[YZF]

Not that I needed convincing but the Covid pandemic demonstrated how hard it is to fight nature. When nature decides to have a go at us, earthquakes, tsunamis, pandemics, technology always seems to be on the losing end. We think we're so powerful with our technology but compared to the forces of nature we are not.

EDIT: We also can't really seem to get our act together and collaborate across the planet.

The hope is that we don't get to a place where positive feedback really pummels us and find some sort of equilibrium. It's hard to say and these are the sorts of games we should not play. If the earth completely changes into a human or life unfriendly place our technology won't save us.

Another bit of hope is that the planet has been warmer in the more distant past. I think we're technically still in an ice age.

[dgellow]

I feel the opposite regarding Covid. The world reacted pretty quickly and more or less rationally, solutions have been found and implemented with minimal delays, in a more or less coordinated fashion. All of this moved incredibly fast compared to the general pace.

A huge part of the economy has been voluntarily stopped, which is insane to think about, nobody would have thought that was possible before the pandemics happened.

[hmcq6]

> The world reacted pretty quickly and more or less rationally

> A huge part of the economy has been voluntarily stopped

Huh? Covid was tearing up northern Italy before it landed in the US and we did nothing to prevent it. Our politicians were telling people not to buy masks.

Trump sent shit tons of ventilators to Florida for no reason.

We allowed people from places that had confirmed cases of Covid to come into the US, they just had to make a layover.

The WHO refused to call Covid a pandemic until it was way too late.

Nursing homes were decimated. Schools decided that stay 6-feet apart meant "do nothing, its fine".

People were eating horse deworming paste instead of getting the vaccine. People lost their fucking shit over mask mandates.

Maybe you weren't in the US?

[dgellow]

You’re correct I’m not in the US. I also didn’t say things went well. But generally speaking the global response has been relatively rational, and we (as in “us the human societies”) have implemented radical measures fairly quickly that wouldn’t be possible in normal times.

Maybe I have very low expectations for that type of things…

[hmcq6]

Yeah I disagree. I guess it kinda just depends on how you define "generally".

In my opinion, the only country that acted rationally was NZ.

China hid the outbreak until it was already endemic in many countries.

Brazil shit the bed. Every other country seems to have let the virus in and then done very little to prevent spread.

I would say individually we did pretty well generally, but as a collective pretty much every institution failed to adequately address the situation.

Masking was never mandated in public spaces. Business owners could refuse you service but there was no "radicle measure" that made that possible. The vast majority of restaurants were open for sit in dining.

The "radicle measures" that spring to mind when someone mentions Covid are the bad ones. Like the fact that restaurants were allowed to serve food on the sidewalk (good) but then a bunch of restaurants in NY built walls and put up plastic to keep the people dining outside warm, thus negating the effects of being in open air.

But yeah, I agree with OP. Watching covid nuts attack children just for existing in public with a mask on was not a shining example of our humanity.