Is this THE pandemic?

[vixb1]

Towards the beginning of the pandemic, I remember reading something about us being "due" a pandemic, but this wasn't it - ie this was all a bit tame.

I keep thinking about it. Now that it's got way more serious - is this now it?!

I think I'm just having a day where I'm struggling to come to terms with the direction this is all going in and the thought of having to face something worse in the future is just unthinkable :-(

I'm sure it'll be a deeply unhelpful post for some people. But for me, I think I need it laying out for me!

What do we think?

We humans have lulled ourselves into a false sense of security, and think that we are in charge of the planet and do what we like to it with impunity.

We're not. We can't. We are spectacularly puny in comparison with what this planet could throw at us. Mother Nature is just giving us a gentle reminder this time.*

Agree

Bold fail

It’s funny how humans think the human race has a right to exist for ever.

In the grand scheme of things existence is quite fragile.
Every so often a large event eg asteroid etc wipes out virtually all life on the planet and it all starts again. It will keep happening. Global warming may be catastrophic but is all part of that cycle, whether human made or not.

[quote Marvelina]@Fembot123 you're speaking from a very privileged position of not suffering from anxiety! You don't just avoid reading in these situations, but the opposite. No need to show such a lack of compassion for somebody who has a young baby and is quite legitimately sensitive about the discussion. [/quote]
Erm I’m not 😂 read my other posts in this thread before commenting. Having a young baby has nothing to do with it, I’ve got children that I don’t want to suffer either. I’m not questioning getting upset by the thread I’m questioning blaming the upset on other posters.

I'm a gardener. It makes perfect sense that there is going to be another, much bigger one. Plant seedlings too close together in a pot and they struggle to be healthy, then the opportunistic pests and diseases arrive.

I read the Fermi link, fascinating! I'm the type of person who wants to know everything about a subject, so now I'm gonna have to write a thesis on it or something. If my grade B in GCSE science will allow it. 🤣 I'm gonna go for the "we're in a giant game of SIMS " angle.

@BarbaraofSeville

^Never mind OP, the magnetic poles of the Earth are due to flip anytime now.

Now that really will be fun^

Before that, half of Gran Canaria will fall into the sea and cause a Tsunami that wipes out most of the Eastern seaboard of North and Central America. Then the overdue eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano will happen and that chain of events will cause the poles to flip.

Or maybe the sun will collapse in on itself and die.

All of the above are reasonably foreseeable and no-one wants to be around during or after any of them.

Don't forget about the San Andreas fault line going!

@Marvelina

I agree with this, I just think that this more rational kind of approach should be applied more broadly to how these things are discussed and supported with the right evidence. I'm not referring to posts like that. I'm referring to posts that blithely predict apocalyptic doom within a few years without that kind of approach/support and I find these very cold and irresponsible.

I think some of the green doom morgering is counter productive - gives many an excuse of inertia as it increasing gets seen as inevitable. There's potential money to be made from green tech and I think some people let the persuit of prefection get in way of improvements.

Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About The World - And Why Things Are Better Than You Think is a book showing how things have improved and many people aren't aware.

There's a lot of foucs on having children but the world population will stablise and around the world fertility levels have rapidly fallen quicker than expected Fertility rate: 'Jaw-dropping' global crash in children being born

People being aware of increased risks of viruses crossing species is good - more attention more work and importantly more funding.

Countries that were hit badly with SARS have on the whole done well with covid - it sucks we seem to have to learn lessosn the hard way but we could have had an even worse experince to learn from.

We've come up with mulitple vaccines in record time found several medical treatments that reduce risk of death - several of those came from UK.

If OP is in UK - it's a rich country with a saftey net currently (though there are holes) politically stable and one of the more gelogical areas in the world - it's one of the better places to be when these possible issues do hit.

@ParlezVousWronglais

It’s funny how humans think the human race has a right to exist for ever.

In the grand scheme of things existence is quite fragile.
Every so often a large event eg asteroid etc wipes out virtually all life on the planet and it all starts again. It will keep happening. Global warming may be catastrophic but is all part of that cycle, whether human made or not.

Yes. It's happened 8 times so far, archaeologists say.

@Catawaul

I read the Fermi link, fascinating! I'm the type of person who wants to know everything about a subject, so now I'm gonna have to write a thesis on it or something. If my grade B in GCSE science will allow it. 🤣 I'm gonna go for the "we're in a giant game of SIMS " angle.

There is a science fiction series of books about that being the case, I am trying to remember its name. Glad you enjoyed reading about it, it blows my mind!

@NastyBlouse

HIV and AIDS is the pandemic.

AIDS-related illnesses have killed somewhere between 30 and 40 million people, which is somewhere between a third and a half of the total number of people infected with HIV. It killed almost three-quarters of a million people in 2019.

There's still no cure after over 40 years (although the preventions and treatments are getting better) and the death rate is 100% without medical intervention.

Covid is barely a footnote compared to AIDS.

Good post.

@Fembot123 ah but the problem with anxiety is it needs feeding! You do it subconsciously. And then before you realise what you’re doing you’ve fallen down a rabbit hole and scared the shit out of yourself. It’s tricky to get a balance between wanting to be informed/finding something interesting and feeding the intrusive thoughts. I’m getting therapy for it and am working on it but it gets you when you’re not expecting it, when you think you’ve got a handle on it and are reading something you find interesting then it spirals from there.
I can see how it would come across though

[quote squishedblueberry]@Fembot123 ah but the problem with anxiety is it needs feeding! You do it subconsciously. And then before you realise what you’re doing you’ve fallen down a rabbit hole and scared the shit out of yourself. It’s tricky to get a balance between wanting to be informed/finding something interesting and feeding the intrusive thoughts. I’m getting therapy for it and am working on it but it gets you when you’re not expecting it, when you think you’ve got a handle on it and are reading something you find interesting then it spirals from there.
I can see how it would come across though[/quote]
I know, I really do, you’ve seen it and then you can’t breathe but it’s like a scab you can’t leave alone. I’m only saying you can’t blame others for saying these things or assume they are gleeful about it. I’ve had an awful fear of death and medical anxiety since I was young and at the height of the pandemic I was very mentally ill but I’ve started reading a little bit about the stuff that scared me, kind of like introducing an allergen bit by bit 😬 and now the hyperbole that would have triggered back to back panic attacks back then doesn’t have the same effect. I’m sorry if I was too blunt and I didn’t mean to upset you. Enjoy your baby and I hope you continue to feel better.

@Fembot123 not at all just caught me at a bad moment which wasn’t your fault at all :)
I’ve kind of been trying to do the same, sometimes it works, sometimes it freaks me out more!