When I fill the pot to make coffee, sometimes I’ll turn the faucet on and then turn away to complete some other quick task. Inevitably, I sometimes take too long on the secondary task, and come back to good, potable water flowing out into the drain. It makes me think about how that truly is the most valuable resource, and some day, I may look back upon those moments of carelessness with great shame. I’m not sure when the next big awful thing that will wipe out entire populations will come, but I’m already preparing myself to feel guilty about it.
What a wonderful way to spend life. I think I should start building a self-sustaining cabin in the mountains somewhere 😑
Global population? Iirc it was around 70k years ago that something (or some combination of things) nearly wiped out all of our ancestors, down to a few thousand. I believe that was initially thought to be an event started by volcanic eruption, but other data contradicts that (or at least points to it not being the only problem).
Smaller scale? The great plague was only a few hundred years ago, that was 100k people pretty localized. Same with Marseilles a few decades later. A few decades after that was a plague in Moscow, twice the toll. Late 1800s was another Russian flu, with a million casualties.
Covid we were able to have enough people not be morons about to not completely (or near totally) wipe us out, but there was also competent leadership after it began (but not early on).
Then now we’ve got bird flu, mpox, not to mention the ridiculously stupid returns of polio and measles.
I’m not a historian or expert in infectious diseases, FWIW, just noting that there have been some bad times for the general population both small and large scale over time.
When I fill the pot to make coffee, sometimes I’ll turn the faucet on and then turn away to complete some other quick task. Inevitably, I sometimes take too long on the secondary task, and come back to good, potable water flowing out into the drain. It makes me think about how that truly is the most valuable resource, and some day, I may look back upon those moments of carelessness with great shame. I’m not sure when the next big awful thing that will wipe out entire populations will come, but I’m already preparing myself to feel guilty about it.
What a wonderful way to spend life. I think I should start building a self-sustaining cabin in the mountains somewhere 😑
What was the last big awful thing that wiped out entire populations?
Global population? Iirc it was around 70k years ago that something (or some combination of things) nearly wiped out all of our ancestors, down to a few thousand. I believe that was initially thought to be an event started by volcanic eruption, but other data contradicts that (or at least points to it not being the only problem).
Smaller scale? The great plague was only a few hundred years ago, that was 100k people pretty localized. Same with Marseilles a few decades later. A few decades after that was a plague in Moscow, twice the toll. Late 1800s was another Russian flu, with a million casualties.
Covid we were able to have enough people not be morons about to not completely (or near totally) wipe us out, but there was also competent leadership after it began (but not early on).
Then now we’ve got bird flu, mpox, not to mention the ridiculously stupid returns of polio and measles.
I’m not a historian or expert in infectious diseases, FWIW, just noting that there have been some bad times for the general population both small and large scale over time.