Vengeance Libertarianism

Major Variola (ret) mv at cdc.gov
Fri Jan 2 10:35:11 PST 2004


At 08:45 PM 12/31/03 -0500, John Kelsey wrote:
>
>You do know she's been trying the same scheme for several hundred
thousand
>years, right?  As an artist, I think she's in a creative decline.
Ebola is
>picturesque and flashy, but not all that scary unless your funeral
rites
>involve lots of contact with the blood of your dearly departed.

I think E. is a bit more contagious than you recognize.  It just hasn't
had the chance to play in dense pops.

AIDS is
>more subtle, rather like syphlus before good antibiotics, but it's not
her
>best work.

Yeah but the meatbots do love to spread it, and here you again fail to
recognize Her subtlety.

Even SARS is Yet Another Coughed Contagion.  If I recall
>correctly, smallpox got 90% of the American Indians who were exposed,
and
>measles killed something like 1/3 of Roman citizens.

Smallpox would reduce real estate prices by 1/3 at least, possibly
more in cities.  An interesting question is what decline (and what
rate of decline) west.civ. can tolerate these days.

Still, looking at the Roman Empire (aka paleo-cons) disease isn't
necessary,
though it sure helps.  Famine and war are pretty good cards in Her Hands
too.

Guns, germs, and steel, baby.





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