ByMarch 20, 2020LONDON — There are times when the planet resets its course with a cruelty that seems as capricious as it is implacable. The coronavirus pandemic, spreading octopus tentacles into every crevice of society, is one of them, pitting the vanity of human assumptions against nature’s almost casual ability to destroy them. Calamities and the mass destruction of populations and lives stretch back to biblical times and on through the days of plague in medieval Europe. Wars, too, have brought a Darwinian pruning of entire societies. Technological advance, from siege engines to long bows, from gas chambers to weapons of mass destruction, has magnified the process, culminating in the Cold War’s calculations of mutually assured destruction.

Source: New York Times March 20, 2020 19:17 UTC