That reads like some serious straw clutching to justify your stance.. Take smallpox, for example. When the vaccine for that was created, it's estimated that nearly half a million people a year died of it in 18th century Europe. That's quite a lot when you consider that it's also estimated to be around 700 million people in the world in 1800. Which, if you extrapolate for the entire 18th century is approximately 40,000,000. Which means that even though the vaccine was derived from something milk maids were most likely to get - the cowpox virus - it was still common enough to affect people that had zero chance to encounter the milder variant and develop a natural immunity. Coincidentally, the wars in that period aren't that high. Technically, slavery killed more people than any of the wars in that period..
You're taking me a bit out of context by just using that one paragraph. Let's back up a bit before this degenerates again. The question is, if one in three died in the 19th century, what did they die from?
I was mostly responding to the assertion that war "back in the day" killed more than disease, which is .. Not entirely fair. It killed a lot, sure, but it's not such a wide margin (Until we get to the more modern wars - But infectious disease is on the back foot the further through history we go, owing to vaccination efforts..) that it's fair to dismiss the disease based deaths as 'people with crap immune systems'. Especially considering how few immunities are passed down parent to child, if any, that aren't genetic mutations - But I know less than diddly squat about that, so I'd rather not get into it. But, if you insist, looking at the 19th century war doesn't seem to be pulling its weight. I've not the time to research specifically, but smallpox deaths in India were 4.7m between 1868 and 1907, and as far as a cursory glance goes the colonies did the best death, with ~27m supposed to have died in the El Nino famines.. Taiping rebellion a close second with 20m deaths, apparently.
That's not what I'm saying at all, but I think I see where the confusion is. I said this: which can also read as (as was my intention) "There were a host of other...". SO many crossed wires in this thread! That's why they say so much more gets missed with the written word than when speaking in person. From your last bit though, sounds like we might agree on something in civil fashion (hurrah for us!). 47m across two events, man - in what, a fraction of the time of the Indian smallpox? That's shuddering. Found a few other surprising things as well, not arguing any particular direction, just surprising. I found this - https://necrometrics.com/wars18c.htm - no idea what it adds up to, though, but some horrible numbers. Surprised to see these as well - that small pox was a nutter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox and Which means vaccines of some type were around longer than we've been thinking. They evidently weren't as effective as the later ones though. No real point to be made, just interesting stuff.
I suspect there aren't many results for "18th century deaths", I was looking at the same site. Personally, I think vaccination is a key factor in not killing people you come in contact with. I haven't often had the flu jab, but the last few years I've had it for various reasons not directly related to me. I think that's the point other people are making, though, is that it's kinda important that everyone able to have the vaccine has the vaccine to protect those that can't. I mean, ultimately, or not because frankly humanity is a garbage species and if everyone died tomorrow there'd be no particular concern from nature in the long run..
I think nature would be quite chuffed in fact, given the rough date we've been taking it on. Found this too: Must admit, I've re-read your other post to try and get my head round the numbers but help me out here. As far as I get it: 500k deaths/yr in C18 Europe 700m world pop in 1800 What's the 40m? Am I right in reading (rough maths, agreed) ~500k(ish)*100 yrs = ~40m? If so, I'm following. Was it a global thing though, what with the different levels of settlement and pop concentrations? I dunno. Anyway, I'm stuck on the next bit: I get milk maids most likely to get cowpox, therefore more immune to smallpox, but what's the next bit about something being common enough to affect others etc.? Just as a by-the-by, I did say earlier in the thread that I agree with this: I just don't have enough various reasons at this end to get it and use up supply where others in my area may need it more and there are consistent seasonal shortages here.
40m is a presumption based on an average of ~400,000 deaths per year (Who knows how accurate records were) over the span of the 18th century in Europe. Although I haven't checked what is considered 'europe' in that time period. So, yeah, you and I are on the same basic/rough math page there. I didn't dive deep, because lacking time to do so, but if the global population at the end of the 18th century is ~700m, we can safely presume that it's not going to be massively higher than that in the preceding years. It's safe to take it that other countries the world over were dealing with smallpox throughout the same period, which means the annual smallpox death rate is kinda high compared against how many people there were. My comment on the milk maids was meant as; Touching cow parts must have been fairly regular back then. Still, not enough people contracted cowpox to combat smallpox in any meaningful way. Which, to my mind, would suggest that getting natural immunity wasn't really a feasible way to curb the smallpox outbreaks. And by pass it on, I meant in the same way that TB responses changed over the years. TB was super popular, back in the day, and killed quite a lot of people - But its decline is not consistent with the timing of antibiotic developments, or better understanding of how to care for TB patients that might improve their odds. It's also known, I've read, that some cows show genetic immunity to the bovine strain of TB. I believe there was some studies on whether humanity has evolved some level of genetic immunity - And I believe there is some evidence to support a genetic immunity to TB, but as mentioned, I've not got the time for a proper deep dive into various topics that I'm definitely not qualified to research. Which, to my (simple, I'm sure) mind, suggests that natural immunity to something like COVID-19 is.. Nigh on impossible. Which means it's quite important to get stabbed in the arm over it. As for the flu, I don't believe I've ever had it, and while I'm not overly concerned about having it myself, I do opt for the jab because people around me are more at risk. Girlfriends brother had a kid not five days ago, her mum is undergoing antibody therapy for her cancer situation, yeah. It's probably best that I don't infect anyone in that realm 'cause I'd rather not get stabbed in the arm. As for shortages.. I'd still try and get one. Even if it meant paying seven quid, or whatever Mr. Halfacree pays for it.
I'd have to check again, but in recent years, you couldn't even pay for one round here. My parents were told there was a shortage, said they'd pay instead, but were told no chance because the LHA was in charge of purchase and distribution due to supply issues. Luckily they were eligible, just had to wait their turn.
I could rant, I could call people out, I could take sly digs without directly naming or quoting... But I have neither the inclination nor the need to try and defend myself from hypocritical toxic horseshit. If I can choose to walk away from it in real life then I can sure as hell choose to walk away from it in discussions with random (mostly) nameless people on the internet. On the subject of point-scoring, I'm just going to leave this link here and call it a day before I get myself banned for posting something when I'm so angry. https://forums.bit-tech.net/index.php?threads/the-coronavirus-thread.373346/page-162#post-4859979.
..but insteeeead..... But I thought...? Since you appear to have linked to my particular post though, let's see how I responded to you: Seems fairly civil and reasonable (as was the conversation with liratheal earlier today, not sure if you noticed). Thanks for highlighting!
I could do this all week, but it's a waste of both our time and energy. Shall we instead take a deep breath, shake hands and both try and start again so we can all go back to civil discussion? I'm happy to if you are. It's nearly Christmas! Edit: if nothing else, david will be proud of us, even if Santa doesn't notice!
So Tier 3. Possibly upontil the superspreaderfest. Then perhaps back to Tier 3. Trying to see the logic. Cancelling the trip to mum's, all agreed. Now trying to work out if you can stay overnight in a rental sonewhere in your own tier or if that's shot too.
TBH I haven't even tried to keep up with what the new restrictions are. The rules were different in Wales anyway, and pandemic or no pandemic we were only ever going to visit two other households over Christmas: my mother and my other half's mother. I'm still working from home 4/5 days a week, we're still getting as much grocery shopping as possible delivered (in fact I'm tempted to sign up to Ocado's 'premier' subscription for a month or so to make sure I can get Christmas deliveries), so the only real difference is that I won't be able to catch up with friends over Christmas.
Yeah doesn't seem like there'll be much actual change here. Decided against hurtling it down to the other end of the country for a few days - even though it's 'allowed' the figures and the science suggest it ain't a great idea. Just hanging back till post vaccination. Don't want to tempt fate with an ageing mum, an aged gran and my auntie's husband is high risk. It can wait. Most of my closest friends live in other countries anyway nowadays so video calls are the norm for me. Turkey got ordered some time ago for delivery
You keep that tier 3 behind out of our tier 2, pal! In all fairness, it's not going to make much difference (to the sensible ones) down here either. Might sit distanced round a burner in the garden if that seems reasonable nearer the time, otherwise lockdown BAU.
In what way would that matter? To imply that our immune system has done a good enough job to keep us around as a species is neither an appeal nor a fallacy. I'm certain you could source natural soap if you wanted, soap and water goes along way for personal hygiene. Clearly it didn't compute, pun intended. Looks like we will have to wait for a better analogy for now.
If you dropped dead tomorrow it would mean absolutely nothing to keeping humans around as a species... but people don't want you to die regardless of that. So no, nature did a good enough job keeping homo sapiens around isn't a sufficiently high bar to use as a measurement.
You're arguing that the 'natural' human immune system does a good enough job on its own without the need for external stimulus such as vaccines. Sure, a dozen or so thousand dead because of flu every year, or 1.4 million people dead because of COVID-19, is unlikely to threaten the survival of the species. But whether we, as a species, would be better off letting our immune system learn to cope with SARS-CoV-2 - or influenza, for that matter - without external stimulation is kind of irrelevant, it's an approach that only a psychopath would countenance. You have to survive the disease in order to build up an immune response without a vaccine. That's basically what we've been doing so far: the spread of COVID-19 is a perfect demonstration of how the human immune system copes with a novel virus that the species has never encountered before. So far 1,438,096 people have died in the process. Claiming that something is better because it's 'natural' is the appeal to nature argument - you can't change that by simply denying it - and that argument is a fallacy. But go ahead, feel free to quote parts of this line-by-line and Gish gallop responses instead of trying to make one coherent and logical argument.
