I don't know about you guys, but a development like would seem to substantially
lessen our odds of making it off this rock. I can think of several different
types of individuals who would have no qualms about developing and releasing
something like this:
1) Radical Environmentalists - the ones who believe humanity is a virus that
needs to be wiped out.
2) Terrorist organizations without sufficient foresight to see this will destroy
their plans as well.
3) Deeply disturbed individuals who became that way because of a personal
tragedy - like the character in 'The White Plague'.
and finally
4) All the other psycho's who don't fit into any of these categories.
With the tools to make such nasty viruses getting cheaper all the time, I'd say
there at least a 1000 people in the world with the motivation and knowledge to
pull something like this off - that would seem to make an outbreak a near
certainty.
So the golden question is - can we really survive one of these plagues, let
alone dozens of them? And if a few of us did manage to survive, would it
matter? Would there be any modern civilization left? Would the transhuman
ambition become a bygone fantasy no longer capable of being pursued in any
practical manner?
Paul Hughes
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Oct 02 2000 - 17:35:41 MDT