The ANZACs in T2k

[Raellus]

Interesting takes, gentlemen. So you advocate the herd immunity theory?

Re "overpopulation", I'm reading a book called Homo Deus by Yuval Harari and he argues that the world is not, in fact, overpopulated. It is our collective obsession with economic growth (more, more, more) that is causing the problems we associate with "overpopulation"- e.g. resource scarcity, environmental degradation, cutthroat competition, etc. It's a very compelling argument. I recommend the book it you're interested in futurism (i.e. where humanity is likely headed in the next century).

Population density is a separate issue. Clearly, dense populations are more vulnerable to pandemics than less dense ones.

A "winnowing" is only a temporary fix, though. It didn't work after the 1400s, or 1918, or WW2. A permanent solution would require dystopian population controls. And that runs counter to the religion of economic growth. You can't have a neutral or declining national population and have economic growth at the same time.

But back to the the whole argument of, "only a relatively small number of people have died from this disease so let's ease off social distancing". It stems from a logical fallacy- it's a reverse Post hoc ergo propter hoc. In other words, the reason we've had a lower death rate than worst case scenarios suggested we would is because of social distancing protocols.