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eastbound • yesterday at 6:13 PM • 5 replies • view on HN

The disease is not the problem, people's reaction to it, is.


Replies

Quinner • yesterday at 6:27 PM

No pretty sure its the disease that kills people.

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throwaway5752 • yesterday at 6:36 PM

I think you can safely agree that they are not mutually exclusive and both of them are problems. In this particular case, it was a 100% fatality disease in a gain-of-function lab. It is being handled extremely seriously by Russia.

Perhaps the Russian military is overreacting with the blanket quarantines, but the odds are more likely that they understand the nature better than anyone else.

Again, normal pneumonic plague approaches 100% fatality rates. This is potentially a weaponized form.

This is an "oh, fuck" moment.

npunt • yesterday at 8:14 PM

You realize life is complex enough that two things can be true, right? That everything isn't either/or?

The reason we've haven't had more outbreaks of more diseases in the last century is because we had a lot of smart vigilant well-resourced people who very much felt the disease was the problem, and took steps to mitigate.

Classic late-stage civilization blunder is taking the fruits of civilization for granted. Sorry you're not aware of those things, but that's on you.

buellerbueller • yesterday at 6:34 PM

The bullet is not the problem, the squishy matter people are made of is.