The worst year to be alive _so far_
536 was ‘the worst year to be alive’ (2018)
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Re: 536 was ‘the worst year to be alive’ (2018)
#12Maybe not for Americans :) The eruption was hypothesized to have occurred in North America but did the team try to cross reference with native accounts of that time period?
I don't think native accounts had dates associated with them, even if you could track them down.
Re: 536 was ‘the worst year to be alive’ (2018)
#13Maybe not for Americans :) The eruption was hypothesized to have occurred in North America but did the team try to cross reference with native accounts of that time period?
According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_weather_events_of_535%... there is some evidence of it hitting the Moche culture in Peru.
Re: 536 was ‘the worst year to be alive’ (2018)
#14[deleted]
Re: 536 was ‘the worst year to be alive’ (2018)
#15Discussed, a little, at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18469891
Re: 536 was ‘the worst year to be alive’ (2018)
#16Maybe not for Americans :) The eruption was hypothesized to have occurred in North America but did the team try to cross reference with native accounts of that time period?
North American natives were not good about writing stuff down, and by the time Europeans showed up it was almost a millennium later so the records would have been scanty even if the Europeans hadn't gone on insane rampages spreading death, disease, and destruction everywhere they went.
Writing was invented in Mesopotamia around 3200BC, while in the Americas the necessity of writing things down triggered the same invention around 600BC. Main reason was because Eurasia was in the east-west plane where climate is similar and communication/commerce was not difficult to employ which helped Europe, ME, Asia, and far east to increase interaction. Americas on the other hand lays on the north-south plane, Isthmus of Panama is narrow to pass through, variances in climate and terrain greatly limited communication and commerce between north and south. When European showed up on the shores of Caribbeans and the mainland of Americas it was already too late.
Re: 536 was ‘the worst year to be alive’ (2018)
#17How susceptible are we to another catastrophic volcano eruption?
After COVID-19 shut down supply chains, there were some problematic delays, but seems like we quickly recovered. If the entire planet's crops were wiped out, we're all just SOL if we don't get canned goods in time? If we had 12 months notice, could we as a planet get it together? 6 months? 3 months?
Is there forecasting for volcanoes? (looks like yes: https://volcanoes.usgs.gov/vhp/forecast.html) How often do geologists cry wolf?
Re: 536 was ‘the worst year to be alive’ (2018)
#18I noticed there are a number of popups/stickies/banners on this site. How do folks feel about blocking them with uBlock considering it's a nonprofit, and one of those banners was asking for a donation?
The page in incognito: https://i.imgur.com/EHhGjJ9.png
The page with uBlock, sticky elements removed, and the sidebar removed: https://i.imgur.com/mNJFMyj.png
Re: 536 was ‘the worst year to be alive’ (2018)
#19These kinds of cataclysmic volcanic eruptions could happen today right? What's.......our intended process for dealing with this? Are there any technical solutions for dispersing ash from the atmosphere? I know this is a stupidly naive question to some degree - how do you prevent acts of god, but I am curious if someone has thought about it.
> Are there any technical solutions for dispersing ash from the atmosphere?
Seems like the dispersal of the ash is the problem, and you'd want to be collecting it.
Re: 536 was ‘the worst year to be alive’ (2018)
#20Discussed, a little, at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18469891
I didn't realise HN had been running that long.