Man Play God and the Result is an Airborne Virus
I came across this piece in the New York Times about this airborne bird flu virus that has been in the news for the last few days. What strikes me the most about this story is to see how money, or better said taxpayer money has been used to improve the performance of a natural entity.
But not to perfect nature in a way that is positive and that it would help humankind and the planet, but quite the opposite, to accelerate its destruction. I believe that once man acquires the capacity to do something he will do it, no matter how bad or wrong that something could be.
Years ago the debate of stem cells extracted from embryos was in vogue. I remember George W. Bush stance on it. He banned funding for stem cell research on embryos. His decision may have had a religious foundation, one in parallel with Christian right beliefs on life at conception and the duty of the state to protect defenseless life. In my opinion, had it not been for Bush position, scientists would have never focused an alternative ways to stem cell extraction other than the ones that require an embryo to be destroyed.
A tough stance was needed to make scientists find alternative routes, and this is my point: Man chose the roads that he wants to travel, because roads are not laid out before of you, roads are built while we walk. And the roads that you build as you walk take you to the destination you have chosen in advance.
If you choose destruction, then you will build the road to destruction destination. That's is what is at stake with scientific investigation that results in airborne viruses and things like that. We are told that within the decade the now secret information detailing the architecture of the newly created virus will reach terrorists or other bad guys. Trust that will happen, because a new value on earth has been created, one that some people will be willing to pay money for and put it to use.
A value that is man created and whose tag price comes from its efficacy and potential for self-destruction.
As the NYTimes article say " The A(H5N1) bird flu was first recognized in Hong Kong in 1997, when chickens in poultry markets began dying and 18 people fell ill, 6 of them fatally. Hoping to stamp out the virus, the government in Hong Kong destroyed the country’s entire poultry industry — killing more than a million birds — in just a few days. Buddhist monks and nuns in Hong Kong prayed for the souls of the slaughtered chickens, and world health officials praised Hong Kong for averting a potential pandemic.
But the virus persisted in other parts of Asia, and reached Europe and Africa; that worries scientists, because most bird flus emerge briefly and then vanish. Millions of infected birds have died, and many millions more have been slaughtered. Since 1997, about 600 humans have been infected, and more than half died."
I can only hope that ten years from now human beings are not going to be mass slaughtered like sick chickens because of a state funded experiment gone astray. One thing we should do to help decrease the damage: start putting money in the worldwide population of Buddhist monks and nuns: there will not be enough of them to pray for our souls. That whether airborne chicken flu could be weaponized or not.
Which triggers the next set of questions: How many chickens souls one single Buddhist monk can pray for? Or what is the maximum amount of chicken souls a Buddhist monk can pray for in a daily basis? Can a Buddhist monk pray for more than a human soul at a time? If so, how many? Given the possibility that the answer to the last question is positive, how can we reduce costs per Buddhist monk and increase productivity? So out of a total world population of Buddhist monks and sacrificed "human chickens," how much money should be allocated per Buddhist monastery? Obviously this will have to be complemented by a mechanism of checks and balances so that the moneys will be spent accordingly. That way we could rest assured that our souls one day will be in peace.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/27/science/debate-persists-on-deadly-flu-made-airborne.html?hp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virus
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/20/us/20stem.html
http://www.nature.com/news/2009/091108/full/news.2009.1070.html?s=news_rss
http://www.stemcellresearch.org/
President George W. Bush Address on Stem Cell Research
Obama Ends Funding Ban for Stem Cell Research
U.S. Judge Rules against Obama's Stem Cell Policy
But not to perfect nature in a way that is positive and that it would help humankind and the planet, but quite the opposite, to accelerate its destruction. I believe that once man acquires the capacity to do something he will do it, no matter how bad or wrong that something could be.
Years ago the debate of stem cells extracted from embryos was in vogue. I remember George W. Bush stance on it. He banned funding for stem cell research on embryos. His decision may have had a religious foundation, one in parallel with Christian right beliefs on life at conception and the duty of the state to protect defenseless life. In my opinion, had it not been for Bush position, scientists would have never focused an alternative ways to stem cell extraction other than the ones that require an embryo to be destroyed.
A tough stance was needed to make scientists find alternative routes, and this is my point: Man chose the roads that he wants to travel, because roads are not laid out before of you, roads are built while we walk. And the roads that you build as you walk take you to the destination you have chosen in advance.
If you choose destruction, then you will build the road to destruction destination. That's is what is at stake with scientific investigation that results in airborne viruses and things like that. We are told that within the decade the now secret information detailing the architecture of the newly created virus will reach terrorists or other bad guys. Trust that will happen, because a new value on earth has been created, one that some people will be willing to pay money for and put it to use.
A value that is man created and whose tag price comes from its efficacy and potential for self-destruction.
As the NYTimes article say " The A(H5N1) bird flu was first recognized in Hong Kong in 1997, when chickens in poultry markets began dying and 18 people fell ill, 6 of them fatally. Hoping to stamp out the virus, the government in Hong Kong destroyed the country’s entire poultry industry — killing more than a million birds — in just a few days. Buddhist monks and nuns in Hong Kong prayed for the souls of the slaughtered chickens, and world health officials praised Hong Kong for averting a potential pandemic.
But the virus persisted in other parts of Asia, and reached Europe and Africa; that worries scientists, because most bird flus emerge briefly and then vanish. Millions of infected birds have died, and many millions more have been slaughtered. Since 1997, about 600 humans have been infected, and more than half died."
I can only hope that ten years from now human beings are not going to be mass slaughtered like sick chickens because of a state funded experiment gone astray. One thing we should do to help decrease the damage: start putting money in the worldwide population of Buddhist monks and nuns: there will not be enough of them to pray for our souls. That whether airborne chicken flu could be weaponized or not.
Which triggers the next set of questions: How many chickens souls one single Buddhist monk can pray for? Or what is the maximum amount of chicken souls a Buddhist monk can pray for in a daily basis? Can a Buddhist monk pray for more than a human soul at a time? If so, how many? Given the possibility that the answer to the last question is positive, how can we reduce costs per Buddhist monk and increase productivity? So out of a total world population of Buddhist monks and sacrificed "human chickens," how much money should be allocated per Buddhist monastery? Obviously this will have to be complemented by a mechanism of checks and balances so that the moneys will be spent accordingly. That way we could rest assured that our souls one day will be in peace.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/27/science/debate-persists-on-deadly-flu-made-airborne.html?hp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virus
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/20/us/20stem.html
http://www.nature.com/news/2009/091108/full/news.2009.1070.html?s=news_rss
http://www.stemcellresearch.org/
President George W. Bush Address on Stem Cell Research
Obama Ends Funding Ban for Stem Cell Research
U.S. Judge Rules against Obama's Stem Cell Policy
posted by Renelio @ 12/27/2011 12:33:00 PM
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