Orderly dying

[scaredyclassic]

So last year there were around 3.1 million total deaths. Covid provided a slight up blip but really, still a small percentage. Total deaths have been on the rise anyway, cause theres so damn many of us, and we are old.

Total births, 3.8 million.

So humans are still winning! Yay, homo sapiens.

Its terrible when people die, or is it? Let me rephrase, its terrible for us, the living, when someone we love dies…

but its more the idea of disorderly death–no hospital beds, seemingly avoidable cause, barred from family while sick that is for me more upsetting.

When you look at the numbers, from a cold, distant viewpoint, the numbers are round the same ballpark, and trending toward more more more of us. Yeah some of those babes will die, but women just keep having em!

Humans, amirite?

Maybe i did get a little overfreaked out by covid.

As they say, everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die.

[ucodegen]

I always felt the drama on COVID-19 was a bit overdone. It is a disease to be concerned about, but it is no small-pox, black-death nor ‘Spanish’ flu. Because the population is larger – deaths will be correspondingly higher. Because the population now lives closer together – means any disease can spread faster.

As I am getting older.. grayer.. I realize that the quality of life is really important, don’t stress out on the small stuff. I wish to live as health, active and rational as possible… then hope to pass quickly.

My theory on death is that the result is not ‘Heaven’.. but that we are currently in what could be called ‘Purgatory’; where we have to get our individual acts together. If we die, we start over until the lessons are learned by our souls… then it is??(Different plane of existence?) If we really screw up, we may come back as another ‘lessor’ life form – ie. Rat? Mouse? Amoeba and have to work back up the chain. I find the concept that the best of the end of life is sitting around strumming a harp as being incredibly boring.

[spdrun]

COVID has probably killed 600,000 people in the US.

Spanish Flu killed about 675,000. With population in 1918 being 1/3 of what it is today, this would be equivalent to 2 million.

This being said, say half of those people could have been saved using modern healthcare and antibiotics — maybe Spanish Flu would have only killed a million people with modern medicine.

Also, people were MORE crowded in 1918. Cities were actually more densely populated … Manhattan had a population 1.5x that of its present population, even though there were fewer housing units (many apartment buildings were built in the 20s and 30s!). We were coming off a war, so soldiers were coming home packed into troop ships. There wasn’t as much ability to “work from home.”

So despite lack of social distancing and lack of modern medicine, Spanish Flu only killed 3x the number of people as COVID did today. And COVID is far from done with us. If COVID had emerged in 1918, I suspect it would have been as bad (or worse) than the Spanish Flu.

[scaredyclassic]

[quote=spdrun]COVID has probably killed 600,000 people in the US.

Spanish Flu killed about 675,000. With population in 1918 being 1/3 of what it is today, this would be equivalent to 2 million.

This being said, say half of those people could have been saved using modern healthcare and antibiotics — maybe Spanish Flu would have only killed a million people with modern medicine.

Also, people were MORE crowded in 1918. Cities were actually more densely populated … Manhattan had a population 1.5x that of its present population, even though there were fewer housing units (many apartment buildings were built in the 20s and 30s!). We were coming off a war, so soldiers were coming home packed into troop ships. There wasn’t as much ability to “work from home.”

So despite lack of social distancing and lack of modern medicine, Spanish Flu only killed 3x the number of people as COVID did today. And COVID is far from done with us. If COVID had emerged in 1918, I suspect it would have been as bad (or worse) than the Spanish Flu.[/quote]

Fair enough. But its still not a lot percentage wise. Just …disorderly.

And its not the black death.

[scaredyclassic]

[quote=ucodegen]I always felt the drama on COVID-19 was a bit overdone. It is a disease to be concerned about, but it is no small-pox, black-death nor ‘Spanish’ flu. Because the population is larger – deaths will be correspondingly higher. Because the population now lives closer together – means any disease can spread faster.

As I am getting older.. grayer.. I realize that the quality of life is really important, don’t stress out on the small stuff. I wish to live as health, active and rational as possible… then hope to pass quickly.

My theory on death is that the result is not ‘Heaven’.. but that we are currently in what could be called ‘Purgatory’; where we have to get our individual acts together. If we die, we start over until the lessons are learned by our souls… then it is??(Different plane of existence?) If we really screw up, we may come back as another ‘lessor’ life form – ie. Rat? Mouse? Amoeba and have to work back up the chain. I find the concept that the best of the end of life is sitting around strumming a harp as being incredibly boring.[/quote]

The creator is a sadistic teacher/taskmaster who likes to watch us flail about in various conditions and judge us, according to unclear standards, rewarding winners and squashing losers.

Maybe trump is the Lord. Or capitalism? Or our superego. Or all 3? The holy trinity.

It could be just as ive expected all along …the universe is a giant rat race, but the rat race is inside us.

And why are there no professional rat races being run? So much cheaper to keep than ponies.

[sdrealtor]

I can’t believe people are still having these conversations. The death toll was only what it was because of the “drama” and it being “overdone”. Such short memories have you of pandemics and housing bubbles

[scaredyclassic]

Right. We couldve done better…agreed. probably couldve kept deaths down from 500k to 100k

But in the scheme of things, the human portfolio if you will, isnt it a small loss? Im speaking from a nonhumancentric viewpoint. Kind of a drop in the bucket? if you took that percentage loss on a specific holding in your financial portfolio, it would be irrelevant. and nothing compared to gains in other areas: babies! new drugs and surgeries! etc.

or If we heard say, there were a 10 perce. Increase on total lost forest, or a 10 perc species extinction, wed take it in stride. no one would be like, WE MUST ACT! we’d be like, meh. like we are right this minute. meh.
give me money. ecosystem trouble? ho-hum.

But we lose our minds if an extra less than 1/10 of 1 perc of us die? I’m not saying that we should’ve stayed open to benefit the economy. quite the opposite.

just that our deaths are kind of not that big a deal, really, so long as they happen in an orderly, somewhat predictable manner , and aren’t caused by other’s carelessness or disregard for us, such that we are enraged by a particular localized injustice, in which case we get really really worked up. Look, if I knew I was gonna have a heart attack tonight for sure and die tonight, i’d still be outraged if some drunk driver KIlled me this afternoon.

I’d be like, that rude, non-mask wearing, bad driving moron!

And although i’m arguing that human life is not worth all that much in aggregate, Im not talking about the individual lives, which are obviously infinitely precious to each of us, and precious to our loved ones, in some cases.

Im talking the global perspective, as seen froma distance, not alpha centauri distant, maybe just from the Moon, where our lives seem to be not very valuable.

Humans gonna human. Dumber than rocks. Not gonna be careful.

look at it this way; an extra 500,000 iraqis died in the iraq war. but really, who cares? Do we worry about it, or even remotely feel anything? barely. because it’s a drop in the bucket, right? and who are they anyway? nobody. why does their country end with a Q? don’t they know that q’s must be followed by u’s? barbarians!

covid seems worse because it highlights how much we truly dont give a shit about each other in our own society, financially, physically, etc.

. on the other hand, if we weren’t such a bunch of pleasure and sensation seeking, self-centered, restless, risk taking jerks. perhaps the economy as we know it would come to a standstill.

all that we’d sell would be a bowl and aspoon, a meditation mat, and a blanket.

[scaredyclassic]

“Man is troubled not by events, but by the meaning he gives to them.”

― Epictetus

old bastard might be right.

[ucodegen]

[quote=scaredyclassic]
The creator is a sadistic teacher/taskmaster who likes to watch us flail about in various conditions and judge us, according to unclear standards, rewarding winners and squashing losers.

Maybe trump is the Lord. Or capitalism? Or our superego. Or all 3? The holy trinity.

It could be just as ive expected all along …the universe is a giant rat race, but the rat race is inside us.

And why are there no professional rat races being run? So much cheaper to keep than ponies.[/quote]
Deteriorata comes to mind…

[ucodegen]

[quote=sdrealtor]I can’t believe people are still having these conversations. The death toll was only what it was because of the “drama” and it being “overdone”. Such short memories have you of pandemics and housing bubbles[/quote]
There was a lot of incompetence to spread around here, which is quite likely part of the cause of the death toll. At the same time, the drama may have caused some people to disregard some of the precautions they should have taken. What I have been talking about is compared to the drama the media presented along the lines of ‘Dirty Laundry’, it was not as catastrophic as it was pumped up to be.

Drama without good facts is useless(I was not listening to the media – I was pulling down research papers to find out what was happening). Even officials were contradicting themselves on how bad it was at the beginning. China(CCP) and WHO were saying it was nothing far into the situation and they have ‘revised the facts’ to make it look like they warned people sooner than they actually did.

[sdrealtor]

I think I might not be making my point. It was not as catastrophic BECAUSE it was pumped to be. People stayed home, businesses shut down, people wore masks and socially distanced. In the absence of that it would have been as catastrophic as it was pumped up to be. We dodged a much worse situation through the actions taken here and abroad.

[scaredyclassic]

[quote=sdrealtor]I think I might not be making my point. It was not as catastrophic BECAUSE it was pumped to be. People stayed home, businesses shut down, people wore masks and socially distanced. In the absence of that it would have been as catastrophic as it was pumped up to be. We dodged a much worse situation through the actions taken here and abroad.[/quote]

I suppose. Although we did do pretty damn bad.

[scaredyclassic]

[quote=ucodegen][quote=scaredyclassic]
The creator is a sadistic teacher/taskmaster who likes to watch us flail about in various conditions and judge us, according to unclear standards, rewarding winners and squashing losers.

Maybe trump is the Lord. Or capitalism? Or our superego. Or all 3? The holy trinity.

It could be just as ive expected all along …the universe is a giant rat race, but the rat race is inside us.

And why are there no professional rat races being run? So much cheaper to keep than ponies.[/quote]
Deteriorata comes to mind…[/quote]

National lampoon had a strong early influence on me

[ucodegen]

[quote=sdrealtor]It was not as catastrophic BECAUSE it was pumped to be. People stayed home, businesses shut down, people wore masks and socially distanced. In the absence of that it would have been as catastrophic as it was pumped up to be. We dodged a much worse situation through the actions taken here and abroad.[/quote]I got your point, but I said the point is not quite as valid as you are trying to make it. The steps of staying home, social distancing were not necessarily hysteria, however “it would have been as catastrophic as it was pumped up to be” may not be as true.. remember Sweden. On top of this, the restrictions weren’t always consistent. For example, Home Depot at restricted opening at so called 25% – the interpersonal spacing ended up being 100’… not 6, not 12 etc. The restrictions were applied somewhat capriciously.

As I said, hysteria without real facts make it sound like a chicken who said the sky was falling because a nut landed on its head.

Yes there were real facts. It was known towards the end of February 2020 that COVID-19 was airborne. Something that didn’t come out until much later.

Another fact; whether you get a viral infection also greatly depends upon the duration of exposure and the ‘strength’ of exposure. Light exposure for short durations separated by time can actually immunize because the viral load is so light that first level defenses (like white blood cells) can take care of it. The body analyses the results and can use that to build up antibodies(which are specific to a type of infection).

[barnaby33]

[quote=sdrealtor]I think I might not be making my point. It was not as catastrophic BECAUSE it was pumped to be. People stayed home, businesses shut down, people wore masks and socially distanced. In the absence of that it would have been as catastrophic as it was pumped up to be. We dodged a much worse situation through the actions taken here and abroad.[/quote]

I am going to take the under on that one. Nobody knows what the death toll might have been that’s wild speculation. You can however measure the damage done by the economic toll it took upon the living. COVID was and is inter generational warfare. I say that as someone who obeys the mask wearing/virtue signaling crowd.

This disease is not lethal enough not even by half to even put a small dent in our society. Mostly it killed and injured those with serious pre existing conditions and the elderly. There were and are measures we should take to keep it from roaring back, but saying that the death toll was kept low because of the measures we took is seriously lacking in rigor.
Josh

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