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'Sea Prison': Covid-19 has left hundreds of thousands of seafarers stranded

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41–50 of 60 posts

Re: 'Sea Prison': Covid-19 has left hundreds of thousands of seafarers stranded

#41
post #24
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can’t we choose places that are a little closer to the rest of the planet?

If the point is the keep them as a nature preserve, their distance is probably a feature.

I kind of want some nature in my life. Cities with the density of Tokyo or New York aren’t exactly known for that, so it has to be in reach.

Re: 'Sea Prison': Covid-19 has left hundreds of thousands of seafarers stranded

#42
post #33
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You could fit all 7+ billion humans in New Zealand if we all lived as densely as Manhattan. [1] Can stop spreading these factoids as if they would be feasible in any way? You can't just stick people vertically on a small plot of land ad infinitum, it doesn't scale. Think about all the services required for all 7 billion people to function properly, New Zealand would collapse on itself.

I ran some calcuations, and the mass of 7 billion people at an average of 60kg each, spread uniformly over New Zealand, would definitely not cause it to collapse, sink, crack, or tip over. Please stop using such hyperbole.

Your sibling pointed out what I was talking about; transportation, sanitation, food services, EVERYTHING that makes a city function.

You cannot scale that efficiently in your proposed scenario in reality, it is absurd.

Re: 'Sea Prison': Covid-19 has left hundreds of thousands of seafarers stranded

#43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1.4 million is an exceptionally small number of people compared to the size of the oceans. You could fit all 7+ billion humans in New Zealand if we all lived as densely as Manhattan. [1] So 1.4 million people on the oceans is still virtually empty overall. Think about it this way. There are 3.2 million Mongolians and Mongolia is quite large -- thus, Mongolia is extremely empty. There are less than half as many seafar…

I'm just trying to imagine a city the size of New Zealand, Australia devoted to agriculture and the rest of the planet devoted to nature. That would be quite a statement with respect to stewardship of the planet.

A bit of irony however, with New Zealand being home some of the remaining pristine pockets of nature and home to some truly unique wildlife.

It would be like asking if you would trade Madagascar for the rest of the earth to be returned to nature?

Re: 'Sea Prison': Covid-19 has left hundreds of thousands of seafarers stranded

#44
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just trying to imagine a city the size of New Zealand, Australia devoted to agriculture and the rest of the planet devoted to nature. That would be quite a statement with respect to stewardship of the planet.

New Zealand is now a city in Australia?

New Zealand is a state of Australia according to the Australian constitution. It's just that New Zealand thought that was a bit silly and never paid it any attention, and Australia thought that was fair enough.

Re: 'Sea Prison': Covid-19 has left hundreds of thousands of seafarers stranded

#45
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How on earth did you get that from what I wrote?

It's just a joke based on the structure of your sentence. Should have included a /s or something I guess.

I had the same thought (both my initial misreading, and the idea of making the joke).

I went to primary/secondary school in the United States. I feel like this joke is the sort of thing that an English teacher would say to me in response to me writing something like this (which I'm sure I did). I think part of the humor (for me, at least) is the refrain of that particular (and common) criticism :)

Re: 'Sea Prison': Covid-19 has left hundreds of thousands of seafarers stranded

#46
post #38
post #3

It's sad, but at this point, I don't think we should let them back ashore. There's a point at which these sea people can't really adjust and are a danger to society. Something similar happened 3198 years ago and it collapsed all major civilizations. Egypt was never the same again. We'll have to try seasteading or something.

Wow haha, only on HN would I read a sea peoples joke. Did you also watch that informative YouTube lecture [0] or did you find out about them elsewhere? [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRcu-ysocX4

personally I learned more from

https://youtu.be/B965f8AcNbw

and

https://twitter.com/Fall_of_Civ_Pod

Re: 'Sea Prison': Covid-19 has left hundreds of thousands of seafarers stranded

#47
post #42
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I ran some calcuations, and the mass of 7 billion people at an average of 60kg each, spread uniformly over New Zealand, would definitely not cause it to collapse, sink, crack, or tip over. Please stop using such hyperbole.

Your sibling pointed out what I was talking about; transportation, sanitation, food services, EVERYTHING that makes a city function. You cannot scale that efficiently in your proposed scenario in reality, it is absurd.

Don't worry, New Zealand is safe. This imaginary scenario exists only as a fun thought experiment!

Re: 'Sea Prison': Covid-19 has left hundreds of thousands of seafarers stranded

#48

This is an aside to the overall story, but > At any given time, there are more than 1.4 million seafarers plying the world's waterways, according to the International Chamber of Shipping. I mean, I guess this is obvious because SOMEONE has to ship all the stuff everywhere, but that's a truly crazy number of people to me. I guess it goes to show that the oceans are almost unfathomably huge that they can still be compl…

There's about the same number of people (not workers) in the air at any time. And the air is orders of magnitude bigger. Which is cool, we got our flying city, but unfortunately we made it evenly distributed.

Looking at Flight Radar, at least pre covid, was absolutely astounding every time. The scale of humanity is really incredible to me. There are more people in the air than live in my city.

When I first flew to a big city, Osaka, I flew over 3000km of desert before even getting out of my country, and then bam, everything was absolutely infested with life and activity. More 'stuff' than I had ever seen.

Looking at Flight radar not long ago, I saw the veritable stream of Japan Post cargo planes one after the other flying into HK or China, I forget. I remember thinking that just the postage was more planes than were aloft where I live for all commercial, travel and personal activity combined.

Re: 'Sea Prison': Covid-19 has left hundreds of thousands of seafarers stranded

#49
post #3

It's sad, but at this point, I don't think we should let them back ashore. There's a point at which these sea people can't really adjust and are a danger to society. Something similar happened 3198 years ago and it collapsed all major civilizations. Egypt was never the same again. We'll have to try seasteading or something.

Like other commenters I bow to the sea people. Seriously, I hope we find a solution for this situation. It sucks being away from home.

Re: 'Sea Prison': Covid-19 has left hundreds of thousands of seafarers stranded

#50
post #47
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your sibling pointed out what I was talking about; transportation, sanitation, food services, EVERYTHING that makes a city function. You cannot scale that efficiently in your proposed scenario in reality, it is absurd.

Don't worry, New Zealand is safe. This imaginary scenario exists only as a fun thought experiment!

From what I read recently, New Zealand was already struggling to cope with its tourist population. That means they're already on the edge. Probably not a problem anymore since COVID, but we'll see what happens when/if things go back to normal.
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