Pandemic

Reports coming through that a 6 magnitude earthquake has just struck Mexico. Just what they need right now......

The most polluted city in the world has pissed God off.

Talking of pollution and destroying the world with global warming . . . there was a good programme on the other day. They were saying that there is evidence that we're destroying the planet etc, etc, but it has been destroyed in the past. There's been other catastrophes that have wiped out forms of life before but the planet has always recovered and it will do again. The only casualty will be the human . . . dun dun dun . . .

The only casualty will be Ian Bell's batting average.

Augustus wrote:Demelza's right, disease and what-not have always been ways of keeping the population down. The world is at critical mass at the moment, we've just been living in an impervious bubble under the notion that every life is sacred and blah blah. It is, unfortunately, about time nature did something about the human scourge. The six and a half billion folk who are slowly eating away at the planet are unsustainable. If that means a lot of people dying including myself then damn, but that's the way it's meant to be. A circle of life and death. We are, after all, only mortal. We've been lucky to miss out on a massive war or a huge pandemic in the last 60 years or so.

If 3 billion folk were to die and I were one of the survivors then all the more post-apocalyptic fun for me. Stalking down streets with my rifle, poking in ruined houses, dodging uzi fire from renegade chavs who are too high before dispatching them from fifty yards. Looting, forming street gangs, getting shot, killing folk, having government SWAT teams charging around re-establishing their authority. Anarchy and all that shit.

If we took out BanIndia and BanChina "accidentally", then everything would be groovy again.

Make it happen, powers that be.

Augustus,

No Damelza is not right, we don't "need" this!

What we need is the flipping politicians to stop being so damn incompetent and corrupt and help the people of their countries

PlanetPakistan wrote:Augustus,

No Damelza is not right, we don't "need" this!

What we need is the flipping politicians to stop being so damn incompetent and corrupt and help the people of their countries

You mean increase taxes to pay for the weak and useless in society?

It's official- Swine flu has hit Britain. Anyone starting to get a bit scared?

Henry wrote:It's official- Swine flu has hit Britain. Anyone starting to get a bit scared?

Yes, I don't know what colour face mask will suit my natural colouring.

Do they make one in pallid?

It's amazing how everyone rushes to buy face masks, as they do absolutely sweet f*ck all when it comes to air bourne diseases. Face mask or not, people still need to breathe FFS.

Dello wrote:Do they make one in pallid?

Cheeky swine.

So, what exactly are the symptoms?

Your tail goes curly.

PlanetPakistan wrote:Augustus,

No Damelza is not right, we don't "need" this!

What we need is the flipping politicians to stop being so damn incompetent and corrupt and help the people of their countries

I didn't say we needed it, just that people live in a make believe world if they don't believe firstly that pandemics are meant to be and secondly that they're not necessary to refresh the world. That's the cycle of nature, the old goes out and the new starts afresh.

Regarding the narrower picture of human affairs, everyone always blames politicians for everything, the truth is that everybody is in some way responsible for the ruinous state of the world around them. It is the collective effort of the people which has destroyed and fragmented society as well as the world. It is humankind's nature to destroy, to cheat, to lie, to be conceited, to think of one's own gains instead of the gains for the world at large. Politicians are just an exaggerated portrayal of that corruption.

Look within yourself and tell me you'd do better.

Dello wrote:Your tail goes curly.

[snort]

Augustus wrote:

PlanetPakistan wrote:Augustus,

No Damelza is not right, we don't "need" this!

What we need is the flipping politicians to stop being so damn incompetent and corrupt and help the people of their countries

I didn't say we needed it, just that people live in a make believe world if they don't believe firstly that pandemics are meant to be and secondly that they're not necessary to refresh the world. That's the cycle of nature, the old goes out and the new starts afresh.

Regarding the narrower picture of human affairs, everyone always blames politicians for everything, the truth is that everybody is in some way responsible for the ruinous state of the world around them. It is the collective effort of the people which has destroyed and fragmented society as well as the world. It is humankind's nature to destroy, to cheat, to lie, to be conceited, to think of one's own gains instead of the gains for the world at large. Politicians are just an exaggerated portrayal of that corruption.

Look within yourself and tell me you'd do better.

I couldn't agree less, Gus. That is outMalthusing Malthus. You'll be calling it divine providence for mankind's sinful, corrupt nature, and calling everyone (apart from yourself) to go on a new Crusade next, to purge the filth within us (and pillage, loot, cannibalise and exterminate others).

Oh, wait ... apart from the Crusade bit ...

I can't "look inside myself", because I am opaque.


But seriously, I really don't accept your sharks-in-a-cesspool picture of life, tempting and alluring though it is. (FWIW and incidentally, I have generally found that a sweepingly grim outlook of that sort is a projection of very particular anxieties, exasperations and frustrations of the philosopher who propounds it! > hence Book of Revelation, Nostradamus, Denis Wheatley, pig trials, witchhunts, bring on nuclear war, long live cockroaches, etc. Bleak despair stuff dressed up as some sort of a general world view.)

Hobbes is often quoted as an example of moral bankruptcy in philosophy, but in Leviathan he was actually satirically WARNING against the "war of all against all", where life is "nasty, brutish and short"!

Instead of challenging everyone else to come up with a perfect world of some sort, perhaps look into your own soul (and feelings) too, Gus?

Henry wrote:It's official - Swine flu has hit Britain. Anyone starting to get a bit scared?

I'm concerned it may interrupt the Ashes.

After that ... well, yes, England might be wiped out. I love the smell of No Pom in the morning ...

Wake up and smell the coffins, is it?

Apocalypse Later, hopefully. After morning tea.

Pass the scones before you cark it, please.

Agent Orange Pekoe?

lardbucket wrote:

Henry wrote:It's official - Swine flu has hit Britain. Anyone starting to get a bit scared?

I'm concerned it may interrupt the Ashes.

It'll be like the soccer in Mexico. Matches went ahead, but with no spectators admitted. There was one game played in an empty 100,000 seat stadium.

Kind of like Victoria in the Sheffield Shield when they play at the G.

nasty, brutish and short . . . sounds like 2 or 3 forummers

Henry wrote:It's amazing how everyone rushes to buy face masks, as they do absolutely sweet f*ck all when it comes to air bourne diseases. Face mask or not, people still need to breathe FFS.

Ah the Bourne Identity.

Demelza wrote:

PlanetPakistan wrote:Augustus,

No Damelza is not right, we don't "need" this!

What we need is the flipping politicians to stop being so damn incompetent and corrupt and help the people of their countries

You mean increase taxes to pay for the weak and useless in society?

Demmy, you've been getting a bit of treatment lately, no? NHS?

Do (or did) you pay full fees for your son's education?

Talk about supporting the weak and useless . . .

Don't worry guys, if the worst comes to the worst I've got my own nbc (nuclear, biological and chemical for you numpties) suit up in the loft with a couple of filters - another benefit of being an army kid with a thieving father!

You'll all be dead but me, I'll at least get an extra week out of things, hopefully enough time to get to a safe place before the T-virus takes hold and you're all mutating into pig-shaped zombies.

Go for it Shaun. I'll remember to bite your head off when I see you.