Lord Oda Nobunaga - Spanish Flu, 1918, which killed 50 million people around the globe
Post 1
We are forgetting the 1889-1890 Flu pandemic. It started somewhere in Siberia or Central Asia and spread across Europe and to major North America ports and cities. The end result was about 1 million deaths. What is more surprising is that this flu didn't spread to Asia or South America.
Taking a look at major Flu outbreaks:
1889-1890 Asian Flu - 1 million death toll
1918 Flu/Spanish Flu - probably over 20 million
1957-1958 Asian Flu - probably 4 million deaths
1968-1969 Hong Kong Flu - probably 4 million killed
2002-2004 SARS outbreak - more than 774 deaths, a couple random cases being discovered every once in a while
2009 Swine Flu outbreak - something like 500,000 deaths
2012 Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (aka MERS or Camel Flu) - 866 deaths, to date no vaccine and is still ongoing
2019-???? COVID pandemic (aka SARS2 electric boogaloo) - to date probably more than 300,000 deaths, no vaccine
If anything this shows the resilience of the Corona virus and its ability to adapt in order to spread rapidly and take on multiple hosts. A few of these the virus was able to use snakes, bats, birds, camels and pigs as hosts, mutate and then spread to Humans (it mutated to acquire these hosts as well).
In the really destructive cases the virus was able to spread very rapidly and mutate to become more deadly. Those cases with really high death tolls are mostly the result of improper containment methods and poor hygiene. SARS for example was contained and eliminated very rapidly, and for some reason it did not spread as quickly to other parts of the world (probably the virus is slower than the others), and did not kill as many people because the death rate was low. Generally these things have a death rate of maximum 1%, with the Spanish Flu being the exception at a potential 2% or 4% (since they couldn't really keep track of this on a global or even regional scale, some suggest a number as high as 10% death rate among the infected).
The one advantage that COVID19 has is that it spreads and mutates extremely quickly. Containment was also handled very poorly in most countries. Despite taking a huge hit, many Asian countries were prepared because they had learned from the SARS outbreak. But the ability of COVID19 to spread far outclasses that of SARS. The 100 year time span from Spanish Flu to COVID19 I think is largely coincidental. But it shows us how these Corona viruses can spread and mutate, and keep coming back in waves.
The issue both in 1919 and 2019 was just that the powers at be did an extremely poor job of containing the virus. Granted in 1919 this concept was somewhat new and what with WW1... I don't know what their excuse is in 2019. Complacency I guess, too long since there was a major outbreak or crisis of any kind. I should have included the number of infections above, but anyway this gets the basic point across.
Though it is somewhat strange that the deadliest strains tend to come from Asia, even the Spanish Flu has been suggested to have started in Manchuria. It could be a matter of bad hygiene but I don't know. The reason why Corona viruses do not tend to devastate hotter regions like the Middle East is because they struggle to survive in hotter climates, while generally thriving in drier cold climates, they also struggle in a wet atmosphere like South America or South East Asia. Perhaps the MERS outbreak shows that these viruses are capable of adapting to these desert climates, and then potentially other circumstances as well.
Or perhaps... they are sentient, they are evolving, and they are coming for us. :evil:
Common Soldier - What Is ISLAM?
Post 2
I want to go into more depth in what you said. I agree that it would be incorrect to say Islam is "rotten to the core", since it implies religions have meaning and value independently of the meaning and values people ascribe to them. You could have a religion that had a sacred book that was full of explicit commands to kill and torture, yet live the most peaceful lives by interrpetating what the book says allegorically, and when it says to kill, they could say "well that really means to kill their bad ideas, not literally". Still, the plain simple meaning of the text of the book is not unlikely fo win out as some try follow the letter of the text rather than an interpretation that seems to go against what the text actually seems to say.Quote:
Originally Posted by ggggtotalwarrior
I disagree with the assertion Islam itself is rotten to the core. It just so happens that the religion itself existed in countries that have been slower to adapt to the modern era, mainly due to the terrible situations they were put in by colonialism and a failure to adapt to a changing world.n
But the reason that Islamic societies were in terrible situations in the first place might have been bexause Islam contributed to the failure of the societies to adapt to a changing world, and colonialism might have merely been a symptom rather than a cause. As I said, Islamic societies failed to adopt printing for centuries, and religious pressure seems to have played a role. Religious opposition to interest and money lending delayed the development of financial institutions in thd Islamic world. Although opposed initially, Christians overcame their opposition to lending long ago.
That many people living under an ideology are decent wonderdul human beings does not mean the ideology does not have fundamental problems. A Nazi John Rabe is remembered for working to save thousands of lives during thr Japanese massacres in Nanking during WW2. And the Nazis were the first to implement anti-smoking campaigns. Nazism was still a morally bankrupt ixeology. Many Nazis said their trials they were only following orders, and outside of their actions of killing a lot of men, women.and children as directed lived normal lives. Many neighbors of fugitive Nazinwar criminals.were surprised to learn of their identity.Quote:
I have many Muslim friends here in America who outside of basically Ramadan treat religion exactly the same way us mostly barely-practicing Christians do, following the common sense rules of the religion but not the more antiquated and medieval practices. In fact, at times I even sort of envy the greater sense of community my friends had due to their shared roles at outsiders in a mostly christian society. I'm not religious but maybe this sense of a greater community was one aspect of the muslim community here that I could really respect and didn't really see among Christians.
Also, people in times of crisis often turn to their native religion after being rather different before. But while a Buddhist, or Christian who becomes religious might become a monk, a formerly not very religious Muslim can become a terrorist. A case in point is the Boston Marathon bomber, who did not become a terrorist until after he became religiouslly active. They became terrorist because of islamic teachings not despite of them.
You operate under a false belief that religion si completely shaped by its local society. While religion is shaped by its local culture, a religion can shape its culture. In the society that Christianity arose, divorce was easy. It was under Christianity that divorce became rare, and that you married one leraon for life that became the norm, not the exception. Under Islam, Henry VIII did not need to divorce his first wife he could have just taken another wife. There would have been no need to split with the Church.Quote:
I just think that if you took Christianity and Islam and swapped all their religious tenets, and made Muslims have the history of European Christendom while giving a religion exactly the same as Christianity to Arabia and the Middle East, with everything that occurred after being exactly the same, you'd see the religion that is a Christianity analogue having the same problems to adapt to the modern era and sensibilities as well.
Ah, no. Problematic Islamic rules and practices stem from the Quran and Hadiths because they specify specific practices and guidelines Muslims are to adhere to. Muslims practice stoning of adultrry because that is the penalty the hadiths prescribed for adultery, and the Quran did as well until a sheep came and ate the verses (see https://quranx.com/Hadith/IbnMajah/D...9/Hadith-1944/).Quote:
~~
. Christianity has all the same problems in its teaching as Islam,
In contrast, rhe Bible does not prescribe specific penalties that Christians need to follow. It is made clear in the New Testament Christians do.not have to obey the specific laws and penalties in the Old Testament, only the moral principles. Because the Islam specific actions based on books written written many centuries ago, the actions may be woefully out of date today. Since Christianity is based on principles, not specific actions, it does not run into the same problem. Adultey is wrong, but how or if it is to be punished is left up to the society, whether to be mere social disapproval or fines ormother penalties, to decide. It gives Christianity a flexibility Islam lacks..
Since Islam's laws are base on the Quran, which is regarded as the perfect, completely preserved words of Allah himself, it is much harder to change them. A principle may be valid long after the specific rule it generated is not.
And the reason we have progressed in the West is that we are not dominated by religion that retards progress. Where would the West without the printing press? And yet Islam delayed the Muslim world from adopting it for centuries.Quote:
its just that we as a society have progressed
The worst offenders in Islam, counties like Iran and ISIS are not being propped up by the West. Much, perhaps most of the causes for lack of progress in Muslims counteies stem from internal factors, not the actions of outsider.Quote:
Thing is, a lot of those regimes are being propped up by the west for political purposes, and are keeping muslim countries from progressing like they should.
Be shocked. While Muslims only make up 1.1% of the US population, Muslims account for 6% of the terrorist acts in the US, meaning that Muslims commit terrorist acts as 6 times the rate of other groups. As I mentioned before, the Orlando Night Club shooter was a native born Muslim as the Fort Hood shooter.Quote:
I'd be shocked if the rate of what I see as religious extremism among American-born Muslims was much if any higher than among Christian-born Americans.
But it is the religion that shaped those countries. Iran has stoning for adultery because of its interpretation of Islam and long established writings like Bukhari show stoning was being practiced by Muhammad and it being in the Quran before the verse was eaten by a sheep.Quote:
So, its a social issue in these countries rather than a literal flaw with the religion itself.
Not true. Islamic has unique inherent problems that other modern popular religions do not have. Among these elements areQuote:
By that logic basically all the most popular modern religions are inherently problematic if you're basing your judgement on the writings with centuries old books.
1. The example of a founder that committed mass murder, robbery, torture, and rape. The founders of the other religions did not.do that
A. Muhammad married a 6 year old girl and had sex with her when she was 9. Buddha did not do that nor Jesus nor the founder of any other religion I know of. Here is a video by a skeptic that discusses https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VJ59DcIZCEs
B. Muhammad massacre all the men of the Jewish village of Banu Qurayza and enslaved all the women and children
C. Muhammad had Kinan b. al-Rabi tortured to obtain treasure than killed. (See Ibn Ishaq's "The Life of Muhammad" translated by A. Guilliame, Oxford Press pg 515) Buddha and Jesus never did things like these.
And lots more killigs. Here is a link for a list of killings sanctioned by Muhammad. https://wikiislam.net/wiki/List_of_K...ed_by_Muhammad. As you can see that Muhammad provides a lot worse role that ths leaders of other religions.
2. The Quran has lots of violent commands to its followers and commands that specify inferior treatment to women and non-Muslims. Other religions sacred scriptures also have violent passages, but there are fundamental differences with the Quran that make it worse:
- The Quran is regarded by Muslims as being ucorrupted and completely preserved word of God, with Muslims believing every syllable coming from God. Since every word came from Allah, and it has perfectly preserved, it is difficult for anyone to question the accuracy of the Quran or suggest it is error. While at one time Christians had a similar view of the Bible, many do not nowdays, and the Christian view of the Bible being "inspire" leaves more wriggle room to admit error than the Muslim verbatim concept of ths Quran.
- The Quran is full of glaring errors, such as its assertion that Jews believe their propher Ezra was the Son of God (Surah 9:30) and that the Bible talks about Muhammad (it doesn't, unless you accept Muhammad is one of the false prophet the Bible warns its readers about.) Because of the Muslim believe the Quran is perfect, they cannot admit it is mistaken in anything, and thus spend a lot of effort and mental gymnastics, and flat out lies that the Quran isn't wrong. For example, because the Quran says the Bible mentions Muhammad, Muslims pull verses, change words themselves, and omit words to change the meaning of the verse in a desperate atrempt to prove the Bible mentions Muhammad. Here is a link to that discusses the Muslim pathetic attempts and discusses an example: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mMVKnxmE3KI
- The Quran is full of hostility toward others. For example, an analysis reveals that negative statements about the Jews comprise 6.7% of the Quran, and when you include the hadiths and Siras, about 9% of core Islamic writing has negative statements against the Jews, more than Mein Kampf, which only 7% of it is devoted to negative comments on Jews. (Lectures on the Foundation of Islam, Bill Warner, page 10). At the beginning of the Quran, after a few verses the Quran launches into a rant against others for about the next half page, calling them fools and diseased, ane promising all kinds of punishments toward them. The specifics of exactly what they guilty of is not mentioned. (The Bible also is full of criticisms of others, but as early in the writings as a he Quran.)
- The Quran is haphazardly organized, arranged by neither chronologically or topic. It lacks internal context, making it hard to understand at times without sources outside of the Quran (hadiths, Siras).
3. Islam has Sharia law and that was in large part has specific laws derived from the Quran and Hadiths. The Quran.specifies that women inherit less than their brothers. Buddhism, Christianity, and other religions don't have a similar codified body of rules and regulations thst apply to society's criminal and civil law the way Sharia does in Islamic countries.
sumskilz - Coronavirus outbreak - From China to the World.
Post 3
Their statistical analysis is probably correct, but I doubt their hypotheses meant to account for the remainder not explained by socioeconomic factors. People of sub-Saharan African ancestry have different immune systems than people of European ancestry. Sub-Saharan people tend to have more aggressive immune responses at the trade off of being more susceptible to inflammatory diseases. This should make them more susceptible to severe cases of COVID-19. Vitamin D deficiency rate is also another likely factor. Whatever the policy is, it should probably be guided by medical data rather than assumptions about subconscious bias or whatever.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aexodushttps://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/fu...aff.2020.00598
I wonder how accurate this study is, and how it should affect policy makers.
Cookiegod - Boris may well be the worst PM since Lord North
Post 4
I actually already adressed the numbers, but ok, let's do it again and in greater detail:Quote:
Originally Posted by swabianWell, let's look at the numbers
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
38000 deaths, population has similar size to Italy, the Brits did 4,043,686 tests, which is 300k more than the Italians did, yet they have higher death rate than Italy by now.
They really tried hard to get it under control, i think it's just mother nature hitting hard there.
Also Belgium is really in deep problems. They have by far the highest death rate per million.
Boris' government fakes the numbers as much as they can. You can see it in the death tolls, where people in the nursing homes are simply discarded off the statistics, and you can see it in the testing numbers, where the actual and the pretend testing numbers diverge vastly, as SEVERAL MECHANISMS are implemented to inflate the numbers with clear malicious intent.
For one, mailed tests are included in the statistics, even though those might never have been used or processed. Secondly, if you have several samples taken from one patient in one go (e.g. a nasal and a saliva test), which is very frequent, then both of them are counted as individual tests.
The result you can see in this graph which I have already posted:
https://www.moonofalabama.org/images10/britaintests.jpg
But even if one's to take those numbers at face value, which no one should, then the outcome is still BELOW those for Italy, which, again, does not employ these mechanisms.
So here's a screenshot from the our world in data project for your convenience:
https://i.imgur.com/lSHrCbi.png
An organisation that does its job well does not have to fake his numbers. There are few people handling it worse than Boris. Macron is one of them, and there's this great vid of him getting destroyed by nurses at a hospital. But at the very least I didn't see him try and fake the numbers. The epidemic in France was somewhat unexpected and unavoidable, given its geographical position next to Italy. He did not go with the herd immunity BS like Boris did. He did not have a channel separating his country from the rest of the world. He did not have the chances Boris did.
First of all, only 22% of the British public spending in 2020 (yes, this pandemic year) are set to go into the health services. So your deliberate framing of it as if the NHS was the reason for this is wrong already. In fact the whole of the British government operates very cost inefficiently. Imagine my shock that this then also applies to the NHS. *gasp*Quote:
Originally Posted by Pontifex MaximusSo the victim count is minimal by your own admission, and the surviving Brits are happy to pay their 45% income tax to support "muh free healthcare." Fine.
Because yes, you're right: It costs way too much.
Let's then take a look at what singles the UK out in Europe. Oh, that's right. It just so happens to be the most neoliberal large country in Europe, which also happens to be the one with the worst performing health care system. And just like with the US of A, this neoliberalism has visibly not made the government leaner in any way, spending is through the roof, it's just that the people get less out of it.
So let's look at one of the reasons why the NHS costs so much. I'll take as an example one random pharmaceutical company operating from a town named Barnard Castle, Teesdale, in the north of England: GlaxoSmithKline.
In 2012 GlaxoSmithKline were fined $3 billion for fraud, overcharging and making false claims about medicines in the USA. In 2016, GlaxoSmithKline were fined £37.6 million in the UK for bribing companies not to produce generic copies of their out of patent drugs, thus overcharging the NHS.
You won't be surprised that no one was prosecuted for organising these shady deals. You'll probably also not be surprised that the fines, especially the British one, were low enough for the company to still profit massively from the crimes.
One would expect a morally upright politician to be somewhat miffed by his country being taken for a ride, not join in on it.
If Barnard Castle, the town I mentioned earlier, sounds familiar to you, it's probably due to the scandal recently.
People mostly got mad at Downing street for the more obvious reasons. If Boris and his guys don't give a :wub:, why should the rest stay at home?!
I'll quote someone on twitter for this:
The less obvious but even more insidious likely reason to be outraged is however this here - just two days after Cummings' visit to Barnard Castle.Quote:
As one of those involved in SPI-B, the Government advisory group on behavioural science, I can say that in a few short minutes tonight, Boris Johnson has trashed all the advice we have given on how to build trust and secure adherence to the measures necessary to control COVID-19.
Be open and honest, we said. Trashed.
Respect the public, we said. Trashed
Ensure equity, so everyone is treated the same, we said. Trashed.
Be consistent we said. Trashed.
Make clear 'we are all in it together'. Trashed.
It is very hard to provide scientific advice to a government which doesn't want to listen to science. I hope, however, that the public will read our papers (publicly available at gov.uk/government/gro…) and continue to make up for this bad government with their own good sense.
Whilst robbing the NHS in broad daylight, they have 100 year old veterans who are barely able to walk run around and try to fund it. It pisses me off so immensely and I'm just glad I don't live in the bananarepu...representative monarchy that is the United Kingdom.
Cyclops - How could a heaven operate?
Post 5
For a start the OT makes it quite clear heaven is full of water and has windows, which can be opened to flood the Earth but are no longer to be opened per the Rainbow Covenant. So it follows that angels and saints etc either have gills or a short lifespan. Thus the image of angels with wings is fanciful, and scripturally speaking its more likely they have fins.
In the Lords prayer Jesus specifically states the Kingdom is to operate on earth as it is in Heaven. If Jesus pooped then they poop in heaven, although obviously toilet paper would not work so well in the saturated environment: nor would flushing. There are two people in Scripture who ascend bodily into heaven (Elijah, Elisha) and Catholic dogma asserts Mary was assumed body and soul as well. They have been up there for some time, and hopefully grew gills (otherwise whats the point?), so its fair to assume they would be pooping in the water.
There are feasts served in the heavenly Kingdom according to several verse in the NT, so its likely people would be pooping up there, otherwise they would be gaining a lot of weight.
Cope - Death of George Floyd and Subsequent Riots.
Post 6
A prima facie viewing of George Floyd's death justified Chauvin's arrest. I had speculated that the cause of death was asphyxiation caused by the pressure being exerted on the victim's neck, though the preliminary results of the initial autopsy suggests that this was not the case. Nevertheless, as it is doubtlessly the case that the medical specifics will be hotly contested moving forward (the family have already sought an independent examination), these first findings should be viewed with all due scepticism.
As far as the protests are concerned, I fully support the right of all people to exercise their 1A rights - particularly regarding instances of state tyranny. Violence and the destruction of innocent people's property, however, are neither acceptable nor helpful. The US's enemies are already circling, hoping to exploit Floyd's death to encourage further instability.
Gaidin - Death of George Floyd and Subsequent Riots.
Post 7
It's not that it's just a number of factors. It's basically the fact that these events have been going on for decades and the minority communities have been telling themselves these stories by word of mouth and angrily nodding.
And then cellphones with cameras. And then youtube. And then hell, live posting what you're recording. All of a sudden in the past decade it's a lot harder to argue with or shrug off their stories. Culture shifts. The last five years officers start getting dismissed and they start trying to arraign them. They can't. Culture shifts. They try to arraign them as an officer and can't and it even takes then 5 years to fire them(Daniel Pantaleo is apparently still trying to get his job back). Culture shifts. Now chiefs and even unions are speaking out against this and the officers are outright fired(not dismissed) within a day and charges filed against one officer within two.
All the while. What's been happening between these cases? Civilians have been getting themselves tickets for being Karens and Beckies and Chads and getting filmed doing so. In the end they often get fired for their trouble as companies want nothing to do with these people. Even now, between the incident in Georgia, the incident in Kentucky, and the incident in Minnesota, we can point to the Karen in Central Park.
Culture still shifts slowly for the older police. But it's not just the police. Look at who is calling the police. This is systemically cultural. The younger generation isn't really taking the crap like the older generation is and is really the one crowding the streets in numbers. But they still see the problem as systemic. And it pulls them out in cities across the nation. Not just in the twin cities. There are protests in 30 cities this week. Some of them are more accurately defined as riots. At least two states have called up the national guard.
