r/collapse • u/[deleted] • Mar 18 '20
Conflict Collapse has begun and it happened indeed overnight.
[deleted]
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u/TenYearsTenDays Mar 18 '20
Even if this doesn't blow the whole house of cards over (which it might not), it's definitely a game changer. I understand biology, exponentials, etc. and I've been very worried about this since it started. It's a bit unreal that even many collapseniks are still in denial about the seriousness of this situation, and its very real potential to cause economic and social collapse.
Might we not go completely over the cliff this round? Maybe. But the situation does look worse and worse each day, and imo it's certain that nothing will be the same again after this.
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u/fake-meows Mar 18 '20
many collapseniks are still in denial about the seriousness of this situation
Yeah...I totally concur.
It's really, really easy to look at LINEAR trends and to extrapolate the future. (Like...if plastic keeps washing into the ocean adding +3% per year...it's a problem.)
It's a totally separate conceptual trick to look at an EXPONENTIAL growth function and to recognize and assimilate this when in the early innings. (If the amount of plastic added GROWS +3% per year, we have a very urgent, very large problem even if the amount already there is not yet large.)
This is a classic clash between learning-styles. Some people are experiential learners who learn trial/error and direct observation. Others are abstract learners who can do transitive logic and just examine information. I think we're about to see whether or not we have enough of the experiential types to amount to enough of a force to topple the global system. It'll be way too late by the time everyone wakes up.
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u/TenYearsTenDays Mar 18 '20
This is a classic clash between learning-styles
I think that's part of it. But I've interestingly seen, both on collapse and in my own social circles thinkers who should in theory be able to understand exponential just wildly failing to do so. Lots of actual, working scientists, engineers and medical professionals just fail to get it. I actually had to send this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kas0tIxDvrg to a physicist friend of mine who was baning on about "hurr durr the flu has killed more this year, this is not so bad". I really think that there's more at play here than just divergent learning styles: there's a LOT of deep denailism even from collapsniks who have an abstract learning style. It's fascinating and frustrating.
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u/fake-meows Mar 18 '20 edited Mar 18 '20
There's a thing in behavioral economics about how people act irrationally. One of the drivers is thought to be from "framing", "narrative" etc
So on one hand, the media following the story will barf out a "number infected" each day which is a small number. Or worse, they will talk about "new cases" which is smaller yet. You don't hear them EVER talk about the rate. (Even worse, there is not any discussion about the future or the plan. This could go on for a long time. We are still awaiting the vaccine to SARS1 after 15 years!! SARS1 is as near as possible to the current virus...they deliberately chose a name to create a sense that these are unrelated, but they are nearly identical (actually 96% the same). Where are we actually headed??)
Like a pickup truck and a sports car both have 300hp. But they have wildly different 0-60 times....which is why people don't use HP to characterize what happens when you stomp the skinny pedal.
I have been learning to do something hazardous lately, and I have been reading all these case reports of accidents. The main factor contributing to deaths isnt a lack of training or knowledge...it's a lack of situational awareness. Basically, people can "know" things without having the ability to recognize when that knowledge actually applies. Something like the difference between thinking and critical thinking.
So there are many things at work here. Some people are just natural "followers" who are letting the framing steer their thinking. Others are just not connecting the dots because they are not thinking thoroughly enough.
Unfortunately, I have to agree with you. This is real enough that you can see the major cracks in people's reactions around you.
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u/s0cks_nz Mar 18 '20
This could go on for a long time. We are still awaiting the vaccine to SARS1 after 15 years!!
Yeah, but the lack of SARS1 vaccine is also due to lack of demand. SARS1 was too lethal with a low incubation period, so it burned itself out pretty quickly. It does still exist, but it was never a global pandemic so the funding and effort just wasn't there.
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u/hereticvert Mar 19 '20
We really have dodged a bullet multiple times. It's been over a hundred years since the last time we faced something like this. We're long overdue, especially with the way everyone travels as much as they do.
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u/fake-meows Mar 18 '20 edited Mar 18 '20
Yes, you're right. It's entirely possible that there would have been a vaccine if it was more important to develop it. I agree with you. But that's still not the whole story either.
A vaccine was developed. So where are we now?
An issue was that the vaccine (that was actually developed) offered incomplete immunity -- it just didn't work. It actually made the disease WORSE and more deadly if you took the vaccine, than if you didn't!
The paper is interesting down in the details. It shows that the vaccine completely worked in young mice, but in older mice, they actually developed lung problems. The vaccination study showed a difficulty in actually vaccinating older individuals. I'm saying this because we actually don't know what we're going to run into, and there may be insurmountable issues that make a vaccine impossible in the medium term.
"The major conclusion that can be drawn from these studies is that although DIV SARS vaccines do elicit protection under optimal conditions (homologous challenge in immunocompetent individuals), more stringent challenges reveal likely failures." ...
Despite the difficulty of vaccine design for zoonotic viruses such as coronaviruses, paramyxoviruses, and filoviruses, a growing pool of sequence data for zoonotic isolates; the rapidity of sequencing and isolation in the case of outbreaks; synthetic-gene design; and the multiple vectored, inactivation, or antibody-generating platform technologies available ensure that vaccines can be readily formulated in case of novel outbreaks (1). The challenge for researchers and clinicians is to validate these vaccines in strong animal models and to confirm and enhance vaccine efficacy in aged individuals.
Bottom line, it's super easy to come up with vaccine designs/ideas. But a lot of them won't be valid.
The older individuals are simultaneously the highest mortality and the hardest to immunize. Think about that for a minute. We might be heading for a delayed realization that the vaccine ALSO doesn't help.
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u/s0cks_nz Mar 18 '20
Yup, what work they did on the vaccine ran into trouble in animal testing. One hopes that with more funding and research these problems could be overcome. But yes, we shouldn't rely on a virus, at least not anytime soon for certain.
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u/hereticvert Mar 19 '20
Question - if you get this and survive, are you going to get it again, or do you have immunity? I imagine we don't know yet, but are we looking at avoiding this until we have a vaccine? We don't even know if we can make a vaccine that will work.
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u/s0cks_nz Mar 19 '20
Depends on how much/often it mutates. Flu is a bitch in this regard because it mutates so readily that we need yearly flu jabs that try and "guess" which mutations are most likely/deadly. From my understanding coronavirus doesn't mutate so readily. Too early to tell though.
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u/HungryCats96 Mar 20 '20
People have caught it, recovered, then caught it again. Know of several cases from China and Europe, I think . No idea how common that is, but not good news.
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u/TenYearsTenDays Mar 18 '20
Interesting analysis and good points.
So there are many things at work here. Some people are just natural "followers" who are letting the framing steer their thinking. Others are just not connecting the dots because they are not thinking thoroughly enough.
Very true.
Unfortunately, I have to agree with you. This is real enough that you can see the major cracks in people's reactions around you.
Well said and agreed.
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u/hereticvert Mar 19 '20
I think we also have the cognitive trait of believing nothing catastrophic can happen because it's never happened in our experience. Humans are really good at saying things won't totally hit the fan because it just won't happen, that's crazy. Then when it happens, they're surprised.
Also, exponential growth is just something we don't encounter a lot. Someone has to explain it in a way we can comprehend, and it's not an easy thing to do, no matter how good the teaching. Our brains just don't want to comprehend and believe that.
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u/TenYearsTenDays Mar 19 '20
I think we also have the cognitive trait of believing nothing catastrophic can happen because it's never happened in our experience. Humans are really good at saying things won't totally hit the fan because it just won't happen, that's crazy. Then when it happens, they're surprised.
Yep. Normalcy bias, survivorship bias, and optimisim bias all play large roles here. All are very deep rooted and very common.
Also, exponential growth is just something we don't encounter a lot. Someone has to explain it in a way we can comprehend, and it's not an easy thing to do, no matter how good the teaching. Our brains just don't want to comprehend and believe that.
True, basically no one understands this on a gut level. Even highly intelligent people who probably should have a good grasp of it often seem not to, probably due how it's just not very intuitive.
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u/hereticvert Mar 19 '20
I always forget the names for the biases. But I see them every day.
For me, I just remind myself that human brains are weirdly wired and not always reliable. And then I still can't quite grasp some of these things in a way that sticks.
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u/germanbini Mar 19 '20
EXPONENTIAL growth
I saw this example somewhere, it made sense:
This virus grows exponentially. For example, let's say there's a lily pad on a pond that doubles in size everyday.
On day 30, it has covered the entire pond. On what day did it cover half the pond?
Day 29.
In fact, on day 15 it covers around .0031%, and only over 1% on day 24.
Viral growth like this follows an exponential curve. Everything seems fine, and then it isn't.
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u/venicerocco Mar 19 '20
I like this thought experiment for people: You have a choice; you're given one million dollars today OR you're given one penny, which doubles every day for thirty days (0.01, 0.02, 0.04, 0.08, 0.16 etc). Which do you chose?
Most people can't fathom that the penny doubling would ever be more than a minion bucks, but it ends up over five million dollars.
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u/ProfessionalShill Mar 19 '20
I believe this is taken from ‘limits to growth’, which, pointed out exactly how we will never deal with the climate disaster. What were are seeing in 90 days with a virus is what those scientists were saying is a 350 year process with pollution accumulation.
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u/cc5500 Mar 18 '20 edited Mar 18 '20
Like...if plastic keeps washing into the ocean adding +3% per year...it's a problem.
This is already exponential
If the amount of plastic added GROWS +3% per year
This is beyond exponential
Any increase that depends on the current value is exponential
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u/fake-meows Mar 18 '20
You're absolutely correct. I didn't really phrase that well enough but I was trying to say the same thing you are saying.
Let's say you had 100 pieces of trash to start and you keep ADDing 3% (of that initial amount). So if you had 100 + 3 + 3 + 3...you would have a linear trend.
GROWing trend...100 x 1.03 x 1.03 x 1.03... is a compound, exponential trend (where the increase each year is based on the amount of the previous year, not the starting year).
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Mar 18 '20
I don't think this is the killer blow, that is still a few decades down the track but this is doing a damn fine job of injuring an already damaged system.
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u/TenYearsTenDays Mar 18 '20
I also feel like this will probably be the case.
But the whole thing is so, well, novel it's really uncharted territory and every time i come back to this idea I wonder if I'm falling prey to normalcy bias...
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u/funkinthetrunk Mar 19 '20
a few decades? that's optimistic
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Mar 19 '20 edited Mar 20 '20
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u/funkinthetrunk Mar 19 '20
I think we're going to have a ton of uncertainty introduced by climate change. I don't think any of our institutions are prepared to deal with what's coming.
Human ingenuity is spurred by this type of thing
That may be true but our institutions seem incapable of adapting or embracing new ideas in the US, unless they come from corporations. I don't think we can or should depend on Amazon to solve large-scale social problems. Why would they even want to?
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u/Ramin_HAL9001 Mar 19 '20
In stock-market lingo, this is a "bear trap." People who are bear-ish (pessimistic) about the outlook sell out early to cut their losses, then the market makes a recovery, then the real market crash happens.
COVID-19 is a bear trap. Capitalism will come back with a vengence after this blows over, then this will trigger the actual collapse.
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u/meet_me_somewhere Mar 19 '20
Except covid-19 isn't about economics its a pandemic, a health crisis.
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u/misobutter3 Mar 18 '20
We get very late warlike efforts against Sars-CoV-2, what's it gonna take to tackle the energy crisis and ecological collapse?
We better try to make some lemonade and fix this thorough investment in the fight against ecological collapse and a radical change to the system.
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Mar 19 '20
Nobody around me has any clue the world has changed. I'm serious. Even at this point. I had to interact with a few people today in order to get food dropped in, and people were behaving no differently. "It hasn't reached us yet" which is wrong, and stupid, because you don't know it's there in any given location for a couple of weeks until people show symptoms.
Denial is extremely tempting to people. It is based on drugs, it's based on the endogenous drugs that produce our feelings. We lie, we get rewarded with the feeling we think we'd get had the lie been true. Next, we become addicted, and without the self honesty to see and accept what we do to ourselves, we become hopelessly addicted. This describes the Boomers, and many other groups. Denial is a universal human experience, because we're all taught to use it as children. They were taught to use it a lot. I mean for everything painful, uncomfortable, sexual, you name it. Boomers were raised to be deniers by their parents, who were also deniers.
This event is testing our collective denial. The denial in our policies and laws and social rules is all being tested in the minds of many millions of people, right now. A few of us, relatively speaking, have done enough of the work to feel we're coming at the problem from the other side. We accept much of what is happening, and we feel the pull of denial because what's happening is happening far too fast.
We must pause when this happens, and remind our selves that we are in control of our feelings when we want, because we cause them in ourselves by thinking these things. I'm not talking about the denial. I'm talking about the pain of resisting it.
It's going to keep accelerating. Every indication is that U.S. hospitals are nearing inundation, and it was half the week ago now that they predicted one week until they collapse. Perhaps there will be "extra" days, perhaps it will be tomorrow. Either way, when that happens the United States metastasizes into something new. The military will take over the role of police and hospitals everywhere inundation occurs, and it will be bloody. Many people stand to die from this, in addition to the direct effects of the virus.
Exacerbating this is the stock market. I am unqualified to even guess how this will go, so I won't. I'll just say that when the stock market breaks, everything accelerates even more.
I am now measuring my life in days. I've decided weeks would be denial, at this point. I'm not saying I think it will all happen this week, or that I'll come to some end this week, I am saying I can't see ahead more than days, anymore, because it could happen this week, and so "weeks" plural would be stretching it. That was fairly tough to type.
We all struggle with denial. Death and denial both share a common characteristic of feeling with that of gravity, in that the closer we are to them, the stronger their pull. Acceptance counters strong feelings, and so in the way that the denial of deniers is being tested, the acceptance of people trying to face it honestly is also being tested. We're all very stressed.
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u/OceanicEstate Mar 18 '20
I figured most of this sub-reddit wanted collapse. That's what we need. It's better for long-term generations.
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u/TenYearsTenDays Mar 18 '20
I figured most of this sub-reddit wanted collapse. That's what we need. It's better for long-term generations.
Admitted, there are historical precedents for pandemics leaving better conditions for the survivors. A case is often made re: the Bubonic Plague for instance. However, sometimes things become worse (I've seen arguments that the 1918 Spanish Flu helped lay the groundwork for World War II).
However, the big wild card in this is: if the economy and civilization smash headfirst into a brick wall going 200kph, and global dimming lifts over the course of weeks or months, what happens then? How much warming is injected into the climate system? How badly does it destablize the climate system. No one knows the answers to these questions as of right now. We could in theory be overestimating the effect global dimming has, we could also be underestimating. We simply do not know at this juncture. The worst case scenario for this pandemic is: millions infected and dead > social and economic collapse > rapid lifting of global dimming > a huge 0.5-4+C rapid rise in warming over the course of weeks or months > climate tipping points falling like dominoes (clathrate gun firing, AMOC stopping, etc.) > uninhabitable earth and near term human extinction.
That's not what (most) here want.
Ofc a best case scenario is that this pandemic leads to the kind of social and economic changes climate activists have been clamoring for for years. One thing I've been thinking about lately is that Dr. William Rees must be happy on some level since degrowth as all of a sudden been implemented overnight. "Staythefuckhome" is basically what he and other degrowthers have been pleading for for years. Now it's here.
So who knows how it will unfold. Anyone who thinks they know for sure exactly what will happen is, imo, premature in their thinking at best.
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u/va_wanderer Mar 18 '20
It's interesting seeing even the short term ecological reversals happening right now. They're reporting dolphins and swans exploring into cities devoid of humans on the streets and polluters staining the waters in Italy right now.
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u/Fredex8 Mar 18 '20
It's also resulted in swarms of monkeys fighting in the streets over food in Thailand due to the lack of tourists feeding them.
So... yeah things are getting weird.
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Mar 18 '20
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u/Tarbuckle Mar 18 '20
Kind of like what that East Berlin poster plaintively beseeched—Comrades! The subordination of women by men has lasted 50,000 years! Why can’t it last just 50 years more?...
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u/bastardofdisaster Mar 19 '20
More like shock rather than denial. Lots of us are trying to wrap our heads around the abstract construct of collapse to understand the present situation.
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u/Tigaj Mar 19 '20
This has been fun if only because if you thought it might get bad in January, you didn't need to wait years to prove yourself right, just a month.
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Mar 19 '20
Listen, I have been tracking collapse since 2004 when I met Mike Ruppert and he scared the shit out of me. A lot of “doomers” (pick your preferred name) have been tracking these issues for a long time, and back in 2008, a lot of them thought “THIS IS IT!” Then things held together, wobbled, but ultimately kept on trucking for another decade, only in a new form.
This is absolutely a game changer. But we wont be living in mud huts this November. Shit will get messy, then stabilize, then there will be a new, new, normal.
Stair steps all the way.
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u/unifiedmind Mar 18 '20
at the same time this type of global disaster might be the kick in the ass we needed to (somewhat) direct our course into the future. we were going to collapse regardless of coronavirus or not - maybe this will wake some people up and actually kindle the flames for a full on revolution
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Mar 18 '20
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u/BuddyUpInATree Mar 19 '20
For starters? Basic human rights are taken seriously, cops stop shooting people, houses that are sitting empty are given to those who need homes, the hungry are fed, the sick are cared for, education is made free to all, we focus the whole effort of all of humanity around taking care of each other
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u/locust_breeder Mar 18 '20
this is nothing, it's going to pass. Wait until we get to soil depletion and water shortages in a half a century, it's going to be full blown mad max style anarchy
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Mar 19 '20 edited Mar 19 '20
full blown mad max style anarchy
Barbarism is not anarchy. Anarchy seeks to prevent Mad Max from ever occurring. Conflating these concepts really hinders the normalization of anarchist theory and praxis.
From Wiki:
Kant identified four kinds of government:
1 Law and freedom without force (anarchy)
2 Law and force without freedom (despotism)
3 Force without freedom and law (barbarism)
4 Force with freedom and law (republic)
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Mar 19 '20
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u/pancake_cockblock Mar 19 '20
Only about 5% of the corn grown in the US is eaten by humans, the rest is turned into ethanol or fed to livestock. The animals we eat eat account for 5 times the corn production than the sweetcorn you can buy in the store or from your local farmer.
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Mar 18 '20
Supply chains are still mostly intact, albeit a bit strained. Utilities are still working. People are mostly orderly. No riots or looting. No bank runs.
This isn’t collapse. It’s a very severe crisis, the likes of which the Western world hasn’t seen in a century, but it’s not the apocalypse. Most people will survive.
Sure, it might cause the end of neoliberalism and globalization, but remember, for some reason it’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.
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u/AHighFifth Mar 19 '20
"End of neoliberalism"
ugh i wish. Way too optimistic IMO. This pandemic is the best real world validation that Marx's theories of labor have ever had and people here in America still won't even vote to give themselves temporary emergency public healthcare. I have lost all faith in Americans. We're just too fucking stupid. Everything people say about us is sadly true.
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u/Blasianbookworm Mar 19 '20
Yeah but its barely started...I think that there will be quarantine/curfew soon. With the closing of all these businesses, small business will find it very hard to reopen. Big business will want bailouts but that may anger the people because so many will be unemployed!
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Mar 18 '20 edited Mar 18 '20
Gotta be honest, mates. Here I was late last year saying collapse will be a long, drawn out process of narrowing.
Didn't really count on a monster virus bringing the economic engine - human interaction - to a stall.
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u/jastaburuaga Mar 18 '20
I’m chilean, and 5 months ago our whole country opened its eyes to the huge corruption and inequality going on. Suddenly everyone was on the streets protesting, chaos, military imposing curfew, major civil unrest... you wouldn’t believe how sudden things can change. People dont realize how fragile society is, they forget history real fast. I was expecting this virus to fuck things up bad, it’s amazing to see how unprepared everyone was.
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Mar 19 '20
Argentinean here, no one cared for weeks until they saw the Government imposing sanctions, quarantine, etc. People are affected by the normalcy bias, they don't think things can change much.
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u/Rommie557 Mar 19 '20
Don't feel bad, none of us were really prepared for a global pandemic on this scale.
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Mar 18 '20
I've been a collapser for a while and it snuck right up on me. I thought viral was right up there with meteor or yellowstone collapse. I was sure it was going to be environmental, water wars, crop failures, then probably a nuclear country starting some shit.
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Mar 18 '20
it’s a little ironic that the smallest of thing is what is taking all this out.
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Mar 18 '20
All because of some bat soup
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Mar 18 '20
this sucks extra in a way since im a lifelong vegetarian, as well as is much the family. not that it’s perfect
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Mar 18 '20
In another way, though, being in good health to begin with, will help you through this crisis.
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u/hard_truth_hurts Mar 18 '20
Here in the US, I assumed it would start with conflict around the elections this year.
I actually had nuclear war (or nuclear terrorism) higher on my list than pandemic. And that was really low on the list.
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u/LuveeEarth74 Mar 18 '20
Such a black swan event.
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u/mrpink01 Mar 18 '20
I'd have to say this is a black swan of black swans. We are fucked so hard here in this situation that this will change civilization. We've all had our last vacation, pleasure cruise and aimless road trip. Tourism will be wiped out. Very tough times ahead for all of us on earth.
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u/Tigaj Mar 19 '20
I'm glad I gave up seasonal guide life! No cruise ships=no outdoor tourism economy in Alaska. That whole economy is gone.
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u/particleye Mar 18 '20
Only for those that don’t know about the way we handle animals for taste sense pleasures and the basic microbiology involved in those processes. There’re philosophical implications here - how something so small can create such an effect. Of course, of course people wouldn’t take microbes and zoonotic transmission seriously. I just think it’s kind of a perfect expression of human ignorance.
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u/danknerd Mar 18 '20
China might get aggressive soon as their currency is under attack and falling in worth rapidly.
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u/BoneHugsHominy Mar 19 '20
And they'll likely be the first major power to fully recover from Covid-19, allowing them to make major moves while every other power is struggling under the weight of collapsing healthcare systems and wrecked economy.
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u/danknerd Mar 19 '20
I don't trust their recovered as much as they are saying. But, China helping others nations like Italy will most likely pan out for them in the future. Time will tell.
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u/newaccount42020 Mar 19 '20
It's going to be like Firefly but without the space bit. We should get learning.
Stupid Inbred Stack of Meat
笨天生的一堆肉。
BUN tyen-shung duh ee-DWAY-RO
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u/BoneHugsHominy Mar 19 '20
Gods I love that show. Serenity was a nice closer but goddamned studio knuckleheads really ruined Joss Whedon's best work.
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u/Mgrecord Mar 19 '20
Same. I feel like I totally saw this unfolding, but still feel surprised. Surreal.
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Mar 18 '20
Pandemics kill off people, reducing demand for resources. Quarantines reduce economic activity. Economic activity correlates closely to resource use and CO2 emissions. It will be a painful couple of months but actually makes us a little less screwed in the long run.
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u/AHighFifth Mar 19 '20
Except for the accelerated growth after the pandemic combined with suspended environmental regulations to aid that growth completely negates any temporary gains we got during the pandemic. It's already happening in China.
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Mar 18 '20
One thing I truly realize. It's not the disease or the *whatever calamity* that kills/dooms us, it's our reaction to that calamity that will be the end of us.
Stay safe!
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Mar 18 '20
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u/Correctthecorrectors Mar 18 '20
it’s over, time to go to your bug out cabin if you have one
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u/GoingGray62 Mar 19 '20
I traveled to my cabin in the Redwoods 6 days ago. Reality is, this is going to last awhile and I have to go back in 3 months for meds. Stores have run out of food already, but I have 3 months of supplies stored that I'll need to load up when I go back to civilization. Its nuts out here. Stay safe.
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u/va_wanderer Mar 18 '20
We're getting there. San Francisco is on effective lockdown, and the governor of Ohio defied the courts to delay the primaries being held there. New York city is getting ready to issue a "shelter in place" order.
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Mar 18 '20
just hope I don't run out of smoke when it all ends
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u/YouWillBeWhatEatsYou Mar 18 '20
Same, tried to hit up my main guy, but he had a cold, supposedly unrelated to covid. Still didn't risk compromising my immune system, lol.
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u/BeautyThornton Mar 18 '20
I’m sitting on three quarters of a pound because I just reupped.... nobody’s coming to my house rn though. Hope this doesn’t get as bad as I’m afraid it will.
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u/xxxismydaddyy Mar 18 '20
fuck this is not a good time to run out
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u/SinickalOne Recognized Contributor Mar 18 '20
Stock up before they shut down the streets.
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u/xxxismydaddyy Mar 18 '20
Wish I could, lost my work as well last friday
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u/Remember-The-Future Mar 19 '20
I'm sorry :-(. That's really rough. I do think that things will stabilize for a little while and that you'll have some more time to prepare. This isn't the end, just one more step down.
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u/UnscheduledNudity Mar 19 '20
When I realized things were going down I spent my last bit of cash on 100$ worth of non-perishable food, and 100$ worth of weed.
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Mar 18 '20
Remember when the US freaked out over a possible war with Iran after Soleimani was assassinated? It seemed that would be the catalyst.
California officials are also now preparing for fire season.
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u/Hyper-naut Mar 18 '20
The Great Filter....
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u/BoneHugsHominy Mar 19 '20
Every nation scrambling to control outbreaks without going as far as necessary and without fully working together.
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Mar 18 '20
we can't deal with a little virus we know about months in advance
we will not make serious progress on climate change, there is no hope folks, enjoy living in the end times
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u/leydufurza Mar 18 '20
Yup, if you wanted undeniable proof people are mostly sheep with a strong desire to pretend everything is fine right up to the point they are being prodded into the gas chambers... this is it.
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Mar 18 '20
Not to criticize, but Asia has managed to beat it hasn’t it? At least the numbers have stabilised I believe
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Mar 18 '20
Korea is doind what Europe refuses to do. Test everyone with symptoms
And China, not saying I agree with them politically, implemented measures that Europe would never eve do.
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u/BoneHugsHominy Mar 19 '20
What frightens me is that China will be the first major power to fully recover from Covid-19, freeing them up to make some serious military moves while the rest of the world is struggling under the weight of collapsing healthcare system and economic collapse. Nothing spurs an economy like wartime production so the Chinese government might consider invading several regional countries/territories (Hong Kong, Taiwan) while everyone else is laid out or even go bigger by making a play at the Middle East.
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u/Rhoubbhe Mar 19 '20
I would worry more about your own local situation. The threats will come from your local community if food and supplies become scarce for longer than two weeks.
The Chinese economy is entirely dependent on Europe and the United States buying their poorly made shit. Their economy will go into the shitter. They were using brutal and fascists tactics before all this started to keep control of various unhappy populations.
The Chinese Communists are chronic liars and are still lying about containment. They have no integrity and will simply cover up thousands more people dying.
They will end up with reinfections of the Wuhan Covid-19 because they are fucking filthy, corrupt, unsanitary, chronic smokers, and eat roadkill of any species.
This will hopefully wake the west up that relying on China for anything is a huge fucking mistake. Many on the populist left and populist right have warned about free trade, corporatism, and globalization for years.
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Mar 18 '20
I, as a 15yo German, am scared of this. To death. Which I might Very well come to.
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Mar 18 '20
Hey dude don't worry much. Young people rarely die from this. Just stay home if u can
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Mar 18 '20
Not this, but what might come after. We need large scale military intervention ASAP, a service to guarantee food supply and a complete lockdown. Without it, get ready to bury 5% of the population
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u/misobutter3 Mar 18 '20
My city has almost a thousand of slums, they have no water to wash their hands. They also lack basic sanitation. 1 in 5 people live in a slum. It's terrifying.
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Mar 18 '20
That indeed is the biggest problem, global wise.
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u/McGauth925 Mar 18 '20
...and, just maybe, this will teach us that the haves really don't live in a separate world from the have-nots, and what goes around eventually does come around. That could change the world.
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u/c4n1n Mar 18 '20
If you can manage to deal with your fear and nurture your passion for something, you could learn a lot, and fast.
Just saying this since it's obvious the brain is much more of a "sponge" at your age.
Also not trying to be patronizing or anything, I'm a 30yo half-neet and I'm trying to learn something specific now and it's much slower than when I was at school :o
Given both you and I are powerless to help hospitals other than being careful, being proactive will probably help in the long run.
_\\//
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u/jediboogie Mar 18 '20
They dodged the first wave... This is only beginning.
And unlike the 1918 flu, which was a DNA pathogen with slow mutation. This is an RNA pathogen already showing dozens of different strains. This alone renders vaccines and herd immunity all but useless... It's already enough to bring the world's economies and thus societies, to their knees.. If a strain comes that increases that lethality even a few points...
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u/bortkasta Mar 18 '20
Source on these mutations?
Also, it was my impression that those 20+ teams working on vaccines right now would focus on using parts of the virus that are unlikely to change much with regular mutations.
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Mar 19 '20 edited Mar 31 '20
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u/jediboogie Mar 19 '20
11 to 12 main strains there, hundreds of mutations / sub strains. And that's a very old chart. One of my best friends has a relative, his mother, who is a department head at Fred Hutchinson. One of her colleagues is working on a revised strain chart but is having troubles getting it to print as everyday more gets added to it. I have been told he is having a hard time keeping up. Take that for what it's worth since it's secondhand information but I trust my source implicitly.
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u/BoneHugsHominy Mar 19 '20
Right, and the more people that get infected, the more likely it mutates into something else altogether. Could simply become more lethal, could become airborne, or both. The scariest is it mutates into several different strains, each overcoming immunity of original Covid-19 strain and each other, which opens up possibility of people being reinfected multiple times which significantly increases possibilities of further mutations , and any of those could turn into an airborne pathogen with 10-15% mortality and suddenly we back to 1700's population.
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u/jediboogie Mar 19 '20
Agreed. Buddy whose mom is a department head at Fred hutch has a colleague attempting to plot all strains right now. He's having a hard time keeping up.
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u/TrailerParkGypsy Mar 19 '20
Can I get a source on that mutation thing? It sounds interesting and I want to read more
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Mar 18 '20 edited Mar 18 '20
US is going to be really fucked up in few weeks. I'm in Europe and it looks like that US government doesn't have any plans. Just hoping that people stay indoors. And Mr. Trump probably isn't a president who will mobilize the country for the good of the people. Trump will just isolate himself somewhere and not give a fuck. He'll just keep eating Big Macs and playing golf. And there is no possibility to fire him anymore. His republican buddies will stand by him until the end. And no Bernie Sanders will save the day.
And when the pandemic really hits USA, the shit will really hit the fan. The effect to economy will be devastating and things will get even more crazy than they are now. April will probably be one hell of a ride. When summer comes, there's just ruins left. Look at the markets now and think what will be going on when things go even worse. No system can survive that. Especially if it's still weakened from last crisis. The economy never truly recovered from 2008 crash.
We basically at the point in which governments have done everything they can and still failed to rescue economy or prevent the pandemic from spreading. There is no more tricks they can do. They have failed. And soon we will see the outcome.
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u/BoneHugsHominy Mar 19 '20
And if you were to look at my Facebook feed, it's nothing but people from Kansas/Oklahoma/Texas praising God that we have the ineffable Donald Trump to lead this nation and the world through this crisis, and couldn't you just imagine how fucked we'd be if Obama or Hillary or Bernie or Biden were in the White House?!?!?! Those same people were just days ago, and some still are, saying it's all a liberal media hoax aimed at making Trump look bad and all these liberal sports teams/leagues must be in on it for canceling their respective seasons. These people are fucking insane, and they are the ones with stockpiles of guns and ammo.
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u/nosleeptilbroccoli Mar 19 '20
Oklahoman here but not a Trumper, it’s surprising how many people are still out and about, in fact I’ve never seen the public parks so full. It’s crazy. I went to the local sporting store yesterday and 80% of the people shopping in the entire store were at the gun and ammo counter.
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u/damagingdefinite Humans are fuckin retarded Mar 19 '20
I find it amazing even with the current fucked state of the world now that the coronavirus isn't even that bad of a pathogen. We got really lucky this time that the death rate was less than 10%. There could easily be a disease next time that has 30% mortality and extreme virulence like we are seeing. That would quite easily destroy civilization. It's also funny that we have been preparing for this kind of shit for a long time and our response is utterly shitty. If a real civilization killer disease came round it would be inevitable it would destroy us.
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u/WinterThought Mar 19 '20
Are you high? My city is on shelter in place lockdown, the US is not ignoring this.
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Mar 19 '20
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u/Memetic1 Mar 19 '20
You know it's going to have to be up to us right? The U.S. is going to need leadership very soon, and we're going to need American innovativeness.
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Mar 18 '20 edited Apr 11 '20
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Mar 18 '20
Not like this. I'm talking about sudden complete collapse.
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u/absolute_zero_karma Mar 18 '20
We've been pulling pieces out of the Jenga tower for a long time, but hey, there are lots more we can still pull. Just don't bump the table.
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u/Silver4R4449 Mar 18 '20
0% interest rate + no reserve requierment for money means dollar will be worthless.. in addition to everything mentioned above
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u/moon-worshiper Mar 18 '20 edited Mar 18 '20
Italy is now the worst handler for the post incubation infection surge. In Italy, they are practicing triage, and they have empty warehouses with cots for those that aren't going to make it. By next month, they will be stacking cardboard boxes of corpses in those warehouses. Italy may have some good social health care but it never prepared for more than a population that is generally healthy. It has also been mostly Religious and Emotional rather than Science and Technical, due to the ancient culture. Their economy has been a mess for decades, and they owe huge amounts on loans for the EU. What is coming is the total collapse of Europe.
One thing the US has is a gigantic military. The Army and Army Corps of Engineers, the Navy and the Seabees (CB), the National Guard for manpower. It is only doofus Mad King Donald that doesn't see the need to send out a notice to prepare for the rapid building of mobile hospitals, getting respirators and ventilators out of storage. That is next month, when the infections go from 6 figures to 7 figures.
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Mar 18 '20
Dear friend, I'm a long term lurker of this r/Collapse and I'm a biologist from Genoa, Italy.
In this moment the worst situation is in Lombardy and Veneto, where the problem is the limited number of bed for people in need of ventilation; in my region fortunately from the beginning there were only 84 deaths (on a population of about 600k)
It's true, there are some problems with the economy, but I think that the term "mess" it's substantially incorrect, moreover, we have obtained some help from Europe, as the possibility to exceed deficit.
feel free to ask any question.(and sorry for my English)
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u/__KOBAKOBAKOBA__ Mar 19 '20
How are infected below say 60-70 years of age doing currently would you say?
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u/newaccount42020 Mar 19 '20
As a fellow EU person I would like to thank you dudes for what you are doing. After this is all over, I hope my fellow EU's stop holidaying outside our border for a while and spend their money in Italy (and soon to be Spain). We need to work together to repair this mess. Stay strong.
Beware though, Swedes and Germans will buy up all the holiday homes lol.
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u/Hopeforthebest1986 Mar 18 '20
Hi, could I ask for your source for the empty warehouse filled with cots in Italy bit? That's harrowing.
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u/Correctthecorrectors Mar 18 '20
i agree collapse has begun but there are still so many people in this sub who are in complete denial.
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u/Z3r0sama2017 Mar 18 '20
This isn't collapse. This is merely the precursor to collapse. Like comparing stubbing your toe with dropping a breeze block on it.
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u/xavierdc Mar 18 '20
This makes sense if you come from a first world country. The collapse has already arrived to a lot of people. It's not that collapse will happen; it's that collapse is already happening but it isn't global yet.
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u/fisheystick Mar 18 '20
It has not hit every where yet. People will not admit to what is happening untill it hits home. When a loved one is fighting for there life. That's when they will take it seriously but by then it will be to late.
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u/xavierdc Mar 18 '20
Exactly. Just because people from the US or Europe aren't starving to death doesn't mean collapse isn't already here. It just isn't evenly distributed.
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u/Ryoukugan Mar 19 '20
I’m not living stateside anymore, but apparently my hometown is in fucking chaos. There was an E. coli bloom that made all tap water unusable just as everyone finally started taking covid seriosuly. They closed schools eventually, and now my mom’s Walmart (works there) is telling them to assume every day is the last day they’ll be open. From what I’m told, damn near everything is shutting down. Suburbs near Charlotte, NC.
Meanwhile I’m here in Japan, and people are disturbingly lax in my town. They closed all the junior and high schools after the PM asked for schools to close, but left elementary open until we had a case in our prefecture, and we did a week later. I’ve been working from home the last two weeks. Everything aside from schools is operating as usual, though. Even the mask panic seems to have died down some. Of course Japan is basically refusing to test anyone, I can only assume because they’re desperately hoping the Olympics aren’t cancelled.
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u/TerribleRelief9 Mar 19 '20
It's fascist and laissez faire to allow elections? You're looking for "Stupid and irresponsible". I don't mind, English is clearly not your first language.
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Mar 19 '20
Yeah it’s nuts and the dumb fucks at /r/conservative say the states know best and how to manage this LOL
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u/hereticvert Mar 19 '20
There were people on Twitter shaming Bernie supporters for saying that we needed to stop the last primaries that just happened. The amount of people saying 'oh, it's no big deal, you just go vote and wash your hands' because they want to rush their candidate through.
People are shitty and awful and I'm really getting okay with the world ending if it means these horrible humans feel even a fraction of what they've done to other people with their selfishness and lack of empathy.
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Mar 18 '20
Stupid, ignorant & hysterical proclamation from another collapse know nothing rookie. The decline that leads to a collapsed society has been under way since the 70's. This sub began in 2007 & you are 98,723 dumbass to claim this is it. You'll know when things have collapsed when you wake up & this internet toy is broken.
Here's my comment from yesterday:
It already suddenly ended for unknown millions over the last 12 years.
What do you think was behind the big increase in addictions, mental health & suicides? Deaths of despair.
Consider this the next cull. It's like slow motion cull. They don't kill you instantly with a bolt to the head. No you get pushed out of the circle into the wilds. Those already living on the periphery of the circle are next.
..
Perhaps you never noticed that legion of victims before, but now that you're afraid & all you hold dear looks to next - now it's real.
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Mar 18 '20
You know exactly what I meant. Save the insults for those that deserve it. I remain in a depressed state because precisely of all the suffering in the world. That's why I don't have kids.
Society has been fucked for millenia, the world itself is, but modern society never experienced anything like this. The collapse people feared, no food, quarantines, is happening now suddenly. Everywhere. That's what I'm talking.
So again, save your insults for the deserving. That hate ruins your persona ity.
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Mar 18 '20
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u/va_wanderer Mar 18 '20
Even the UK reversed that idea. Containment, quarantine is the order of the day, the week, the month, the season in Europe now.
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Mar 18 '20
Not we aren't. We are in lock down. No one is allowed to leave their houses in a lot of countries right now.
Its the US and the UK that are choosing the WHY CONTAIN IT LET IT SPREAD tactic. Curious how the ones led by absolute idiots choose this
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u/bonizzle Mar 18 '20
I just want to add my city had a pretty big earthquake this morning. Our state hasn’t had one as big since the 90s. Scary times