4 ms·

I had this moment during the Covid pandemic. I read a lot of history and I saw pictures of the Spanish influenza and was told it killed more people than WW1. So

I had this moment during the Covid pandemic. I read a lot of history and I saw pictures of the Spanish influenza and was told it killed more people than WW1. Somehow I pictured the world in the late 1910s with everyone sick and in hospital but now I think it was more like Covid. People got sick and died but life went on and some people were completely unaffected. The world doesn't grind to a halt for world wars and pandemics. People still have kids and get married and start businesses and hike and play the guitar, etc. History is just what we decide to deem important or not.

nostrebored 3y ago
The historical context also misses a lot of what we know about the impact of malnutrition and stress on the immune system. Was the spanish flu actually that bad, or was it actually a fairly bad flu that wreaked havoc on a war-torn population? Reconciling modern information with historical events is hard. But I think it's completely necessary if we're going to make policy decisions based on history.
- gmarx 3y ago
  The Spanish flu really was very bad but would not have killed as many people if it occurred today. Malnutrition might have been a factor (though today's obesity rate might also be a problem) but the bigger thing was lack of antibiotics. Flu almost never kills you directly- it's the bacterial pneumonia you develop on top of it that does. Without antibiotics back then there would have been little they could do
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    Bacterial Pneumonia was not the novel danger of the "Spanish" flu; They cytokine storm it caused in perfectly healthy people was horrifying, with perfectly healthy people who would normally fight off any flu dying from this one. A lot of young twenty somethings, strong people who were not malnourished died from it. Hell, people got cytokine storms from COVID-19 and we still can only treat it if we catch it really early, otherwise it's still a great way to die for a normal person.
    - gmarx 3y ago
      That's a hypothesis. It is known that (supposedly) that strain can cause cytokine storm more than other flus do. I would not assume that means cytokine storm was the primary cause of death or even the primary cause of death in young adults. Based on my experience my guess is that the pneumonia was a much bigger cause of death than the storm
      - mrguyorama 3y ago
        Right I wasn't expressing the cytokine storm as the primary cause of death but rather a phenomenon that definitely pushed it above a normal flu, especially for healthy young adults.
- munificent 3y ago
  > Was the spanish flu actually that bad Yes. > was it actually a fairly bad flu that wreaked havoc on a war-torn population? No, because those affected worst by it were young adults in relatively good health. Small children and the elderly were proportionally spared. The prevailing theory for why Spanish flu killed more healthy young adults was because it was an over-reaction of the immune system itself that was most harmful: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytokine_storm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytokine_storm It is definitely the case that the war led to many young adults being moved around the world and kept in close quarters, which certainly exacerbated the spread and effect of the pandemic.
TheAceOfHearts 3y ago
Images play a big role in how events are perceived. Whenever there's a natural disaster you tend to see all of the worst examples, even if they're not fully representative of the event. But I think it's sometimes necessary in order to get people to take these events seriously, since they can negatively affect so many people. Otherwise people might look at images where some things look normal and think that those who were most affected are overstating the impact of the event. Another example that comes to mind is the 2020 protests. If I looked at how conservative news was reporting on events, it seemed utterly chaotic. But I had multiple friends that were present at many local events, and they were all perfectly safe.
- hammock 3y ago
  Why have you been downvoted?
- munificent 3y ago
  As someone who has experienced several serious floods, this is my favorite example of imagery's ability to craft a reality: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgm3_jzcNm4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgm3_jzcNm4 Floodwaters tend to stir up a lot of dirt and mud, so the water is usually totally opaque. That makes it very hard to tell how deep it is. A lot of overhead views of flooded neighborhoods look completely disastrous, but in reality it's just a foot or two of water that will just go away once the drains can handle it. But, sometimes, flooding really is severe and the damage is monumental. But it can be hard to distinguish those from imagery. Every picture of a flood looks biblical.
  - lesuorac 3y ago
    > Is your oar hitting ground I thought it was really weird the way she was paddling but that line at the end of the video is probably the explanation.
  - MisterBastahrd 3y ago
    People also completely underestimate how much force flowing water has. It's hard enough to walk in waist-deep water when it's still. Somehow they see a few feet of rushing water and they think "hey, I'm gonna drive my car through that"
agumonkey 3y ago
This is important, history will remember emotionally charged comments but indeed a lot of what happens is "normal" and forgotten. We could see that in syria or even ukraine.. the geopolitical tension level was completely removed from most day to day stream we could see. I wonder if this bias/memory-capacity is studied, I assume so but I don't know the name :)
pharrington 3y ago
Having an incomplete understanding of history goes both ways. Consider the myriad of diseases that were widespread then, but have practically vanished in modern countries with modern healthcare. Getting brutally-to-fatally sick was common in the early 1900s, and day-to-day life was alot worse because of it. Life in general is better now, and we can keep doing better! And to do better, we have to be honest about history.
throwaway106382 3y ago
It doesn't help that a lot of "history" is actually just propaganda, for example the infamous "iron lungs in the gym" photo during the polio pandemic.
- MisterBastahrd 3y ago
  On the flip side, if you're a Gen Xer, you almost certainly grew up knowing an adult whose health was directly impacted by polio. And if you don't, Mitch McConnell is sitting up there in Congress. One of the reasons he didn't push back so much when they were passing COVID legislation was because of his own experiences as a child.
- Loocid 3y ago
  Can you expand on this? I'm not following what you mean by your example. I tried googling the iron lung image but couldn't find much.
sanderjd 3y ago
I think this is an important lesson for folks struggling with anxiety about what will happen with climate change as well. It is already awful for lots of people and will continue to be, increasingly so to some degree and up to some point, but like it did during Covid and the Cold War and the world wars and the flu pandemic, in aggregate, life will also go on. But I think it's also important to remember that that's only the case in aggregate. For many many individual people, life did not go on during all these events (and all the other tragedies that are constantly happening), they lost their own lives, or their parents, or their children, or their friends. I personally find it really hard to hold both of these truths in my head at once.
rout39574 3y ago
COVID is not a good model for the Spanish influenza. I highly recommend The Great Influenza: https://www.amazon.com/Great-Influenza-Deadliest-Pandemic-History/dp/0143036491 https://www.amazon.com/Great-Influenza-Deadliest-Pandemic-Hi... We were so desperately lucky. It was not "like covid".

nostrebored 3y ago

The historical context also misses a lot of what we know about the impact of malnutrition and stress on the immune system. Was the spanish flu actually that bad, or was it actually a fairly bad flu that wreaked havoc on a war-torn population? Reconciling modern information with historical events is hard. But I think it's completely necessary if we're going to make policy decisions based on history.

gmarx 3y ago
The Spanish flu really was very bad but would not have killed as many people if it occurred today. Malnutrition might have been a factor (though today's obesity rate might also be a problem) but the bigger thing was lack of antibiotics. Flu almost never kills you directly- it's the bacterial pneumonia you develop on top of it that does. Without antibiotics back then there would have been little they could do
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  Bacterial Pneumonia was not the novel danger of the "Spanish" flu; They cytokine storm it caused in perfectly healthy people was horrifying, with perfectly healthy people who would normally fight off any flu dying from this one. A lot of young twenty somethings, strong people who were not malnourished died from it. Hell, people got cytokine storms from COVID-19 and we still can only treat it if we catch it really early, otherwise it's still a great way to die for a normal person.
  - gmarx 3y ago
    That's a hypothesis. It is known that (supposedly) that strain can cause cytokine storm more than other flus do. I would not assume that means cytokine storm was the primary cause of death or even the primary cause of death in young adults. Based on my experience my guess is that the pneumonia was a much bigger cause of death than the storm
    - mrguyorama 3y ago
      Right I wasn't expressing the cytokine storm as the primary cause of death but rather a phenomenon that definitely pushed it above a normal flu, especially for healthy young adults.
munificent 3y ago
> Was the spanish flu actually that bad Yes. > was it actually a fairly bad flu that wreaked havoc on a war-torn population? No, because those affected worst by it were young adults in relatively good health. Small children and the elderly were proportionally spared. The prevailing theory for why Spanish flu killed more healthy young adults was because it was an over-reaction of the immune system itself that was most harmful: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytokine_storm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytokine_storm It is definitely the case that the war led to many young adults being moved around the world and kept in close quarters, which certainly exacerbated the spread and effect of the pandemic.

TheAceOfHearts 3y ago

Images play a big role in how events are perceived. Whenever there's a natural disaster you tend to see all of the worst examples, even if they're not fully representative of the event. But I think it's sometimes necessary in order to get people to take these events seriously, since they can negatively affect so many people. Otherwise people might look at images where some things look normal and think that those who were most affected are overstating the impact of the event. Another example that comes to mind is the 2020 protests. If I looked at how conservative news was reporting on events, it seemed utterly chaotic. But I had multiple friends that were present at many local events, and they were all perfectly safe.

hammock 3y ago
Why have you been downvoted?
munificent 3y ago
As someone who has experienced several serious floods, this is my favorite example of imagery's ability to craft a reality: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgm3_jzcNm4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgm3_jzcNm4 Floodwaters tend to stir up a lot of dirt and mud, so the water is usually totally opaque. That makes it very hard to tell how deep it is. A lot of overhead views of flooded neighborhoods look completely disastrous, but in reality it's just a foot or two of water that will just go away once the drains can handle it. But, sometimes, flooding really is severe and the damage is monumental. But it can be hard to distinguish those from imagery. Every picture of a flood looks biblical.
- lesuorac 3y ago
  > Is your oar hitting ground I thought it was really weird the way she was paddling but that line at the end of the video is probably the explanation.
- MisterBastahrd 3y ago
  People also completely underestimate how much force flowing water has. It's hard enough to walk in waist-deep water when it's still. Somehow they see a few feet of rushing water and they think "hey, I'm gonna drive my car through that"

agumonkey 3y ago

This is important, history will remember emotionally charged comments but indeed a lot of what happens is "normal" and forgotten. We could see that in syria or even ukraine.. the geopolitical tension level was completely removed from most day to day stream we could see. I wonder if this bias/memory-capacity is studied, I assume so but I don't know the name :)

pharrington 3y ago

Having an incomplete understanding of history goes both ways. Consider the myriad of diseases that were widespread then, but have practically vanished in modern countries with modern healthcare. Getting brutally-to-fatally sick was common in the early 1900s, and day-to-day life was alot worse because of it. Life in general is better now, and we can keep doing better! And to do better, we have to be honest about history.

throwaway106382 3y ago

It doesn't help that a lot of "history" is actually just propaganda, for example the infamous "iron lungs in the gym" photo during the polio pandemic.

MisterBastahrd 3y ago
On the flip side, if you're a Gen Xer, you almost certainly grew up knowing an adult whose health was directly impacted by polio. And if you don't, Mitch McConnell is sitting up there in Congress. One of the reasons he didn't push back so much when they were passing COVID legislation was because of his own experiences as a child.
Loocid 3y ago
Can you expand on this? I'm not following what you mean by your example. I tried googling the iron lung image but couldn't find much.

sanderjd 3y ago

I think this is an important lesson for folks struggling with anxiety about what will happen with climate change as well. It is already awful for lots of people and will continue to be, increasingly so to some degree and up to some point, but like it did during Covid and the Cold War and the world wars and the flu pandemic, in aggregate, life will also go on. But I think it's also important to remember that that's only the case in aggregate. For many many individual people, life did not go on during all these events (and all the other tragedies that are constantly happening), they lost their own lives, or their parents, or their children, or their friends. I personally find it really hard to hold both of these truths in my head at once.

rout39574 3y ago

COVID is not a good model for the Spanish influenza. I highly recommend The Great Influenza: https://www.amazon.com/Great-Influenza-Deadliest-Pandemic-History/dp/0143036491 https://www.amazon.com/Great-Influenza-Deadliest-Pandemic-Hi... We were so desperately lucky. It was not "like covid".