Overpopulation and zoonotic viruses

[mihcmac]

In the US people are accustomed to getting what they want when they want it, all we have to is qualify and sign, once you learn the secret that the banks own the new cars that surround you on the highway. In many other countries you have to have the wealth to buy a car and build your home, getting loans is not an option. If you are lucky enough to have people making bricks close by you can build the first floor, move in and start the second floor. Sometimes going up to five stories, if you have the resources. Also you will usually need to start by building a wall around your compound to protect your family.

Ok so just rambling, these are common processes that I have observed in my travels...

Edited August 17, 2022 by mihcmac

[kidblast]

the company I work for is HQ'd in India

one of the managers told me ..

 

"So we like to have people come here once a year and a have a face to face meetings"

"Oh!!  Is this mandatory?"

"Well,, no I don't think so"

"OK Great, count me out!"...

The discussion went kind of quiet from there.

-- yea   All set Babu-ski..  Do I like working for these people ??  Not in the least....  Can't wait to blow out of it..  it sucks,

 

Edited August 17, 2022 by kidblast

[SteveFord]

On a positive note, one of the most attractive and personable women I ever met was from India.

She told me that India is the land of the reptile and I had an Indian python so her husband was happy to cut the visit short.

 

[gearbasher]

1 hour ago, kidblast said:

the company I work for is HQ'd in India

one of the managers told me ..

 

"So we like to have people come here once a year and a have a face to face meetings"

"Oh!!  Is this mandatory?"

"Well,, no I don't think so"

"OK Great, count me out!"...

The discussion went kind of quiet from there.

-- yea   All set Babu-ski..  Do I like working for these people ??  Not in the least....  Can't wait to blow out of it..  it sucks,

 

In the 33 years I spent on my job, I was sent to Oklahoma over 20 times. After wasting about a year of my life there, I think I would have preferred being sent to India.

Edit: One of the first songs I ever wrote (and one of my favorites) was about my experiences there. So, I guess some good came from it.

Edited August 17, 2022 by gearbasher

[jaxson50]

8 hours ago, mihcmac said:

In the US people are accustomed to getting what they want when they want it, all we have to is qualify and sign, once you learn the secret that the banks own the new cars that surround you on the highway. In many other countries you have to have the wealth to buy a car and build your home, getting loans is not an option. If you are lucky enough to have people making bricks close by you can build the first floor, move in and start the second floor. Sometimes going up to five stories, if you have the resources. Also you will usually need to start by building a wall around your compound to protect your family.

Ok so just rambling, these are common processes that I have observed in my travels...

I believe mortgages are common in many nations other than the US.  And believe me, i do feel lucky, even blessed to be in the US. It ain't perfect but neither is any other country. 

 

[kidblast]

14 hours ago, gearbasher said:

In the 33 years I spent on my job, I was sent to Oklahoma over 20 times. After wasting about a year of my life there, I think I would have preferred being sent to India.

Edit: One of the first songs I ever wrote (and one of my favorites) was about my experiences there. So, I guess some good came from it.

LOL!  I think Oklahoma is one of those places where you relocate to if you are sick and tired of humanity.   One of our friends family is from there.  She says "it's really a quiet place" !!!

 

[gearbasher]

1 hour ago, kidblast said:

LOL!  I think Oklahoma is one of those places where you relocate to if you are sick and tired of humanity.   One of our friends family is from there.  She says "it's really a quiet place" !!!

 

I remember seeing T-shits for sale there that said: "If you only have a week to live, spend it in Oklahoma. It'll feel like a lifetime." 

[Whitefang]

1 hour ago, kidblast said:

LOL!  I think Oklahoma is one of those places where you relocate to if you are sick and tired of humanity.   One of our friends family is from there.  She says "it's really a quiet place" !!!

 

One of my sisters in law's ex husband and his family are from Oklahoma.  I've met them all and have to say that if they're typical Okies,  then Oklahoma IS the ideal place to get away from humanity.  Doesn't seem to be much there anyway.

Whitefang

[jaxson50]

13 hours ago, Whitefang said:

One of my sisters in law's ex husband and his family are from Oklahoma.  I've met them all and have to say that if they're typical Okies,  then Oklahoma IS the ideal place to get away from humanity.  Doesn't seem to be much there anyway.

Whitefang

I traveled through some rather off the beaten path type places in various states,  Oklahoma, Louisiana,  Bama, some places you just don't want to get out of the car. People look at you like you just walked in on something you weren't supposed to see.. 

[SteveFord]

I'm in the minority, I like Oklahoma - armadillos and gopher tortoises and tarantulas and rattlesnakes and scorpions, all sorts of exotic stuff for a kid from NJ.  You can go like hell out on the highways but it's just a flat, straight line.  The people were very friendly when I was there, Mexican dirt weed was $10 an ounce, better be prepared to smoke a LOT of it!

Hotter than hell in the Summer, I'll say that much.

 

[gdecantoo]

Chelino’s in Norman Oklahoma. Best tasting Mexican food ever to pleasure my palate!

[SteveFord]

Good old Norman, OK - where the cops hide behind that billboard and ticket EVERYBODY.

Or at least they did when I was there.

[saturn]

Is it just me, or did this thread begin as being about a virus? 

[NighthawkChris]

Oklahoma is OK. No seriously, that’s how you abbreviate it when you send a postcard to someone there. Do people send postcards anymore? I haven’t gotten one from my nonexistent friends in a long time. 

[gearbasher]

2 hours ago, saturn said:

Is it just me, or did this thread begin as being about a virus? 

Yeah, but like a virus, it mutated.

[SteveFord]

Sooner or later Armaradillo Warts will make the jump and take us all out.

It's just taking a while because OK is sparsely populated because it's so flat and hot and the cops in Norman write everybody tickets which makes everyone move away.

Edited August 20, 2022 by SteveFord

[merciful-evans]

On 8/18/2022 at 4:26 AM, jaxson50 said:

I believe mortgages are common in many nations other than the US.  And believe me, i do feel lucky, even blessed to be in the US. It ain't perfect but neither is any other country. 

 

I just found out last week that when working outside the US (and being taxed by the resident country), you are also still taxed by the IRS (and likely have to use FBAR & FATCA forms). Double Taxation! Stay working in the US seems favourite.  

[jaxson50]

22 hours ago, SteveFord said:

I'm in the minority, I like Oklahoma - armadillos and gopher tortoises and tarantulas and rattlesnakes and scorpions, all sorts of exotic stuff for a kid from NJ.  You can go like hell out on the highways but it's just a flat, straight line.  The people were very friendly when I was there, Mexican dirt weed was $10 an ounce, better be prepared to smoke a LOT of it!

Hotter than hell in the Summer, I'll say that much.

 

One good thing about Oklahoma,, It ain't Texas! 

I should explain,  I drove semis coast to coast for a few years back in the 70s, remember the 55 mph speed limits of that era? If you picked up a load in LA, and had to deliver it in Atlanta, you could choose to take Interstate 10 or 20 and spend one or two days in Texas,  or you could take 40, and save a lot of time. A big plus. 

 

[gearbasher]

Now that you mention Texas. The first time I went to Oklahoma, I caught a cab from the airport. Talking to the driver, I told him this was my first time in Oklahoma. His reply was:  "I'm originally from Texas. And do you know why Texas doesn't slide into the Gulf of Mexico?  Because, Oklahoma sucks."

[jaxson50]

6 hours ago, gearbasher said:

Now that you mention Texas. The first time I went to Oklahoma, I caught a cab from the airport. Talking to the driver, I told him this was my first time in Oklahoma. His reply was:  "I'm originally from Texas. And do you know why Texas doesn't slide into the Gulf of Mexico?  Because, Oklahoma sucks."

Trust me, after two or three trips across Texas from east to west and vs at 55mph will convince anyone that Texas sucks too!  

Miles and miles of miles and miles.  But the food was good.

[Whitefang]

10 hours ago, jaxson50 said:

Trust me, after two or three trips across Texas from east to west and vs at 55mph will convince anyone that Texas sucks too!  

Miles and miles of miles and miles.  But the food was good.

Only been to Texas once.  Taking my father in law to see his dying older brother in Laredo.  We could only make the trip during the annual "shutdown" at the GM plant I was working at the time.  Trust me.

You DON'T want to be in Laredo, Texas in July!  And oddly enough, all the time we were in Texas the first thing I noticed was the gas prices were higher than in Detroit, and we couldn't find a decent steakhouse to save our lives.  In the land of "Texas Tea" and beef!    And Jaxson is right.  Texas IS big.  It took us the same amount of time to get from Texarkana to Laredo as it did to get from Detroit to Texarkana!

Whitefang

[jaxson50]

2 hours ago, Whitefang said:

Only been to Texas once.  Taking my father in law to see his dying older brother in Laredo.  We could only make the trip during the annual "shutdown" at the GM plant I was working at the time.  Trust me.

You DON'T want to be in Laredo, Texas in July!  And oddly enough, all the time we were in Texas the first thing I noticed was the gas prices were higher than in Detroit, and we couldn't find a decent steakhouse to save our lives.  In the land of "Texas Tea" and beef!    And Jaxson is right.  Texas IS big.  It took us the same amount of time to get from Texarkana to Laredo as it did to get from Detroit to Texarkana!

Whitefang

Texarkana,  fun place  (not) 

[gearbasher]

3 hours ago, Whitefang said:

Only been to Texas once.  Taking my father in law to see his dying older brother in Laredo.  We could only make the trip during the annual "shutdown" at the GM plant I was working at the time.  Trust me.

You DON'T want to be in Laredo, Texas in July!  And oddly enough, all the time we were in Texas the first thing I noticed was the gas prices were higher than in Detroit, and we couldn't find a decent steakhouse to save our lives.  In the land of "Texas Tea" and beef!    And Jaxson is right.  Texas IS big.  It took us the same amount of time to get from Texarkana to Laredo as it did to get from Detroit to Texarkana!

Whitefang

I was sent, once, to Dallas for my job. Three weeks in July. Horrible. The one memorable thing about that trip was: I was in a restaurant with a co-worker who was originally from Slovenia. This guy had a heavy Eastern European accent and I was born and raise in Brooklyn, so you could imagine how I talk (or should I say "tawk"). Anyhow, when we were ordering, the waitress said: "You guys talk funny. Where you all from?" So, I said: "Brooklyn" and with out missing a beat, my co-worker, in his heavy Eastern European accent, said: "I'm from Brooklyn too." We got no response from her as to why we sounded so different.

And the Dallas / Fort Worth Airport. Man, when we were taxiing for takeoff, I though they were driving to NY.

BTW: Do you know why it's so windy in Oklahoma? Because Texas blows.

Edited August 21, 2022 by gearbasher

[jaxson50]

On 8/19/2022 at 11:33 PM, saturn said:

Is it just me, or did this thread begin as being about a virus? 

Viruses? We don't need no stinking viruses! 

[Sheepdog1969]

On 8/16/2022 at 10:39 AM, jaxson50 said:

I'm with you on this issue.  Add China and Africa to my no go list. Along with a host of other places .

As for population, it does play a roll, but so does modern travel, an infected person can literally travel around the planet, spreading crap around major airports,  filled with people who then spread it to every corner orvevdry city before the first symptoms appear. 

We will be victims of our accomplishments,

Around 1990, while attending the University of Iowa, I met David Morrell (author of First Blood, Rambo, Fireflies, etc.), while shopping one day, and struck up a conversation with him, without even knowing who he was. We talked for quite awhile, and after he left, the store clerk told me who he was. Not long after that, I bumped into him again at a music store in Iowa City. He was with another author friend, Richard Preston, who was working on a piece for the New Yorker, (Crisis in the Hot Zone), which he later turned into a book called  The Hot Zone. Surprisingly, David remembered me. As we waited for the shop owner to help us, Richard began talking about this virus called ebola, which he had encountered in Africa. Despite the horrific effects and lethality of the ebola virus, Richard plainly stated that what terrified him even more was the exponential increase in ease of international air travel combined with ever increasing travel in and out of formerly isolated/remote global civilizations. He detailed how these two factors would undoubtedly result in global pandemics, which would spread so quickly that the infections would be everywhere before anyone knew what was happening. He said highly infectious and lethal diseases have always popped up in places around the globe. However, because for thousands of years travel from place to place had been arduous and time consuming/slow, infected travelers typically succumbed to the infection before it could be transmitted to other neighboring populations. Thus, these pathogens would "burn out" in localized areas by either killing all available hosts or inoculating survivors via "acquired immunity"  creating "herd immunity". As transportation technology grew, reducing travel times AND increasing the number of people travelling/moving from one place to another, disease incubation periods were longer than travel times. It became easier and easier and faster and faster for rural folks to travel to/move to large population centers, and vise versa. Yet, intercontinental travel and/or long distance travel still was slow enough, (think sailing across an ocean), that infected travelers would, at a minimum, present with symptoms prior to arriving at their destination, allowing for quarantines. Even when international air travel became available, costs limited the number of travelers, and the number of commercial airports globally was few. However, by the 1980's, an individual could travel from a remote village to a nearby airport, fly to the nearest international airport, board an international flight to another international airport anywhere in the world, board a flight to a regional airport, and arrive at their destination IN FEW DAYS. During said travel, they would have close contact with thousands of people, who were traveling to thousands of other destinations, each having close contact with thousands of other people, and so on and so on. A disease that only existed in one location on the planet Monday, could be in nearly every country on the planet by Friday, and even before any of the infected individuals presented with symptoms. Remember, that we were discussing this in 1990. Richard Preston's writings on this literally resulted in sweeping changes in how governments around the world designed national defense strategies. His ultimate conclusion was that the "shrinking planet", (the ever increasing ability for anyone to travel anywhere rapidly), would result in global pandemic after global pandemic, with increasing frequencies. This would then lead to either massive global population reduction from a highly transmissible and lethal disease, (or diseases), that would spread so fast that those who may have been capable of creating a cure/vaccination would be killed by it before they could stop it, or governments severely restricting international travel. Ironically, the mass population die off scenario would also result in minimal (if any) international travel simply because there would not be enough people left alive to support the vast technical needs of efficient long distance commercial travel. (think Maslow's hierarchy of Needs ). Richard was right!