Because it could happen. It’s unlikely yes, but all it takes is one lucky mutation and we’re done. They were correct in that game, our understanding of fungal infections in humans and our ability to treat it is almost non existent.
We were able to product a vaccine for COVID, a far, far less disruptive illness, within two years (via huge global effort) because we’d been focusing on that area of research for decades very closely and producing similar treatments for a long time already.
But something fungal, and highly contagious? There’s nothing we could do except try to quarantine, bomb and napalm every infected area, and hope we got it all.
And we’ve already seen how an easy to contain illness like COVID simply can’t be contained even when we’ve had a heads up and some time to prepare. It will suddenly explode into the population, and once it’s out there it’s out there.
Long ago, we used to be protected from extinction due to disease as a species due to our inability to travel long distances to spread it. Now? All it takes is one infected person to spend a few hours at a large airport, and within 48 hours it’s reached the doorstep of vast majority of the populated world, and is already behind our best pandemic defences.
If a fungal infection that serious ever does make the leap to humans (which again while unlikely, is also entirely possible, it’s like winning the lottery - it could happen tomorrow or maybe never), we have an extremely tiny, almost non existent window in which we must identify how dangerous it is, quarantine the entire region it was located in, bomb it off the face of the earth and hope to the gods we got it all.
But, our morals, humanity and our indecision will stop us from committing what would normally amount to serious war crimes to save the human race, and that tiny window will slip by.
And COVID just proved that a significant part of the population will absolutely refuse to admit it’s a threat or a problem, dismiss it as hysteria or a hoax, and end up spreading it everywhere. Or hosting rallies and events about the evil government trying to control them and end up with a superspreader event. Even IF we had the means to prevent the spread, these idiots would undermine it. We’re all fucked.
The other side of the coin is desperation, too. Let’s say there’s a truly serious pandemic. Huge numbers of people getting sick, not enough resources to treat them all, even if there is a treatment.
In that scenario, even in a world with no antivaxers or antimaskers, where everyone trusts the science and the doctors, do we think everyone is going to just stay in their homes following the quarantine rules, when there’s not enough to go around, and doing so could be a death sentence?
Or do we think they’d go out, and try to get their hands on what they need to survive? Be it food, medicines etc…
Even in a world of people who trust the science like you or I, we’re probably screwed if things really get that bad, and the only reason COVID didn’t get that bad is for all its awfulness, it’s actually a relatively mild illness overall (not to disrespect the many deaths it caused, just to say that as things go, it could have easily been more infectious, more deadly, harder to treat, etc).
When things get that bad, good people will be so desperate to save themselves, their families, their children, that they’ll break the rules, spread the disease, and doom us all :-(
How deep you got into TWD? My unsocial ass liked the first couple of episodes, this cop riding on a horse like in Hot Fuzz, but with all that interpersonal drama I got sick of it. It felt so weird these people are the last men on Earth and they still have something to fight each other over.
Jericho felt better in that aspect. Some suspect it was closed because it was too good and educative. I don’t know if it’s true, but it’s 90’s cinema slow, so you can become bored really quick.
The show is about interpersonal drama more than it is about zombies and that’s not me being reductive. The creator himself has said as much. It’s a drama set in a post apocalyptic zombie world, not a zombie drama set in a post apocalyptic world.
That’s why it’s not my piece of cake maybe. Too much of that IRL to enjoy the same on the silver screen. Pressing a play button, I want these fantasy persons to work together like Legolas and Gimli, not fighting each other over small things.
Yea same. I want some dope zombie fighting. That’s why early on they established that everyone was infected and there’s pretty much no way to cure it currently. Season 1 or 2 iirc.
Irreversible. A French film (alarm bells already) that disturbs me even to this day.
Makes you grateful for your loved ones and how fragile life can be, how one unlucky encounter can flip everything on its head and you may have no influence over any of it.
Difficult viewing for sure and the message shouldn’t be to live in fear but to enjoy every good moment you get.
The first season was emotional but I’ve gotten through it multiple times as I’ve tried re-watching to get through season 2. I got a little farther the last time I tried, but man, it’s so visceral and constantly beating down the protagonist and everyone around her. That’s the point and it’s great, it’s just so depression-inducing when there’s just no uplifting points. IT does not let up in beating you down with the horribleness. I just can’t keep going when it goes on for so long.
Watching it makes seeing what’s happening in the US all the more terrifying when you realize a significant group of people want the world to be like that and are actively trying to make it so.
Same there. I watched a lot of horror movies and another kinds of gore, and it felt like I almost lost my senses at all, but the way Chauvin did that filled me with so much confusion, hatred and sadness I couldn’t stand watching it. So routine, so senseless, like he’s used to do this daily and likes it. I felt sick. And I want this mfer to rot.
With horror movies, you at least have that layer of knowing it's not real. Seeing the real horrors of mankind without that to protect you is truly disturbing.
I didn’t see anyone else mention it, but the scene in King Kong where one of the guys is eaten alive by four or five giant worms, each one starting from a different limb (the last one swallowing his fucking head).
Doesn’t matter that they were setting him up for you to root for him to die, it’s still way too much for me.
Oh yeah. Creators did a great job at making that as dirty and greesy as possible for whatever reason. I don’t understand why, but there was much effort to drop that bomb onto the viewer out of nowhere.
12 Years a Slave, I stopped when they were breaking him. Watching someone go from living their life to suddenly being dehumanized was too awful and terrifying. I was not in the mood to see that.
That was just so vividly depressing and anxiety inducing I couldn’t go more than a few pages a week, and eventually I just stopped and read the summery instead.
I had to unsubscribe from NotJustBikes’s YouTube channel because I could no longer bear thinking about just how thoroughly and irreversably fucked the city planning is out here in the American midwest, and how there’s less than a gnat’s fart in the wind I can do about any of it.
Will be moving to Midwest from Italy soon. My heart hurts already. I lived in the Midwest for ten years and worked with urban planners there so I know the pain all too well.