Keeping Things in Perspective

[Roscoe]

It’s a mess out there now. Hard to discern between what’s a real threat and what is just simple panic and hysteria. For a small amount of perspective at this moment, imagine you were born in 1900.

On your 14th birthday, World War I started, and ended on your 18th birthday. 22 million people perished in that war. Later in the year, a Spanish Flu epidemic hit the planet and ran until your 20th birthday. 50 million people died from it in those two years. Yes, 50 million.

On your 29th birthday, the Great Depression began. Unemployment hit 25%, the World GDP dropped 27%. That ran until you were 33. The country nearly collapsed along with the world economy.

When you turned 39, World War II started. You aren’t even over the hill yet. And don’t try to catch your breath. On your 41st birthday, the United States was fully pulled into WWII. Between your 39th and 45th birthday, 75 million people perished in the war. Smallpox was epidemic until you were in your 40’s, as it killed 300 million people during your lifetime.

At 50, the Korean War started. 5 million perished. From your birth, until you are 55 you dealt with the fear of Polio epidemics each summer. You experienced friends and family contracting polio and being paralysed and/or die.

At 55 the Vietnam War began and didn’t end for 20 years. 4 million people perished in that conflict. During the Cold War, you lived each day with the fear of nuclear annihilation. On your 62nd birthday you had the Cuban Missile Crisis, a tipping point in the Cold War. Life on our planet, as we know it, almost ended. When you turned 75, the Vietnam War finally ended.

Think of everyone on the planet born in 1900. How did they endure all of that? When you were a kid in 1985 and didn’t think your 85 year old grandparent understood how hard school was. And how mean that kid in your class was. Yet they survived through everything listed above. Perspective is an amazing art. Refined and enlightening as time goes on. Let’s try and keep things in perspective. Your parents and/or grandparents were called to endure all of the above – you are called to stay home and sit on your couch.

[piroska]

imagine you were born in 1900.
World War I started. 22 million people perished in that war. Later in the year, a Spanish Flu epidemic hit the planet . 50 million people died from it in those two years. the Great Depression began. Unemployment hit 25%, the World GDP dropped 27%.

World War II started. 75 million people perished in the war. Smallpox was epidemic .... killed 300 million people


.

Don't have to imagine. My mum wasn't born in 1900 and she missed WWi and the flu, but her parents didn't. She was around for ww2 and the rest.
Including Hungarys depression which eclipsed anything the US or we had.

She knows. She goes on about it every now and then.
With detail.

And we're currently having a panic about what? Some mad idea to shut down the world for what?

[zqwerty]

Yep my grandfather was born in 1895, and his sister, my great-aunt in 1890. Grandfather fought in the 1st WW so he saw it all, he died in 1972 just before we arrived in NZ in 1972, but he was with us in Zambia/Northern Rhodesia, so I knew him quite well.

[piroska]

Yes, remember the pengo?

The Treaty of Trianon and political instability between 1919 and 1924 led to a major inflation of Hungary's currency. Due to the reduced tax base, the government resorted to printing money, and in 1923 inflation in Hungary reached 98% per month.

Between the end of 1945 and July 1946, Hungary went through the highest inflation ever recorded. In 1944, the highest banknote value was 1,000 pengő. By the end of 1945, it was 10,000,000 pengő, and the highest value in mid-1946 was 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 (1020) pengő. On 1 January 1946, one adópengő equaled one pengő, but by late July, one adópengő equaled 2,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 or 2×1021 (2 sextillion) pengő.

When the pengő was replaced in August 1946 by the forint, the total value of all Hungarian banknotes in circulation amounted to ​1⁄1,000 of one US cent. Inflation had peaked at 1.3 × 1016% per month (i.e. prices doubled every 15.6 hours). On 18 August 1946, 400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 or 4×1029 pengő (four hundred quadrilliard on the long scale used in Hungary, or four hundred octillion on short scale) became 1 forint.

[B.M.]

And whilst we’re having a Flu Epidemic I find this interesting.



1918 epidemic NZ looses 8600 in just two months. Makes our present 20 look quite insignificant.

[decibel]

...1918 epidemic NZ looses 8600 in just two months. Makes our present 20 look quite insignificant.

Yes, aren't you glad we have been in lockdown? We would have a lot more cases if we weren't.

[KarameaDave]

Yes, aren't you glad we have been in lockdown? We would have a lot more cases if we weren't.

+1

[B.M.]

Yes, aren't you glad we have been in lockdown? We would have a lot more cases if we weren't.

Yes, thankfully our guys saw the exponential nature of the virus and acted quickly and appropriately.

What some of the other country's were thinking completely eludes me.

[Colpol]

Yes, thankfully our guys saw the exponential nature of the virus and acted quickly and appropriately.

What some of the other country's were thinking completely eludes me.

They weren't thinking,

[zqwerty]

They're all so full of sh!t, full of bravado, thinking god's on their side and looking out for them, they have nothing to fear, pursuing money as if nothing else matters, just plain stupid in the end and getting cut down by a virus that is implacable and remorseless with no mercy just working on primitive rules that if you break them you will go down, a tiny nano-machine, not even alive, that uses the materials from the living cells of suitable organisms to make millions more of itself..

Trump and lots of other leaders just wanting to keep the Stock Market looking good and in the end through their folly losing even more than they ever would have if they had just used their pea-brains and listened to the scientists and experts on virology.