Corona Virus

[jimeve]

That's nothing, my football team who I support has had the game postponed due to bad weather.  I was looking forward to watching that.

[OnMyWay]

9 hours ago, Tommy T. said:

I am not a fearmonger, nor do I ascribe any pattern to all this, so perhaps it is just my personal perception that current events seem a bit strong and coincidental - as I mentioned before?

HK... I have to respectfully disagree with you about this.

Of course I agree with you about some trivial events can be sensationalized and others may not be factual. However consider these:

The corona virus at last count I saw today showed 812 dead and over 37,000 sickened.

https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/coronavirus-usa-confirmed-cases-news-cruise-ship-death-toll-evacuations-latest-2020-02-07/

There are news reports about the H5N1 bird flu virus on a farm in Hunan province China. More than 18,000 birds have died or were culled as they attempt to stop the spread of this disease.

https://nypost.com/2020/02/02/china-reports-bird-flu-outbreak-near-epicenter-of-coronavirus/

African Swine Fever is affecting wild and domestic pigs across China and spreading to other countries across the globe. It is reported now here in Davao City. While apparently not a threat for human consumption, L and I and I believe many Filipinos are avoiding consuming pork at this time. Why take the chance?

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-50833054

Regarding the locust plague in Africa: “This is an unprecedented situation that we are facing,” said Dominique Burgeon, an emergency services director at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization."

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/unprecedented-locust-invasion-approaches-full-blown-crisis/

Do I even need to detail the situation with increased typhoon frequencies and strengths?

I think we have all noted the increased frequency and strengths of earthquakes here, in California, Japan and Puerto Rico?

Likewise, most of us have read the reports about near war in Iran/Iraq recently? Or the machinations of the USA president? Or Putin or Xi?

I will not detail here, but there has been, just this week, monumental flooding in NW and SE parts of USA causing deaths and lots of property damage.

http://floodlist.com/america/usa

Then the floods in Europe since November.

http://floodlist.com/europe

I cannot consider any of these events as being minor...at least that's my viewpoint.

Accelerated communications of all kinds, over the years, make it seem like there is more things going on in the world than before.  There may be more, sometimes, depending on the type of event and where it is.

Think back to your childhood.  How much detail did you know about mysterious places like Africa and China?  You may have been told there were starving children and you should clean your plate.  Even your parents, unless they had some kind of relationship with places like that, probably did not get current news about politics, famine, disease, disasters,  politics, coups, slaughters from around the world.  Daily and weekly newpapers, and weekly / monthly magazines had stories, but they were often stale, in some cases, weeks or months or even years old.

Now it is in our face, 24/7, from all over the world.  Using your above post as an example.  As recently as the early 90's, you did not have home internet and did not have search engines accessing billions of web pages.  How long do you think it would have taken you to compile a similar list?  Even move forward 10 years to early 2000.  Still primitive compared to today.  IPhones came out in 2007 and Smartphones of all kinds took off after that.  Using Philippines as an example of a 2nd-3rd world country, now even poor citizens have news, true or false, pushed at them constantly.

Something to think about when digesting the constant bombardment of information we get.

 

[Mike J]

5 hours ago, OnMyWay said:

Something to think about when digesting the constant bombardment of information we get.

And a huge consideration is to remember the rules for reporting news and world events.

Rule number 1 - Bad news sells.

Rule number 2 - See rule number one.

[earthdome]

As I recall, being school age at the time, the 60's and early 70's were a very turbulent time in the USA.

 

Cuban missile crisis

Vietnam war and protests.

Civil rights movement and race riots in major cities.

Bombings on college campuses.

Assasinations, JFK, RFK, MLK

Oil Embargo

Charles Manson

High unemployment in the early 70's.

And that is just in the USA.

So I would conclude that most generations have bad s--- happening.

[Guy F.]

18 hours ago, hk blues said:

None of the events you mention are new - they have been happening as long as we've been around so if we are going to hell in  a handbasket then we've been on that journey from the beginning of our time.  Undoubtedly it seems worse now but I think that's a function of the reporting rather than the frequency.   

Agree emphatically. The more things change, the more they remain the same.

[Marvin Boggs]

6 hours ago, OnMyWay said:

 

Something to think about when digesting the constant bombardment of information we get.

 

There is truth in what you say.  I refer to it as 'doom porn'.  When you get to the point of information saturation as we have, it is critical to be able to sift through it rationally.  This is partly my point in the climate change thread.  I used to get so irritated at the news cycle back in the states for making apocalyptic claims about every blizzard and hurricane.   

But I do think there is a demonstrable acceleration of wars, disasters, and epidemics.   

[OnMyWay]

2 minutes ago, Marvin Boggs said:

But I do think there is a demonstrable acceleration of wars, disasters, and epidemics.   

Another factor in the spreading of disease is increased freedom to travel.  China may have had epidemics within China that never spread outside of China because most Chinese could not travel back then.  And I doubt that the Chinese government would even let that info get out.  Now we have jets and cruise ships taking Chinese all over the world every day.  Same for the rest of the world.

[Tommy T.]

1 hour ago, Mike J said:

And a huge consideration is to remember the rules for reporting news and world events.

Rule number 1 - Bad news sells.

Rule number 2 - See rule number one.

Mike... I think you forgot rule number 3 - Sex sells!!!

[Mike J]

10 minutes ago, Tommy T. said:

Mike... I think you forgot rule number 3 - Sex sells!!!

It sells especially well when combined with rule 1. 

[Tommy T.]

7 hours ago, OnMyWay said:

Accelerated communications of all kinds, over the years, make it seem like there is more things going on in the world than before.  There may be more, sometimes, depending on the type of event and where it is.

 

I agree with your points, OMW.

However... now, take a look back through history when various and sundry events have been recorded. Perhaps I am wrong (and I will be the first to admit that oft times I am). Yes, today there is the (sometimes annoying) immediacy of "news" and events. It does splash it all in our faces continually.

But if you now look at the historical records, do you actually see times when there were so many negative things happening at the same time? Any really bad things are recorded for us to review. The only difference, to me, is that today they are reported instantly. Things before, like the events mentioned by @earthdome are now historical facts and some of them simply took a long time to be noted and recorded. That does not change the fact that they happened.

So, I stick with my point that it seems to me that there seem to be a lot of unusual things happening in our time recently and, yes, they are now immediately available to read/see... The reporting or recognition times do not change the facts that they are, indeed occurring, in my opinion...

I am not sure if I was able to adequately express my thoughts this time, but I hope it makes sense...