Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can just move to Madagascar and close the ports.
Except http://www.who.int/csr/don/15-november-2017-plague-madagasca...
I guess GP was referring to the game Plague Inc.
US Federal Ban on Making Lethal Viruses Is Lifted
111–120 of 131 posts
Re: US Federal Ban on Making Lethal Viruses Is Lifted
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except http://www.who.int/csr/don/15-november-2017-plague-madagasca...
I guess GP was referring to the game Plague Inc.
More like Pandemic 2, but yes. These games have a winning strategy of infecting Madagascar first and spreading before the ports are closed.
Re: US Federal Ban on Making Lethal Viruses Is Lifted
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
If non-reputable agencies wanted to do illegal research, there is literally nothing that would stop them. Look at NSA spying, MKUltra, and the failed nerve gas test that killed hundreds of sheep. The US still has the largest arsenal of nerve gas in the world, much of it which is still in the queue to be destroyed, much of it still leaking.
I haven't heard anything about continued leaking. Any sources on that? Googling turns up nothing besides the sheep incident.
Here is the original documentary I watched. There is more information on the individual sites on more recent news and magazine sites, often referenced on wikipedia:
Re: US Federal Ban on Making Lethal Viruses Is Lifted
#114The intention seems legit, despite the concern. Quote from the article: The pathogen to be modified must pose a serious health threat, and the work must produce knowledge — such as a vaccine — that would benefit humans. Finally, there must be no safer way to do the research.
"The road to hell is paved with good intentions."
Seems to me like that applies just as well to the prior ban.
Re: US Federal Ban on Making Lethal Viruses Is Lifted
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm anti-Trump as can be, but I'd suspect this moratorium was always intended to be temporary while the protocols to protect us from accidents were checked and revised if necessary. There's genuine merit to understanding what makes a virus vary in lethality and how to combat that. There's plenty of things to bash this administration on. I don't think this is one of them.
Maybe your right. Keeping up with all the things they throw out on a daily basis is tiresome, and I don't have time to research all of them.
You could read the first sentence of the article:
"Federal officials on Tuesday ended a moratorium imposed three years ago on funding research that alters germs to make them more lethal."
or a little further down:
"In October 2014, all federal funding was halted on efforts to make three viruses more dangerous: the flu virus, and those causing Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)."
Re: US Federal Ban on Making Lethal Viruses Is Lifted
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
"The road to hell is paved with good intentions."
Getting a bit off topic here, but I've always interpreted that aphorism differently, and apparently the history of the saying agrees with me. I've always interpreted it as being a corollary to "actions speak louder than words". Simply saying something, or having the intention to do something does not mean it will actually get done.
I just assumed it meant both. On the off topic though, I've always liked: "Words without actions lack credibility; Actions without words lack clarity." - John Stott.
Re: US Federal Ban on Making Lethal Viruses Is Lifted
#117This is a great thing to hear from an administration that allies itself with advocates of genocide...
???????
This country has a sordid history when it comes to using/testing bio weaponry against those it designates as "non-people." Beginning with blankets coated in syphilis weaponized against the native population to experiments on black airmen at Tuskegee.
Trump referred to "very great people on both sides" of the Nazi rally in Charlottesville that led to the brutal murder of anti-hate protester Heather Heyer. He hesitated to denounce the endorsement of David Duke, a former Grand Wizard of the KKK. He appointed Jefferson Sessions, rejected from a federal judgeship for his racism, to the top law enforcement position in the nation. Under his watch they dismantled anti-violence police oversight programs and narrowed anti-terrorism efforts to draw attention away from domestic white-supremacist groups.
Stephen Bannon, brought into the White House as a senior advisor, helped coalesce support for Trump on the web, forming groups on forums like 4chan and Breitbart rife with eugenicist-apologia and genocide normalization strategies.
This is all well documented, here's a great read on it:
https://www.buzzfeed.com/josephbernstein/heres-how-breitbart...
It's necessary to be aware of history and sensitive to the parallels in the present day.
Re: US Federal Ban on Making Lethal Viruses Is Lifted
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ebola is one such virus. In terms of evolution these viruses tend to burn out by killing the host. Evolutionary pressures push viruses towards symbiotic equilibrium. Thus in the worst case scenario there will be survivors who are immune or the virus or the virus will burn out until the only strain left does not harm humans. The later was the case with ebola.
If anything Ebola is too lethal. It tends to burn out locally before it can spread far from its originating point though if someone should immediately travel after becoming infected it could spread to a new location. But in the majority of the cases so far it has burned out before it could spread to a new village, though the largest outbreak to date claimed in excess of 10,000 lives and spread quite far. http://www.b…
If ebola were to incubate in pigeons and only prove lethal to humans, that could be more widespread.
Re: US Federal Ban on Making Lethal Viruses Is Lifted
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
It sure killed a LOT of people in the process though, so I wouldn't say that that's quite so reassuring.
Counter-intuitively the speedy kill is actually what makes Ebola comparatively safe, if the victims would live longer they would infect far more others though even in death there is plenty of risk in handling the bodies during burial, especially in remote locations.
I understand that - I'm just pointing out that while Ebola perhaps isn't putting humans at extinction risk, it's still not good by any measure. We (I) don't want anything remotely like it lying around at anyone's disposal.
Re: US Federal Ban on Making Lethal Viruses Is Lifted
#120You know how when you watch movies and because you know so much about tech you can tell that most of the stuff done in movies regarding hacking etc is bullshit and not real. Now I have a lack in knowledge of biology at this level, but can someone maybe explain to me how all those disease mass extinction movies cannot be real? I feel like my lack of knowledge here causes my concerns when reading stuff like this articl…
Thing is, some of the stuff I used to laugh at as bullshit can be done now. Use the enhance feature to magically unblur images to clarity? I've seen ML demos of stuff like that. Giant realtime database of all phone calls meta data and recordings? Realtime facial/license plate recognition search of millions of people/cars? Not so funny anymore. Tracking peoples movements in realtime. Sure just cary this phone wherever…
Yup. Watch_Dogs-style hacking of CCTV cameras? As the other story on HN's frontpage today will tell you (and so will any experience with Shodan), it's totally doable in theory - the only practical reason this doesn't happen is that every camera is broken in a different way, and as a protagonist, to hack them in a field-actionable way, you'd have to have a hundred people in your tech support staff, who manually engage appropriate exploits based on your requests.