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Microbe extinction

Started by TomFoolery, November 02, 2015, 01:33:15 PM

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TomFoolery

Quote from: Unbeliever on November 03, 2015, 05:19:41 PM
If we can make extinct such microbes as those of smallpox or rabies or polio, then our ability to do it gives us the "right" to do it. So-called "rights" exist only in our own (human) heads, not in nature.

I don't disagree that rights are a human construct, but I would urge moral caution under the guise that "might makes right" because that's the same argument that large corporations (and some individuals) use to decimate rainforests, pollute oceans, and drive numerous (cuddly) species to extinction.
How can you be sure my refusal to agree with your claim a symptom of my ignorance and not yours?

Mermaid

#31
Quote from: Baruch on November 03, 2015, 06:56:06 AM
Could have been.  Most of Africa thinks so.  Back then it might have been a challenge, but trivial now what we can put bacterial DNA in goats.  AIDS aka is a virus ... this is more challenging, but not impossible.

I feel sorry for optimists ... who believe that a Hitler or Stalin can't happen again ... or who even believe that neither Hitler nor Stalin happened, it was just propaganda to control allied populations.  Any real dick-tator would get a woody over this stuff.
There is nothing trivial about designing a virus to infect T cells. You give current technology way more credit than it is due. Your example of our ability to insert bacterial DNA into goats is a clear sign that you have no idea what scientific technology is capable of. Or what biology actually is.

Do you know why conspiracy theories and spreading this sort of bullshit pisses me off so much? Because stupid people believe it. Then they don't vaccinate their kids. And then there are disease outbreaks. With preventable diseases.
A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticise work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life’s realities â€" all these are marks, not as the possessor would fain to think, of superiority but of weakness. -TR

Unbeliever

Quote from: TomFoolery on November 03, 2015, 05:49:36 PM
I don't disagree that rights are a human construct, but I would urge moral caution under the guise that "might makes right" because that's the same argument that large corporations (and some individuals) use to decimate rainforests, pollute oceans, and drive numerous (cuddly) species to extinction.

Well, sure, but it's a matter of perspective - from the perspective of a microbe mankind is an evil monster dedicated to its eradication. But we have a different perspective...
God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman

PopeyesPappy

Quote from: Mermaid on November 03, 2015, 05:51:25 PM
There is nothing trivial about designing a virus to infect T cells. You give current technology way more credit than it is due. Your example of our ability to insert bacterial DNA into goats is a clear sign that you have no idea what scientific technology is capable of. Or what biology actually is.

Do you know why conspiracy theories and spreading this sort of bullshit pisses me off so much? Because stupid people believe it. Then they don't vaccinate their kids. And then there are disease outbreaks. With preventable diseases.


Yea, there's a big difference is making glow in the dark tomatoes and designing a virus to only infect a specific type of cell. If we could do the latter cancer would be cured.
Save a life. Adopt a Greyhound.

jonb

There are more unclassified species in a square foot of soil in my back garden than there are know species in Africa and the Amazon. Of the known species in that foot of soil the vast majority the only thing we know about them is that we can identify them by name.

Given that the thought of releasing a biological agent into the environment that could remove an undesirable species is pure madness.

Because we have no idea what other species might be susceptible to that agent, and therefore what effect it could have on the ecosystem of the soil. Without the soil we have no food. It won't be a mad scientist that destroys the world, in all probability it will be some pillock that manufactured a bio-spray to keep spiders out the bath.

Baruch

Quote from: Hakurei Reimu on November 03, 2015, 03:54:14 PM
Any scientist able to engineer a virus like that would also be able to appreciate that viruses don't play favorites. Even if you were to somehow engineer a virus that did, it would quickly evolve in the wild into something that didn't.

Yes, politicians are like viri .. they don't stay bought ;-)
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Baruch

Quote from: Mermaid on November 03, 2015, 05:51:25 PM
There is nothing trivial about designing a virus to infect T cells. You give current technology way more credit than it is due. Your example of our ability to insert bacterial DNA into goats is a clear sign that you have no idea what scientific technology is capable of. Or what biology actually is.

Do you know why conspiracy theories and spreading this sort of bullshit pisses me off so much? Because stupid people believe it. Then they don't vaccinate their kids. And then there are disease outbreaks. With preventable diseases.

You deduce from my posts that I am an anti-vaxer?  That is pretty infectious humor you have ;-))
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Baruch

Quote from: jonb on November 03, 2015, 07:15:59 PM
There are more unclassified species in a square foot of soil in my back garden than there are know species in Africa and the Amazon. Of the known species in that foot of soil the vast majority the only thing we know about them is that we can identify them by name.

Given that the thought of releasing a biological agent into the environment that could remove an undesirable species is pure madness.

Because we have no idea what other species might be susceptible to that agent, and therefore what effect it could have on the ecosystem of the soil. Without the soil we have no food. It won't be a mad scientist that destroys the world, in all probability it will be some pillock that manufactured a bio-spray to keep spiders out the bath.

Ecological follow on consequences could be severe ... and we have even less knowledge of that, than we have of the microbes themselves.  People may want to exterminate all flora in their gut ... but it will make you sick if you do, and deny your ability to process salad.  But there are always bacteriaphobes like Howard Hughes ... who would release such a kill-all agent.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Mermaid

Quote from: Baruch on November 03, 2015, 07:41:40 PM
You deduce from my posts that I am an anti-vaxer?  That is pretty infectious humor you have ;-))
No.
A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticise work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life’s realities â€" all these are marks, not as the possessor would fain to think, of superiority but of weakness. -TR

TomFoolery

Quote from: Baruch on November 03, 2015, 07:41:40 PM
You deduce from my posts that I am an anti-vaxer?  That is pretty infectious humor you have ;-))

I'll be honest, I would have made the leap, and it would have been a logical one.

After your other conspiracy theory posts, some of which relate to GMOs and Big Pharma, the idea that somehow you could imagine vaccines to be full of nothing but mercury, AIDS, aborted fetal cells, and LSD as a way for the Illuminati and Big Pharma to control the population doesn't seem that crazy. I mean, the idea itself is crazy, but the idea that you might advocate for it isn't.
How can you be sure my refusal to agree with your claim a symptom of my ignorance and not yours?

Baruch

And hyperbole is how the real conspiracies are covered up.  There were no WMD in Iraq ... therefore if I were of that type, I could claim that the Iraqis had their alien allies from Roswell cart the stuff into hiding.  And actually at the time, there were neocon suggestions that it had been carted off into Syria by Assad ... because Baathists will be Baathists.  But the reality is that the neocons just can't admit that they were wrong ... or worse.  If Assad had nukes, he would have used them by now ... he wouldn't need all the help he is getting recently.  Syria did have a nuclear program a couple years ago, thanks to N Korea ... but the Israelis took care of that, as they earlier took care of the Iraqi program.  But if we then are accused of claiming that Obama is a reptilian transvestite ... even though we didn't say that ... then any accusation that Syria had an actual nuclear program ... can be discounted as mad raving.  Basic psyops in the CIA/KGB handbooks.

I watch Alex Jones, only to see what the CIA is using to debunk what is really going on.

OK, GMOs are not a plot by reptilian aliens.  And Big Pharma isn't overcharging the bejesus out of everyone in general, and the Americans in particular ... but then what if you (and you know who you are) are an apologist for those very organizations.  Such people are all over the Internet.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Hakurei Reimu

Quote from: TomFoolery on November 03, 2015, 04:49:27 PM
Maybe the classic notion of a scientist as an old guy with a bunch of PhDs, whatever grant money he wants and his own lab at the CDC maybe. But would it surprise you to know that that's not even expert-level stuff? All it would take is a few thousand dollars to buy the right microscopes, bioreactors and other basic lab equipment and working knowledge of viral genetics and lab techniques that a reasonably intelligent person could learn from the Internet.
At best, such a person would be able to create a very nasty bug that will likely boomarang back on them before being able to deploy it, but it would not discriminate based on race, nationality, or religion, because no virus capable of infecting humans currently does that in the wild â€" you would have to create that genetic machinery from scratch.

And if you had the resources to create that kind of machinery from scratch, why aren't you buying conventional weapons for a conventional army who can already do that right out of the box?

Quote from: TomFoolery on November 03, 2015, 04:49:27 PM
Not all viruses mutate quickly, and some mutations actually render the virus harmless to humans. Ebola Reston virus is a mutated form that is airborne in monkeys but unable to infect humans.
A virus's mutability depends on how vital the particular bits of machinery are to infecting a host, and host spillover is likelier to occur when the new hosts are genetically related to the old ones. A super-specific virus will tend to find (a) that the specificity of the proteins it binds to are not necessary for infecting the host, and (b) there are many populations ridiculously closely related to that population to spill over into. The virus will very quickly lose specificity in this situation. You'll notice that we still have the original Ebola strains to worry about.
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Atheon

Quote from: TomFoolery on November 02, 2015, 01:33:15 PM
We eradicated smallpox in the 1970s and to this day it exists in only two known repositories in the world.
I remember that both repositories were supposed to be destroyed in the late 1990s, a deliberate and welcome extinction of an organism. But then they decided against it. Stupidly.
"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful." - Seneca

Baruch

Quote from: Atheon on November 04, 2015, 05:15:35 AM
I remember that both repositories were supposed to be destroyed in the late 1990s, a deliberate and welcome extinction of an organism. But then they decided against it. Stupidly.

Not stupidity ... machiavellian.  This was only the US/USSR at the time ... but China is looking over their shoulder.  Then there is the problem of getting a general UN ban, and how to make sure it is carried out.  There is no way to verify it is carried out ... there are always forgotten closets that people leave anthrax in (this happened I think, this past year).  And not necessarily genetic modification, just processing of spores ... as happened in the anthrax attacks.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Mermaid

Quote from: Atheon on November 04, 2015, 05:15:35 AM
I remember that both repositories were supposed to be destroyed in the late 1990s, a deliberate and welcome extinction of an organism. But then they decided against it. Stupidly.
I disagree. This repository can be used in case of an outbreak, which is a small possibility, but a possibility nonetheless.
A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticise work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life’s realities â€" all these are marks, not as the possessor would fain to think, of superiority but of weakness. -TR