Comment by NoOneNew | Hacker News Reader

Comment by NoOneNew | Hacker News Reader

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Yay, someone else that's sober.

I dont understand the constant need to radicalize every problem as we technically are "fixing" things. Less war, less natural cause deaths other than old age, less world wide poverty, the world is getting better on a whole. Still plenty of serious problems. No one should discount that. But I had to stop watching the general news the past few months because it seemed like we were living during the black death, world war 1 and 2, and the American civil war (I'm in the US) all at the same time. We're not. Things aren't perfect, but holy shit things were far worse roughly 100 years ago. Theres a point where every radical on any political spectrum needs to get hit with a belt in the ass and told to stand in the corner, same goes for the general media. We all need to take a deep breath, be grateful that things aren't as bad as during our grandparents time, quit thinking the world will end tomorrow, and calmly fix things together. But hey, that's all crazy talk and doesn't produce ad clicks for google, facebook and twitter.

> world war 1 and 2, and the American civil war

More Americans have died from COVID in the last 9 months than the Americans who died in WWI, and we've surpassed the American South's Civil War deaths, and are approaching how many died fighting for the North, too.

The us population in 1918 was about 100 million. It's now about 330m. We have 3 times plus the population since world war 1.

116k americans died in ww1 with a 100m population.

271k died of covid with a 330m population.

One death is one too many, but we recovered from the civil war which was 600k+ deaths with a 31m population at the time.

Covid isn't the end of the world. We can recover. The world has been through far, far worse. Stop being a fucking doomsday prophet.

>> More Americans have died from COVID in the last 9 months than the Americans who died in WWI, and we've surpassed the American South's Civil War deaths, and are approaching how many died fighting for the North, too.

> One death is one too many, but we recovered from the civil war which was 600k+ deaths with a 31m population at the time.

> Covid isn't the end of the world. We can recover. The world has been through far, far worse. Stop being a fucking doomsday prophet.

Let's have a nuclear war, then. Sure it will cause massive death and destruction, but we don't have to worry about that because the Black Death shows we'll eventually recover [1].

Massive tragedies from that past don't free us from having to worry about similarly-sized tragedies in the present, but those acknowledged tragedies can help us acknowledge the scope of the current tragedy.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death: "The Black Death ... is estimated to have killed 30% to 60% of Europe's population.... it took until 1500 for the European population to regain the levels of 1300."

Wtf? So you take the statement that we can recover and shouldn't believe in doomsday as let's just kill each other? What are you, a Stalinist?

You realize the rhetoric of life being over as we know it is increasing suicide rates. People are literally killing themselves because they dont want to live in the narrative that life as we know it is down hill from here. What in the hell is wrong with you people? Yea, I dont like Trump that much either, that doesn't mean we just burn the fucking world or imagine that it's incapable of recovery.

When I say we can recover is strictly to keep your head up high and continue to do some good because it can payoff down the line. Giving up and crying about doomsday will lead to nothing but more pain and suffering. But I guess you want that since you're a nuclear war advocate.

> Wtf? So you take the statement that we can recover and shouldn't believe in doomsday as let's just kill each other? What are you, a Stalinist? ... But I guess you want that since you're a nuclear war advocate.

Do you understand sarcasm?

> You realize the rhetoric of life being over as we know it is increasing suicide rates. People are literally killing themselves because they dont want to live in the narrative that life as we know it is down hill from here.

There's actually little to no "rhetoric of life being [permanently] over as we know it [due to COVID]" except as a straw man. There is rhetoric arguing for temporary sacrifices for the greater good, and also rhetoric downplaying or denying the situation to argue against making those sacrifices.

A proper appreciation of the seriousness of the situation is not "being a fucking doomsday prophet," as you said; rather it's the mindset that steels one to make the sacrifices that need to be made with the hope that they'll work.

You have to frame the number in percentage of population. More people died because there are more people period.

Also you need to make your timeline bigger. Extend the timeline to Past the dark ages.

The population has only increased by 15% since September 11, 2001, and yet in the last 9 months we've had 91 times more American deaths from COVID than we did on 9/11. Every 2 to 3 days, we have another 9/11's worth of COVID deaths.

September 11, 2001 was recent news, I'm old.

The initial poster (me) is talking about timescales much bigger than 9/11. There was a time where if your neighbor dropped dead from the black death it was normal. Right now most people don't know anyone who was even in the building when 9/11 happened.

Keep in mind the amount of car accidents in the US constitutes a mass slaughter on a scale far larger than anything you can comprehend yet you are ignoring it. There are plenty of things far worse than COVID deaths and 9/11 going on in the world right now... YET we are still more at peace and safer than we ever have been before.

Does that make you evil and heartless for completely ignoring how car manufactures and drivers are slaughtering people? No. It doesn't. But it does highlight the fact that you are using and throwing around numbers to raise emotions the same way the media does.

Just to keep things in perspective.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_Sta...

Both are about 100 deaths per day JUST in the US.

> Keep in mind the amount of car accidents in the US constitutes a mass slaughter on a scale far larger than anything you can comprehend yet you are ignoring it.

I'm not ignoring it, I've even posted about it recently[1]. A typical flu season incurs more deaths than automobiles cause. The former incurs about 40k, while automobiles cause about 32k.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25258632

So then why throw numbers around and compare things to 9/11. There's no point. The pandemic is something we have to deal with but it doesn't change the fact that we are more at peace than ever before.

Why do you have to turn everything up to 11 and call red alert, there's no need.

Well, I find it strange that people are easily triggered by reality, so much so that they want to drown it out, ignore it and think that those who are not content with the status quo should be "hit with a belt in the ass and told to stand in the corner", like the comment I replied to said.

I also find it strange that I'm being accused of "calling red alert" and am told to "Stop being a fucking doomsday prophet"[1] for stating simple statistics by the very same people who are using statistics to drive their arguments. I even went a step further and stated hard figures.

If we're going to rely on a utilitarian metric for peace and human suffering, and use that metric to dismiss criticism of the status quo, what's the issue with using hard figures?

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25279160

>for stating simple statistics

No you're deliberately calling out numbers that blows things out of proportion. 9/11 was deliberately used because it was a tragedy. Why didn't you compare COVID to car accidents which is the bigger more comparable number? Because you want to raise emotions. Don't pretend.

You're not a doomsday prophet but you are definitely manipulating the situation towards your own skewed perspective, you were dialing it up to 11, you're just back pedaling now.

If you indeed had something unbiased to say you would not have brought 9/11 out of nowhere to say that covid is like a bunch of 9/11s happening back to back because so is the flu so is car accidents. You have an agenda and you are promoting it with biased numbers.

> Well, I find it strange that people are easily triggered by reality, so much so that they want to drown it out, ignore it and think that those who are not content with the status quo should be "hit with a belt in the ass and told to stand in the corner", like the comment I replied to said.

Triggered by reality? Nobody is triggered here. We're saying calm down. You're the one that's bringing up 9/11 trying to trigger everyone.

Nobody is saying be content with the status quo, what we're saying is that don't push the panic button, we are not in a 9/11 panic situation... humanity is more at peace then ever before and the numbers show it when you look at the overall timeline of human existence.

I am saying that much of it should be drowned out though. All the news you've been inundated with 2 months ago is already outdated. You're loaded with an over dramatization of problems that humanity basically deals with on a normal basis and becomes useless and outdated within a week let alone a month.

It never was normal to see a neighbor dropping dead from the black death. Pandemics never were a normal state of affairs.

Right now many/most vehicle fatalities were people fully aware of the danger of those vehicles and willing to use them. And most "gun violence" fatalities were suicides (people willing to die). In contrast nearly nobody "accepts" to be exposed to a potentially deadly virus.

More people live in poverty now than ever before. The overall percentage may have decreased, but the sheer number is greater. Technically more people suffer now than ever in history. It doesn't matter that there's more. This is just an example of statistics hiding how bad things truly are.

The scale is greater now than it was back then. Now, a city of millions can be obliterated in an instant. Now, we can see the effects of global warming and how it can decimate the world's food supply.

We have more knowledge now than ever before - and before, ignorance was bliss.

>More people live in poverty now than ever before. The overall percentage may have decreased, but the sheer number is greater.

The sheer number doesn't matter when compared to the percentage. The percentage is the real number that measures our progress and the actual number is an illusion.

100 people die of car accidents per day does that mean we ban cars? No. The sheer number is an illusion the percentage is the real deal.

>The scale is greater now than it was back then. Now, a city of millions can be obliterated in an instant. Now, we can see the effects of global warming and how it can decimate the world's food supply.

Nobody is saying these aren't threats or problems. But compared with the past these problems are looming problems that we have to deal with as a society.

A peasant in the dark ages had to deal with starvation, black death or invaders. These were actual threats in the sense that an average conversation will be like: "Last week Martha got her head chopped off by a barbarian and Bob died of starvation. "

I get your point - but when we're talking about suffering, the amount matters. It doesn't matter if we reduce pollution if we're still causing global warming - things may be better, but that doesn't mean they're good enough.

> A peasant in the dark ages had to deal with starvation, black death or invaders. These were actual threats in the sense that an average conversation will be like: "Last week Martha got her head chopped off by a barbarian and Bob died of starvation. "

To even suggest starvation doesn't exist is...I don't even have the words.

Did you hear about the Nigerian farmers who were executed last week by Boko Haram? Not very different than a barbarian raiding a small village.

>To even suggest starvation doesn't exist is...I don't even have the words.

Stop over dramatizing the situation. Obviously I'm not saying it doesn't exist. I'm obviously not implying it.

What I am implying is that starvation is dramatically lower in percentage then it was in the past.

>Did you hear about the Nigerian farmers who were executed last week by Boko Haram? Not very different than a barbarian raiding a small village.

Again tragic but in the big scheme of things historically this would be something happening across the street from you. Nowadays it's happening in few places but you think it's a huge deal because the news manages to cover it.

No over dramatization - sorry if I struck a nerve with such an innocuous comment.

> What I am implying is that starvation is dramatically lower in percentage then it was in the past.

You aren't implying it. You're directly stating it. This isn't in debate, what's in debate is if, even if the percentage is better, more total suffer. Is that actually a moral good?

It's like saying "we've killed 90% of your cancer cells, but weren't able to kill all of them. The cancer will still kill you, but we killed a greater percentage of it! yay us!" It doesn't make sense in certain scenarios and is only helpful as a delta - plus, to even suggest that we have less poverty than ever in history is unsubstantiated with fact.

Well, it's all in the heads...

There's rich interaction between how the world is, how one perceives it and how you act on the beliefs you acquire.

And I agree, the technical data concerning (physical) violence, disease and wealth look good.

But that's not all there is to life, is it?

No, of course it's not all of life. But it's base factors. Kind of like basic survival situations. You need shelter, water and food. If you dont have that, you're chances of long term survival and/or happiness are close to zero. If you're under constant threat of physical harm, liable to get gravely sick and poor as a church mouse, your not going to have a good time either. It's easier to have a strong family, good friends and fulfilling hobbies and interests when the base 3 are at least stable, slightly leaning towards good. And of course I'm speaking generally, there are always exceptions, but to pretend exceptions are the norm isn't healthy either.

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