Deep Frozen Arctic Microbes Are Waking Up • Hacker News Board

Re: Deep Frozen Arctic Microbes Are Waking Up

#81

Post by adamsea » Sat, Nov 21, 2020, 9:27 PM UTC

est31 wrote: post #56

hef19898 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since this thing started, I re-read various publications about the black death. And the social reactions are so strikingly similar.

Do you have a list? I'm interested. I was surprised that even in 2020 you have people making up straight lies about covid, while I believed that the wild theories that people had about the plague back in the day (e.g. the one that blamed the jews for it) were born from the fact that these people haven't went to school and were badly educated. But now they can write and relevant parts of the population claim similar t…

Sadly these days the ability to read and write is insufficient in order to be an informed citizen because of how complex our media world is.

One really needs to have some solid critical thinking skills in order to be able to judge the overall reliability and trustworthiness of a book, article, tweet, news episode, etc.

And ideally have some fundamental historical knowledge, basic math, logic, fundamentals of science, etc.

Id argue many Americans are, through no fault of their own, not well-educated.

EDIT:

I cribbed from Noam Chomskys description of what it means to be educated:

https://www.openculture.com/2016/04/noam-chomsky-defines-wha...

'Humboldt, Chomsky says, “argued, I think, very plausibly, that the core principle and requirement of a fulfilled human being is the ability to inquire and create constructively, independently, without external controls.” A true education, Chomsky suggests, opens a door to human intellectual freedom and creative autonomy.'

Re: Deep Frozen Arctic Microbes Are Waking Up

#82

Post by mikedilger » Sat, Nov 21, 2020, 9:37 PM UTC

Life that has been continually evolving as the environment changes is much more likely to develop into a super threat than life that has been frozen for ages and is waking up into a world that it is not optimized for.

Anthrax outbreaks have occurred all around the world. Just because it occurred in Siberia and there is evidence that it survives being frozen for long periods of time doesn't mean the risk of some super threat from permafrost is of any exceptional significance.

It seems however that people like to be frightened and to have something to panic about, especially Americans, and your newspapers and magazines cater to this by cherry picking data that can be twisted to tell a scary story.

Re: Deep Frozen Arctic Microbes Are Waking Up

#83

Post by phs318u » Sat, Nov 21, 2020, 9:43 PM UTC

jlokier wrote: post #76

ethbr0 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thankfully, life has a way of selecting against people who fail to act to preserve their own. (Said as someone whose fiance is an ICU nurse)

Unfortunately that doesn't work so well for a disease whose main source of risk to each person is the behaviour of other people.

On a different time scale it does. It’s selecting against groups/societies that reward, value or permit the kinds of behaviours and belief systems that allow such doggedly wilful ignorance to flourish.

Re: Deep Frozen Arctic Microbes Are Waking Up

#84

Post by dtech » Sat, Nov 21, 2020, 9:44 PM UTC

ralph84 wrote: post #60

randmeerkat wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What helps me to keep faith in humanity is imagining being alive during Galileo‘s time. How suffocating it must have been for him to find everyone everywhere rejecting science..? Sure we have a large number of people now that don’t believe in masks, vaccines, etc.., but keep in mind that the majority of the popular vote in the US voted for someone that does believe in science. Progress is being made, just sometimes i…

Yeah well back when YouTube started censoring videos suggesting a connection between vitamin D deficiency and covid it became pretty clear times are not particularly changed from Galieo’s.

Censoring? De-monetizing maybe but they do that with every video mentioning Covid no matter the contents.

Re: Deep Frozen Arctic Microbes Are Waking Up

#85

Post by vagrantJin » Sat, Nov 21, 2020, 9:44 PM UTC

randmeerkat wrote: post #47

irrational wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that people can be literally dying from COVID in a hospital yet still deny its existence has almost totally destroyed any faith I have in humanity.

What helps me to keep faith in humanity is imagining being alive during Galileo‘s time. How suffocating it must have been for him to find everyone everywhere rejecting science..? Sure we have a large number of people now that don’t believe in masks, vaccines, etc.., but keep in mind that the majority of the popular vote in the US voted for someone that does believe in science. Progress is being made, just sometimes i…

> majority of the popular vote in the US voted for someone that does believe in science

You're an optimistic one. They would have voted for a three legged donkey with a nose ring and gold tooth. As long as it wasn't DJT.

Re: Deep Frozen Arctic Microbes Are Waking Up

#86

Post by shakna » Sat, Nov 21, 2020, 9:50 PM UTC

lenkite wrote: post #78

bearburger wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately I see these peoples around in Russia. My estimation of anti-maskers is about 10-15% of population here. Mostly 35-55 males who thinks that wearing a mask is the sign of weakness and/or keeps saying that COVID is "just a flu" and those who died would have been dead anyway in 2-3 month if not from COVID then from something like common cold. Even recent death of 28 y/o school teacher and 23 y/o political a…

One of the big problems is that early in the Pandemic, the WHO, Fauci and most media said that Masks were useless. This was repeated several times. The turn-around occurred later and nobody apologised for their earlier, incorrect stances.

> One of the big problems is that early in the Pandemic, the WHO, Fauci and most media said that Masks were useless.

No, the problem was that people took the statement that we didn't yet have the evidence on efficacy to mean that masks were useless.

Not having evidence... Means that things can go either way. And the WHO didn't even stop by saying no evidence, they said no evidence, and then went ahead and said it might help anyway.

> Although there is no evidence that this is effective in reducing transmission, there is mechanistic plausibility for the potential effectiveness of this measure. - WHO

Re: Deep Frozen Arctic Microbes Are Waking Up

#87

Post by jonsno56 » Sat, Nov 21, 2020, 9:51 PM UTC

knowaveragejoe wrote: post #39

samiru wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Check the Yamal Peninsula in Google Maps and you realize this kind of cratering is a process that has been going on for thousands of years (since the ice age really!).

The scary part is that it's accelerating in on a timescale that's relevant to our needs as a species.

That other person is trolling

Re: Deep Frozen Arctic Microbes Are Waking Up

#88

Post by nix23 » Sat, Nov 21, 2020, 9:51 PM UTC

mikedilger wrote: post #82

Life that has been continually evolving as the environment changes is much more likely to develop into a super threat than life that has been frozen for ages and is waking up into a world that it is not optimized for. Anthrax outbreaks have occurred all around the world. Just because it occurred in Siberia and there is evidence that it survives being frozen for long periods of time doesn't mean the risk of some super…

Yeah they like the Smilla's Sense of Snow shiver :) scientificamerican and history channel....

Re: Deep Frozen Arctic Microbes Are Waking Up

#89

Post by admax88q » Sat, Nov 21, 2020, 9:54 PM UTC

trhway wrote: post #67

strogonoff wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is nothing, short of full bio-defense suit, that can help in the densely packed Moscow (or any other large Russian city) subway or bus A mask is very effective and is worn for others, not yourself. At any point in time you might be carrying asymptomatic or not-yet-symptomatic COVID. Your mask prevents your saliva from flying in the air around you, protecting people near you and their parents/susceptible relat…

>A mask is worn for the others, not yourself. so, imagine one "other" without a mask and everybody around in masks (actually "face coverings" which allow air in/out from sides) commuting everyday in a densely packed bus. Do you think that "other" has much improved chances when aggregated over several months? (again, i'm not arguing against proper mask's efficiency during occasional exposure)

Yes, I don't see why they wouldn't. If everyone is wearing masks then the likelihood of transmission is lower. Also the viral load of any transmission may also be lower, which could improve the outcome.

Re: Deep Frozen Arctic Microbes Are Waking Up

#90

Post by imperialdrive » Sat, Nov 21, 2020, 10:00 PM UTC

irrational wrote: post #20

ggambetta wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the lessons that I've learned from this pandemic is that despite overwhelming evidence and over a million deaths, there's a non-trivial amount of people who still believe it's not real, or who refuse to wear a mask, or who protest against the few, mild, reasonable measures we can take to get through this alive. So if anything, my faith in humankind has gone down :(

The fact that people can be literally dying from COVID in a hospital yet still deny its existence has almost totally destroyed any faith I have in humanity.

Millions upon millions die around the world each year due to poor choices. Don't let a fraction of that amount getting a bad flu change your outlook. Humanity is doing just fine. Could be better, could be worse, but take a slow walk around the block and I think you'll agree.