No photos in this post. In fact, very little of mine in this post other than my interest in this subject.

But, I will say this . . . COVID-19 was a tap on the shoulder and it wreaked havoc socially, politically, locally, nationally, and internationally. Imagine it ten times worse, or one hundred times worse.

In my 2004 SV-1 story, I wrote the following in the prologue (yes, I know, ‘they’ advise against prologues):

One out or roughly every six . . . that sounds bad enough, but the reality was worse.  Deaths were not evenly spread.  Whole families, office co-workers, firemen, police squads, politicians, congregations . . .  if any in the group got infected, they were likely to all fall victims.  Once infected, the mortality rate was high – most of the group was likely to die.  People started staying home.  The infrastructure could not cope.   Throughout the world, developed areas fared the worse.  Whole towns, even some cities, were wiped out.   There was no way to handle the number of bodies, let alone take care of their affairs. 

Civilization almost ended.  In a way, it did end.  In many places, law and order meant small groups organizing and taking matters into their own hands.  It was either that or risk being killed as people fought to survive. 

For that novel, I imagined a 17% mortality rate (one-in-six) because that’s what seemed sufficient to bring an end to law and order and civilization as we know it.

I think I was optimistic. Based on what we experienced in 2020, I think a 5% mortality rate during a proper pandemic would be sufficient to throw the country — and possibly the world — into chaos. I’m talking 5% of those infected, and remember, we had a relatively low number of confirmed COVID-19 infections (about 33 million, or 10% of the population). 

Having said that, remember also that COVID-19 — as bad as it was — was nowhere near as bad as it could have been.

With all that in mind, there’s a nearly 4-hour episode at the Sam Harris site that I think people ought to listen to. Here’s the LINK.

For them who don’t listen to podcasts or use a podcast player, the episode is also available on YouTube (no pictures; just talking).

I know the vast majority of people will blow this off. I mean, who has four hours to spend to try and safeguard civilization as we know it!?

. . . kind of like the residents of the condominium in Florida who waited 13 years after the initial report detailing problems with their building. As we know, last week it became too late for many of them. Actually, too late for all of them, as the survivor’s belongings were lost when authorities demolished the building. At least some of the residents were still alive, but their lives took a hit they might not recover from . . . a metaphor for what I’m talking about here if I ever heard one.

All I’m saying is that being informed might move you to pressure our good-for-nothing political parties into taking this threat seriously.

That’s it. This post has ended . . . except for the stuff below.

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