# Plagues Are Sometimes 'Good'. **URL:** \ **Category:** The Quarantine Zone\ **Tags:** covid-quarantine\ **Created:** [March 28, 2020, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plagues-are-sometimes-good/850492 "2020-03-28T04:22:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2020, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plagues-are-sometimes-good/850492/21 "2020-03-28T14:46:55Z")
Hey, if the US survives this, we may get universal health care. Or maybe the totalitarian regimes will greatly out-compete the more liberal nations, and the world will be re-shaped politically in a more totalitarian way. It’s awfully hard to guess how something like a a massive disruptive plague will play out. I do expect that more people will work more often from home forever, as a result of this. Zoom and similar providers will prosper, and commercial real estate will suffer. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2020, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plagues-are-sometimes-good/850492/22 "2020-03-28T15:13:56Z")
> [@Jim\_B](#): > > So what do you all think? Could _ **any** _ good come from the Coronavirus? Give it some thought before you answer. > > :):):):):):)🙂 Its more of a silver lining over a dark cloud thing, but _in theory_ I could see several good things coming from all this. [ul] [li]Society realizes that our low wage workforce (people who make our food and work at the supermarket) are far more valuable than we realize, which leads to higher wages and benefits in these jobs. [/li] [li]The public realize they have power in solidarity, and start organizing into various public and private sector groups to make demands. [/li] [li]Society realizes that a society where half of people don’t have $400 can’t survive a mild economic upset, and people start pushing for lower income inequality[/li] [li]People realize that universal health care, mandatory sick leave, etc. benefits that are not tied to employment and are universal are necessary. [/li] [li]The world invests much more heavily in public health[/li] [li]Health care becomes seen as a global issue, rather than a national issue. Meaning nations with wealth and resources like China, EU, north America, Japan, etc. start to look at the lack of health resources in Africa as a global issue rather than an issue for other people, and work together to build the infrastructure in developing nations. [/li] [li]The world invests more heavily into scientific R&D to combat future pandemics[/li][/ul]. Will any of it actually happen? Who knows. Potential negative effects however include People become more prone to authoritarianism due to the parasitic stress hypothesis. > **[Study Finds Link Between Parasites and Authoritarianism](https://bigthink.com/surprising-science/are-parasites-shaping-geopolitics/)** > > A study suggests that countries with a high prevalence of parasites are likely to have authoritarian governments.   Terrorists and insurgents realize how powerful bioweapons are, and they are relatively easy to make. So they start looking into them more seriously. The far right is empowered by portraying this outbreak as due to people in China and their strange eating/market customs. ---
**Author:** ![Lubricious\_Integument](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/82dd89/32.png) [@Lubricious\_Integument](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lubricious_Integument)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2020, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plagues-are-sometimes-good/850492/23 "2020-03-28T16:15:18Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > “I and my family may be dying in the most horrible way you can possibly imagine…but the advancements this will bring about makes it all worth it” said no one. Actually there was a fairly close quote once. “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for the Dow Jones Industrial Average” - Nathan Hale, circa 1775-6. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2020, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plagues-are-sometimes-good/850492/24 "2020-03-28T16:23:10Z")
I second or third Wickham as a nice overview. ---
**Author:** ![Green\_Bean](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/green_bean/32/1760_2.png) [@Green\_Bean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Bean)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2020, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plagues-are-sometimes-good/850492/25 "2020-03-28T16:59:24Z")
One positive effect this crisis will probably have is that people will do more in terms of general preparedness. > [@Czarcasm](#): > > “I and my family may be dying in the most horrible way you can possibly imagine…but the advancements this will bring about makes it all worth it” said no one. Nice strawman, there, slythe. Hope you’re keeping him at least 6 feet from the other strawmen. > [@puzzlegal](#): > > I do expect that more people will work more often from home forever, as a result of this. Zoom and similar providers will prosper, and commercial real estate will suffer. I work in commercial real estate - office buildings. I believe you are correct. The office space market has been suffering for a long time as trends have favored needing less and less square footage per worker. There are a lot of reasons for this, but telecommuting os one of them. More telecommuting will lead to an overall reduction on SF per person. Some offices will go to “hoteling” (workstations to be used by whoever happens to be there that day) for at least a portion of the staff. People who only come in a couple of days a week will probably be thought to need less space than a person who is there 40+ hours per week. I’m sure there will be other ways that companies will capitalize on this as well. One thing we’ve seen is that companies tend to be eager to adopt changes that will allow them to rent less square footage - rent is expensive! (These effects will not be seen immediately as office lease terms generally run for at least several years) ---
**Author:** ![VOW](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/vow/32/3043_2.png) [@VOW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VOW)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2020, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plagues-are-sometimes-good/850492/26 "2020-03-28T17:14:39Z")
Then there is the old “thin the herd” mentality! Kill off the old, the sick, the weak, the young…and the survivors are supposedly the cream of the crop, who can go on to breed more superior beings! This plague seems to target the entire spectrum, though. And the commonality of the survivors looks to be a recently-acquired immunity to COVAD-19. Or, some hermits who were REALLY good at hiding! ~VOW ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2020, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plagues-are-sometimes-good/850492/27 "2020-03-28T18:35:06Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > Like the 20th Century was a direct result of the 19th. Cite? ---
**Author:** ![RioRico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f04885/32.png) [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2020, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plagues-are-sometimes-good/850492/28 "2020-03-28T18:48:16Z")
> [@Francis\_Vaughan](#): > > As the saying goes - with chaos comes opportunity. It depends upon who is better placed to take advantage of it. > > Speaking as a mammal, I tend to think fondly of large meteor strikes. Fondness only for past whacks, I’ll wager. The next may be less accommodating. Is a plague good? For survivors not too badly damaged, sure. For everyone else i.e. the victims - not so great. Inadvertent plagues coincident with Contact sure opened-up the Americas for European domination. Has humanity benefited? Well, we have our current reality as a result. Whatever put me where I comfortably am is “good” by definition. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2020, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plagues-are-sometimes-good/850492/29 "2020-03-28T19:08:12Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > Like the 20th Century was a direct result of the 19th. > [@dropzone](#): > > Cite? The 20th century was actually a direct result of the 26th century. Some guy travelled back in time from the 26th century and managed to delay the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1915 from breaking out until a few years later, so that the Allies won WW1 instead of Germany. I would give you a cite, but it’s not in this timeline. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2020, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plagues-are-sometimes-good/850492/30 "2020-03-28T19:35:16Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#): > > The 20th century was actually a direct result of the 26th century. > > Some guy travelled back in time from the 26th century and managed to delay the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1915 from breaking out until a few years later, so that the Allies won WW1 instead of Germany. > > I would give you a cite, but it’s not in this timeline. 😃 Someone kill that guy. Had the Germans won WW1 there would have been no Versailles Treaty, no stab in the back, no Hitler, no (likely) WW2 and no Holocaust. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2020, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plagues-are-sometimes-good/850492/31 "2020-03-28T19:38:05Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > Someone kill that guy. Had the Germans won WW1 there would have been no Versailles Treaty, no stab in the back, no Hitler, no (likely) WW2 and no Holocaust. But unbeknownst to us, all that was relatively mild compared with what he came back to prevent. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2020, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plagues-are-sometimes-good/850492/32 "2020-03-28T20:05:08Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > Someone kill that guy. Had the Germans won WW1 there would have been no Versailles Treaty, no stab in the back, no Hitler, no (likely) WW2 and no Holocaust. It’s a sad story. He had a grudge against the Great German Empire because some of his ancestors had suffered badly under Kaiser Friedrich in the uprising of 1962. But when he changed the timeline all his ancestors died in WW2 instead, so he ceased to exist. Unfortunately, the change he made still persisted, due to Pereira’s Non-Paradox theorem, which was proved in 2517 in that timeline. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2020, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plagues-are-sometimes-good/850492/33 "2020-03-28T20:11:55Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#): > > It’s a sad story. > > He had a grudge against the Great German Empire because some of his ancestors had suffered badly under Kaiser Friedrich in the uprising of 1962. But when he changed the timeline all his ancestors died in WW2 instead, so he ceased to exist. > > Unfortunately, the change he made still persisted, due to Pereira’s Non-Paradox theorem, which was proved in 2517 in that timeline. I was hoping he would right the wrong of the 1966 World Cup Final as well. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2020, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plagues-are-sometimes-good/850492/34 "2020-03-28T20:30:55Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > I was hoping he would right the wrong of the 1966 World Cup Final as well. 😛 Changing that might lead to an unstoppable sequence of events resulting in a nuclear war in the 1970s… ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Banksiaman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banksiaman/32/3334_2.png) [@Banksiaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banksiaman)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2020, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plagues-are-sometimes-good/850492/35 "2020-03-29T00:28:03Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#): > > Changing that might lead to an unstoppable sequence of events resulting in a nuclear war in the 1970s… ☹ And all because I swatted that butterfly on the Amazon holiday … Sorry, peoples. ---
**Author:** ![RioRico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f04885/32.png) [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2020, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plagues-are-sometimes-good/850492/36 "2020-03-29T23:39:10Z")
> [@Banksiaman](#): > > And all because I swatted that butterfly on the Amazon holiday … Sorry, peoples. Up against the wall, miscreant! I read old SciFi stories of Evil Scientists looking for racial identifiers in DNA that can be targeted for disease. You’re part Iroquois? Sorry, you failed the death panel. Here comes your fatal dose. You will not _Beat The Reaper_. That would likely be more insidious, a gene-specific toxin embedded in McBurgers or (now) hand sanitizers. Then it’s a “good” plague for survivors and beneficiaries of the genocide. Sucks to be Iroquois, though. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2020, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plagues-are-sometimes-good/850492/37 "2020-03-30T02:30:11Z")
A lot of people seem to be quixotically trying to [prove Charles Darwin wrong](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-29/some-megachurches-pack-in-crowds-amid-covid-19-warning-flares) by joining the crowds assembled in those megachurches, presumably to pray to some torture victim to save them from this scourge. I yearn to comment on the relative merits of this kind of behavior, but that might be crass. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2020, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plagues-are-sometimes-good/850492/38 "2020-03-30T13:13:47Z")
I consider the after effects of the [Plague of Justinian](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plague_of_Justinian) to be devastating for Western Civilization. The Byzantine Empire never recovered from it. It was in such poor shape from the plague waves that it couldn’t respond well to renewed barbarian invasions or the Arab expansion decades later. Then with the empire significantly pared down, it was easier for the Turks to chip away at it and finally conquer it. In short: there might be some positive effects sometimes, a lot of bad effects most of the time. You generally don’t want to root for a plague. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2020, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plagues-are-sometimes-good/850492/39 "2020-03-30T13:36:39Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > I consider the after effects of the [Plague of Justinian](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plague_of_Justinian) to be devastating for Western Civilization. The Byzantine Empire never recovered from it. It was in such poor shape from the plague waves that it couldn’t respond well to renewed barbarian invasions or the Arab expansion decades later. Then with the empire significantly pared down, it was easier for the Turks to chip away at it and finally conquer it. > > In short: there might be some positive effects sometimes, a lot of bad effects most of the time. You generally don’t want to root for a plague. Ah, but without the sack of Constantinople during the 4th Crusade and its later fall to Ottomans, Western Europe never would have received mass influxes of fleeing scholars - scholars who maintained earlier traditions of Greek philosophy, art, and literature. So we can draw a very direct line from the Plague of Justinian to the Renaissance. Because that’s the thing about history - everything leads directly to everything else - good or bad. It has to, because it already happened that way! ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2020, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plagues-are-sometimes-good/850492/40 "2020-03-30T14:23:42Z")
Small pox was great for the early American colonists. It was catastrophic for the Native Americans. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plagues-are-sometimes-good/850492.md?page=1)