The Wuhan virus—how are we doing? - Page 96 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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Provision of the two UN HDI indicators other than GNP.
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#15168060
Beren wrote:I don't reject evolutionary theory, I rather reject or disagree with some of your perceptions (of mankind) perhaps.

I'm sad we're not beavers, but you've made my day anyway. I really needed this, thank you. :)

So it does offend your sense of humanism. My perceptions of mankind are driven by my understanding of evolutionary theory, some of whose implications are only now becoming clear. Cladistic analysis has revolutionised evolutionary theory since the 1990s. To reject the idea that humans are highly evolved fish is to reject Darwinian evolution tout court, since it is an inescapable logical consequence of it. Even @Hindsite understood that a fish can never give birth to anything which is not itself also a fish.

It just seems to me that you are intellectually trapped in a Linnaean system of classification. Linnaeus was working long before Darwin, so his traditional system of classification breaks down as soon as you introduce biological evolution over time. You are actually more of a Creationist than @Hindsite was. Lol.
#15168066
Potemkin wrote:All this very true. But it just tells us that Homo sapiens was not a particularly successful species until very recently - and by "very recently" I mean the past couple of thousand years. It's only since then that we've become a dominant part of the ecosystem. And all the signs are that this dominance is unsustainable.

Actually, even before the agricultural revolution we were a highly successful species—learning to make fire and inventing clothes saw to that, spreading us across every continent except Antarctica. At this point, we are immune to any extinction event that doesn’t take out pretty much everything larger than a dog, or smaller. Even a highly lethal pandemic wouldn’t get us all.

Define "dangerously". And this wouldn't have anything to do with replacement theory would it...? :eh:

If by “replacement theory” you mean the White Supremacist fears that the “superior” race is being replaced by “inferior” cultures, of course not. But apparently one of the inevitable result of a technologically successful culture is a drop in birth rate. If that drop takes you below replacement rate, you have to make up the difference through immigration. Those immigrants may not share core values, and if for some reason they aren’t able to adapt those core values (because the “home” culture isn’t accepting enough to permit outsiders to join it, the new culture is too separatist to permit it, or the immigration is so large that the newcomers form their own separate permanent communities) the result is social instability. Mind, tiny pockets of separate cultures can work out fine, so long as they are inherently peaceful (Amish, Jews) and stay tiny.
#15168067
Potemkin wrote:So it does offend your sense of humanism.

I just don't share your perceptions sometimes, however, the fish thing still makes more sense than the beaver thing does. Do you think I'm more offended by the latter one? :lol:
#15168076
@Doug64 Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told Congress on Wednesday the COVID-19 pandemic began either from an accident at a Chinese laboratory or through an infected animal who passed it along to humans.


Another blinding flash of the obvious from our resident bookmaker.

What is overwhelmingly clear is that it is now a killer disease that is transmitted from one person to another and it quite capable of mutating into an even more deadly one, such as the recent Arizona strain. And what is also blindingly obvious is that we are doing far to little to stop it.

As for the notion of "overpopulation" and the need for replacement people? The first will inevitably resolve itself and the diminishing need for human workers, beginning in the more developed countries, has already started to manifest itself and is accelerating rapidly.
#15168111
Doug64 wrote:For most of human history, the vast majority of the human population lived on the edge of starvation, with any advances in agriculture only temporarily changing that until the population could expand to the edge again, with the occasional population crash as counterpoint--a drop in population (and the accompanying economic crash) is one of the five major reasons for the collapse of the western half of the Roman Empire. It's only in the past few centuries that technological progress has been so fast that starvation has become a dim memory for most of humanity, and we started laboring under the (possible) illusion that it will continue that way indefinitely.

But I do have to disagree on one point, that we don't have any self control. If anything, we may have too much control, with Western birth rates dropping dangerously low.

But this is all something of a digression from the thread topic.


It is not feeding our population that is killing us.

It is the consumption of resources at an unsustainable level that is killing us.

Coronavirus came from a wild animal that got too close to human beings because we went to where they live, cut down the forest or whatever and used the natural resources to satisfy some sort of consumer demand.

And this animal that was living in the forest with weird diseases now ends up living (literally) within spitting distance of human.
#15168115
Pants-of-dog wrote:Coronavirus came from a wild animal that got too close to human beings because we went to where they live, cut down the forest or whatever and used the natural resources to satisfy some sort of consumer demand.

It's a nice Progressive story, like Covid is just so nicely progressive anyway, but does anyone actually believe it?
#15168122
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/c-change/s ... te-change/

From the crazy leftists at Harvard school of public health:

    Does climate change affect the transmission of coronavirus?

    We don’t have direct evidence that climate change is influencing the spread of COVID-19, but we do know that climate change alters how we relate to other species on Earth and that matters to our health and our risk for infections.

    As the planet heats up, animals big and small, on land and in the sea, are headed to the poles to get out of the heat. That means animals are coming into contact with other animals they normally wouldn’t, and that creates an opportunity for pathogens to get into new hosts.

    Many of the root causes of climate change also increase the risk of pandemics. Deforestation, which occurs mostly for agricultural purposes, is the largest cause of habitat loss worldwide. Loss of habitat forces animals to migrate and potentially contact other animals or people and share germs. Large livestock farms can also serve as a source for spillover of infections from animals to people. Less demand for animal meat and more sustainable animal husbandry could decrease emerging infectious disease risk and lower greenhouse gas emissions.

    We have many reasons to take climate action to improve our health and reducing risks for infectious disease emergence is one of them.
#15168124
Pants-of-dog wrote:https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/c-change/subtopics/coronavirus-and-climate-change/

From the crazy leftists at Harvard school of public health:

    Does climate change affect the transmission of coronavirus?

    We don’t have direct evidence that climate change is influencing the spread of COVID-19, but we do know that climate change alters how we relate to other species on Earth and that matters to our health and our risk for infections.

    As the planet heats up, animals big and small, on land and in the sea, are headed to the poles to get out of the heat. That means animals are coming into contact with other animals they normally wouldn’t, and that creates an opportunity for pathogens to get into new hosts.

    Many of the root causes of climate change also increase the risk of pandemics. Deforestation, which occurs mostly for agricultural purposes, is the largest cause of habitat loss worldwide. Loss of habitat forces animals to migrate and potentially contact other animals or people and share germs. Large livestock farms can also serve as a source for spillover of infections from animals to people. Less demand for animal meat and more sustainable animal husbandry could decrease emerging infectious disease risk and lower greenhouse gas emissions.

    We have many reasons to take climate action to improve our health and reducing risks for infectious disease emergence is one of them.

Thank you for leading the way forward, Harvard. :up:
#15168166
Beren wrote:It's a nice Progressive story, like Covid is just so nicely progressive anyway, but does anyone actually believe it?

The exact same people who were arguing about COVID on the first pages, are still arguing about COVID on this page. There have been zero fatalities in this thread.

So this thread has proven that COVID is a hoax, no matter what anyone wrote in it.

the medium is the message
#15168200
QatzelOk wrote:There have been zero fatalities in this thread.
That's a ridiculous thing to assert, as most people here are obviously anti-social, have likely been wearing masks, some have even got Covid-19, and others might not fit into the category of people who are likely to be hopsitalized by it. It's a very small group, as well. You'd be a failure as a scientist.

QatzelOk wrote:So this thread has proven that COVID is a hoax, no matter what anyone wrote in it.
Your statement is a great example of a person who is incapable of critical thinking.

Lots of us have talked about the Holocaust, but just because we didn't have anyone get killed by Nazis doesn't mean it didn't happen. :lol: Your brain has malfunctioned. See a doctor.
#15168207
Godstud wrote:Lots of us have talked about the Holocaust, but just because we didn't have anyone get killed by Nazis doesn't mean it didn't happen.

The disappearance of Jews and that most of them never returned was a common countrywide experience in Hungary, while my only real-life experience with Covid has been that one of my father's closer acquaintances I also knew has recently died "from Covid" some time after he got vaccinated. His body just broke down somehow and he died within days in the hospital. :hmm:
#15168240
Yes, @Beren, and I've had friends hospitalized by Covid-19, and thankfully they recovered. People saying it isn't a thing are the worst kind of fucking morons imaginable.
#15168400
Godstud wrote:Yes, @Beren, and I've had friends hospitalized by Covid-19, and thankfully they recovered. People saying it isn't a thing are the worst kind of fucking morons imaginable.

What is your IQ, Godstud?

Have you ever had a test?

Or are you just using rhetoric to add gravitas to anecdotal emptiness?
#15168427
Rancid wrote:Pfizer is starting to signal we will need yearly shots. Has their stock gone up?

Covid-19 will eventually settle down into being something like seasonal flu. The old and the vulnerable have to have yearly flu jabs; in the case of Covid-19 it is likely that almost everyone will need to have yearly Covid jabs. This has been obvious for a while - Covid-19 will not simply vanish overnight, even with vaccines. It will keep mutating into new variants. After all, how long has flu been around?
#15168429
Potemkin wrote:Covid-19 will eventually settle down into being something like seasonal flu. The old and the vulnerable have to have yearly flu jabs; in the case of Covid-19 it is likely that almost everyone will need to have yearly Covid jabs. This has been obvious for a while - Covid-19 will not simply vanish overnight, even with vaccines. It will keep mutating into new variants. After all, how long has flu been around?


Yes, I understand that. We've stated this before especially back when people were claiming we can eradicate COVID (liike we've ever eradicated much of anything... maybe gonorrhea or something..). The interesting part here is how the media and all these medical experts and medical companies don't seem to communicate this fact en masse. Why string people along though?

My understanding is that the Hong Kong flu which killed numerous people in the 70s, did exactly what you noted. It is now the seasonal flu.
#15168430
Rancid wrote:Yes, I understand that. We've stated this before. The interesting part here is how the media and all these medical experts and medical companies don't seem to communicate this fact en masse. Why string people along though?


My understanding is that the Hong Kong flu which killed numerous people in the 70s, did exactly what you noted. It is now the seasonal flu.

Indeed. This is a natural process, and should surprise no-one. But, as you say, the authorities seem either reluctant to communicate these facts to the general public, or incapable of doing so.
#15168436
Potemkin wrote:Covid-19 will eventually settle down into being something like seasonal flu. The old and the vulnerable have to have yearly flu jabs; in the case of Covid-19 it is likely that almost everyone will need to have yearly Covid jabs. This has been obvious for a while - Covid-19 will not simply vanish overnight, even with vaccines. It will keep mutating into new variants. After all, how long has flu been around?


I don't know if everyone, but indeed there will need to be a COVID shot for vulnerable populations. I would expect it to mutate into a less lethal virus over time...

Since the vulnerable populations for flu and COVID seem to overlap, I would not be surprised if they simply turned the flu shot into a combined flu+COVID one.
#15168440
wat0n wrote:
I don't know if everyone, but indeed there will need to be a COVID shot for vulnerable populations. I would expect it to mutate into a less lethal virus over time...

Since the vulnerable populations for flu and COVID seem to overlap, I would not be surprised if they simply turned the flu shot into a combined flu+COVID one.


There is just so much money to be made.

@jimjam, I'm sorry, but I'm going to start dancing to the dollar.
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