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Scientist who helped eradicate smallpox dies at age 89

scientificamerican.com

121–130 of 150 posts

Re: Scientist who helped eradicate smallpox dies at age 89

#121

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Perhaps I'm overly an optimist, but I have a feeling we will develop the informational and psychological technology to combat the destructive misinformation campaigns that brainwash people into harming their children with anti-vaccine beliefs. We are not there yet, because the destructive media forces are too new and we haven't developed defenses against information diseases like RFK Jr. But we will get there. Two st…

People can simply have different perspectives on things. Measels has mortality rate of around 0.1% while small pox has a mortality rate of around 30%. So the individual risk from measels is relatively low leaving plenty of room for individual choice. There's less room for the same argument with small pox. In fact small pox is where the term vaccine comes from - it was observed that milk maids weren't getting smallpox…

Getting sick isn’t just life or death.

My parents both got measels, and they had no hesitancy getting me vaccinated. I’m significantly taller than my dad, who lost 40 pounds when he got German measles when he was 17. I grew several inches that year.

People who don’t get vaccinated are bad people. I have no qualms saying it.

Re: Scientist who helped eradicate smallpox dies at age 89

#122
post #116
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the period of 2010-2012, the president at the time was Barack Obama. It does not seem realistic that people would accept opening a criminal case.

I would accept it if it even if it was done by Ghandi.

Who is Ghandi?

Re: Scientist who helped eradicate smallpox dies at age 89

#123
post #78
post #65

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There was another group of people famous for building innovative rockets, but are otherwise not associated with human progress. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-1_flying_bomb So it is about the big picture. (And about small pictures like that of Elon making a salut like the other group). So yes, currently his rockets do not transport explosives. But that can change anytime and I expect it will very soon.

I thought American space flight etc was directly indebted to the people behind the V bombs? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip

The Saturn V was simply a scaled up V2. The critical components were all there:

1. boundary layer cooling

2. pre-heating fuel and cooling the nozzle by pushing the fuel through tubes in the nozzle

3. baffles to prevent pogo-ing

4. turbo fuel pumps

5. supersonic airframe

6. guidance system (although primitive)

The V2 was an ineffective military weapon that did little damage - because its guidance system was too primitive to be able to hit a target. Hitler also poured enormous resources into the V2 program, shifted away from producing weapons that were effective.

Re: Scientist who helped eradicate smallpox dies at age 89

#124
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So creating cheap, reusable giant rockets is standing in the way of human progress? Being able to use neural links to restore sight to the blind is standing in the way?

There was another group of people famous for building innovative rockets, but are otherwise not associated with human progress. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-1_flying_bomb So it is about the big picture. (And about small pictures like that of Elon making a salut like the other group). So yes, currently his rockets do not transport explosives. But that can change anytime and I expect it will very soon.

[deleted]

Re: Scientist who helped eradicate smallpox dies at age 89

#125
post #91
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was another group of people famous for building innovative rockets, but are otherwise not associated with human progress. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-1_flying_bomb So it is about the big picture. (And about small pictures like that of Elon making a salut like the other group). So yes, currently his rockets do not transport explosives. But that can change anytime and I expect it will very soon.

Elon rockets are only interesting because they can be reused. What use is a reusable rocket with respect to explosives?

A car can be used to take people to the hospital, or it can be used to transport explosives.

Re: Scientist who helped eradicate smallpox dies at age 89

#126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So creating cheap, reusable giant rockets is standing in the way of human progress? Being able to use neural links to restore sight to the blind is standing in the way?

I'm pretty sure that GP commenter was referring to the other stuff.

He shouldn't leave people guessing what he was referring to.

Re: Scientist who helped eradicate smallpox dies at age 89

#127

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Politicians and empire-builders (Elon) is currently standing in the way of human progress and history.

[flagged]

Haven't seen anything of your talking points make any reasonable impact in societal problems.

Re: Scientist who helped eradicate smallpox dies at age 89

#128
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elon rockets are only interesting because they can be reused. What use is a reusable rocket with respect to explosives?

Pretty easy. The only limits are your imagination and depravity. You launch the rocket, drop an orbital vehicle behind, and land. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. That vehicle could deorbit and drop a tungsten penetrator, smallpox, a nuclear device or any number of things. All funded by a combination of government spending and defrauding the public via the Tesla Ponzi scheme.

Dropping a tungsten penetrator from orbit is an idea only science fiction can justify. In the real world the economics never close.

Re: Scientist who helped eradicate smallpox dies at age 89

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I must have forgotten that Elon actually is the original founder of Tesla and not a phony. At best he's their money guy. Do you think Elon knows a single thing about rockets? Do you actually think he has literally anything to do with them? He isn't even capable of forming a sentence without stuttering, much less actually doing literally anything at all. Keep defending your pedophiles, bro. I'm sure in 10 years you'll…

Yes , he does. And making fun of people who stutter isn’t a good look.

I will take the word of the world’s foremost rocket engine engineer who was in the room with Musk a lot of times, to someone posting in ignorance on the Internet.

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