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Looks Geneforge could become reality...

Unbound Draykon

By Unbound Draykon
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Dantius
Easygoing Eyebeast

Dantius

Posted
Posted
Originally Posted By: Golgoth
But What causes more terror than killing many, What would scare you more a disease that could have a small chance of killing you or one that has a large chance of killing you?


Remember the anthrax mail scares a few years back? Killed a few dozen people. Terrified the nation. I would bet that hundreds of times as many people drown is swimming pools annually.

Which is scarier?
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Dikiyoba
Magnificent Ornk

Dikiyoba

Posted
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Originally Posted By: Goldenking
I'd definitely say not. Five to ten years is a long time for a virus. Sure, something dormant like that could spread amongst a lot of people really fast. However, it would certainly not be reliable to suddenly become deadly, as viruses tend to do this thing called mutation, annoyingly enough for everyone.

And if you plan on having the entire virus mutate at once, as seen in our example game, Pandemic, don't hold your breath. The virus would have to mutate in one spot, first, and spread all over again. It wouldn't be able to near instantaneously kill large swathes of the population infected with its predecessor.

Thankfully enough.

You wouldn't have to have your virus remain completely dormant. It can replicate and do whatever it wants as long as it doesn't produce any symptoms to tip people off that they have it for an extended period of time. It wouldn't suddenly need to mutate to become deadly either. Five to ten years may be a bit long, but there are viruses that can go a year or two without causing visible problems.

If for some reason you wanted to wait a really long time to see the results of your secret epidemic, well, there are prions.

Dikiyoba.
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Golgoth
Chittering Clawbug

Golgoth

Posted
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Originally Posted By: Dantius

Remember the anthrax mail scares a few years back? Killed a few dozen people. Terrified the nation. I would bet that hundreds of times as many people drown is swimming pools annually.

Which is scarier?

That was right after the 9/11 attacks which in turn caused people to straight away be worried there would be a pandimenic
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Lilith
Hatchling Cockatrice

Lilith

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Originally Posted By: Golgoth
That was right after the 9/11 attacks which in turn caused people to straight away be worried there would be a pandimenic


why would the 9/11 attacks have made an anthrax pandemic more likely

anthrax bacilli don't read the news

also as far as the public consciousness is concerned it's still "right after the 9/11 attacks"
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Slawbug
Hatchling Cockatrice

Slawbug

Posted
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Originally Posted By: Lilith
also as far as the public consciousness is concerned it's still "right after the 9/11 attacks"

Is it that way in Australia? It isn't that way in the U.S., where a series of major domestic problems (beginning with Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and culminating in the ongoing financial crisis) gradually weakened the chokehold 9/11 had on public consciousness here.

Or maybe my perspective is skewed by the fact that I teach kids who are too young to remember much about 9/11 at all.
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Alorael at Large
Hatchling Cockatrice

Alorael at Large

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The best thing to do would be to strike a major private university with, say, smallpox right before a major vacation. You'd shut down the institution and spread your disease across the country and the world.

 

—Alorael, who doesn't think the anthrax pandemic fears were about contagion so much as a mass anthrax spamming campaign. It never materialized. The terrorists never worked out how to email anthrax.

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Dantius
Easygoing Eyebeast

Dantius

Posted
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Originally Posted By: Cold-Drake Equations
The best thing to do would be to strike a major private university with, say, smallpox right before a major vacation. You'd shut down the institution and spread your disease across the country and the world.

—Alorael, who doesn't think the anthrax pandemic fears were about contagion so much as a mass anthrax spamming campaign. It never materialized. The terrorists never worked out how to email anthrax.


In other news, my agents have just come up with this picture of Aloreal:
Click to reveal..

osama-bin-laden-part-2.jpg


No wonder he changes aliases so often!
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RCCCL
Rotghroth Rhapsody

RCCCL

Posted
Posted
Originally Posted By: Dantius
Originally Posted By: Cold-Drake Equations
The best thing to do would be to strike a major private university with, say, smallpox right before a major vacation. You'd shut down the institution and spread your disease across the country and the world.

—Alorael, who doesn't think the anthrax pandemic fears were about contagion so much as a mass anthrax spamming campaign. It never materialized. The terrorists never worked out how to email anthrax.


In other news, my agents have just come up with this picture of Aloreal:
Click to reveal..

osama-bin-laden-part-2.jpg


No wonder he changes aliases so often!


On the off chance that Dantius is correct, I would like to take this opportunity to offer my condolences to his family. The tragic assassination of Dantius has struck a deep chord in all of us.
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Sporefrog
Garrulous Glaahk

Sporefrog

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To elaborate on HIV, which was aptly mentioned: a disease absolutely can produce negligible symptoms, be latent for 5-10 years, and then be extremely deadly:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hiv-timecourse.png

 

Now if a HIV-like pathogen were able to travel by aerosol or some other faster and less containable method than bodily fluid exchange, that could be problematic.

 

As far as a new pathogen simply being used as a terrorist's scare tactic and not actually wiping out large swaths of humans: sure, but I don't think Venter's research fundamentally changes the game from what terrorism resources are already available.

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Alorael at Large
Hatchling Cockatrice

Alorael at Large

Posted
Posted
Originally Posted By: Dantius
In other news, my agents have just come up with this picture of Aloreal:

Gasp! Where is this dastard and what is he doing with something so similar to my own moniker!?

—Alorael, who would like to add syphilis to the list of infectious diseases with very long latencies. And for non-STD options, consider chicken pox (or, later, shingles), and, for something very different, the prion-caused disease kuru.
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The Mystic
Easygoing Eyebeast

The Mystic

Posted
Posted
Originally Posted By: Randomizer
You aren't familiar with the concept of server crashes. Lots of people have lost data that was supposedly safe when it happens and backups only have part of the lost data. Microsoft had it only this year.
Nice try; I already anticipated this, thanks to my old laptop's hard drive finally dying almost a year ago, causing me to lose the backup copies of nearly all my programs (I save the documents elsewhere).

I plan to make at least two or three full copies of myself on separate servers immediately after the initial upload, thus ensuring I'll live forever in one way or another.
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Thaluikhain
Rotghroth Rhapsody

Thaluikhain

Posted
Posted
Originally Posted By: The Mystic
Originally Posted By: Randomizer
You aren't familiar with the concept of server crashes. Lots of people have lost data that was supposedly safe when it happens and backups only have part of the lost data. Microsoft had it only this year.
Nice try; I already anticipated this, thanks to my old laptop's hard drive finally dying almost a year ago, causing me to lose the backup copies of nearly all my programs (I save the documents elsewhere).

I plan to make at least two or three full copies of myself on separate servers immediately after the initial upload, thus ensuring I'll live forever in one way or another.


A reasonable idea, but then what happens when you become abandonware?

And, do you really want 3 different copies of yourself floating round cyberspace, all claiming to be the real you?
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The Mystic
Easygoing Eyebeast

The Mystic

Posted
Posted
Originally Posted By: Thaluikhain
A reasonable idea, but then what happens when you become abandonware?
Self-aware abandonware. That's very interesting...
Originally Posted By: Thaluikhain
And, do you really want 3 different copies of yourself floating round cyberspace, all claiming to be the real you?
Don't worry, I'll be able to tell. And I'm not telling how.

Just be thankful there's only one of me in real life. tongue
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