From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Tue May 20 2003 - 08:33:40 MDT
On Tue, 20 May 2003, Brett Paatsch wrote:
> I reckon the next Extro is safe. Perhaps in no small part because
> the next Extro is unlikely to be seen as a serious threat to anyone.
If you believe this then there are large segments of the human
population whose points of view you do not understand well.
Muslim fundamentalists, Christians, esp. of the "born again"
variety, and much of the Presidential Bioethics Committee come
immediately to mind.
> I think I accept the theses that in order for an intelligent desperate
> person to cause havoc (terrorists, or perhaps a better example
> Timothy McVeigh) all the is necessary is that they be willing to give
> up their lives as a sacrifice.
No! That is one of the key points to understand about technologies
becoming smaller, cheaper and more available.
Remember how long it took to catch the Unabomber and notice how
we still seem to be pretty clueless about the source of the anthrax
spread about a couple of years ago. One of the important things
to recognize about bioterrorism is that one can personally have
long since departed the scene when people start dropping like flies.
> Fortunately probably more people are
> capable of acquiring the destructive knowledge base but far fewer
> will adopt the perspective that their own lives are so worth the price
> of making their point.
One should remember that soviet workers in the bioarms industry
were generally vaccinated against the weapons they were working on.
> "Oklahoma bombings" as incidents are one thing, are we going to see
> them as a sort of syndrome? What if anything is the defence?
I don't know -- there seem to be two very different hazards.
The first is where an individual wants to make a statement
about their hatred or political philosophy (the suicide bombings
in the Mid-East) come to mind. The second is where an individual
wants to simply eliminate persons, a group, a nationality, etc.
The second group would have to do nothing more than infect the
conference room the night before an Extro Conf. or get a job
preparing the food for a Conf. diner, etc.
Robert
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