Global Pandemics

Started by Livewire September 16th, 2013 8:45 AM
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Livewire

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Seen December 3rd, 2022
Posted August 2nd, 2019
14,091 posts
13.8 Years

Global Pandemics


The threat of a global pandemic-level disease outbreak is ever on the mind of modern scientists, given how interconnected our world has become. People can be on one continent in the morning, and be on another by lunch time.

If a major global pandemic were to affect the world, how would we as a civilization cope?
  • Would modern medicine be able to deliver a vaccine in time?
  • Could Law Enforcement and the military successfully maintain order and relative peacefulness during the height of the disease?
  • Would Bureacracy and red tape prevent the rehabilitation of society? Would preferential treatment be given to people of high social rank or status, over your regular middle-class citizen? Would they get the vaccine first?
  • Would certain "prophets" arise, preying on people's fear, offering salvation in exchange for servitude or money?
  • Could society recover from the losses? Would we as a species even be able to survive, if enough humans were left?
  • And in the event of an extinction-level catastrophe, would we be able to resume our high-tech, modern 21st Century lifestyle of communication? Or would we have to effectively restart from scratch and build a new society?

Flushed

never eat raspberries

Seen November 4th, 2017
Posted May 18th, 2017
2,301 posts
9.7 Years
Oh my gosh this reminds me of that Dustin Hoffman movie. It scares me to think that modern medicine doesn't always have the answer. Through extensive medicinal use, we create strains of bacteria that are resistant to drugs. Would we be able to come up with a solution? Probably, but not before the damage is done, as seen with past pandemics.

The aftermath reminds me of both Revolution and Surrogates (tv show and movie respectively). After a major change has occurred, the structure and foundations of the world as we know it, will collapse most likely, in all different facets (assuming extinction-level). We'll survive, but things will branch off, no large societies would be able to function properly. Because essentially, wiping out half the planet is wiping out the power, the infrastructure, etc. I'm not saying we start off from scratch, but things become rather primitive to start off with, people become hysteric and fall into different groups, nothing is organized, and it'll take a long long time, probably never, before the world gets back on its feet.

Aeroblast

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Seen February 25th, 2017
Posted February 25th, 2017
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This looks like something from a JRPG...

But in all seriousness, if you want the closest real-life scenario of this particular issue, just take a look at the Black plague in Europe, which wiped out about 30-60% of the European population. Scary.

Esper

California
Seen June 30th, 2018
Posted June 30th, 2018
I imagine a large enough pandemic would create a lot of ghettos and we'd have a lot of segregation (something the world is pretty good at, I might add). I don't think civilization would take a nosedive, but I do think our rights and freedoms would. The machine is too large to fall completely, I think. Maybe a few countries would have riots and revolutions too large to control, but that happens anyway. There will always be the opportunist political type who will rally and supercharge a nationalist base who'll favor deportations and border closures and I think in the end you'd see a lot of North Koreas around the world.

Peter Quill

Star-Lord, Legendary Outlaw

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Seen March 11th, 2020
Posted July 23rd, 2019
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It's something scary to think about. I imagine chaos ensuing if something a pandemic of a global scale occurs. With the rate at which bacteria and viruses can evolve and with the boost given by the continuous change in environmental factors, this is something which isn't far-fetched. There are still many incurable diseases as of today. Even if modern medicine continue to expand and gain advancements over time, we never know how fast these pathogens can mutate and be virtually resilient to anything shot at them.

If we do survive such a pandemic, it would take long for the world to get back in order. When panic-stricken, it is part of human instinct to go for self-preservation. People might end up in groups, and as mentioned by the others above, it might take a long time to get back. Extraterrestrial chunk of rocks scare me more than pandemics though, for some reason. o_o
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Star-Lord

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Seen November 28th, 2018
Posted April 14th, 2018
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This looks like something from a JRPG...

But in all seriousness, if you want the closest real-life scenario of this particular issue, just take a look at the Black plague in Europe, which wiped out about 30-60% of the European population. Scary.
Or we could take a look at actual relevant modern scenarios, like SARS. Which isn't to discount what the black plague did historically but it's also silly to completely overlook that we've had epidemics and pandemics in a modern, global context. Another one that's especially bad is the H5N1, or the bird flu, which still manages to make it across the world and infect people, killing the elderly and children.

Shiny Celebi

Seen August 25th, 2015
Posted October 17th, 2013
2,377 posts
12 Years
Would modern medicine be able to deliver a vaccine in time?

Science is fast and medical technology great but I think it depends on the severity of the disease, if it was really deadly/contagious, a lot of people probably would die before a vaccine was made and many more infected.
Could Law Enforcement and the military successfully maintain order and relative peacefulness during the height of the disease?
I do think people would panic and are not rational when afraid. Although authorities try to keep people calm that's just not how people are and can kinda see people trampling each other to get medicine and such :l

Would Bureaucracy and red tape prevent the rehabilitation of society? Would preferential treatment be given to people of high social rank or status, over your regular middle-class citizen? Would they get the vaccine first?
I definately think there would be some preferential treatment definately, that's just the way society kind of is.

Would certain "prophets" arise, preying on people's fear, offering salvation in exchange for servitude or money?
Probably, cults and extremists exist and when people are afraid they will sometimes believe anything, especially if people tell them things that sound good.
Could society recover from the losses? Would we as a species even be able to survive, if enough humans were left?
Yeah I think we'd bounce back, but it would take quite a while.
And in the event of an extinction-level catastrophe, would we be able to resume our high-tech, modern 21st Century lifestyle of communication? Or would we have to effectively restart from scratch and build a new society?

As we are now, I think although it will be a struggle, it would happen. New technology might be developed in the process and people would have to learn to work around difficulties and challenges leading to new ideas and progress.
Seen September 18th, 2020
Posted February 18th, 2018
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Would modern medicine be able to deliver a vaccine in time?
Should it? One of Newt Geiszler's aforementioned continuous changes in environmental factors is doubtlessly the advancements of modern medicine itself. I feel that there is a point at which medical practice becomes excessive and ceases to be beneficial to a species, and that we have reached or passed that point.
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Would modern medicine be able to deliver a vaccine in time?
Should it? One of Newt Geiszler's aforementioned continuous changes in environmental factors is doubtlessly the advancements of modern medicine itself. I feel that there is a point at which medical practice becomes excessive and ceases to be beneficial to a species, and that we have reached or passed that point.
I feel this way too. For example anti-biotics which are suppose to cure are also making some bacteria resistant to them, turning them into super-bacteria.
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