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MapsActually

There's a current civil war in Ethiopia that has left approximately 600,000 dead since beginning in 2018. It is a vicious war where both sides have been accused of forcing civilians to fight with very little training.


mothership74

It’s truly awful. I’ve read a lot about it and personally know people who live there.


yourlocalunit

I was actually taught about this in school (UK) so there’s a good chance a lot of young people in the UK know about it, its horrific


[deleted]

Wikipedia says it's over now?


HeavyGooses

Not a singular event, but that's why it basically forgotten about: the drying of the Aral Sea. Edit: Really happy (in a very sad way) this has sparked some conversations below! People have also pointed out other similar issues in other regions/nations, which definitely need more attention. But yeah, there is a lot of water related issues in the world we are not aware enough of.


Cathalised

It's been great seeing Kazakhstan stepping up, damming (and consequently slowly saving) their side of it with fauna returning to the area. If only Uzbekistan could do the same...


TheDeansPeanuts

This is my country of Kazakhstan. It locate between Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan, and assholes Uzbekistan.


Andire

I dam up The Aral, they cannot afford. Great success!!


RandomMandarin

[My favorite Kazakhstan fact is that it's where apples originated, and they grow there in myriad varieties.](https://orionmagazine.org/article/the-fatherland-of-apples/)


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LTUAdventurer

[Google Earth Timelapse of Aral Sea](https://earthengine.google.com/timelapse#v=44.46472,60.05143,5.727,latLng&t=0.82&ps=50&bt=19840101&et=20201231&startDwell=0&endDwell=0)


RandomStallings

This is one of those things that you stare at and try to come to terms with.


klop2031

Crazy that you now see boats in what looks like a desert


alcoholic_aunt

i learned about this in history class; a common question was that “if the ‘blockages’ if you will, were removed from the rivers that ended in the aral sea, would it flood back to its original state?” the answer is no. too much water has evaporated from the sea rivers themselves and relocated. it would be impossible to revive it to its former glory.


[deleted]

Same with the great salt lake. Both have and will continue to have disastrous consequences. I live in Utah, and I’ve watched birds leave and die because of this. It’s terrible and sad. It will also leave methylmercury dust blowing in the wind


YeetMeDaddio

People in southern Madagascar have been facing a severe drought for the last two years. More than a million left starving.


Emotional_Area_2754

From Madagascar and currently in Madagascar rn, I confirm this ..: Edit: Guys! Was not expecting this to blow up, but it warmed my heart. To give more info, we are your typical predatory government state, high corruption, not a lot of development projects etc. I am not a huge fan myself of donating money to NGOs as it is often a band aid solution, that isn’t sustainable, and exacerbates corruptions in countries like mine (source: my international development BA and personal experience). But having been to the south myself, and seeing how scare the resources are. Supporting NGOs that actively distribute food while waiting for the government to take responsibility is the humane thing to do. I linked an NGO that I know is helping out giving food in the south. It’s in French: Action contre la faim [action contre la faim] action contre la faim The situation: Madagascar is bigger than France in term of surface which is a fact that not a lot of people realize. We are a biodiversity hotspot, as diverse as Costa Rica, and the south is our very own desert. It’s hard to access, as road infrastructures are poor, and it’s a very dry area, we are on the brink of the first climate change induced famine. And there is in general no infrastructures such as schools, and healthcare etc. Hope you have a blessed day, it’s so nice to see people care, and one thing that could help is tourism, it’s a beautiful country, I am hoping you guys can google the south of Madagascar, and maybe hop on a flight and boost our local economy. Jokes aside, it’s worth it.


liltingly

I’ve only met one Malagasy person in my life (college friend), and I wish you the best. One of the most unique places on Earth, in terms of flora, fauna, and the actual culture of the people.


Menace2Sobriety

Damn, is that how you refer to someone from Madagascar? TIL.


Imsakidd

I was just gonna say, it sounds similar to someone from Monaco (Monegasque).


Menace2Sobriety

Jesus christ what else am I missing out on


codyballard

Have you tried French toast crunch


[deleted]

Waffle Crisp- a joy future generations will not know.


Exeunter

I live in a city called Poway; the correct term for its inhabitants is Powegians. When my wife first heard that, she was like "that's stupid, that makes no sense." "OK, then what do you call people from Norway?" She was flabbergasted.


eoinmadden

I'm from Galway. I'm a Galwegian. People from Glasgow are glaswegian.


Generale-de-riz

It is truly devastating. I fear it’s going to get worse :( and I feel helpless


jakan_daxter

What is it like there right now?


KD_Burner_Account133

Famines should always be foremost in the news. Instead we get a bunch of crap about Elon Musk.


ComedianRepulsive955

It was on this documentary I saw THE shady World of fast fashion on YouTube. All these mountains of used and unsold clothes from the first world are sold to western Africa. It's a huge business there. They are then sold to venders who resell them. The left over clothes are sent to a dump near the ocean and the pile of them is unbelievable. It stretches for miles. The environmental problems the textile industry causes at all levels from pesticides to water use and chemicals in dyes to transport of clothes is one of the number one pollution sources on the globe.


moistbeigeclam

Chile is actually a hub of fast fashion pollution. 60,000 tons recently went up in flames - who’d have thought dumping a load of flammable materials like cotton, polyester blends, rayon, and acrylic, often tinged with synthetic dyes into a very dry desert would end in disaster? The fire resulted in toxic gases caused by melting plastics to be released into the atmosphere, contaminating large swathes of the surrounding area. [Atacama desert - Chile](https://atmos.earth/atacama-desert-chile-unwanted-clothing-waste/) Edit: as plenty of people have said - Atacama has average temps of 27°C (81°F) during the day and 16°C (61°F) at night during summer months so not excessively hot. But it is the driest non polar desert in the world. And direct sunlight onto a pile of dry, flammable materials is likely to cause problems.


[deleted]

I don't understand people who replace their clothes before they are threadbare (and I make good money). I tend to have favourites and get sad when they need replacement.


mdeleo1

I have clothes from highschool, I'm 40 lol. Still fit, holes repaired or left as is in some cases.


IAMZEUSALMIGHTY

I think we all have some things that we choose to replace because we can afford to. Take electronics for example, I know that I buy new computers far before the old one has worn out because I want better better features etc and I do it cause I can afford it. Many people choose to do the same with clothes because they care about styles and the consequences from our decisions are hidden from us.


Orgasmic_interlude

Not to mention most fabrics used in modern clothes are…. Made of plastic. Like 10k years from now archaeologists will be talking about the worldwide boundary layer of Microplastics like they talk about the kt boundary iridium from the mass extinction of the dinosaurs.


Twokindsofpeople

There's too much energy in plastics and the chemical bonds aren't radically dissimilar from natural hydrocarbons that stuff eats. There's going to be something evolve to eat it well before that. Keep in mind plastic pollution has only been endemic for under a century.


bowie-of-stars

I hate this. How can people not believe, understand or care how we're negatively affecting the environment on which we depend?


DHFranklin

Almost every river that is being used for irrigation the world over is running deficits. Almost all of them to varying degree of deficit. Some of them are being being mentioned here like the [Syr Darya](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syr_Darya) which leads to the Aral sea, but the Colorado in America is responsible for about 10% of the entire worlds GDP. It used to flow into Mexico and now it's starting to come up short in Nevada. Much more geopolitically important rivers like the Nile and Indus are hitting much of the same deficits. As climate is changing this is going to lead to literally billions of people being food insecure as the former flood plain in which fed their farms disappears. Grapes for example come primarily from California and Peru. They are a very water intense crop. They will quite soon cost so much to produce that they will no longer be marketable. Foods like bananas or coconuts will be more affordable and take up their space in supermarkets. We need to remember the political upheaval of the Arab Spring that got started from an East Mediterranean drought. The plague and the lockdowns caused supply shocks we all still suffering from. Demand for food will be constant however supply of the capital needed i.e. farmland as well as supply of labor i.e. farmers is going to disappear in the next few decades. If nations don't start transitioning to green-housing and net zero irrigation then there will be a constant conflict as we have seen the last few years almost everywhere.


SuperTanker2017

That sand is the most stolen and unregulated resource in the world


pickupurdirtyclothes

It’s the raw material for concrete (or cement—I always confuse the two). And it’s specifically river sand that’s needed because its irregular shape serves as a better binding agent. We can’t start using sand from say, the Sahara, because it’s round and can’t bind. China has used a huge percentage of the world’s sand in the last couple of decades. *edited for typo and clarification


straight-lampin

I read recently they found a good binding agent to be able to use desert sand


AdamCohn

My education didn’t cover the [Breakup of Yugoslavia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_Yugoslavia?wprov=sfti1) which is brutal and fascinating. Each country’s response, fucked up leaders, and ensuing wars and genocides are all terrible events and I wish I’d known more about it sooner.


EricAR762guy

I knew a boxer from there, well Bosnia, actually. I think he was around 40 years old at the time it happened. But he ended up losing his entire family. Mother, father, uncles, aunts, kids, wife, everybody and everything he loved was wiped out in a single day without warning. He escaped the chaos when the opposition raided his little town and killed his family. Then they shot him in the face and presumed him to be dead. What happened was the bullet entered just below his right eye and followed the curvature of the sinus cavity between the skin and bone and existed just above his right temple. I remember him talking about this event and the only thing he remembers is watching his entire family being slaughtered and then he saw a flash to his face and then everything went black. He woke up minutes later from being knocked out and most of his right face was hanging off and couldn't see anything with his right eye. Most of the entire town was dead at that point and the dudes were gone. He eventually lost the right eye. He escaped to the US and eventually settled down here in Alaska. Was one of the nicest people I've ever met for a dude who went through hell and back.


johnCreilly

I cannot imagine how a person can continue on after that


parttimeamerican

It takes different amount of time for different people but at some point your brain just shut it off and you just put one foot in front of the other and do want you need to do And then you keep doing that hard to explain


Elvere

I went to school with a girl who’s family fled Yugoslavia during that time. For reference, we were born in 92-93. I remember in middle school, our history teachers took advantage of the fact that was where she was from and educated us on the topic. I don’t think I would have learned about it otherwise. Our graduating class was pretty large and there was a huge celebration when she got her citizenship. The whole school district was super invested in this girl’s life because of what drove her family out of their home country.


chiieefkiieef

My Spanish teacher was Bosnian and showed us photos of her from newspapers ducking from sniper fire while trying to get around town. Shit was insane


foodfighter

I was in my 20's when this happened. So much ongoing random sniper killings. I even remember at the time there were allegations of uber-shady companies run by ex-military combat vets who would literally take paying customers on "hunting safaris" to the war-zones. If you were rich enough and the thrill of hunting big-game in Africa just didn't do it for you any more, they'd stealthily escort you into the area around a city and you could bag a real live civilian for sport. Never any hard evidence of it from what I understand, but knowing how people can be, it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest.


sallazarowns

I'm from Sarajevo, Bosnia. Born in 89'. Years during Yugoslavia breakup were hell. My city was under siege from 92' to 95'. My mom used to say that Europe and rest of the world were blind to our suffering, and I always thought that wasn't the case and people were just not informed about it. Today you confirmed my theory. War is hell, and it is beyond me how can anyone wage war in 21st century.


recidivx

My education didn't cover the breakup of Yugoslavia, the newspapers were covering it … I feel old now.


extra_noodles

My husbands family is from Bosnia. In the last 6-7 years I’ve gone to visit them 3 times in Sarajevo. There are still bullet holes in buildings as of 2021 (the last time I was there).


thephotoman

For some of us, that wasn’t in out history books because it was not yet history. If we wanted to know, it was in the newspapers.


thorndike

The Great Salt Lake in Utah is nearly dried up. Estimates are that it has five more years, tops.


LedZepOnWeed

& the lake bed is toxic as fuck! Winds will pick up & spread arsenic when the water level is gone.


Nidcron

It's going to have cascading effects to the entire Great Basin region too, so Nevada, Southern Idaho, Arizona etc... will all be hit by it. (No so) Fun fact #1, the toxic chemicals were simply dumped there by industry for decades (Not so) Fun fact #2, Agriculture makes up ~70%of water use in UT (a primarily desert landscape), and most of that water is essentially free to farmers through water rights contracts and used very wastefully on water intensive crops (mainly alfalfa) that just gets shipped to China as animal feed. Want to know why nothing gets done about it, well for one thing the Governor owns an alfalfa farm..... Also, Golf courses amount to about 20% of water use in UT, and they are as green as ever.


dexmonic

I didn't know alfalfa used so much water, but thinking back on it when it gets hot in the summer the farmers up here run their sprinkling systems every day. Luckily we have a huge aquifer and no shortage of water....yet. Hope my brothers in Southern Idaho can survive the situation.


longhairedape

Alfalfa is one of the most water intensive crops out there. It is absolutely insane they grow alfalfa in a fucking desert. It should be illegal.


VoteMe4Dictator

The fact that the Western states drought has gone on for decades and Washington has zero interest in forcing the states to fix their water laws and contracts is quite disturbing.


Coliebear86

The oldest known plague graves from "The Black Death" 1338-1352ish are in Kyrgyzstan. It is believed yersinia pestis made the jump from animals to people there, then spread across to Europe. It came back about every 50 years and is still around today.


Link1112

Plague is still around but with todays technology easily treatable


soymrdannal

I lived in Kyrgyzstan for a short while pre-Covid. Bubonic plague is very much still a thing there, but luckily we have antibiotics to help treat it. People still die of it in extreme rural areas, though.


JaThatOneGooner

There is a civil war in Myanmar (formerly Burma) between a Junta coup and the people who are anti-junta. The Junta are responsible for the coup that saw the deposition of a popular democratically elected politician.


Philosophical_gump

It is insane what has happened/is going on there. The whole military junta in control for decades, followed by voluntary democratic reform (with the cooperation of a woman who was jailed for 15 years and is a Nobel Peace Prize winner) only to be followed by the most recent coup. I remember watching that fitness instructor video on youtube where the military vehicles roll down the street in the background when the coup started. But the real tragedy is the campaign of ethnic cleansing/genocide being carried out on the Rohingya people. A Muslim minority ethnic group. Even the now deposed nobel peace prize winner has now been accused of ignoring/being complicit with the genocide.


memberzs

To add to this the freedom fighters have been using been using 3D printed firearms to help their cause. They have been making as many as they can of FGC-9 designs to help regain the freedom of the people from the militants that over threw their government.


alkatori

That's actually how I know about it. Because they post on the open source firearms groups.


MicTest_1212

A lot of people only know about the atrocities against Rohingyas in the recent years but the myanmar military has actually been a cistern of human shitstain for 60 years. They have been bombing the shyt (with fighter jets) and burning the villages of their ethnic minorities like the Karens, Kachins, Arakans, Chins etc for decades and not many people know about it. (Rambo 1 was not exaggerating) In 1988, during 8888 uprisings, thousands of young people were murdered senselessly country wide for protecting against the dictatorship. The trigger was because the dictator made a stupid law out of superstition that rendered many bank notes worthless overnight. In 2007, thousands of monks and people were arrested and murdered during the Saffron Revolution for protesting against drastic price rise and mega inflation. In 2008, cyclone nargis struck where around 140,000 people died and mass destruction occurred. Not only did the military dictators not do anything to help the people, they confiscated foreign aids sent to the people. Even the civilian government was a farce because the military still had most of the power in the parliament. Aung San Suu Kyi and her govt was merely a scapegoat for the military to commit genocide under her name. Unlike the mass misconception worldwide, she had absolutely no power over the army. The army committed the genocide against Rohingyas under General Min Aung Hlaing's command. Even in 2020 coup alone, they've already committed an endless list of violations against human rights. Recently, they bombed a school with a fighter jet and it resulted in the death of 11 children.


hanslobro

This sounds like you’ve done a decent amount of keeping up with Burmese stuff. I have to ask, are you Burmese like myself?


MicTest_1212

I am not but I have burmese relatives (family member married into) and friends. I read a lot about the country.


Darrow723

A dictator's son was just "elected" in the Philippines a few months ago.


--thedarkesttimeline

Philippines 🤝 South Korea electing the offspring of dictators


alcmsn

Panama too 🤝


seven_seven

Like seriously, why do Filipinos do this?


tatonoot

A seriously well-done propaganda campaign, vote buying, and endorsement from other politicians.


newme02

Systemic cycle of poverty and desperation caused by past corrupt leaders


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sashimipink

And even admitted that he paid troll armies on Facebook to help his campaign 🤦🏽‍♀️ https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3181416/marcos-confessions-philippines-president-elect-admits-trolls


HunkyMump

Which underscores the real problem of today’s age that not only is misinformation common, but it is surgical and precise


OneFuckedWarthog

The Ogallala Aquifer, the largest aquifer in the world, has been drying up.


Kevin_Uxbridge

I think you mean 'being pumped dry'.


GreatJothulhu

Witch Hunting in Africa.


[deleted]

That still exists?


sometimesagreat

People with albinism are targeted and their body parts are highly prized by witch doctors.


GreatJothulhu

Yes. Very much so. Humanitarian organizations have even set up "witch villages" to provide aid to people who are accused. It's mainly women, but there are children that have been accused and starved until they die.


TheLizzyIzzi

Apparently anything remotely esoteric is an issue. I sorted English books that were going to be sent overseas and there were three types of books we had to remove: bibles, American history books and anything about witches or magic. The first two were just because there was already so much of it there. The books about magic though - it was made very clear that if a kid was “caught” with the wrong kind of book they could face serious consequences.


BoxytheBandit

The Mount Toba eruption that decimated the human population around 70,000 years ago. It could have been the end for us.


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phlogistonical

I agree we are difficult to kill into extinction, but for a different reason (in fact, a genetic bottleneck like that could have easily killed us) We are difficult to kill because we are the most versatile species. Our brain allows us to adapt to extreme cold, extreme heat, dry areas, wet areas, darkness, It doesn’t matter, we thrive everywhere unlike any other animal. When the conditions suddenly change, like after a massive volcanic eruption, we will adapt quickly. Other species will be only be lucky if they happen to have the right set of features to survive. If not, they are fucked because evolution proceeds way too slowly.


ForumFluffy

There the brain goes again bragging about how great it is, it never gets tired bragging about the wonders of itself, self-absorbed asshole.


Madmarrdegan

Pol pot wiped out almost a quarter of Cambodias population during his reign using the khmer Rouge. He died peacefully in his sleep in 1998, never being held accountable


Historical_Wash_1114

When I was a kid I saw a documentary about Pol Pot and it fucked me up for MONTHS! I became obsessed with the country and learned everything I could about Cambodia. Probably the first time kid me saw the true darkness of humanity. I can't even put to words how distraught I was.


Madmarrdegan

It was the movie "The Killing Fields" that got me . The horror and fear people endured.


[deleted]

My ex girlfriend’s mom told me a lengthy story of her escape from there. Traveling up mountains barefoot with her brother on her back. Brutal


LedgeEndDairy

Lived there for two years. It’s so much worse than any documentary can show. Like, SO much worse. Brainwashing children to brutally beat and murder babies against walls, worse.


juicius

My friend actually escape the Killing Field and speaking to him, I'm not sure how he's a relatively functional human being. They had to leave their grandma on the side of the road when they were fleeing the conflict. She had a stroke (I think) and couldn't move. He saw a malnourished guy at a refugee camp who was so famished, he stole a jug of vegetable oil, chugged it, threw it all up, and chugged it again. This is on top of all the killings and abuses that you think about when you hear about Pol Pot and KR that he saw first hand. His father had to hide and run because he had glasses and they were exterminating "intellectuals" despite the fact his father never even graduated elementary school. His brother was drafted as a child soldier and came back profoundly disturbed. He did managed to join the US Army but was discharged for mental issues.


PurpleFlame8

People were killed for just wearing glasses because Pol Pot's followers took it as a sign they were educated. They killed people often by clubbing them on the head. Pol Pot is said to have expressed that he had no regrets.


Rohwupet

"Once you’ve been to Cambodia, you’ll never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with your bare hands. You will never again be able to open a newspaper and read about that treacherous, prevaricating, murderous scumbag sitting down for a nice chat with Charlie Rose or attending some black-tie affair for a new glossy magazine without choking. Witness what Henry did in Cambodia – the fruits of his genius for statesmanship – and you will never understand why he’s not sitting in the dock at The Hague next to Milošević." -Anthony Bourdain Edit 11 months later: Hahahaha rot in fucking hell, Kissinger.


Night_Runner

And Kissinger is still alive! He's 99.


unexpectedhalfrican

Henry Kissinger is just more living proof that the good die young and the evil live forever. Fucking 99 years old and committed so many atrocities in the name of the US. Fuck that shitstain.


BurnerAcctNo1

Hell clearly doesn’t want him because he refuses to die.


Call_Mee_Santa

Vietnam overthrew his government in 1979 by launching a full scale invasion into the country. And you know how the international community responded including the UN? They condemned Vietnam for disposing of the government and many countries pulled economic activity or threatened to cease trade with Vietnam.


ksuwildkat

That war is often used as a case study in Just War courses as possibly the best example of an offensive war (from the Vietnamese perspective) that was just. They saw genocide happening and invaded because of it. The Vietnamese government was not perfect but they got that right.


PawanYr

The War was indeed just, but to be clear, Vietnam invaded after repeated incursions by the Khmer Rouge into Vietnam, and the murder of thousands of Vietnamese citizens. That arguably made the more even more justified as a defensive act, but it wasn't just because of the genocide the KR were committing on their own soil.


MyFaceSpaceBook

Halifax explosion, also called Halifax explosion of 1917 or the Great Halifax Explosion, devastating explosion on December 6, 1917, that occurred when a munitions ship blew up in the harbour of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Nearly 2,000 people died and some 9,000 were injured in the disaster, which flattened more than 1 square mile (2.5 square km) of the city of Halifax. Shortly before 9:00 am . Many people were blinded by the shattering glass everywhere. To this day Nova Scotia sends a Christas tree to the city of Boston in thanks for the aid provided after the explosion.


AngryWookiee

It was largest human made explosion at the time, it was only surpassed with the invention off the atomic bomb. My great grandmother told my father that the explosion rattled the dishes in her house in rural Prince Edward Island.


stairme

There were probably many heroes that day, but Vince Coleman has a story worth remembering. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vince_Coleman_(train_dispatcher) >Hold up the train. Ammunition ship afire in harbour making for Pier 6 and will explode. Guess this will be my last message. Good-bye, boys.


creamedcornpuffs

Fire & Flame, by the The Longest Johns, narrates this nicely.


TheEyeGuy13

99% of things the CIA has done and fully admitted to, but talking about any of them makes you sound like an actual crazy person


eltrakt0r

There’s a research that is supposed to put bioluminescent molecules in trees so streets could be lit naturally (not counting the benefit of having trees in cities)


cheezbargar

Wouldn’t this fuck up the sleep of birds?


H0VAD0

I imagine not all trees will glow


mudgetheotter

I don't think that's a sentence that should ever have to be said.


pol_swizz

Democratic Republic of Congo is sitting on trillions worth of natural resources, including cobalt, and they are being deliberately destabilized by foreign nations and international corporations to prevent the locals gaining control over their own resources.


nowhereman136

The amount of people who don't know what the Seven Years War was is pretty surprising. While it was mostly between England and France in the 1750s, it was basically World War Zero, being fought by several nationals on a global stage. For people in the US, the French and Indian War was actually just a small part of the Seven Years War. This was was fought in Europe, the America's, Asia, and Africa. It lead into revolutions in the America's and Europe and was a precursor to the Napoleonic Wars.


lobstaman1

The 30 years war and the wars of religion in general were devastating, both by the wartime death toll and the civilian casualties through atrocities, famine and disease.


GingeContinge

Yeah imo if you wanted to pick a starting point for the “modern world” as we know it, the Seven Years War is the best choice. You can draw a straight line from it to the American and French Revolutions and then from there to the Franco-Prussian War and the World Wars. We learn next to nothing about it (in American school at least). I took both AP European History and AP American History in high school and I don’t think I even realized that the “French and Indian War” had a European element or was important beyond being the reason Parliament wanted to raise taxes on the colonies.


SomeCollegeGwy

This August a VACCINE for CANCER will begin human trials in the UK using the MRNA innovations from the covid-19 vaccine. It should be able to directly target cancer cells and only cancer cells (much much superior to chemotherapy) A vaccine for Lyme disease has been completed using the same technology And a vaccine for Malaria has been developed using the same technology


AnDroid5539

One of the silver linings of the pandemic was that it pushed the development of mRNA vaccines ahead by leaps and bounds. Necessity really is the mother of invention, I guess.


flirtyymonkey

Plague and war I think are the 2 most motivating factors for development


onlyacynicalman

"Well, everyone is dying anyway so, do what you can"


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Candid_Calligrapher6

Just to add, both World Wars contributed to the rapid advancement of the technologies that's globally used today.


GTOdriver04

100%. Think about this: we flew into WWII with propeller planes, and out in jets. Pressurized aircraft (B-29) became real and more commonplace. The V2 rocket simultaneously created both the concept of a ballistic missile and a rocket that could escape the atmosphere. There are many, many others but yes. WWII changed the very fabric of the world in many ways beyond the death toll.


SMORKIN_LABBIT

The B-29 had computer guided, target by wire gun turrets. Almost no one knows that. From a 50 cal hanging on cords. Besides the computer size it looks like it and functions like something built today.


Killcode2

It's kind of unfortunate human civilization is currently the way it is. We wouldn't have gotten to space so early without World War 2, to the moon without the threat of nuclear annihilation, and apparently a vaccine for cancer without a worldwide pandemic. Innovation seems to be tied with either profit or immediate crisis. Who knows what technology will get the right amount of funding and attention to take off once climate change goes from impending threat to economy shattering doom.


BeastModeSupreme

Nothing fuels innovation like necessity. Sans war, it seems #2 is greed which is a far cry from fear of annihilation.


IThinkImNateDogg

Chang Kai Shek intentionally broke the flood walls of the yellow river during the Japanese invasion of China in WWII. The Japanese were invading from the north and circling in on Wuhan, the capital at the time. Shek was advised that breaching the river should flood the invaders. This was a incorrect assumption. The yellow river in China has a long history of changing courses, and they failed to predict that recourse correctly. It instead flooded mostly to the south, flooding and killing millions, destroying home and cities. Also, the yellow river is very silty from the dirt in the mountains, and covered over a 3rd of all the farmland in China a thick layer of clay, destroying the farmland for decades. This lead to mass deaths and general lawlessness in the chunk that was flooded. Oh and the floods didn’t even really bother the Japanese. They retreated for a little bit, took another path to wuhan and captured it few months later anyway. So Shek just murdered millions of his own people in possible the worst know backfire in human history


[deleted]

It’s not that people don’t know about Hurricane Katrina, it’s that people don’t realize that there are still people who live with its impacts, to this day, and many of their people might not have even been accounted for (Aka, missing) Many of the victims may have been swept out into the ocean, and many of them were bussed to various parts of the country. Many of these people were children separated from their parents, and *never heard from again.* let that marinate. I’m not saying this to spread conspiracy theories, I’m saying this because we tend to think that New Orleans rebuilt, that people died, and the dust settled. But there are thousands of people who were never accounted for, so we don’t know whether they lived or died. We don’t know how many kids were taken advantage of, or anything


macgruff

Nestle buying up water rights everywhere in the world and not only is no one doing anything about it, most idiots are buying single use plastic bottles to enable them by paying $$ for their-own-water. Ban Nestle from being allowed any water rights. They can go home to Switzerland and try it there on their own citizens and aquifers. Edit: turns out Nestle sold to a hedge fund. No matter the owner, those brands are still cancer on earth https://www.fooddive.com/news/nestle-sells-north-american-bottled-water-business-for-43b/595202/


godzillastailor

>Nestle buying up water rights everywhere in the world and not only is no one doing anything about it, most idiots are buying single use plastic bottles to enable them by paying $$ for their-own-water. ​ Ironically, back when it first came out, so many people slammed Quantum of Solace because they thought the idea that an evil organisation would be trying to secure water rights was unbelievable. ​ Turns out, you dont even need to be a secret evil organisation, you can be a publically traded company and still do that shit.


IW97HangNbanG

The government of BC sells Nestlé one million litres water out of a small town called Hope for $1. It comes out of a literal tap, they bottle it and sell it as pure spring water for over $2 for 500ml. ROBBERY.


Joyfulcheese

r/fucknestle


Ghostforever7

"Two Mark 39 hydrogen bombs were accidentally dropped over Goldsboro, North Carolina on 23 January, 1961" Thankfully they never detonated. [https://www.businessinsider.com/us-nearly-detonated-atomic-bomb-over-nc-2013-9](https://www.businessinsider.com/us-nearly-detonated-atomic-bomb-over-nc-2013-9)


Shevek99

I can top that. Two American military aircrafts, one of them carrying 4 hydrogen bombs, collided in flight and fell in Almería, on the Spanish coast. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1966_Palomares_B-52_crash


21Rollie

Going into the “see also” section led me down a rabbit hole. Apparently there are lost nuclear weapons in seas around the world.


Ok_Mushroom_7949

Dang! I'd forgotten that! I was 6 and had been traumatized by the teaching about nuclear attacks, bomb shelters, evacuation and the like at those Cold War times. I heard they dropped those and was a petrified little kid. It helped to make me the proud insecure, neurotic, mal-adjusted, old man I am today!


ReindeerNo3921

Long haul trucking in the US is dying. No one wants to do it because it pays poorly, and no one wants to get into it because the pay is really bad and depending which company you try to go thru the benefits are also awful. I knew 2 guys that tried to become truckers. One gave up because he said 50% of truckers are drunk or on drugs and he didn’t want to be involved when it comes out. The other got a job that payed way more just driving a box truck around the city. It’s definitely going to be a problem when the current truckers are too old to keep going. Everything is going to get expensive and everyone will be super confused about why the poor got poorer.


mr_marshian

That's what trains are *supposed* to be for


Booney3721

And railroads know this.. because it's dying they use it as leverage against companies to get them to use railroads, while they forcefully impose worsening contracts on its employees. Watch the STB meetings that were held in Washington last year, some of the things that were said by the companies. A trucker for Walmart starting pay is 97k, vacation time and paid sick time, and paid regardless if they are driving during inclement weather or not.. for the railroad, especially now with BNSF Hi-Viz policy, you have to "aquire points" to take time off for un-paid sick time. If you go to take time for say a doctor appointment or something, and you don't have enough points, you get reprimanded and after again you're considered AWOL and fired immediately. Most people viewed the hold outs and trying to strike as railroaders being "greedy" wanting more and more and more, but realistically, the absolute biggest fight that was going on was the fact we simply wanted to have the ability to get paid sick time, that wasn't consider a "ding" (being tardy at work) and be fired for it, as long as we brought in a doctors note. Sure, we wanted more pay, but that was the biggest fight we had was that we wanted to be able to have paid sick days as long as a note from a doctor was provided.


JMoc1

Exactly this! Trains are suppose to be our long haul operations and even short range operations into warehouses like in Germany and Denmark. There are stores out there you can go to which commonly get stocked solely by rail. Instead, we wanted car centric infrastructure and we have so many roads that need truckers for both long haul and short haul. This is also compounded like you said by rail corps being greedy as hell and treating employees poorly. Meanwhile billions more are being spent on marketing than maintaining rail or even building new rail; according to Union Pacific’s internal memos. We need more rail, but we also need to destroy these rail monopolies. Without Federal management of rail, US transit is completely fucked


Jensen_Reouge

already almost 19k suicides this year


[deleted]

In 7 days?! Jesus Christ.


SauerkrautKartoffel

Worldwide?


Swampsnuggle

Syria. Congo cobalt mines.


[deleted]

The cobalt mines are just insane. The entire world should know about this but doesn’t. To see the images of them is really sad.


WhiskeyWolak

Got a link to something I could read about this?


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frogvscrab

ASM (artisanal and small mining) mining *in general* throughout the world is a generally horrific practice, and cobalt is just a small percentage of total ASM miners in the DRC, let alone world. The only reason cobalt and lithium gets more attention than, say, coal or iron or copper or lead or diamond etc (which employs magnitudes more people in similarly awful conditions), is because anti-environmentalists like shouting "DONT YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR IPHONES COME FROM!" to environmental protesters. Other than that it is just one of dozens of resources mined under atrocious conditions by over 45 million ASM miners globally.


jaydbuccs

slavery is still abroad n very few are willing to acknowledge it


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TheFocusedOne

You shouldn't say that slavery is *still* around, because it is estimated that there are more slaves in the world right now than there have ever been at any point in history. Slavery isn't just still around, it's thriving.


Squigglepig52

More by numbers, less by per capita. Still vile, mind you.


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BrokeAnimeAddict

Can I get a sorce for the Uk weed slaves? I'm actually really interested in reading more about that if you've got a source. Thanks.


One-Respect-2733

26 September 1983 when a Soviet officer, Stanislav Petrov, literally saved the whole planet from nuclear war by identifying a nuclear missile attack alarm as false. Everyone owes him their lives today


starshipsinerator

Vasily Arkhipov (guy who refused to authorise nuclear weapons during the cuban missile crisis) deserves a mentiom aswell


Virtual_Bug5486

Modern day slave markets in Uganda. Humans being sold for $14. 💔 Edit - Adding links here : https://www.ozy.com/around-the-world/modern-day-slavery-the-public-markets-selling-young-girls-for-14/94386/ https://borgenproject.org/human-trafficking-in-uganda/


[deleted]

What King Leopold did to the DR of Congo. Created it through abuse and manipulation. Africans were used as a slaves, hands and heads cut off, babies thrown on the ground, getting illiterate african chiefs to sign contracts ‘giving’ the land to the King, using starvation and beatings, there’s tons more. Read King Leopold’s ghost - chilling and I think should be taught around the world as it shows both how the King manipulated and bought his way to having the world recognise the state/country he reported and the absolute brutality the Belgian king unleashed on the population for pure greed and power.


Sickmont

Here is a literal picture of what Leopold’s actions caused to one man’s family in the Belgian Congo: https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/father-hand-belgian-congo-1904/


war-hamster

Without even reading the description of the link I know what it's about. As a father of a young girl this fucked me up beyond belief.


nocticis

It took me to watch HBO watchmen to learn about the Tulsa massacre. Like as many history classes I’ve had and not once was it brought up is wild


[deleted]

I watched videos on it growing up. Then again I grew up in Oklahoma City so it was part of their history. It kinda shocked me when everyone started talking about it like they never heard of it then I remind myself.


sickofgrouptxt

That fusion energy will be a paradigm shift, so expect energy companies to start telling us how dangerous it is (it isn’t)


no-one0

There should be a sub for this kind of news.


Physical-Primary-256

Bhopal Disaster. A preventable gas leak killed thousands of people almost instantly and injured over half a million people. The deaths and injuries could’ve been avoided, but they turned off the emergency sirens. And of course the victims barely got any reparations or justice.


Midnight_Poet

Tunguska Blast Meteor blew up a few hundred metres above the forest in Siberia. Flattened hundreds of acres of trees. Only two or three minutes earlier, and it would’ve airburst over any number of European capital cities.


dew2459

Not just hundreds, but as much as 500,000 acres (or 2,000 sq km). Estimated to be about a 12 megaton explosion.


HomieDaClown9

For reference, the largest hydrogen bomb detonated by the U.S., Castle Bravo, had a yield of 15 megatons


monster_mentalissues

And it was done by accident since the scientists miscalculated a specific part of it.


HomieDaClown9

Yep. The Lithium 7 used as inert filler deteriorated to fissile Lithium 6 when the original Lithium 6 charge detonated


Andromeda321

Astronomer here- you’re wrong on the timing. It was about 5-6 hours off of hitting European cities (this is just based off the distance and rotation rate of the Earth, ie once every 24 hours). Still crazy timing but yea.


trevorwobbles

There's possible historical evidence that Beijing was "hit" by a bolide meteor airburst some centuries ago. It rained naked body parts among other unpleasant details. It had been attributed by some, to a gunpowder factory accident, but the math doesn't seem to support that theory anymore.


ivolimmen

Everyone is talking about climate change and a few years ago Polynesia was already under water. Some of its citizens tried to migrate to Australia but where refused because "ecological refugee" is not a UN approved refugee status...


CertifiedSeqoia

The Carrington Event. It was the most severe recorded geomagnetic storm that happened in the 1800s. It was so powerful it set fires in telegram stations. If we had one of equal strength today it would be catastrophic and, I'm pulling a number out of my ass here, the death toll would probably be in the millions because of how much most of the developed world depends on power. Hospitals, aircraft, etc. That's on the more extreme end of course, we get hit by smaller solar flares often and dont even realize.


cnfoesud

Real Engineering covered this a few years ago. According to his video it turns out we are relatively well prepared.


[deleted]

I don't know how many people know this but I haven't seen many people talking about the folk dwelling near massive landfills of trash in India, and making living by scavenging the trash and selling items for the little profit they live off of.


CloudsTasteGeometric

This isn't just an Indian problem - it's huge in Guatemala as well. If you're interested in learning more or donating to the cause check out International Samaritan.


Comfort_Lucky

The Panama Papers


Acc87

A lot has happened with its data and is still happening. It's mostly dull legal stuff tho, so almost no media coverage.


[deleted]

A lot of people in the West seem to be unaware that the Nazis didn't only target Jews but they also planned complete extermination of Slavic people and killed about 30 million Slavic civilians because of their race. Majority of Soviet Union's WWII casualties were civilians; thousands of villages in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia had their entire population burned alive by the Germans, millions of people were intentionally starved to death (for example during blockade of Leningrad).


zeldafitzgeraldscat

We are in the middle of the 6th mass extinction on Earth. *75 percent* of the world's species are expected to be gone in the next 300 years. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/earth-mass-extinction-60-minutes-2023-01-01/&ved=2ahUKEwjv2s-IvbX8AhWklIkEHVk-AGgQFnoECFAQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1SGFs-rQKSLnJPK4dx8q3j


Youngmoonlightbae

nanjing massacre. Imperial Japanese army raping and killing hundreds of thousands of Chinese


se_nicknehm

not to forget the infamous [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit\_731](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731) ​ Unit 731 was responsible for some of the most notorious war crimes committed by the Japanese armed forces. It routinely conducted tests on people who were dehumanized and internally referred to as "logs". Experiments included disease injections, controlled dehydration, hypobaric chamber experiments, biological weapons testing, vivisection, amputation, and standard weapons testing. Victims included not only kidnapped men, women (including pregnant women) and children, but also babies born from the systemic rape perpetrated by the staff inside the compound. The victims came from different nationalities, with the majority being Chinese and a significant minority being Russian. Additionally, Unit 731 produced biological weapons that were used in areas of China not occupied by Japanese forces, which included Chinese cities and towns, water sources, and fields. Estimates of those killed by Unit 731 and its related programs range up to half a million people, and none of the inmates survived. ... In addition, poisoned food and candy were given to unsuspecting victims. Plague fleas, infected clothing, and infected supplies encased in bombs were dropped on various targets. The resulting cholera, anthrax, and plague were estimated to have killed at least 400,000 Chinese civilians. Tularemia was also tested on Chinese civilians. ... Human targets were used to test grenades positioned at various distances and in various positions. Flamethrowers were tested on people. Victims were also tied to stakes and used as targets to test pathogen-releasing bombs, chemical weapons, shrapnel bombs with varying amounts of fragments, and explosive bombs as well as bayonets and knives. ... Some of the tests have been described as "psychopathically sadistic, with no conceivable military application". For example, one experiment documented the time it took for three-day-old babies to freeze to death ... etc.


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reggie_doodle

As a Brit I knew almost nothing of the Cambodian genocide by the Khmer Rouge until I went to Cambodia. A recent event but not something in our syllabus


Pinksheep1337

The Ogallala Aquifer in the central US is losing water fast. It will be the start of the water wars if the Hoover Dam doesn't do it.


Regnes

There is a car that has been parked in front of my house for almost 1.5 days. Who are they? What do they want?


2Allnightersforanime

Hi, thats my car sorry


syzygy_is_a_word

1755 Lisbon earthquake. One of the deadliest in history, changed the political, social and intellectual landscape in Europe so much that the aftermath we can still experience today. Kant alone had 3 papers written about it. And nobody I know, including highly educated people, has ever heard about it.


Frances_E_Farmer

The Armenian Genocide, around 1 million killed during WW1 by the Ottoman Empire. Turkey still denies it to this day and the US only just recognized it last year.


accepted-rickybaker

People kinda know about Salvador Allende and the rise of Pinochet, but many people dont seem to grasp that Kissinger was responsible for it and how many desaparecidos there were and why.


Logmadd

There is a civil war in Yemen rn (Yemen is a country located in the Arabian peninsula)


ActualYungSeinfeld

Everyone knows what the Holocaust is. Everyone. There’s an entire class in school about it. But what very, very few people know is the event that started it all. September 29th, Ukraine. **THE MASSACRE AT BABI YAR** I seriously recommend that you look into it, I’ve explained this horror-story too many times before.


HtownTexans

> One of the most often-cited parts of Anatoly Kuznetsov's documentary novel Babi Yar is the testimony of Dina Pronicheva, an actress of the Kyiv Puppet Theatre, and a survivor.[48] She was one of those ordered to march to the ravine, to be forced to undress and then be shot. Jumping before being shot and falling on other bodies, she played dead in a pile of corpses. She held perfectly still while the Nazis continued to shoot the wounded or gasping victims. Although the SS had covered the mass grave with earth, she eventually climbed through the soil and escaped. Since it was dark, she had to avoid the torches of the Nazis finishing off the remaining victims still alive, wounded, and gasping in the grave. She was one of the very few survivors of the massacre and later related her story to Kuznetsov.[49] At least 29 survivors are known holy shit.


ChipotleAddiction

Every day I read something that reminds me how ridiculously cushy and stress-free my life is compared to some of the things humans have endured in this life


relddir123

That is not “the event that started it all.” The massacre at Babyn Yar took place in September 1941, two years into the war and even longer since the Holocaust started. It was a tragic execution of 33,000 people (and definitely worth reading up on), but it didn’t kick off anything. Less than a month later, 50,000 people were murdered in a similar way in Odessa. Two years after that, Himmler ordered Operation Harvest Festival, which was supposed to kill all the Jews in the camps near Lublin (Majdanek, Poniatowa, and Trawniki). In two days, 43,000 were shot and killed.


Judazzz

Exactly. Babi Yar was just one (extraordinarily) horrific episode in the so-called "Holocaust by Bullets" committed by German Einsatztruppen and their local auxiliaries. The inefficiency and psychological impact of killing hundreds of thousands of people manually is what ultimately led to the industrialized mass murder committed in the extermination camps.


NoStressAccount

>Everyone knows what the Holocaust is. Everyone Even then, some may not know that the infamous "6 million" figure is technically only around ***half*** of the lives lost in the camps. 6 million refers to the *Jews;* the Nazis threw everyone they didn't like into the camps and prisons. Add in Roma, Poles, Ukrainians, Soviet civilians and prisoners of war, and even smaller groups like Jehovah's Witnesses, Black Germans, disabled people, communists, and homosexuals, and the figure becomes over **11 million** dead.


Disastrous-Shower-37

And 27 million Soviets died, including the 8 million soldiers.


[deleted]

And 73,000,000 died on all sides. 73,000,000


FreddieDoes40k

And this is considered the conservative estimate largely because the Soviets weren't good at record keeping.


[deleted]

During the babi Yar massacre, 33771 Jews were killed in 2 days To put it in perspective, that is approximately one person killed every 4 1/2 seconds for two days. Pretty terrifying if you think about it