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A comment on Why the second wave of the 1918 Spanish flu was so deadly. Parent comment

Re:Why the second wave of the 1918 Spanish flu was so deadly by TheOtherHobbes on Friday March 13, 2020 @08:07AM (#22566599)
Having electricity is worthless if there isn't enough for anyone to run a heater, because it's all being used to run a protein folding simulation no one needs.

It's about intelligent use of strategic resources, not the fact that those resources exist at all.

It's not obvious that we're better at intelligent use of strategic resources than we were a century ago.

Our economic systems promote brutal winner-takes-all internal competition, not strategic cooperation, and that makes them ridiculously brittle when they have to deal with an unexpected stressor.

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Re:Why the second wave of the 1918 Spanish flu was so deadly by hef19898 on Friday March 13, 2020 @09:49AM (#22567207)
Assuming that we are as stupid at using strategic resources as our ancestors back in 1918, we do have a lot more of them. With much easier coordination and communication. and mch higher degree of automation, requiring an order of magnitude smaller work force to keep things running.
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