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That is survivorship bias. Just because the human race hasn't yet been completely wiped out by a pandemic doesn't mean that there is no possibility that a pand

by steven2012 12y ago

That is survivorship bias. Just because the human race hasn't yet been completely wiped out by a pandemic doesn't mean that there is no possibility that a pandemic can kill every single human on Earth. The Black Death killed half of all Europeans, which is pretty horrifying.

TeMPOraL 12y ago
And that was before people lived together in a hyperconnected global urban society that eats petroleum and breathes electricity. A virus doesn't have to kill half of the Europe or US to kicks the western civilization back to medieval.
- serge2k 12y ago
  No, it was when people in cities lived in terrible conditions and had nothing even approaching the basic aspects of modern medical care.
  - TeMPOraL 12y ago
    Urban density back then was nothing comparable to what we have today. But still, the major issue is that feeding all those people heavily depends on long supply chains and energy infrastructure. In the US, only 2% of people are directly employed in agriculture, and that agriculture is working on "petroleum in, food out" basis. The virus doesn't have to kill half of the population to cripple the west. It only has to disturb food production and energy infrastructure enough for modern civilization to collapse under its own weight.
    - maxerickson 12y ago
      There is quite a lot of resiliency hidden in animal feed. GMO field Corn and soy beans aren't the most exciting thing to eat, but the annual US harvest (~350 million metric ton of corn alone) provides something like years of calories per US person. (I am presuming that it would be possible to bring in at least 1 seasonal harvest on an emergency basis, I don't think this is a huge assumption, especially given the way big harvests are already done, with specialist equipment starting in the south and working their way north)
davesque 12y ago
True. The argument wasn't logically sound. Although, to be clear, I was not saying that there was no possibility as you're now claiming. And I'm not sure how your statement about the Black Death supports your argument. As we all know, the Black Death passed. It continues to pop up from time to time, but that's true of almost any disease. Perhaps a more convincing statistic would be that Ebola does not have a 100% mortality rate. This would suggest that, technically, it will pass since there will be survivors. Again, I think people are more concerned about how quickly that will happen and if/when it will resurface, which it probably will.
- steven2012 12y ago
  To be clear, I don't believe this currently outbreak of Ebola is going to infect everyone, and I do believe it will pass. I'm just saying that there could very well be a pandemic some time in the future that does take a massive toll on the human population. The reason I say that is because it has happened many times in the past, even within the 20th century.
ObviousScience 12y ago
It would require an extremely extraordinary death rate to kill all humans. It would require that three diseases with a 90% kill rate strike in quick succession to drive humanity down to a few million survivors. Not even the current outbreak of ebola is up to that kill rate, nevermind where the other two plagues would come from.
- serge2k 12y ago
  The more likely scenario is that an extremely contagious and deadly virus would wipe out enough people to start to destabilize our society, then we would wipe out more of ourselves.
  - ObviousScience 12y ago
    Okay, substitute crazed survivors for the second of the three plagues, and famine for the third. Assume that both of these kill 90% of the people at the time. That still leaves 7 million humans on the planet, and the ones most likely to be left at the end of that are also those most likely to have already dealt with basic security and food. My point wasn't that it would be a good thing, just that killing ALL humans is a much harder task than it sounds.
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  It's enough for a virus to seriously disturb energy infrastructure. The cities will depopulate themselves. Civilization will fall as famine sweeps the nations.
  - ObviousScience 12y ago
    So what? My point wasn't that lots of people wouldn't die, it's that it's remarkably hard to kill all humans. Even if 90% of people died to a disease, people fighting killed 90% of the ebola survivors, and famine killed 90% of the fighting survivors, we'd still have 7 million humans left on Earth. Nothing you've outlined even pushes us out of the millions of people alive range - not by a longshot, considering none of those things mentioned above would actually be 90% deadly. My point was entirely that it's not an existential threat to humanity, and the only things that can actually pose such a threat are environmental (eg, the planet enters a new ice age, but even this might not be existential) or astronomical scale (meteors, gamma ray bursts, etc). Ed: Using slightly more reasonable numbers of disease killing 60%, fighting after killing 60% of the disease survivors, and famine killing 60% of the fighting survivors, over one billion people would be left on the planet. A catastrophe bigger than anything we've faced before, for sure, but not an existential threat to the species.

TeMPOraL 12y ago

And that was before people lived together in a hyperconnected global urban society that eats petroleum and breathes electricity. A virus doesn't have to kill half of the Europe or US to kicks the western civilization back to medieval.

serge2k 12y ago
No, it was when people in cities lived in terrible conditions and had nothing even approaching the basic aspects of modern medical care.
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  Urban density back then was nothing comparable to what we have today. But still, the major issue is that feeding all those people heavily depends on long supply chains and energy infrastructure. In the US, only 2% of people are directly employed in agriculture, and that agriculture is working on "petroleum in, food out" basis. The virus doesn't have to kill half of the population to cripple the west. It only has to disturb food production and energy infrastructure enough for modern civilization to collapse under its own weight.
  - maxerickson 12y ago
    There is quite a lot of resiliency hidden in animal feed. GMO field Corn and soy beans aren't the most exciting thing to eat, but the annual US harvest (~350 million metric ton of corn alone) provides something like years of calories per US person. (I am presuming that it would be possible to bring in at least 1 seasonal harvest on an emergency basis, I don't think this is a huge assumption, especially given the way big harvests are already done, with specialist equipment starting in the south and working their way north)

davesque 12y ago

True. The argument wasn't logically sound. Although, to be clear, I was not saying that there was no possibility as you're now claiming. And I'm not sure how your statement about the Black Death supports your argument. As we all know, the Black Death passed. It continues to pop up from time to time, but that's true of almost any disease. Perhaps a more convincing statistic would be that Ebola does not have a 100% mortality rate. This would suggest that, technically, it will pass since there will be survivors. Again, I think people are more concerned about how quickly that will happen and if/when it will resurface, which it probably will.

steven2012 12y ago
To be clear, I don't believe this currently outbreak of Ebola is going to infect everyone, and I do believe it will pass. I'm just saying that there could very well be a pandemic some time in the future that does take a massive toll on the human population. The reason I say that is because it has happened many times in the past, even within the 20th century.

ObviousScience 12y ago

It would require an extremely extraordinary death rate to kill all humans. It would require that three diseases with a 90% kill rate strike in quick succession to drive humanity down to a few million survivors. Not even the current outbreak of ebola is up to that kill rate, nevermind where the other two plagues would come from.

serge2k 12y ago
The more likely scenario is that an extremely contagious and deadly virus would wipe out enough people to start to destabilize our society, then we would wipe out more of ourselves.
- ObviousScience 12y ago
  Okay, substitute crazed survivors for the second of the three plagues, and famine for the third. Assume that both of these kill 90% of the people at the time. That still leaves 7 million humans on the planet, and the ones most likely to be left at the end of that are also those most likely to have already dealt with basic security and food. My point wasn't that it would be a good thing, just that killing ALL humans is a much harder task than it sounds.
TeMPOraL 12y ago
It's enough for a virus to seriously disturb energy infrastructure. The cities will depopulate themselves. Civilization will fall as famine sweeps the nations.
- ObviousScience 12y ago
  So what? My point wasn't that lots of people wouldn't die, it's that it's remarkably hard to kill all humans. Even if 90% of people died to a disease, people fighting killed 90% of the ebola survivors, and famine killed 90% of the fighting survivors, we'd still have 7 million humans left on Earth. Nothing you've outlined even pushes us out of the millions of people alive range - not by a longshot, considering none of those things mentioned above would actually be 90% deadly. My point was entirely that it's not an existential threat to humanity, and the only things that can actually pose such a threat are environmental (eg, the planet enters a new ice age, but even this might not be existential) or astronomical scale (meteors, gamma ray bursts, etc). Ed: Using slightly more reasonable numbers of disease killing 60%, fighting after killing 60% of the disease survivors, and famine killing 60% of the fighting survivors, over one billion people would be left on the planet. A catastrophe bigger than anything we've faced before, for sure, but not an existential threat to the species.