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Mark_Wallace2-Apr-20 3:20

2-Apr-20 3:20

Rage wrote:
Several countries have been experimented gene manipulations (on viruses, on animals, maybe even on people)

So far, so good.

Rage wrote:
under cover of trying to find cures

Aaaand you blew it!

Who?

Who would work in a lab that was dedicated to producing a nastier version of SARS?

Which people would get up in the morning, kiss their kids goodbye, go to work, and then work on designing an uncontrollable virus that kills people -- people like their children?

And don't say they'd be designing a controllable one, because if they're good enough to do that kind of work, they're certainly knowledgeable enough to know that there's no such thing as a controllable micro-organism. Killable? Sure. Controllable? No way.

Do you know how many people would be involved with a lab like that? , Scientists, researchers, research assistants, cleaners, HR, buyers, IT support, engineering support, software developers, delivery boys, etc, etc, etc. (Not to mention about 50 managers.)

It's hundreds of people, not just one megalomaniacal nutter and a bunch of little yellow minions.

You need a worshipful society to get enough of the different kinds of staff you'd need; they'd have to mindlessly and undeservedly worship their leader -- a "God on Earth" or a Big Brother type, like Pol Pot, Mao Ze Dong, etc. ISIS could do it, if they could actually get a lab like that together without the West finding out about it and bombing it; North Korea could do it, and I wouldn't put it past the current US administration to think seriously about it.

But the country that most of these accusations are aimed at? Not a hope in Hell. Xi isn't revered or worshipped, like Mao was. He's respected, because he's a pretty remarkable guy (I apologise if this truth about a remarkable human being offends the indoctrinated feelings of some people, but, well, **** 'em; their racism offends me and most of the rest of the world), but if he tried to put together that kind of project, there'd be riots in the streets, and the army (which has a proud revolutionary history) would be on the rioters' side.

Grimly Fiendish, Gru, Scaramanga, and Doctor Doom only exist in movies and comic books, and all the people needed to create such an uncontrollable "weapon" would have to be hired in the real world.

I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!

Do not escape reality : improve reality !

Rage2-Apr-20 4:09

Rage

2-Apr-20 4:09

Who ?

China did. France did, we have such a lab in the area of Lyon ! We had to pass a law for avoiding patents on biological livings and to stop gene manipulations or eugenics. These leads inexorably to human beings being transformed into men with no fear and no brain (so the perfect soldier). China even cloned a human being already.

France has nuclear weapons. Enough to nuke the complete world. So what's the difference from the military point of view ? "Bioweapons" are at least as good mass destruction weapons as a deterrence strategy. Deterrence does not rely on killing others and controlling so that you are not touched by it, it relies on telling the others that there is nothing to win by attacking since nobody would survive at all.

Plus bioterrorism is already a thing.[^]

I am not telling that China or anyone has developed in a secret lab the Covid-19, this was clearly proved as a derivation of some animal virus. But this does not mean that nobody is developing some nasty things in an organized way and sponsored by goverments.

Nelek2-Apr-20 6:21

2-Apr-20 6:21

Rage wrote:
China did. France did, we have such a lab in the area of Lyon ! We had to pass a law for avoiding patents on biological livings and to stop gene manipulations or eugenics. These leads inexorably to human beings being transformed into men with no fear and no brain (so the perfect soldier). China even cloned a human being already.

France has nuclear weapons. Enough to nuke the complete world. So what's the difference from the military point of view ? "Bioweapons" are at least as good mass destruction weapons as a deterrence strategy. Deterrence does not rely on killing others and controlling so that you are not touched by it, it relies on telling the others that there is nothing to win by attacking since nobody would survive at all.

I think there is a lot behind this arguments, but that is enough for a new thread and can very fast degenerate into soapbox levels. Sadly Sigh | :sigh:

M.D.V.

If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
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Mark_Wallace2-Apr-20 8:31

2-Apr-20 8:31

Nelek wrote:
can very fast degenerate into soapbox levels. Sadly

Only if people stop discussing it as civilised people.

I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!

Mark_Wallace2-Apr-20 8:28

2-Apr-20 8:28

Rage wrote:
China did. France did, we have such a lab in the area of Lyon

Lots of countries got into genetics, in the early days of it, but we've learned a lot, since then, and one thing geneticists have learned is "don't mess with weaponising virals".

Rage wrote:
We had to pass a law for avoiding patents on biological livings and to stop gene manipulations or eugenics

AFAIK, the US still allows genetic sequence patenting, but that and eugenics are another thing -- as different from weaponising viruses as network administration is from coding in VB.

Rage wrote:
These leads inexorably to human beings being transformed into men with no fear and no brain (so the perfect soldier).

A much beloved concept in Sci-Fi, movies, and comics, but again, it could only be carried out by a totalitarian government, where the "Great Leader" is an object of worship.

Rage wrote:
China even cloned a human being already.

Fake news, I'm afraid, disseminated by rags like the Daily Mail. The proper docs show that they cloned stem cells from human embryos -- for medical purposes, like growing organs for transplant, and what have you. Again, chalk to bioweapons' cheese.

Rage wrote:
Deterrence does not rely on killing others and controlling so that you are not touched by it, it relies on telling the others that there is nothing to win by attacking since nobody would survive at all.

"You use bioweapons and we'll nuke you" is also a feasible deterrent.

Rage wrote:
Plus bioterrorism is already a thing.[^]

Sure, in dictionaries and encyclopaedias (the only instance of it that I've heard of was carried out by US citizens on US citizens), but bioterrorism is just biowarfare carried out by a tiny army. They don't manufacture new viruses -- it's easier to make pipe bombs or fill bags with salomonella-infected slurry than splice bits of virus together.

Rage wrote:
this does not mean that nobody is developing some nasty things in an organized way and sponsored by goverments.

Well, TBH, I wouldn't look to China for that kind of thing at all; it's not their way (China never bothered trying hard to win wars, because any victorious invaders just became Chinese), and they're not a totalitarian government.

North Korea, maybe, but Fatty Kim III seems to prefer playing with ballistics. If Hungary and Brazil keep going they way they're going, they could be added to the list -- as could the US, somewhat surprisingly, if a certain-coloured person has his way and tears up half of the bill of rights and achieves his objective of making himself ruler for life.

A national leader you may be familiar with managed to achieve the same objectives in the 1930s, also with populist support, in another country that thought its democracy was unassailable.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!

Do not escape reality : improve reality !

Rage2-Apr-20 4:12

Rage

2-Apr-20 4:12

Mark, I just noticed that I forgot a "NOT" in a sentence in my initial post. Not that it changes my point, but it for sure led to confusion.

dandy722-Apr-20 3:40

dandy72

2-Apr-20 3:40

Rage wrote:
Coronaviruses are a virus familiy that has been investigated for decades now

This.

I was reading some random article on Wikipedia a few days ago that mentioned Coronaviruses had first been identified in the 60s.

What this does to the Chinese conspiracy theory being floated about, I don't know, nor honestly care.

GuyThiebaut2-Apr-20 0:06

GuyThiebaut

2-Apr-20 0:06

Nelek wrote:
"Do you agree with such experiments where we interfere that much with nature laws and that could potentially explode in our face and be a big evil?"

We have been doing this for hundreds of years, perhaps even longer.

When we graft different types of plants onto each other we are interfering with nature.
Mendel was fiddling with peas a while back.

Perhaps the difference is that nowadays we can knock in or knock out specific genes - when I say specific even then it's within a certain probability, it's not an exact science.

I think it's more of a philosophical question - the question going something like this:
Given that there will always be bad/evil people in the world, do we limit technological progress to prevent these people from using that technology for their evil deeds?

I think the answer to the above question is "No".

“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”

― Christopher Hitchens

Nelek2-Apr-20 0:20

2-Apr-20 0:20

GuyThiebaut wrote:
When we graft different types of plants onto each other we are interfering with nature.

GuyThiebaut wrote:
that nowadays we can knock in or knock out specific genes - when I say specific even then it's within a certain probability, it's not an exact science.

Exactly
And the potential boom is too high in my opinion. Nature has mutations too, but it is much slower. If we put in a couple of (weeks, months, years) what nature would do in centuries, milleniums or even more... We are not going to be able to react if something goes really bad.

GuyThiebaut wrote:
I think it's more of a philosophical question - the question going something like this:
Given that there will always be bad/evil people in the world, do we limit technological progress to prevent these people from using that technology for their evil deeds?
I think the answer to the above question is "No".

I am not defending the limitation.
I am more for slowing down a bit and let our wisdom take up our knowledge.

A parallel example could be what Woody Allen said once: "One gets married to solve problems that a single doesn't have" (translated on my own, too lazy to search for the exact quote in english)
Sometimes we do things to try to get a solution for something that end being worst than the original problem. Luckily it is something that doesn't happen that often.

M.D.V.

Mark_Wallace2-Apr-20 0:41

2-Apr-20 0:41

Oh, st*ff and nonsense!

It's all because global warming exposed parts of Antarctica that haven't seen the light of day for millions of years, and the research team from Wuhan University unknowingly dug up an ancient microbe, than returned home before they realised they'd been infected by it.

You can't argue with ~~movie plots~~ facts!

I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!

Maximilien2-Apr-20 0:59

Maximilien

2-Apr-20 0:59

You put trust in Salvini to tell the truth ?

I'd rather be phishing!

Mark_Wallace2-Apr-20 2:44

2-Apr-20 2:44

Maximilien wrote:
You put trust in Salvini to tell the truth ?

As much as I'd trust Berlusconi with a loan or Cicciolina to keep her clothes on.

I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!

den2k882-Apr-20 6:45

den2k88

2-Apr-20 6:45

Fun fact:all three of them are politicians and has been in parliament.

GCS d--(d+) s-/++ a C++++ U+++ P- L+@ E-- W++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- r+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X

Nelek2-Apr-20 6:22

2-Apr-20 6:22

Not really. But that was the first link with the translation to english I found. Sorry.

And it helped me to put the first context anyways.

M.D.V.

Slacker0072-Apr-20 1:17

Slacker007

2-Apr-20 1:17

rumor has it that the U.S. Army and Israeli intelligence brought many viruses to Wuhan to be tested, corona-virus variations being one of them.

Just google corona virus America, US Army, Israel and let the conspiracy theories reveal themselves.

Whether any of it is true or not, the financial destruction this virus has caused world wide, will last much, much longer than the sickness and death caused directly by the virus.

I fear this is just the beginning. get in your bunkers. batten down the hatches. it's going to be long winter this year.

FYI - Lysol cleaner has been killing corona-virus for over 50 years. this virus is NOT new. this strand of it COVID-19 is human manipulated, nature had nothing to do with it.

Nelek2-Apr-20 6:13

2-Apr-20 6:13

Slacker007 wrote:
rumor has it that the U.S. Army and Israeli intelligence brought many viruses to Wuhan to be tested, corona-virus variations being one of them.
Just google corona virus America, US Army, Israel and let the conspiracy theories reveal themselves.

There are more theories than that. And getting to the part of the topic, then the degeneration into soapbox material is granted and will be too fast to react. Let's keep it lounge safe, ok?
And yes, I miss the soapbox too.

Slacker007 wrote:
the financial destruction this virus has caused world wide, will last much, much longer than the sickness and death caused directly by the virus.

I think that too. For me, this is going to be an inflection point, some things won't come back to previous state. The problem is... at the moment I can't say which ones or if the "after" will be better than "before". Only time will say.

Slacker007 wrote:
this virus is NOT new. this strand of it COVID-19 is human manipulated, nature had nothing to do with it.

I think too, that we have something to do with it. And one thing is clear for me, if mankind comes to an end, it will be 98% of probability due to our own acts.

M.D.V.

Eddy Vluggen2-Apr-20 1:46

Eddy Vluggen

2-Apr-20 1:46

Nelek wrote:
I want to bring focus to the: "only because we can doesn't mean that we should"

Then someone else will.

Bastard Programmer from Hell Suspicious | :suss:

If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.

Nelek2-Apr-20 6:09

2-Apr-20 6:09

And even more if there is $$$ to be earned at the end. I know.

M.D.V.

racketeer2-Apr-20 1:52

racketeer

2-Apr-20 1:52

There was a good discussion about this on the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe podcast, this week (SGU episode 768[^]). They referred to this article (COVID-19 coronavirus epidemic has a natural origin[^])

It cited several reasons why the virus was not man-made

Slacker0072-Apr-20 1:55

Slacker007

2-Apr-20 1:55

and there are literally, thousands of reasons on the internet why it was man made. who is correct?

racketeer2-Apr-20 2:32

racketeer

2-Apr-20 2:32

I tend to side with the science in these things

Slacker0072-Apr-20 4:46

Slacker007

2-Apr-20 4:46

Just because something has the word Science in it, does not mean it is accurate. Many cover ups have been done in the name of Science, just saying.

Science is very, very relative these days. i.e. Climate Change.

Nelek2-Apr-20 6:09

2-Apr-20 6:09

I am a science friend, but as someone told below, science is a tool and as such can be used right or wrong.

If science always was that correct, there wouldn't be so many different thesis / conclusions over the same topics.

In the moment there is big money on the way, the objectivity of pure scientific methodes get compromised. Data that is not included, data that is a bit tickled, data that is invented...

And there have been enough examples of these.

M.D.V.

Nelek2-Apr-20 6:05

2-Apr-20 6:05

That's why I didn't want to entry in the "conspirational" point of view and tried to keep it in the "ethical-technological"

M.D.V.

Mark_Wallace2-Apr-20 2:37