On 27 Feb 1995, Perry E. Metzger wrote:
> >> >I would just as soon engineer a virus strain that is aerosol
> >> >transmissible, perhaps a hemmorhagic flu, in order to correct the
> >> >population bomb downward towards the 2 to 3 billion mark than live in
> >> >utter muck with trillions.
> [...]
> >Ah now, there you go, frothing at the mouth. Of course it is OK to kill
> >civilians when the greater cause is served:
>> You are nothing short of evil.
> I wonder if I should inform the Federal Bureau of Investigation of
> your public comments. Normally I hesitate to invoke such agencies, but
> it seems to me that you are a menace to society and ought to be
> carefully watched before you engage in some sort of monstrous act of
> mass murder.
Yadda, yadda, yadda. Lighten up, Ditto. THINK, for Shiva's sake. THINK.
I have, all along, been trying to make a few people who wear blinders
actually look beyond the narrow road path they walk. There is more to
the whole idea of real life-extension than just doing it. There ARE
costs to consider and it would be nice if it was done before they fall
upon us. Just once.
As for a virus...THINK. *IF* I (or anyone) were inclined to really do
such a thing, it would be nothing short of suicidal. There is NO WAY to
make such a thing so as to wipe out LOTS of people and still have the
creator(s) be immune to it. (This is **silly**, but I will try to get
through your Limbaugh-head) Once such a thing were let loose, you lose ALL
control of it. It is immediately subject to forces of natural selection.
IF you want to make a virus (or ANY bug) that can infect/kill lots of
people quickly, you would HAVE to make it a nice mutator to both make it
capable of eluding immune systems AND to prevent a vaccination from being
possible - the two are intimately intertwined. Making it a significant
mutator automatically makes it uncontrollable and, therefore, the
creator(s) would be just as much at risk as everyone else. This lack of
ability to control biological agents as weapons is what makes them useless
military weapons - you cannot prevent your own people from being
vulnerable AND you cannot prevent them from being exposed. If you can
immunize your people against it, then so can the target which makes the
"weapon" vulnerable and only of temporary use - essentially useless - and
remember the goal of my diabolical plot: to take out a billion or more.
If you can make a vaccine, then it is reasonably stable and cannot be a
bigtime plague-maker, so that wont work. Get it? THINK through ALL the
ramifications. This, just like the immortality argument, is NOT as simple
as it seems on the surface. There are layers and side affects and
unpredictables. People, as a rule, are foolish and stupid and refuse to
think too much. They prefer to stop short at simple "answers" that sound
pretty but are NOT answers, that is why we get the politicians we do.
But in the end, we deserve it. You are a prime example, an archetype, of
the lowest common denominator: you'll take the pretty sounding
non-solutions to non-problems.
> So, why am I "selfish" for not wanting to pay high taxes to fund silly
> government programs, but the people getting the money aren't "selfish"?
Oh certainly. The woman I knew who HAD to go on welfare for several
months just to feed herself and here two children (born within a marriage,
by the way) - now SHE was selfish. The many women who separate or divorce
their husbands and, as a result, are entrants into poverty, are ALL
selfish bitches - as I'm sure you'll agree, any woman who goes against her
husband or any man deserves poverty just to put her in her place (this is
prevalent fate even among the middle and upper class you so adore).
The people who NEED student loans to go to college are all selfish
bastards (forget the fact that selfish bastards such as myself pay back
the loans directly AND by serving the country in the armed services - I
took the oath for purely selfish reasons).
In any case, this is off-topic by a LONG shot. You obviously didn't read
my other posts concerning my "evil" plot to shortcircuit immortality.
Take a few deep breaths, have a sip of wine, and relax.
Patrick, the "evil neonazi ecologist" extraordinaire
--even now, thinking up ways to make myself and a few chosen others immune
to a supervirus of my own creation...
THIS is what makes the internet so fun.
