Things That Irritate You in Life

Onychorhynchus coronatus said:
There is nothing like a pandemic of disease to whip up hysteria and fear in human populations yet scientists have been warning about the likelihood of the emergence of these viruses for decades. When it comes to zoonotic spillover viruses these things at least hypothetically should have a silver lining when it comes to highlighting to the public the link between ecological disequilibrium through our impact on the natural world and widescale human mortality.

But after having witnessed over the years the well founded media and public hysteria regarding "mad cow disease", foot and mouth disease, AIDS/HIV, SARS, Ebola, Zika, yellow fever, Swine flu and bird flu I can't help but be very cynical. It appears to me that pandemics are something like climate change, antibiotic resistance or terrorism in the sense that non-scientists/analysts and policy makers only really worry about when it finally hits us.

The rest of the time people just go sleep walking blithely through their lives and don't care about what is going on in the wider world. When the **** hits the fan a virus will typically become a talking point for a while and then eventually be largely forgotten by all but survivors and scientists until the next one arises. The fact that these pandemics are essentially an ecological blowback seems to be conveniently ignored by the majority.

I hope the emergence of the Coronavirus at least highlights the relevance and need of effective conservation policies to people and leads to a far greater political and economical will towards investment in these I don't actually hold out much hope.
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I agree with your central point, that societies and policy makers should be concerned with the relation between human health and disease outbreaks and conservation and ecological policy. I guess your cynicism regarding where on the priority list this topic is is largely warranted. I believe we need to be watchful, take appropriate action, invest and make changes. I also hope some lessons will be learned from Covid-19, but I doubt they will be - I wouldn't be surprised if, for example, China would again lift its ban on wildlife trade. Some of this bad crap is too ingrained for it to go away even with strong legal action by willing governments.

However with regards to people living their lives while ignoring these issues, I would like to point out that very few are able or willing to live their lives constantly worrying about things that could do wrong or constantly calling for conservation and environmental action. Even of those who are concerned about conservation and the environment (like I would guess most people on this site) few can or want to dedicate their entire life towards these matters. There is still such a thing as enjoying life. It is good to be concerned, but few can or want to let that concern rule their entire life.

PS: Some of these discussions should probably be moved to the Covid-19 thread, if possible.
 
KevinB said:
I agree with your central point, that societies and policy makers should be concerned with the relation between human health and disease outbreaks and conservation and ecological policy. I guess your cynicism regarding where on the priority list this topic is is largely warranted. I believe we need to be watchful, take appropriate action, invest and make changes. I also hope some lessons will be learned from Covid-19, but I doubt they will be - I wouldn't be surprised if, for example, China would again lift its ban on wildlife trade. Some of this bad crap is too ingrained for it to go away even with strong legal action by willing governments.

However with regards to people living their lives while ignoring these issues, I would like to point out that very few are able or willing to live their lives constantly worrying about things that could do wrong or constantly calling for conservation and environmental action. Even of those who are concerned about conservation and the environment (like I would guess most people on this site) few can or want to dedicate their entire life towards these matters. There is still such a thing as enjoying life. It is good to be concerned, but few can or want to let that concern rule their entire life.

PS: Some of these discussions should probably be moved to the Covid-19 thread, if possible.
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Oh I totally agree , we can't live our lives contemplating doom and gloom scenarios but that wasn't what I was suggesting people should be doing at least not all of the time anyway.

But at the very least we should all strive to be aware / mindful of how precariously the human species and its civilization rests and relies on the back of the natural world and we should realise that the more we screw around the more inevitably nightmarish ecological blowback there is going to be.

That is just how things go and we should strive to face the music. I freely admit as someone who has and will continue to dedicate my life to biodiversity conservation that this kind of current attitude of "OMG coronavirus" as if it hasn't been a long time coming and our own making irritates the hell out of me.
 
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birdsandbats said:
IIRC the virus has a 2% death rate, yet the media is acting like it's the 1918 Influenza epidemic all over again. :confused:
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You mean the 1918 influenza epidemic which had a death rate of around 2-3%, and therefore is not all that different from the current estimates for Covid19? And which hit at a time when the world was a lot less interconnected than it is now? ;)
 
TeaLovingDave said:
You mean the 1918 influenza epidemic which had a death rate of around 2-3%, and therefore is not all that different from the current estimates for Covid19? And which hit at a time when the world was a lot less interconnected than it is now? ;)
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And still the Spanish flu infected over a quarter of the world population at the time.

I guess that and the fact Covid-19 is more transmissible than influenza might be part of why some people (including experts) have been spreading scenarios predicting 40-70% of the world population could get it.

That kind of messages is definitely getting my anxiety up, alongside media reports of people arguing that only far-reaching lock-downs and a large scale halting of normal public and private life like the ones in China can be effective in containing this epidemic.

I'm hoping they are wrong, but I am definitely worried about how bad things are going to get.
 
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KevinB said:
And still the Spanish flu infected over a quarter of the world population at the time.

I guess that and the fact Covid-19 is more transmissible than influenza might be part of why some people (including experts) have been spreading scenarios predicting 40-70% of the world population could get it.

That kind of messages is definitely getting my anxiety up, alongside media reports of people arguing that only far-reaching lock-downs and a large scale halting of normal public and private life like the ones in China can be effective in containing this epidemic.

I'm hoping they are wrong, but I am definitely worried about how bad things is going to get.
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It is worth considering that there is literally nothing that an individual can do about this other than relatively trivial things such as washing of hands , avoiding over contact with others,practicing good hygiene and not contribute to the proliferation of false information via social media.

The rest is merely accepting with equanimity that despite our wishes everything is indeed out of any our control and quite possibly slipping out of the control of those of the authorities too(If they ever had any in the first place that is which is highly debatable). As nihilistic and cynical as that might seem I think it is perhaps the sanest way to view the situation.
 
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Junklekitteb said:
I feel this thread is going off topic. Maybe another thread should be started around corona?
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Agreed. Things that irritate me in life:

Having a quiet news day so the media sensationalise Coronavirus >

People getting hysterical because the media is reporting on Coronavirus >

People having nothing better to do than talk about Coronavirus >

People stockpiling supplies because of Coronavirus >

People not listening to the medical profession who urge them not to get caught up in the hysteria
 
Zoofan15 said:
People having nothing better to do than talk about Coronavirus >
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As opposed to people having nothing better to do than starting - and participating in - a thread comprising over 100 pages of stream-of-consciousness shitposting? :P

Given some of us actually belong to high-risk groups I think I know the preferable route ;)
 
TeaLovingDave said:
As opposed to people having nothing better to do than starting - and participating in - a thread comprising over 100 pages of stream-of-consciousness shitposting? :p

Given some of us actually belong to high-risk groups I think I know the preferable route ;)
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The Never Ending Story is 104 pages and counting of hilarity. You actually have the dubious honour of starring as a character in it at more than 30 times (more than everyone else put together). :)
 
At the very least we should perhaps concentrate coronavirus discussions in the Covid-19 thread to prevent further derailing of other topics?
 
Zoofan15 said:
I hate those pages on the Internet that have multiple pages (each with so little info, they could all fit on one page) where you have to load each one to see the next thing on the list:

E.g. 10 things you never knew about being a Disneyland employee

Even worse are the ones that say, you’ll never believe what this animal grew into (and you have to load 29 pages to find out). The first 10 pages are remarkably similar and I don’t know what was beyond 11 because by then I’d lost the will to live and had exited out.
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We call this "Clickbait" here.
 
I can't stand the fact that a deli sandwich comes wrapped to perfection in crisply-folded deli paper--but then you eat half of the sandwich and find that the remaining half does not remotely fit in the original sheet of deli paper.
 
Knowing I have to make doctors appointments because I’ve been having absolutely awful chronic pain flare ups recently but I don’t want my life revolving around the doctor again like the last two years of my life :|
 
AUTOCORRECT

.........Why did ANYONE EVER think this was a good idea?

.........I take absolutely NO responsibility for any errors in my posts that involve synonyms or apostrophes.
 
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