March 2020), I expected that Covid would lead to supply chain disruptions, nationalizatoin of industry and international conflict. The way I see it, the period from 1945 to 2020 was the exception, not the norm. Apart from that period (in the Western World), humans have been facing more difficult times than 2020-2022 through most of history. Still we have surivived, and at times, prospered. In the future, we may face disasters (climate change, pandemics, wars) that are hundreds of times worse than covid. Still none of those (except possibly nuclear war at some point) are likely to be the end of humanity, or even set us back so much that we are completely unable to record history. (A big nuclear war today would perhaps be a setback for human knowledge of history comparable to the loss of the librariy in Alexandria) There are still existential threats. One may be if we build millions of new nukes and use them all at once. Others could be technological (AI, nanotech), yet other could come from space (asteroids, aliens). But for humanity to be wiped out by pandemics or climate change seems highly unlikely.

ragingrobot 4y ago
> The way I see it, the period from 1945 to 2020 was the exception, not the norm. Apart from that period (in the Western World), humans have been facing more difficult times than 2020-2022 through most of history. Still we have surivived, and at times, prospered. Now you got me thinking about this. Perhaps that period was a technological "sweet spot." Technology assisted us in our tasks. It wasn't too primitive where it hindered us like the periods prior. On the flip side, we were not overly reliant on that assistance like perhaps we are now (think chip shortages disrupting nearly every facet of life). Also, population growth. The planet is significantly more populated. For example, had this baby formula shortage happened during a period of less population, could it have had less of an impact? Even if the same proportion of the population were, it may have been not so great of a stress as supplies may have stretched longer.
- trashtester 4y ago
  > Now you got me thinking about this. Perhaps that period was a technological "sweet spot." Maybe, but I really doubt that. I find it much more likely that it was a combination of luck and culture. (Or rather of a culture that had not yet been corrupted.) Anyway, even Corona was an extremely minor disaster, in the grand scope of things. In terms of years of life lost, the average per capita number is in the order of between a few days and a couple of weeks. Had corona been spreading in 1946, it would hardly have been noticed. By comparison, the Black Death probably caused average life expectancy to fall by something like 20 years, globally for those alive when it started to spread. In other words, Covid was less than 1% as serious as the Black Death for the average person. > Also, population growth. The planet is significantly more populated. For example, had this baby formula shortage happened during a period of less population, could it have had less of an impact? Most people througout history would be completely unable to grasp why we make a fuss about things like the baby formula shortage. They were used to child mortality in the order of 50%, even in peacetime. Lack of baby formula in the US may perhaps cause the child mortality rate to go up by 0.000001%. If I have a concern, it is not that we are living through difficult times now. We are not, these are still some of the best time in human history (for the average person, even in most developing countries). Rather my concern, is that most people have NO CLUE how much worse it can get. I don't mean the semi-religious concern that you can find surrounding climate change, or a fatalist view on nuclear war. This kind of fatalism tends to just passify people, make them shrug, and say "if it happens, we're all dead anyway". I mean for people to actually imagine living in a world where it is normal for your children to die from starvation, where there are no medicines. Where the infection in your thumb that you got from working in the fields until your hands were bleeding can actually kill you. Where packs of wolf-dogs roam the cities to feed on human corpses, many of them carrying rabies. I mean in particular the willingness so many people seem to have to tear down our institutions that work very well, because they identify some minor flaw. Their willingness to polarize politically, the re-emergance of both facist and communist ideas to conveniently place the blame for our small problems on the "Others". And finally the signs that countries once again seem to be willing to use military force to annex other nations, for no other reason than nationalism. I don't predict that any of this will lead to human extinction, but I'm worried that within 100-200 years we will see a conflict that will completely eclipse WW2, with 500million or more deaths. THIS is why I call myself a pessimist, because I see it as likely (or not as unlikely as I would like) that humanity will return to a state that is, in fact, more or less the average of what humanity has experienced up until now, while most people seem to take it for granted that the near-Utopian (EDIT) situation we have now will remain mostly as it is.

ragingrobot 4y ago

> The way I see it, the period from 1945 to 2020 was the exception, not the norm. Apart from that period (in the Western World), humans have been facing more difficult times than 2020-2022 through most of history. Still we have surivived, and at times, prospered. Now you got me thinking about this. Perhaps that period was a technological "sweet spot." Technology assisted us in our tasks. It wasn't too primitive where it hindered us like the periods prior. On the flip side, we were not overly reliant on that assistance like perhaps we are now (think chip shortages disrupting nearly every facet of life). Also, population growth. The planet is significantly more populated. For example, had this baby formula shortage happened during a period of less population, could it have had less of an impact? Even if the same proportion of the population were, it may have been not so great of a stress as supplies may have stretched longer.

trashtester 4y ago
> Now you got me thinking about this. Perhaps that period was a technological "sweet spot." Maybe, but I really doubt that. I find it much more likely that it was a combination of luck and culture. (Or rather of a culture that had not yet been corrupted.) Anyway, even Corona was an extremely minor disaster, in the grand scope of things. In terms of years of life lost, the average per capita number is in the order of between a few days and a couple of weeks. Had corona been spreading in 1946, it would hardly have been noticed. By comparison, the Black Death probably caused average life expectancy to fall by something like 20 years, globally for those alive when it started to spread. In other words, Covid was less than 1% as serious as the Black Death for the average person. > Also, population growth. The planet is significantly more populated. For example, had this baby formula shortage happened during a period of less population, could it have had less of an impact? Most people througout history would be completely unable to grasp why we make a fuss about things like the baby formula shortage. They were used to child mortality in the order of 50%, even in peacetime. Lack of baby formula in the US may perhaps cause the child mortality rate to go up by 0.000001%. If I have a concern, it is not that we are living through difficult times now. We are not, these are still some of the best time in human history (for the average person, even in most developing countries). Rather my concern, is that most people have NO CLUE how much worse it can get. I don't mean the semi-religious concern that you can find surrounding climate change, or a fatalist view on nuclear war. This kind of fatalism tends to just passify people, make them shrug, and say "if it happens, we're all dead anyway". I mean for people to actually imagine living in a world where it is normal for your children to die from starvation, where there are no medicines. Where the infection in your thumb that you got from working in the fields until your hands were bleeding can actually kill you. Where packs of wolf-dogs roam the cities to feed on human corpses, many of them carrying rabies. I mean in particular the willingness so many people seem to have to tear down our institutions that work very well, because they identify some minor flaw. Their willingness to polarize politically, the re-emergance of both facist and communist ideas to conveniently place the blame for our small problems on the "Others". And finally the signs that countries once again seem to be willing to use military force to annex other nations, for no other reason than nationalism. I don't predict that any of this will lead to human extinction, but I'm worried that within 100-200 years we will see a conflict that will completely eclipse WW2, with 500million or more deaths. THIS is why I call myself a pessimist, because I see it as likely (or not as unlikely as I would like) that humanity will return to a state that is, in fact, more or less the average of what humanity has experienced up until now, while most people seem to take it for granted that the near-Utopian (EDIT) situation we have now will remain mostly as it is.