from Hacker News

How Apocalyptic Is Now?

by jajag on 5/16/20, 11:17 AM with 91 comments

by mathdev on 5/16/20, 12:30 PM
Interesting predictions. However, they do not fit the facts on the ground, at least here in Poland, which is some weeks ahead of the US with respect to the development of the epidemic.
(I'm relieved that) people have gotten sick and tired of the restrictions, about 50% (and growing every day) are not wearing the masks inside anymore, or bother with the distancing, despite official requirements. All restaurants and bars are opening up on Monday, my favourite one described the prior atmosphere as a "psychosis of fear".
It's interesting what happens when the second wave of infections occurs, which is becoming more and more likely. It's hard to imagine the population will be as fearful and obedient as the first time, should the government try to impose another lockdown.
If, as Nassim Taleb believes, the lockdown was bottom-up, demanded by the people rather than imposed by the government, a repeat seems unlikely. Perhaps that's why the stock market is surging?
by PaulDavisThe1st on 5/16/20, 2:59 PM
I take exception to this analysis:
"The numbers killed in terrorist incidents may be small. But the threat is endemic, and the texture of everyday life has altered profoundly. Video cameras and security procedures in public places have become part of the way we live."
The author writes about this as if our response to terrorism is some sort of deterministic feature of the natural world. Instead, however, our response is series of distinct policy choices, none of which were ever inevitable and all of which are subject to change (even if that change is hard to accomplish).
The security theater in (particularly US) airports is not a deterministic consequence of terrorism - it's the result of the policies of the GW Bush administration. The widespread use of CCTV cameras in the UK is not a deterministic response to crime and/or terrorism - it's the result of several governments worth of explicit policy, as evidenced by the remarkably lower use of such cameras in other nations affected by similar phenomena.
Talking about "what has happened" as if it was inevitable, and not the result of choices made by the powerful is dangerous and dampens the possibility of a belief in other outcomes.
by _aleph2c_ on 5/16/20, 12:53 PM
When our immune system is over-fit to the wrong kind of thing, we call that an allergy. People who have been raised with animals or who have had to fight off parasites tend to have less allergies. I think this idea holds for our society; our societal immune system needs to be tested too, otherwise we attack ourselves (identity politics, the culture wars...) So I disagree with the author, I think we will be better off when this is done. We will go back to the bars and we will enjoy our lives more, we will think about our long term goals and make better efforts to get to them.
by asaegyn on 5/16/20, 12:13 PM
Always amuses me how the apocalypse of Inidgenous Americans never seems to make the cut...
by ceilingcorner on 5/16/20, 1:14 PM
Comparing the coronavirus to the Russian Revolution is so overblown, I can't believe an academic would suggest it with a straight face. This fear-mongering really needs to stop.
by diminish on 5/16/20, 12:25 PM
Russian civil war was also the result of the 400 years of continuous tsarist expansion (among many other reasons); absorbing that much occupied land from baltics to pacific, and a lot of diverse people should be hard.
dramatically the ruling family (romanovs) among the 3 most successful expansionist dynasties next to english & spanish were totally annihilated at the end by their own people.
by lcall on 5/16/20, 4:52 PM
Really, if one is thinking about the end of the world, it is good to prepare, but we don't have to fear as we can be OK. In my belief system we have living prophets (comparable to Noah with the ark, etc etc), and they provide much good advice and support for us in these times. But yes, it is good to be humble & wise, to learn, and to prepare. I've put notes on what/why and how I reliably learned for myself, at my simple site (deals w/ climate change but applies to the rest of it...). I am just me and can be wrong, but am very confident in this case: http://lukecall.net/e-9223372036854581820.html
(ps: I realize this will seem wacko to most, but I'd appreciate it if you skim my reasoning, I worked hard to make it skimmable while saying in detail how I came to these conclusions, and add a reasoned comment, with any downvotes. Thanks.)
by benjaminwootton on 5/16/20, 12:23 PM
Unherd.com have had some of the best journalism of the crisis so far. In particular some of the interviews with epedimiologists:
https://youtu.be/bfN2JWifLCY https://youtu.be/6cYjjEB3Ev8 https://youtu.be/bl-sZdfLcEk
by blumomo on 5/16/20, 5:44 PM
The author is wrong. Apocalyptic in religions means revelations, not necessarily end of the world. It rather means the revelation of what is good and what is evil. It will become clear to people even if they didn’t know that good and evil existed (religious people know that without an apocalypse). Given that, the article bases on a wrong foundation so that the author naturally reaches wrong conclusions. In today’s world some people and especially people in power do lie a lot, which has severe consequences in the bad conditions we‘re living right now. The wake people know that those lies will be disclosed very soon, hence we should see an apocalyptic with Christian eyes, who see the revelation in that the poor politics concerning Covid will not last for very long and we will be shown the truth as part of the revelation (=apocalyptic).
by yogthos on 5/16/20, 1:16 PM
The article seems to completely forget about climate change. The current pandemic is going to look like a tiny speed bump in a few years when we start seeing regular deadly heat waves, crop failures, and other natural disasters. Billions of people are going to be displaced, and we'll see wars for the remaining livable land. The effects of climate change are all around us already, and they're happening much faster than any of the models predicted:
* new research indicates that parts of the Amazon and other tropical forests are now emitting more CO2 than they absorb https://e360.yale.edu/features/why-carbon-cycle-feedbacks-co...
* one billion people will suffer from “unliveable” heat within 50 years, study finds https://e360.yale.edu/digest/one-billion-people-will-suffer-...
* potentially fatal bouts of heat and humidity on the rise, study finds https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/08/climate-...
* study finds ocean ecosystems likely to collapse in 2020s and land species in 2040s unless global warming stemmed https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/08/wildlife...
* studies show drought and heat waves will cause massive die-offs, killing most trees alive today https://insideclimatenews.org/news/24042020/forest-trees-cli...
* multiple overlapping crises could trigger 'Global Systemic Collapse' https://www.sciencealert.com/hundreds-of-top-scientists-warn...
* 246 academics call on government to act now to avoid global collapse https://www.nationalobserver.com/2020/02/04/opinion/246-acad...
* Planet's largest ecosystems collapse faster than previously forecast https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-15029-x
World's oceans are also acidifying to a similar rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification#Rate as the Permian extinction (but again in 100 years instead of 20k-60k), with an anoxic event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anoxic_event#Consequences locked in after 1,000ppm or 360 gigatons https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/09/170920182116.h..., which we will reach by 2100 at the latest. So that's whatever's left wiped out.
And here's what's currently happening with food production. Two different groups of 200+ scientists and academics, separately from each other, each warned of near-term global collapse:
* https://www.sciencealert.com/hundreds-of-top-scientists-warn...
* https://www.nationalobserver.com/2020/02/04/opinion/246-acad...
Examples of record-breaking crop failures currently happening:
* https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/06/midwe...
* https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/19/extreme-heat-wave-hits-us-fa...
* https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/may/15/austr...
* https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jul/20/crop-fai...
* https://www.zerohedge.com/health/historic-midwest-blizzard-h...
* https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-02/low-rice-crop-lead...
* https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/climate-and-people...
* https://phys.org/news/2019-12-climate-whammy-corn-belt.html
* https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/11/12/britain-facing-p...
* https://weather.com/science/environment/news/2019-08-01-drou...
* https://phys.org/news/2020-01-atlantic-circulation-collapse-...
* https://phys.org/news/2019-12-climate-threat-global-breadbas...
* https://phys.org/news/2019-12-large-atmospheric-jet-stream-g...
Scientific studies projecting future crop failures:
* Schlenker and Roberts, 2009. Nonlinear temperature effects indicate severe damages to US crop yields under climate change. PNAS, 106(37), pp.15594-15598 https://www.pnas.org/content/106/37/15594.full
* Mora et al, 2015. Suitable days for plant growth disappear under projected climate change: Potential human and biotic vulnerability. PLoS bio, 13(6), p.e1002167 https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/jou...
* Schauberger et al, 2017. Consistent negative response of US crops to high temperatures in observations and crop models. Nature Comms, 8, p.13931. https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms13931
* Sakschewski et al, 2014. Feeding 10 billion people under climate change: How large is the production gap of current agricultural systems?. Ecological modelling, 288, pp.103-111 https://booksc.xyz/book/30274837/03002c
* Liang et al, 2017. Determining climate effects on US total agricultural productivity. PNAS, 114(12), pp.E2285-E2292 https://www.pnas.org/content/114/12/E2285?collection=
News articles about projected crop failures:
* UN says passing 2C will have a 'very high projected risk' of global food supply instabilities https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/news/climate-change-could-trigg...
* UN says passing 2C would cause 'multi-breadbasket failure' https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/08/climate/climate-change-fo...)
* UN says passing 2C would cause 60% of global wheat to be subjected to 'Severe Water Scarcity (SVS)' drought events https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/09/26/new-research-wa...
Given that our response to the pandemic has been to largely ignore the science and try to get back to business as usual and we're still largely pretending that climate change isn't happening, I don't really have much hope for continued existence of human civilization.
by naveen99 on 5/16/20, 4:40 PM
Agree with the thesis. Change just accelerated. we are as likely to go back to our careless attitude about respiratory infectious disease as we are to doing surgeries without masks and gloves.

by partomniscient on 5/16/20, 2:18 PM

  I am the son, and the heir....
  of an apocolypse that is criminally vulgar.
  I am the son and heir....
  of nothing in particular.

It actually kind of fits.

by nil-sec on 5/16/20, 5:08 PM
I am sorry but this is a ridiculous thesis. This will be over eventually, either by developing a vaccine or by mutation into a more benign strain. Nobody in their right mind will practice social distancing just because they are used to it. No system that goes against basic human drives is stable. Right now there is a risk, benefit balance but once that risk is gone, what exactly will balance this? Laws? They are already in conflict with the constitution, good luck justifying any of this if there is no deadly pathogen around.
by eternalban on 5/16/20, 2:13 PM
unherd’s LockdownTV series — see “Interviews” section in main page — is balanced (in terms of view points) and highly recommended.
On YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMxiv15iK_MFayY_3fU9loQ
by netcan on 5/16/20, 1:19 PM
IMO, trying to understand historical processes in terms of political theories is more noise than signal.
Medieval english king alfred kept a chronicle of his time. Viking invasions such. His "political theories" were religious: righteous christians, pagans, heretics, divine justice & such. That's how they understood their history.
Biblical "chronicles" like the book of kings, judges & such offer a similar take. Sin & righteousness determine wars, invasions, usurpations & coups.... apocalyptical or otherwise.
Move into the French, American & derivitive revolutions of 1700-1800s: Reason, Industrialism, Enlightenment Philosophy & such. revolutions. Political theories. Liberty. Rights. etc. Instead of righteous & piety, radical liberals would build free & just societies.
So... French liberty culminates in a pretty vicious and vindictive early republic which soon crowns an emperor. American liberty did not seem overly bothered by an institution of slavery that was vast and cruel enough to make a pharaoh uneasy. Liberty didn't apply to native americans and often "person" meant just male landowners.
Meanwhile the theoretically opposite British, with their anti-liberal constitutional monarchy... Not really less "liberal" in practice, from a historical perspective.
Liberal or conservative commentators from the period (even modern ones) seem to think everything is derivative of the political theories battling it out. It's not that different from ancient judeans or medieval saxons interpreting every event via their religious lens.
IRL, the relationship between political theories, practice, & history is chaotic & uncorrelated.
Liberalism, socialism, communism, etc.... theory does not generate into reality, hardly ever.
by brenden2 on 5/16/20, 1:20 PM
It's a shame that HN has become full doomer. The virus is nowhere near as bad as the clickbait factories want you to believe because fear is such a good profit generator for them.