Which year was worse?

[SnowLabrador]

Well?

[Edu]

No COVID lockdowns > COVID lockdowns

Edit: voted 2022 by mistake lol

[Chunk Yogurt for President!]

I enjoyed 2020 more than 2022, unless something really cool happens in the next 25 days.

As far as most of the world is concerned, 2022 is a better year.  In China, 2020 actually wasn't all that bad depending on where you lived, and was certainly better than 2022.

[PSOL]

The escalation of war in Ukraine is the greatest humanitarian disaster since the wars in the DRC, and we’ve experienced even more wars getting worse while having price rises and food scarcity.

Domestically, 2020 was worse but not that much worse, and it ended on an incredibly high note. 2022 is fundamentally a worse version of 2021, with the pandemic subdued due to vaccinations, with the high note at the end not making up for things. The economy is in a “better” position than the worst economic calamity and societal disruption in our history for the past 90 years, but still bleak in the red.

[It’s so Joever]

2020.
(Sane, normal, not in Ukraine)

[Progressive Pessimist]

I was under the impression that 2022 would be the worst year possibly ever for awhile, especially given the first six months, including some aspects of my personal life that were adding to it, leading up to a crescendo with the Dobbs decision, but thankfully this year is ending on a more decent note. Still not a great year overall but not one that has overtaken 2020 (or even 2021) in terms of misery.

[John Dule]

2022 has generally been quite good. 2020 was bad, but the people who act like COVID was a major historical tragedy are idiots. It will be forgotten within a couple of decades, while years like 2001 will live on in public memory.

[CumbrianLefty]

2022 has generally been quite good. 2020 was bad, but the people who act like COVID was a major historical tragedy are idiots. It will be forgotten within a couple of decades, while years like 2001 will live on in public memory.

Actually, not convinced of this.

Its true that the 1918 Spanish Flu outbreak (a roughly comparable event in many ways) has almost been forgotten by non-historians, but its being adjacent to even bigger things is a major factor there.

[Meclazine for Israel]

2020 was bad because we only had Beet to predict our apocalyptic future. future.

[Хahar 🤔]

2022 has generally been quite good. 2020 was bad, but the people who act like COVID was a major historical tragedy are idiots. It will be forgotten within a couple of decades, while years like 2001 will live on in public memory.

It's fine not to follow sports and I suppose it's defensible to not understand their cultural role, but if I were in that position I wouldn't be bragging about it.

[Isaak]

2022 has generally been quite good. 2020 was bad, but the people who act like COVID was a major historical tragedy are idiots. It will be forgotten within a couple of decades, while years like 2001 will live on in public memory.

I agree – perhaps not forgotten but it will be irrelevant in a few years already. All those who declared that the world will never be the same and proclaimed a new post-COVID age really look like idiots these days.

There is no new age, no revolution, no system change, no global transformation. Instead, things have already gone back to normal, which makes COVID appear like a rather meaningless event.

That being said, 2020 was still a worse year than 2022.

[Pericles]

2022 has generally been quite good. 2020 was bad, but the people who act like COVID was a major historical tragedy are idiots. It will be forgotten within a couple of decades, while years like 2001 will live on in public memory.

I agree – perhaps not forgotten but it will be irrelevant in a few years already. All those who declared that the world will never be the same and proclaimed a new post-COVID age really look like idiots these days.

There is no new age, no revolution, no system change, no global transformation. Instead, things have already gone back to normal, which makes COVID appear like a rather meaningless event.

That being said, 2020 was still a worse year than 2022.

That kind of makes Covid more tragic, that a horrible thing happened to us and there wasn't any big positive change that came out of it.

[Skill and Chance]

2022 has generally been quite good. 2020 was bad, but the people who act like COVID was a major historical tragedy are idiots. It will be forgotten within a couple of decades, while years like 2001 will live on in public memory.

Actually, not convinced of this.

Its true that the 1918 Spanish Flu outbreak (a roughly comparable event in many ways) has almost been forgotten by non-historians, but its being adjacent to even bigger things is a major factor there.

Also COVID was so much bigger in a departure from normal sense.  Losing a lot of people randomly to infectious disease was a sad fact of life everywhere in 1918, but became basically unknown in the West since 1945.   It was a very significant, abrupt change in most people's lives that probably won't be overshadowed like Spanish Flu unless the Ukraine war eventually goes nuclear. 

[LAKISYLVANIA]

2022 has generally been quite good. 2020 was bad, but the people who act like COVID was a major historical tragedy are idiots. It will be forgotten within a couple of decades, while years like 2001 will live on in public memory.

Nobody outsides USA cares about 2001.

I mean of course it's a sad and disgraceful act what happened and I deeply sorrow the loss of human lives that day.

Covid impacted way more people, also had way more deaths and will have long-lasting consequences...

Ask our discord server where we still debate lockdowns. Putin also made use of Europes instability to invade Ukraine. And inflation rose by overdemand and less production due to these lockdowns.

9/11 was more of an American thing. Maybe for USA it's worse. But life in Europe continued in 2001 except for some wannabe Americans participating in Iraq, Afghanistan and war on terror. But I see the war in Ukraine partially as a consequence of the pandemic [partially, since there were other elements obviously].

[Person Man]

At least in 2022, there is hope.

[John Dule]

2022 has generally been quite good. 2020 was bad, but the people who act like COVID was a major historical tragedy are idiots. It will be forgotten within a couple of decades, while years like 2001 will live on in public memory.

Actually, not convinced of this.

Its true that the 1918 Spanish Flu outbreak (a roughly comparable event in many ways) has almost been forgotten by non-historians, but its being adjacent to even bigger things is a major factor there.

What disease outbreaks of history actually live on as common knowledge through multiple generations? The Plague, I guess— but I doubt most people could even accurately place it in history. That’s exactly one such instance, and it was many orders of magnitude worse than COVID.

Bear in mind that morons on Atlas were literally talking about COVID as if it was the most consequential event of the century, calling it a bigger event than 9/11.

[Person Man]

2022 has generally been quite good. 2020 was bad, but the people who act like COVID was a major historical tragedy are idiots. It will be forgotten within a couple of decades, while years like 2001 will live on in public memory.

Actually, not convinced of this.

Its true that the 1918 Spanish Flu outbreak (a roughly comparable event in many ways) has almost been forgotten by non-historians, but its being adjacent to even bigger things is a major factor there.

What disease outbreaks of history actually live on as common knowledge through multiple generations? The Plague, I guess— but I doubt most people could even accurately place it in history. That’s exactly one such instance, and it was many orders of magnitude worse than COVID.

Bear in mind that morons on Atlas were literally talking about COVID as if it was the most consequential event of the century, calling it a bigger event than 9/11.

It could still be, or at least so when combined with Ukraine. It definitely is a turning point policy which marked the end of the beginning of no longer relying on outsourcing, or at least not conditioning trade on human rights.

9/11 was probably similar in that it symbolized what had already started happening several years before and really picked up in the years to come where foreign intervention became a center piece of US policy and limited government became unmoored as the lodestone of the conservative movement.

[John Dule]

2022 has generally been quite good. 2020 was bad, but the people who act like COVID was a major historical tragedy are idiots. It will be forgotten within a couple of decades, while years like 2001 will live on in public memory.

Actually, not convinced of this.

Its true that the 1918 Spanish Flu outbreak (a roughly comparable event in many ways) has almost been forgotten by non-historians, but its being adjacent to even bigger things is a major factor there.

What disease outbreaks of history actually live on as common knowledge through multiple generations? The Plague, I guess— but I doubt most people could even accurately place it in history. That’s exactly one such instance, and it was many orders of magnitude worse than COVID.

Bear in mind that morons on Atlas were literally talking about COVID as if it was the most consequential event of the century, calling it a bigger event than 9/11.

It could still be, or at least so when combined with Ukraine. It definitely is a turning point policy wise.

I agree that it could be bigger than 9/11 if you combine it with another, completely different thing altogether.

[Person Man]

2022 has generally been quite good. 2020 was bad, but the people who act like COVID was a major historical tragedy are idiots. It will be forgotten within a couple of decades, while years like 2001 will live on in public memory.

Actually, not convinced of this.

Its true that the 1918 Spanish Flu outbreak (a roughly comparable event in many ways) has almost been forgotten by non-historians, but its being adjacent to even bigger things is a major factor there.

What disease outbreaks of history actually live on as common knowledge through multiple generations? The Plague, I guess— but I doubt most people could even accurately place it in history. That’s exactly one such instance, and it was many orders of magnitude worse than COVID.

Bear in mind that morons on Atlas were literally talking about COVID as if it was the most consequential event of the century, calling it a bigger event than 9/11.

It could still be, or at least so when combined with Ukraine. It definitely is a turning point policy wise.

I agree that it could be bigger than 9/11 if you combine it with another, completely different thing altogether.

9/11 was an extreme event but didn’t happen in isolation or in a vacuum. It feels that way based on how abrupt it was.

[John Dule]

2022 has generally been quite good. 2020 was bad, but the people who act like COVID was a major historical tragedy are idiots. It will be forgotten within a couple of decades, while years like 2001 will live on in public memory.

Actually, not convinced of this.

Its true that the 1918 Spanish Flu outbreak (a roughly comparable event in many ways) has almost been forgotten by non-historians, but its being adjacent to even bigger things is a major factor there.

What disease outbreaks of history actually live on as common knowledge through multiple generations? The Plague, I guess— but I doubt most people could even accurately place it in history. That’s exactly one such instance, and it was many orders of magnitude worse than COVID.

Bear in mind that morons on Atlas were literally talking about COVID as if it was the most consequential event of the century, calling it a bigger event than 9/11.

It could still be, or at least so when combined with Ukraine. It definitely is a turning point policy wise.

I agree that it could be bigger than 9/11 if you combine it with another, completely different thing altogether.

9/11 was an extreme event but didn’t happen in isolation or in a vacuum. It feels that way based on how abrupt it was.

I mean, nothing happens in a vacuum. But if you want to say that events were important just because they led to other events, then the marriage of Archduke Karl Ludwig of Austria to Princess Maria Annunciata of Bourbon should be considered one of the biggest events in world history. After all, their marriage led directly to the birth of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, whose assassination caused WWI, which precipitated the Russian Revolution and led to the Treaty of Versailles, which set the stage for Hitler's rise to power, which led to WWII, the Holocaust, and the development of atomic weaponry... etc. But no one remembers that. All they remember is that Franz got shot. And the same will be true for whatever factors led up to 9/11 or the invasion of Ukraine.

[Pericles]

2022 has generally been quite good. 2020 was bad, but the people who act like COVID was a major historical tragedy are idiots. It will be forgotten within a couple of decades, while years like 2001 will live on in public memory.

Actually, not convinced of this.

Its true that the 1918 Spanish Flu outbreak (a roughly comparable event in many ways) has almost been forgotten by non-historians, but its being adjacent to even bigger things is a major factor there.

What disease outbreaks of history actually live on as common knowledge through multiple generations? The Plague, I guess— but I doubt most people could even accurately place it in history. That’s exactly one such instance, and it was many orders of magnitude worse than COVID.

Bear in mind that morons on Atlas were literally talking about COVID as if it was the most consequential event of the century, calling it a bigger event than 9/11.

The lockdowns were a big disruption in everyday life, they will be remembered for years even if the deaths aren't except by those close to the deceased.

[John Dule]

2022 has generally been quite good. 2020 was bad, but the people who act like COVID was a major historical tragedy are idiots. It will be forgotten within a couple of decades, while years like 2001 will live on in public memory.

Actually, not convinced of this.

Its true that the 1918 Spanish Flu outbreak (a roughly comparable event in many ways) has almost been forgotten by non-historians, but its being adjacent to even bigger things is a major factor there.

What disease outbreaks of history actually live on as common knowledge through multiple generations? The Plague, I guess— but I doubt most people could even accurately place it in history. That’s exactly one such instance, and it was many orders of magnitude worse than COVID.

Bear in mind that morons on Atlas were literally talking about COVID as if it was the most consequential event of the century, calling it a bigger event than 9/11.

The lockdowns were a big disruption in everyday life, they will be remembered for years even if the deaths aren't except by those close to the deceased.

Yeah... I think the Spanish Flu was a somewhat bigger "disruption" to everyday life, and the only reason people have thought of it recently has been to compare it to Covid.

[Agonized-Statism]

2022 by far for me personally, with a few reasons tied to 2022's cost-of-living crisis.

[CumbrianLefty]

2022 has generally been quite good. 2020 was bad, but the people who act like COVID was a major historical tragedy are idiots. It will be forgotten within a couple of decades, while years like 2001 will live on in public memory.

Actually, not convinced of this.

Its true that the 1918 Spanish Flu outbreak (a roughly comparable event in many ways) has almost been forgotten by non-historians, but its being adjacent to even bigger things is a major factor there.

What disease outbreaks of history actually live on as common knowledge through multiple generations? The Plague, I guess— but I doubt most people could even accurately place it in history. That’s exactly one such instance, and it was many orders of magnitude worse than COVID.

Bear in mind that morons on Atlas were literally talking about COVID as if it was the most consequential event of the century, calling it a bigger event than 9/11.

The lockdowns were a big disruption in everyday life, they will be remembered for years even if the deaths aren't except by those close to the deceased.

Yeah... I think the Spanish Flu was a somewhat bigger "disruption" to everyday life, and the only reason people have thought of it recently has been to compare it to Covid.

Yet it still wasn't, in much of the world anyway, as big a "disruption" as WW1. Or indeed other more localised (but still major) events like the Russian Revolution.

That *is* a major reason why it was so quickly forgotten by most.

[John Dule]

Yet it still wasn't, in much of the world anyway, as big a "disruption" as WW1. Or indeed other more localised (but still major) events like the Russian Revolution.

That *is* a major reason why it was so quickly forgotten by most.

I'm trying to think of other pandemics that have become ingrained in the memory of successive generations, and I'm coming up dry. Pandemics can have big cultural impacts at the time they occur, but ultimately their effects are too diffuse and intangible for people to consider them major historical events once they've passed out of recent memory. The exceptions are the Black Plague and I guess the American plagues following the arrival of European explorers. Both of those led to long-lasting change, one with regards to social hierarchies, the other with regards to the demographic compositions of two entire continents. I fail to see how COVID reaches that level of impact.

Typically, things seem like bigger events at the time than in hindsight. I recall TikTok liberals talking about how they were "living through a major historical event" after they'd quarantined and worn masks for a couple of weeks. But ultimately, nobody will care about this once those who lived through it have passed on. Much worse plagues that have killed much larger percentages of the global population have been similarly forgotten, as have outbreaks of diseases with much more horrific and viscerally shocking symptoms. Sorry, I just find it hard to classify 2020 as "the worst year ever" when the biggest complaints we have about it are (1) staying indoors, (2) wearing masks, and (3) granny dying five years earlier than she would've otherwise. It wasn't a non-event, but it wasn't a particularly memorable one either.