So Sad

[Morrison Jeremiah]

I wasn't around when the old format was in use, so I just jumped straight into this one.
Seems to be a piece of cake to use, even for an old technophobe like me.

 

[monty55]

Hello.

Howdy!

 

[monty55]

COVID isn't even remotely close to an extinction event.

I fully understand that. Didn't mean to imply it was. But for Humans, short of an Asteroid strike or gamma ray burst, that can be the beginning of the end.

 

[anotherbob]

it might not be an extinction event but it sure is a reminder that we can't have as much control over everything as we'd like to think we do. That our position and our lifestyle is a lot more fragile then we think it is. For example the supply chain can fall apart, your business can be going great and then something totally out of your control hits and suddenly not so good.

 

[smokeymo]

I fully understand that. Didn't mean to imply it was. But for Humans, short of an Asteroid strike or gamma ray burst, that can be the beginning of the end.

I don't think that there will be a disease that is an extinction event. It will be extraterrestrial (asteroid, gamma, etc. like you mentioned) or it will be a super volcano like the one on Mars (or a smaller version like that in Yellowstone).

 

[monty55]

I don't think that there will be a disease that is an extinction event. It will be extraterrestrial (asteroid, gamma, etc. like you mentioned) or it will be a super volcano like the one on Mars (or a smaller version like that in Yellowstone).

As biological entities, we are far more susceptible to a disease or virus. This pandemic has shown that quite well. We're just lucky it wasn't more lethal than it was. IMHO

Having said that, I can assure you that we will indeed have a super volcano eruption on this planet, and we will indeed get hit by an asteroid and probably a gamma ray burst, and they may happen any minute or tens of thousands of years from now... but they will indeed happen. And that will be that

 

[anotherbob]

As biological entities, we are far more susceptible to a disease or virus. This pandemic has shown that quite well. We're just lucky it wasn't more lethal than it was. IMHO

that's what I keep telling people. This stuff could have been a lot worse. Could have moved faster and hit harder. Could have a kill rate with a much higher percentage. We're way more fragile then we want to admit, heck then I want to admit and enjoy being morbid.

 

[smokeymo]

As biological entities, we are far more susceptible to a disease or virus. This pandemic has shown that quite well. We're just lucky it wasn't more lethal than it was. IMHO

I disagree. As biological entities we are wired to fight disease and virus. Its called an immune system.. This "pandemic" didn't even kill of a single percent of our population. Not even a half of a percent. It truly has been sensentationalized. Even the black plague that killed a third of the European population doesn't qualify as an extinction event. With how the human species has evolved, in combination with modern medicine, the chances of a biological extinction is very close to 0.

 

[frozenchurchwarden]

As the human population increases, so the natural world decreases.
I hate to say it, but I think the only way nature will make a comeback, is if we have a really bad pandemic.
Nature may just get really pissed off with us, because there's no way, apart from war, that we will reduce the population by ourselves.

That's not entirely the case, people naturally clump together quite tightly, the population density of the average city is 10,000 people per square mile, at that density the entire population of the world would fit into four mainland states, or just Alaska.
Food crops are more productive now than ever before, there is no shortage of food (the only reason for starvation is war).

The only reason people are destructive to the environment is sheer ignorance.

 

[Sweet Home Alabama]

We appear to be generally an older group

 

[smokeymo]

We appear to be generally an older group

Pipesmoking in general is an older group.

 

[monty55]

We appear to be generally an older group

And thank goodness for it! Look, no offense to millennials, but all the ones I know, including my own kids, have very little time, understanding or patience for anything or anyone outside their own small worlds.

 

[warren]

but all the ones I know, including my own kids, have very little time, understanding or patience for anything or anyone outside their own small worlds.

Kinfolk to a lot of our members I guess.

You could expand your world a bit and meet some new young doctors, a volunteer enlistee, a brand new, just graduated nurse, a smoke eater, beat walker, etc. The younger generations are simply overflowing with great individuals. You gotta quit watching the TV and get out, mingle and meet some of these kids.

 

[monty55]

Kinfolk to a lot of our members I guess.

You could expand your world a bit and meet some new young doctors, a volunteer enlistee, a brand new, just graduated nurse, a smoke eater, beat walker, etc. The younger generations are simply overflowing with great individuals. You gotta quit watching the TV and get out, mingle and meet some of these kids.

Well sure, I don't mean to say they're all like that, but most all the ones I've met are. Like anyone anywhere it's all a matter of where you live I suppose. I live in a college town, and if I didn't have an Aggie ring on my finger, they wouldn't give me the time of day.

 

[mso489]

In proportion to the population at the time and the bubonic plagues, Covid is so-far considerably smaller, but still equals death in all of our wars in the U.S., for example. If we totally fail to reign in climate warming, I think humans will still remain, at least in pockets and much smaller numbers, for three or four more generations, if in dire circumstances. But the Forums membership ebbs and flows. I attribute it mostly to the vagaries of individual interest. We have a remarkable influx of new membership, but about half of those post only a few times if they ever reappear at all. I'd guess our demographic of pipe smokers tends to be a little introverted so is protected from Covid in part by social distancing of the less gregarious. There have probably been a few losses to the infernal bug, and may they rest in peace in the great smoking lounge in the sky.

 

[clynch]

I belong to a few forums. This pipe forum appears to be the best I've seen for friendliness and a tight group. Must be the pipes and type of people drawn to pipes.

 

[Trainpipeman]

I've spent the last several days going through old threads and posts and I've noticed there are a LOT of forum members who haven't been heard from during the last two years... basically during the pandemic. And of course, I sometimes have a tendency to think the worse, but I wonder how many of those members were lost to covid, and we simply don't know it.
It's so sad. If their alive, I hope their doing well. If they've passed, I hope they're in a better place and their families and loved ones are making it ok.

As an Earth scientist and someone who knows a thing or two about extinction events, I always knew something like this would happen... I just didn't think it would be in my lifetime. Not to say this is an extinction event, but it could be the start of something much larger. So many of the events over the course of earth's history were a conglomeration of multiple factors, not just one thing like the KT event that wiped out the dinosaurs. But we are undergoing severe global climate change, and people have no idea what that means until it hits them in the face. There's a lot happening on this ball we live on and most of it is not good. It would not surprise me a bit if over the next 500 years this period. since the start of the industrial revolution and onward will be looked at as the beginning of a global level extinction event. You can't see these things until your looking back in time. Humans may be smart, but they're also pretty damn stupid. Well, ok, that's all I got to say about that.

Well-said, sir.

 

[Sweet Home Alabama]

And thank goodness for it! Look, no offense to millennials, but all the ones I know, including my own kids, have very little time, understanding or patience for anything or anyone outside their own small worlds.

Not at all my experience with my children or grandchildren.

 

[monty55]

Not at all my experience with my children or grandchildren.

That's great! Maybe I'm just an old out of touch cantankerous old codger

 

[Sweet Home Alabama]

That's great! Maybe I'm just an old out of touch cantankerous old codger

Don’t let yourself be that way. When you were young old men said the same. Family is important. Find a way to connect. When you’re dead and gone, give them something to remember that is positive.

i keep an old refrigerator out in the shop filled with soft drinks and the freezer, ice cream. They’ll be talking about it when they have grey hair