I remember, early in this pandemic, some speculation that a brief interlude of social distancing and other sensible precautions might nip in the bud what those who were paying attention were starting to see as a big deal. And then it’d be like Y2K, where we handled it so effectively people afterward wondered what all the fuss was ever about. How frustrating!
That would’ve been nice.
“If in 6 months we say that we overreacted, that means we reacted appropriately.”
It wasn’t ever true, but overreaction would have been better than what we did for sure.
I’m a bit confused by the statement “It wasn’t ever true…” What do you mean by that?
It’s wrong in two ways:
If we actually overreacted, say by declaring martial law and forbidding anybody from leaving their houses under pain of immediate execution in the street, six months later we might say, “we overreacted”. That would not mean it wasn’t an overreaction.
Also, many people today say we overreacted. That also doesn’t mean we reacted appropriately.
I saw that statement repeatedly early on, in that way, and it’s illogical.
A correct statement might have been, “If we react appropriately, in six months we will say we overreacted.”
I think he means that we didn’t succeed in reacting appropriately, but a bunch of people said we overreacted anyway.
The “It wasn’t ever true” is what I found confusing. There have been times in the past, such as the Y2K issue that @Esprise_Me mentioned, where many people did claim we overreacted (then and even to this day) and for the most part that was because we did indeed act appropriately.
It’s a great relief to me to know that the hundreds of hours I spent cataloging shell scripts in 1999 was productive work that saved the world.
The fact that people claim it was an overreaction does not imply it was perfect. Before COVID I would have said it implies it was at least adequate. Now I wouldn’t even say that, given the number of people who say we overreacted when we (the US especially) clearly under reacted. Or at least mis-reacted.
We’ve had similar outbreaks in the past like the Swine Flu and SARS where people were setting up sneeze guards and such as a way to prevent a pandemic from spreading, yet the illnesses didn’t affect the US much. So those were considered overreactions. I don’t agree; just because the outbreaks didn’t spread into the US very much, that doesn’t mean our precautions were unwarranted.
If you carry an umbrella on a cloudy day but it never rains, you weren’t being stupid, you just got lucky that you didn’t need it. But your caution was warranted.
Early on a lot of people thought Covid-19 was going to be another illness that we were going to make a big deal about but it wouldn’t affect most people. I thought so too; after all that was what kept happening in the past decade or so. Those people (and me) were very wrong. And unfortunately once it became clear it was a HUGE problem our federal government was very slow to react and even tried to downplay it because we had terrible leadership. A lot of people died unnecessarily.
Hopefully we learned something but I’m too cynical to count on that.
“The military is always fighting the last battle.”
Now we can extend that to: We are always reacting to the last epidemic.
But of course - that makes sense. You base your actions on what you have experienced. And it is very difficult to recognize that a situation is different in the early stages.
Yep, but we know from the last ‘battle’ that vaccines work. Masks work. Those that refuse to learn history are destined to repeat it.
Anti vaxers think they can fight a modern battle by being obstinate idiots.
I reacted acted appropriately from the start: As far back as 1975 or so, I was writing computer programs that treated all years as four-digit numbers all along.
I think it’s scientifically well-proven and documented that carrying an umbrella on a cloudy day causes it not to rain. Or at least causes you to not get wet. So the umbrella does serve its purpose.
That’s just kicking the can down the road. Won’t you take pity on the poor programmers of Y10K who need to fix 8000 years worth of computer code?
Yes, I will pity them indeed – when the time comes, if I live until then.
There was a joke about that . . .
So this programmer, circa late 1990s, is working on updating old code for Y2K, and becomes alarmed that the entire world will come crashing down for at least the next 20 years after Y2K.
So he decides to have himself cryogenically frozen until 2050 in order to miss the coming hard times. But the technicians configure things wrong, and he ends of frozen for the next almost 8000 years.
He gets discovered, and unfrozen, in about the year 9998. He wakes up to find himself in a highly futuristic-looking laboratory, surrounded by futuristic-looking people (enlarged craniums, etc.), all clearly in a state of great excitement. Of course, he doesn’t realize at first that he’s been out for nearly 8000 years.
So he asks them what’s going on and what all the excitement is. One of the technicians (they still speak English – amazing!) tells him: It’s almost the year 10000 now, and it says here in your paperwork that you know COBOL!
Heh heh heh. Technically, I “know” COBOL, too. Couldn’t write a program now to save life.
I got my booster shot yesterday! Yay, me!
COBOL is easy though, I’m sure I could pick it back up pretty quickly and the last time I programmed in it was 1994 I believe.
True. Ooo, would we have to know JCL, too? I liked JCL.
In this thread about people who refuse the vax, this post is definitely off-topic! 
Ugh. What are we going to do?
I have so much despair for the future. It takes a lot of effort for me to not hate anyone. I think I’ve always had anger issues, and there are people out there who I use to simply despise, but I’m medicated now. I still have trouble centering myself in a climate like this.
Like, seriously… fuck these people. They are taking us all down with them.
It looks like the rallying didn’t rally forever and he passed away.
It was a second marriage for both of them after their first spouses died, so I only met him once.
It looks like the hospital got tired of his refusing treatments and being an overall pain in the ass. His arguments let to security being called on one occasion, which may be one reason he was discharged.