[HN Gopher] Century-old stone "tsunami stones" dot Japan's coast...
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Century-old stone "tsunami stones" dot Japan's coastline (2015)
Author : janandonly
Score : 146 points
Date : 2024-04-01 10:22 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.smithsonianmag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.smithsonianmag.com)
| pintxo wrote:
| We are bound to repeat the errors of our ancestors when we forget
| the lessons they paid for with blood, sweat and tears. Hence why
| I am afraid of the passing of those who lived through the
| 1930/40s. I seems we are quickly forgetting lots of what humanity
| learned during those years.
| dartos wrote:
| Why do you think that?
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| For one thing, the loosening of the wall between investment
| banking and deposit banking, which played a role in the 2008
| near-collapse. We built that wall after the Great Depression
| showed that it was necessary. But around 2000, people forgot
| why, and the banks pushed for it to be removed so they could
| make more money.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| These lessons aren't forgotten, Japan is as aware of its
| geography as the Netherlands are of theirs.
|
| Instead tradeoffs are made.
|
| The same way people near forests get their house burned down
| but rebuild at the same place because they can afford it. Or we
| deplete underground water because stopping it would be an
| uphill political battle etc.
|
| I can't imagine any recent catastrophe where the core cause of
| it would be sheer ignorance of the potential for risk.
| thih9 wrote:
| About "I can't imagine any recent catastrophe where the core
| cause of it would be sheer ignorance of the potential for
| risk.", there are a lot of recent examples. E.g.:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surfside_condominium_collaps.
| ..
|
| > The problems had been reported in 2018 and noted as "much
| worse" in April 2021.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_water_crisis
|
| > Prior to August 2014, additional chlorine had been added to
| eliminate bacteria from the Flint River. (...) Following this
| test, the MDEQ placed Flint on violation notice but did not
| reveal the information to residents until January 2015.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenfell_Tower_fire
|
| > Both the aluminium-polyethylene cladding and the PIR
| insulation plates failed fire safety tests conducted after
| the fire, according to the police.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Beirut_explosion
|
| > A cargo of 2,750 tonnes of [ammonium nitrate] (equivalent
| to around 1.1 kilotons of TNT) had been stored in a warehouse
| without proper safety measures for the previous six years
| after having been confiscated by Lebanese authorities from
| the abandoned ship MV Rhosus.
| xyzelement wrote:
| We do this all over the place. For example, there's the idea
| that whatever warnings and suggestions are in the Bible are
| obsolete because we as moderns know better. EG "in the past
| they needed religion because of X but not we don't."
|
| But the idea is flawed in that if the Bible wrote 3000 years
| ago about certain virtues and dangers, presumably it is because
| they had seen what the opposite looks like and thought it was
| important to codify and pass forward that knowledge in a way
| that had a shot of being still read thousands of years later.
|
| In other words, our idea to discard the ideas in the Bible is
| not novel, it is perhaps the same idea that has led to disaster
| millennia ago that caused the Bible to be what it is to begin
| with.
|
| It is similar to looking at a "tsunami stone" and saying "why
| would I heed advice of someone who has never seen a microwave
| oven when I have modern science."
| simion314 wrote:
| You mean what? That if we sin (like you know all that giant
| list of outdated ways to sin like touching a woman when she
| is menstruating) there will be a giant rain and we will
| drawn? So did you made your giant boat or first you need to
| wait for God to tell you to do it in a dream?
|
| Sorry , but some people will not follow those outdated rules
| and also worship a extremely cruel genocidal inhuman God, if
| my sin will cause you to have to build a boat to save
| yourself sorry but I don't care.
| its_ethan wrote:
| I think if you gave an honest effort at interpreting what
| he said, you'd find that he's saying there's a reason
| religion has survived as long as it has.
|
| He's not claiming that your actions are going to cause a
| biblical flood - that's something you're projecting on to
| him and, in my opinion, just feels like mockery for the
| sake of mockery.
|
| He's suggesting that there are generation-spanning lessons
| that had been learned, both ethical and practical, that
| made their way into scriptures. Not all the lessons in the
| Bible (or other religious text) are going to be pertinent
| to the modern day. To say it contains nothing of value, and
| that nothing can be learned from, it proves his point
| exactly.
| simion314 wrote:
| So your point is that there is a chance that soem
| microscopic parts in the Bible contain good lessons? I
| agree, some children stories also have good lesions.
|
| The fact that religion survived or spread does not prove
| what you imply it proves, it was an useful tool for the
| powerful to keep the poor in check like
|
| 1 Bible says to pay your taxes
|
| 2 Bible says that is OK to be poor because you will be
| rewarded later
|
| 3 Bible says that violence is bad so do not attack your
| lord and try to make justice on Earth, you will get your
| justice in the next realm.
|
| And so on, a very good tool to manipulate people.
| xyzelement wrote:
| I think you're misreading what I am saying and injecting
| some extra anger.
|
| To use a simple example of what I meant - in the west, the
| secular section of society has below-replacement fertility.
| In other words, for whatever reason that group is slowly
| dying off. I hate to say this as someone who was secular
| most of my life but I think it's objectively true (do you
| disagree?)
|
| Meanwhile religious folks live in the same world as we do
| yet somehow are able to maintain 2.5 to 3.5 fertility rate
| (this is in the US) depending on which version of the
| "homicidal inhuman G-d" they believe in.
|
| This suggests to me that somewhere in that "religious"
| operating system is encoded immunity to things that are
| slowly killing off the unreligious right now. That's the
| kind of thing I was talking about in my post - we should be
| very careful about discarding that.
| martinpw wrote:
| > To use a simple example of what I meant - in the west,
| the secular section of society has below-replacement
| fertility. In other words, for whatever reason that group
| is slowly dying off.
|
| Except that the secular section is also replenished by
| children of the religious becoming secular, which
| currently seems to be outweighing the relative birthrate
| differences and is causing that secular section to be
| increasing as a percentage of the population.
| MeImCounting wrote:
| "Looking at the U.S. public as a whole, however, the
| answer to the question of whether more education is
| correlated with less religion appears to be yes. Among
| all U.S. adults, college graduates are considerably less
| likely than those who have less education to say religion
| is "very important" in their lives: Fewer than half of
| college graduates (46%) say this, compared with nearly
| six-in-ten of those with no more than a high school
| education (58%)."
|
| I am sure you know of the correlation between affluent
| people having fewer children and highly educated people
| tending to be more affluent. I dont think its
| particularly mysterious or confusing why secular
| populations have a lower fertility rate. It should be
| pretty obvious at a glance.
|
| Religion is a lot like conservatism in that it provides a
| self affirming world view that relies on ethics from
| centuries past. I am sure there are many highly
| democratic, rich and ethical conservatives and religious
| types but generally these traits are indicators of the
| opposite. There is a reason the past century of progress
| has allowed such great leaps in education, quality of
| life etc while being accompanied by an ever decreasing
| level of religiosity.
| callalex wrote:
| I'll be sure to tell that to my gay friends, my female
| friends who don't just shut up and submit, and anybody who
| puts cheese on a hotdog.
| its_ethan wrote:
| Make sure you don't also forget to throw the baby out with
| the bathwater
| callalex wrote:
| As soon as you are picking and choosing, how are you
| adhering to any supposed wisdom provided by the divine?
| its_ethan wrote:
| I'd suggest using your best judgement - no one here is
| advocating for orthodoxy. Times have changed over the
| last 2-3000 years, and things that were once practical
| may not be anymore.
|
| I think you might be assuming that the only
| interpretation of religious text is that they are all-or-
| nothing affairs, across the board. One of the core tenets
| to Christianity is the recognition that everyone is going
| to sin (or not "adhere to the supposed wisdom of the
| divine" as you put it) and that they will still be
| forgiven.
| bregma wrote:
| Wait, I though the cheesemakers are blessed?
|
| What if it's Whiz?
| k12sosse wrote:
| I think it's because pork and cow products
| Nevermark wrote:
| > presumably it is because they had seen what the opposite
| looks like
|
| Ouch. "Presumably" isn't a logical proposition. Not even
| close.
|
| I am sure there is wisdom in the different religious
| heritages. But the religious heritages that lasted were able
| to do so using a fair amount of practices and beliefs aimed
| at carrying along commitment to that heritage, as much or
| more than general wisdom (which has value beyond the
| religion).
|
| (Not dismissing the value anyone gets from their practices
| and beliefs, where they don't negatively impact others or
| treat non-believers dismissively.)
| its_ethan wrote:
| Who said he was making a logical proposition? He's
| speculating on an idea - or said another way, he is
| presuming...
| Nevermark wrote:
| If you are going to make a point based on "presuming",
| you are not just presuming. You are suggesting an
| implication.
|
| We can all presume, imagine, confabulate. But those are
| not a good basis for making broad points.
| anjel wrote:
| Its a very short list of things people won't appropriate in
| the pursuit of power
| makeitdouble wrote:
| The Bible is obsolete because the saner parts have been
| extracted and integrated into either the law system (e.g. the
| marriage system in the west) or education and social values,
| and have been refined other centuries of discussion and
| challenges to come up with a set of rules and principles that
| can work for our current population density and life style.
|
| And in particular these rules and principles will continue to
| evolve, where the Bible wont.
|
| What remains proper to the Bible are the funky bits, the
| outright offensive parts and anachronistic advices.
| thih9 wrote:
| > Aneyoshi's tsunami stone is the only one found that explicitly
| describes where to build houses
|
| As for others, "Some act as monuments, giving death tolls from
| past tsunamis or marking mass graves of the victims. Others offer
| more direct advice. A tsunami stone in Kesennuma, a city in the
| Miyagi Prefecture, reads: 'Always be prepared for unexpected
| tsunamis. Choose life over your possessions and valuables.'" -
| source: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/tsunami-stones
| kurthr wrote:
| If you find coral deposited more than 100ft above sea level,
| it's another marker of danger... although perhaps on a longer
| time scale.
|
| Hawaii has several examples of this (coral found at sites over
| 500ft) from what are assumed to be Mega-tsunami.
|
| https://www.e-education.psu.edu/earth107/node/1610#:~:text=O...
| .
| thih9 wrote:
| > another marker of danger
|
| Note that tsunami stones, except one, are not markers of
| danger, at least not in a precise, spatial sense. They're
| like memorial plaques, listing past casualties or marking
| gravesites. See grandparent comment.
| barqawiz wrote:
| The tsunami stones of Japan serve as a reminder of the timeless
| battle between human memory and nature's fury.
| peterleiser wrote:
| "History shows again and again how nature points out the folly
| of men" -- Godzilla, Blue Oyster Cult
| card_zero wrote:
| "Oh no, there goes Tokyo" -- Godzilla, Blue Oyster Cult
| themaninthedark wrote:
| Yeah but that is what makes humans go. The fact we take risks.
| frozenlettuce wrote:
| In 2011 almost 1k people died after heavy rains in Brazil that
| caused a whole valley to be flooded (surrounding mountain ranges
| canalized massive amounts of rainfall into it). On Street View it
| is possible to see how high the water went, by looking at the
| stains in the walls
| https://www.google.com/maps/@-22.3974509,-43.0875373,3a,26.2...
| Sadly the region is repopulated again - a mix of people building
| houses to rent to unaware folks, people unwilling to leave behind
| decades of work, and general faith that they will survive if
| that's God's will.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_2011_Rio_de_Janeiro_fl...
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| People have moved into houses built on the "Love Canal" toxic
| dump in Niagara unaware of its history as probably the worst
| toxic waste catastrophe in the US:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Canal
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/12/nyregion/love-canal-toxic...
| (archive: https://archive.ph/UFJ96)
| hinkley wrote:
| Seattle turned a creosote saturated lakefront area into a
| city park. And then had to shut it down within a year, scrape
| all the topsoil off to a deeper depth and replace it.
|
| There are actual creosote superfund sites in Puget Sound,
| from railroad tie manufacture. For some reason the gasworks
| weren't one, even though they are a point source of the
| stuff.
| divbzero wrote:
| Gas Works Park is the Seattle city park referenced above:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_Works_Park
|
| https://www.seattletimes.com/life/50-years-since-gas-
| works-p...
|
| The cleanup effort is still ongoing:
|
| https://ecology.wa.gov/blog/june-2023/cleaning-up-cleanup-
| of...
| hinkley wrote:
| In the southern Midwest and in a few of the arid states, there
| are areas where flash flooding is a problem. In a heavy
| rainstorm, the shape of the watershed is such that most of the
| water shows up at a river or stream bed as a concentrated
| pulse. That can be particularly dangerous in a seasonal stream
| bed, because you are more likely to have people in a dry stream
| bed than a wet one. Of course you also have the problem of
| people crossing a dry bed and not being able to cross back
| until the rains stop.
|
| There are some famous videos of people getting caught by flash
| floods in the Middle East as well. The return of the rains
| seems to have become a spectator sport and people get too
| close.
| stuff4ben wrote:
| > "It takes about three generations for people to forget. Those
| that experience the disaster themselves pass it to their children
| and their grandchildren, but then the memory fades,"
|
| Some similarities to lessons from the 1918 flu epidemic that we
| relearned in 2020. We should build some "COVID stones" so we
| don't forget.
| jstanley wrote:
| What are the lessons from COVID?
| SandalsAndSocks wrote:
| I think COVID (and the 2020 events, especially in the USA - I
| was living in Minneapolis at that time, so I might be biased)
| increased mental health awareness. For everyone, but
| especially for "essential workers".
|
| Supply chain improvements have been made to increase
| diversification and resilience.
|
| There was a lot of individualism to cast a shadow, but also
| cooperation and solidarity was shining on a small scale
| (hobbyist 3d-printing and donating shields and face mask
| relief thingies), but also globally.
|
| Without getting into the healthcare and technology
| advancements we accomplished as a species.
| hinkley wrote:
| I guarantee you stock prices will go up in ten years when
| new CEOs dismantle all that redundancy in order to improve
| profit margins for two quarters.
| huytersd wrote:
| The best things that came from COVID is increased WFH and
| mRNA vaccines.
| stuff4ben wrote:
| For me, it's being prepared essentially. Having a supply of
| masks, toilet paper, meds, emergency supplies, etc.
| 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
| I came out of it fine. I wish some other people had learned:
|
| - That a respiratory disease can spread quickly before you
| show symptoms, and kill millions
|
| - That even though the government is wrong a lot, sometimes
| they're right about important things
|
| - That you don't get to defect from polite society one day
| and then whine about being an outcast the next. Of course I'm
| mad at people who refused to take any precautions at all.
| They made things worse.
| themaninthedark wrote:
| Here are my takeaways:
|
| - The government will lie to you because it is not
| prepared.
|
| - They will then spin on a dime with no consequences and
| all those who were towing the line will switch with them.
|
| - Those who follow the government's direction will
| ostracize people in both cases and doesn't matter because
| they are "right".
| hinkley wrote:
| Chaos helps no one. It's why even the democratic world
| has martial law.
|
| We may be wrong together but at least we are together.
| Having people running in three directions at once will
| get everyone killed in wartime or disaster. Once the
| avalanche starts it is too late for the pebbles to vote.
| themaninthedark wrote:
| I strongly disagree; People have agency, rocks and
| geological forces do not.
|
| >We may be wrong together but at least we are together.
|
| Is a great way to get everyone killed.
|
| We, in the west love to tout how our diversity and free
| thinking makes us better than those who do not have those
| values. What I saw were a bunch of countries that wished
| they could rule the populace in the same manner as China
| and Saudi Arabia.
|
| If we can not uphold our values when we face
| difficulties, then they are not values.
|
| You speak of martial law and preventing chaos. Envision
| the outcry and response if Trump had enacted such a
| policy in early February when members of the Democratic
| Party were encouraging people to gather in crowds to show
| support for Chinese New Year?
| numpad0 wrote:
| I'm not so sure. To me it seems people just could not
| stand masks to the point it actually created ongoing
| planetary scale mental health crisis. :shrug:.
| mistermann wrote:
| Is it acceptable to get mad at all suboptimal behaviors
| during that debacle, or only a subset of them? And if a
| subset: who decides, how do they decide, and who made the
| decision that this is the obligatory structure that we all
| must adopt without being asked for agreement?
| OCASMv2 wrote:
| > That even though the government is wrong a lot, sometimes
| they're right about important things
|
| They weren't right during the pandemic though. From
| initially refusing to acknowledge the situation to lying
| and cohercing people into taking untested injections whose
| side effects on the population remain unknown, and of
| course censoring and character assassinating anyone who
| dared rise any objections against its conduct. And lets not
| forget actively avoiding finding out the origin of the
| virus because it wasn't politically convenient during an
| election year.
| wewtyflakes wrote:
| This does not seem to disprove the statement of "That
| even though the government is wrong a lot, sometimes
| they're right about important things".
| OCASMv2 wrote:
| In the context of the pandemic response, without any
| specifics on what they got right I think it does.
| wewtyflakes wrote:
| To disprove "That even though the government is wrong a
| lot, sometimes they're right about important things", you
| would have to prove that the government is wrong _all_
| the time about important things. You just mentioned some
| things you think the government got wrong, but that is
| covered by the clause "That even though the government is
| wrong a lot" anyway. So it then just seems you wanted to
| soapbox about covid and governments, even if that isn't
| your intent.
| OCASMv2 wrote:
| In the context "lessons we learned from covid that we
| shouldn't forget", "the government is sometimes right
| about important things" cannot be one of them without
| specifics on what is it they supposedly got right.
| wewtyflakes wrote:
| How about wearing masks, minimizing in-person
| interactions, and funding medical research, during the
| height of the pandemic? Those seem reasonable.
| OCASMv2 wrote:
| > wearing masks
|
| Reasonable at first. Once it was known that the virus is
| transmitted via aerosols then forcing masks was the wrong
| thing to do, specially on children. Useless and damaging.
|
| > minimizing in-person interactions
|
| What benefit did it achieve? As a quarantine it was too
| leaky and it also led to mass psychological distress.
|
| > funding medical research
|
| What medical research? For some reason, the most obvious
| approach, repurposed drugs, was nowhere in sight. If
| anything demonizing it was the official policy (ie. the
| smear campaign against ivermectin).
| wewtyflakes wrote:
| > Useless and damaging.
|
| This seems like a ridiculous thing to say; both useless
| _and_ damaging? Even if one of these things were true,
| they can't _both_ be true.
|
| > What benefit did it achieve?
|
| Minimizing the spread of covid.
|
| > What medical research?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Warp_Speed
|
| > the most obvious approach, repurposed drugs, was
| nowhere in sight
|
| Didn't the J&J vaccine use a more traditional approach?
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janssen_COVID-19_vaccine
|
| Also, people tried repurposing drugs (see
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivermectin#COVID-19).
|
| So your claim of "nowhere in sight" is incorrect.
| cyberax wrote:
| > Reasonable at first. Once it was known that the virus
| is transmitted via aerosols then forcing masks was the
| wrong thing to do, specially on children. Useless and
| damaging.
|
| And that's the reason we have governments for. So that
| people like you can't do unlimited damage. You can
| privately hate the government, but as long as you follow
| the rules, the damage is contained.
|
| Masks saved people, including children:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9968482/
| hinkley wrote:
| We had infrastructure that would handle a pandemic and
| that fuckface traitorous loser dismantled it.
| OCASMv2 wrote:
| What specifically would have been different with that
| infrastructure in place?
| snakeyjake wrote:
| >cohercing people into taking untested injections
|
| The vaccines were extremely well-tested and anyone saying
| they weren't is either lying or was lied to by a liar.
|
| They did not follow the typical drug approval process.
|
| That does not mean they were not tested.
|
| I was one of the test subjects.
| OCASMv2 wrote:
| > The vaccines were extremely well-tested and anyone
| saying they weren't is either lying or was lied to by a
| liar.
|
| Starting human trials before animal trials were finished
| is not what I'd call "extremely well-tested".
|
| The standard testing procedure takes years. These
| injections were forced upon hundreds of millions of
| people after only a few months of testing, and that's
| even assuming that what little testing was done was done
| properly.
| cyberax wrote:
| > From initially refusing to acknowledge the situation to
| lying and cohercing people into taking untested
| injections whose side effects on the population remain
| unknown
|
| You're spewing bullshit right here. COVID vaccines went
| through clinical trials and had a great safety profile.
| hinkley wrote:
| The worst was a local meetup member who worked for a
| company that either made vaccines or worked in virology and
| still didn't get his vaccinations. He had all these
| bullshit reasons he dressed up as science. He got screamed
| at by the oldest person in the group and stopped showing
| up. But goddamn.
|
| Vaccines don't work on everyone who takes them, and they
| tend to be less effective in the elderly. Every one of
| those people are counting on the rest of us to not bring
| shit to their doorsteps.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Funny. What appear to be the "lessons of COVID" appear to be
| a reinforcement of people's own beliefs. One could just as
| well "learn from COVID" that: The
| government is correct when they request large-scale public
| health interventions and you should go along with it when it
| makes large scale interventions since some of these require
| coordination on an urgent time-scale.
|
| and just as well that Paternalism does not
| work. Providing diktats from the throne result in some
| quarter of the population revolting against the idea, causing
| coordination failure.
|
| Whether one chooses the former or the latter seem entirely
| dependent on one's preconceived beliefs.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| And also on whether or not one is aware of the number of
| deaths avoided by government action, and the documented
| existence of disinformation networks which were - and still
| are - promoting extremes of polarised social division and
| self-harm.
| mistermann wrote:
| It is perhaps worth noting:
|
| - it is not possible to be aware of aware of the number
| of deaths avoided by government action, because counter-
| factual reality is not accessible; humans typically
| substitute a simulation in response, but often do not
| know that has occurred
|
| - there is no requirement for documentation ("documented
| existence of disinformation networks") to be accurate
|
| - in some cases, and for various reasons (choice of
| inadequate variable types in one's analysis/cognition,
| ie: "existence", cultural norms), it is not possible for
| documentation to be accurate and comprehensive, and this
| is one of those times
|
| - in some cases it is not possible to apply this sort of
| level of rigor, this seems to almost always be one of
| those times (all people on all sides are engaged in
| deceit, intentionally or not), at least so far in
| humanity's evolution
|
| - In most serious organizations, an event of this scale
| would prompt a post incident analysis, there seems to be
| little sign that anyone considers this event serious
| enough to justify such an analysis (COVID seems to have
| triggered one of the many paradoxes in the system in that
| it is super serious, but also not, _simultaneously_ )
|
| - this list is far from exhaustive
|
| - humans will have very interesting (and typically
| predictable) reactions to the contents of this list, or
| others like it (the system is susceptible to a list based
| attack?)
| hinkley wrote:
| Some people got twisted up in Fauci's stated estimates
| being off by a factor of two, and people using bad math
| to say they were off by a lot more than that.
|
| When only 25% of the population has been exposed you
| expect 1/4 of the projected death toll. Then multiply by
| 2 and now you're pushing an order of magnitude. But what
| we are seeing is a pretty steady .9% mortality rate for
| people who are exposed.
|
| Meanwhile the fatality rate for this last flu season was
| 1/16th of COVID (which is another comparison they liked
| to make).
|
| The problem with 1% is that almost everyone will know
| someone who died. But they took it like the odds of
| winning the lottery. Let's just gamble that's a small
| number!
| lurking15 wrote:
| > But what we are seeing is a pretty steady .9% mortality
| rate for people who are exposed.
|
| The distribution of risk is almost entirely concentrated
| on people who have so few years left in their life
| compared to the rest of humanity whereas the burden of
| all the interventions falls squarely on the young, who DO
| propagate humanity into the future, and who are at
| essentially no major risk.
|
| Representing covid as a .9% generalized risk is nothing
| short of willful (self?) deception.
| veidr wrote:
| I don't think so -- in this specific case (and probably you
| can extrapolate to some degree in a generic way) one of
| those viewpoints has proven to be more
| successful/adaptive/helpful than the other. Even though
| they are both "true" to a degree.
|
| I mean, there are all sorts of confounding factors, but in
| a rough sense we are now able to look at various
| populations (countries, states, or even friend/acquaintance
| cohorts) that leaned into one or the other of those
| positions, and compare how they fared.
| padjo wrote:
| Are you aware of any good studies that have done this and
| reached strong conclusions?
| eej71 wrote:
| I agree with what I think is the implied premise of your
| question - which - I'd make explicit as - its not clear we
| can agree what the lessons even were?
|
| For example, was it good that we closed parks? Remember when
| sand was poured into skateparks? Or the parks in NYC were
| padlocked? Was it good that we closed schools for so long?
| Remember the amount of shaming that happened when some people
| went to the beaches? Remember when the grocery stores had
| arrows about which way the direction of the aisle went?
| Remember how long we handed out bacteria wipes as though it
| was spread through dirty surfaces?
|
| I'm not sure us peons in society are the only ones who need
| to learn lessons here.
| wpietri wrote:
| If you look at the flu seasons, I think one of the lessons is
| that relatively modest behavioral and infrastructural changes
| could radically reduce harm from respiration-transmitted
| diseases. However I think it's a lesson that went mostly
| unlearned.
|
| The future I was expecting was a strong increase in
| ventilation, widespread adoption of CO2 measurements in
| public spaces (in the same way we measure temperature and
| humidity now), and experiments with things like UV to reduce
| disease particle viability. Along with behavioral changes,
| like staying home when sick, some continued use of masking,
| and use of mRNA techniques so people get something like
| quarterly vaccines that cover all the diseases we're trying
| to keep in check.
|
| What I instead got was an anti-science politicization of
| reasonable public health measures that 20 years ago would
| have been inconceivable. And then a giant collective shrug
| where we see plenty of ongoing death and a continuing rise of
| long Covid such that we have millions partly or wholly
| disabled. Including with brain fog, a symptom that I, as a
| programmer, would fine particularly devastating.
| hinkley wrote:
| Two of my local haunts have UV lights and a number of
| places have much better ventilation now. It's not every
| place but it's some.
|
| The other thing we should bring back are brass and silver
| handles. Both of which can kill surface germs almost
| instantly. It has to be unlaquered though and you'll find a
| lot of brass coated in plastic to keep it from corroding.
| musha68k wrote:
| Time to do everything to keep the memories and learnings of
| WWII alive. 79 years ~ 2.6 generations
| mantas wrote:
| Looking at drama around Ukraine war, it's already lost.
| ekanes wrote:
| I see the opposite. A nation state aggressively attempted
| to take over another, and the world reacted swiftly and
| largely in unison. The lesson seems learned, at least for
| now. If the lesson had been lost, everyone would have done
| nothing.
| jewayne wrote:
| Except half of Americans are rooting for Putin.
| Nevermark wrote:
| > Except half of Americans are rooting for Putin.
|
| Both "half" and "rooting" are exaggerations. No need for
| that. But yes, a depressing number of one party's
| politicians are willing to use Ukraine foreign policy as
| a domestic division issue.
| jstanley wrote:
| Doesn't it take 2 sides to make something a division
| issue?
| jewayne wrote:
| Your mom milks babies for their blood.
|
| Now, don't go and make this a division issue by
| disagreeing with me.
| Nevermark wrote:
| Do you also think it takes two sides to start a war?
|
| What on Earth was Ukraine thinking of by taking Russia's
| bait and getting involved in its own invasion!
|
| /light humor
| jewayne wrote:
| I do not feel that is an exaggeration whatsoever. About
| half of Americans would prefer to see Russia win the war.
| I think I'm getting downvoted for speaking the plain
| truth.
| Terr_ wrote:
| > About half of Americans would prefer to see Russia win
| the war.
|
| My brother in pro-democracy, you are _literally_
| exaggerating right now. If half the US adult population
| people really wanted Russia to conquer Ukraine, you would
| be able to easily cite polls showing it in rather stark
| terms.
|
| Yes, it's definitely become a red/blue partisan issue,
| and yes, Republican "leadership" needs to be raked over
| the coals for their extended support for the Emperor's
| New Clothes, and yes, if Russia won they'd probably make
| up a bunch of "this is fine" nonsense... However!--Even
| if you assumed _every single person of any party_ who
| thought "the US gives too much aid" was _actually_ a
| crypto-Putinist hiding their dark desires for an outright
| Russian victory... Well, that 's still only 37%. [0]
|
| That far-reaching assumption almost certainly wrong
| through, especially since general sentiment toward Russia
| has almost hit rock-bottom. [1] That's why nobody even
| _bothers_ polling for "which country would your rather
| see win."
|
| [0] https://apnews.com/article/poll-ukraine-aid-
| congress-b772c97...
|
| [1] https://news.gallup.com/poll/1642/russia.aspx
| BurningFrog wrote:
| The NATO countries reacted in unison.
|
| The rest of the world cares as much as we do about the
| wars in Africa.
| zdragnar wrote:
| > the world reacted swiftly and largely in unison
|
| The western world. Don't forget that the early economic
| sanctions were largely ignored by the BRICS countries,
| which make up ~45% of the world's population.
| roughly wrote:
| What's particularly worrying is the dwindling number of
| people who've actually been in the presence of an atomic
| detonation.
| vanderZwan wrote:
| Being in the presence of an atomic detonation will do that
| to you, I suppose.
| roughly wrote:
| Yeah, there's a real sweet spot there - close enough to
| really get the immensity, far enough away to tell people
| about it.
| bombcar wrote:
| The last atomic test was in 1992, so we have some years
| left.
| hinkley wrote:
| The rise of nazism in America says we are already too late.
| We do tend to have slightly shorter memories than Europe.
| Learn from our mistakes.
| iamthirsty wrote:
| > The rise of nazism in America says we are already too
| late.
|
| This isn't a new thing, unfortunately.
|
| Given that the KKK has been around for 100+ years -- and
| the fact that the Eugenics movement really started in the
| United States[1] (so clearly so that Hitler mentions it in
| Mein Kampf), Nazism & Hyper-Nationalism have been in and
| out of fashion for over a century and we are still here.
|
| [1]:https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-guarded-gate-
| daniel-okr...
| 1letterunixname wrote:
| Yep. This is the average societal memory horizon. The
| absolute cultural memory horizon tends to be roughly 250
| years (10 generations) as that's about when most
| civilizations fail. At least once every generation, there is
| a moral or cultural test event that pushes that civilization
| writ large closer to disorder or makes it stronger by
| recovery, preparedness, and prevention.
| DudeOpotomus wrote:
| The Fourth Turning and his newer one, The Fourth Turning is
| Here by Neil Howe goes into this phenomenon and how it shapes
| society and humanity. It's roughly 80 years in length and
| covers 4 generations of archetypes. Every society, every
| culture, everywhere for as long as we know...
| 1letterunixname wrote:
| 1918 not-Spanish "Spanish" A/H1N1 flu _pandemic._
|
| Pandemic commandments:
|
| 0. Thou shalln't eat wild animals.
|
| 1. Thou shalln't mix wild animals and animal agriculture.
|
| 2. Better yet, thou shalln't eat any animals to prevent this
| entire risk category.
| helsinki wrote:
| I'll never forget the first time I saw this phenomenon in
| Miyakojima, Okinawa.
|
| https://photos.app.goo.gl/uJwtiT34si7yK4C56
| ngcc_hk wrote:
| Should mark 2015 as this is old article. As there is a nuclear
| melt down, guess the mark in history and memory is very
| different.
| logtempo wrote:
| remind me of hunger stones :
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_stone
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