Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : Booms, Busts, and Recoveries -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TobagoJack who wrote (30483)	3/31/2003 12:29:28 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

Jay, I don't think the bug has a chance. The poor thing. I'm vacillating. Initially, when Gwynne Dyer pointed it out [I find him about the best commentator there is on world things], I thought it a very serious worry on the scale of bubonic plague in the dark ages or whenever it was. Except that he pointed out that the European plague was actually not bubonic but more likely a haemorraghic fever or chicken flu because they isolated people and fleas from rats wouldn't have been affected by isolation, but isolation worked. But then, nothing seemed to happen. Then it happened and I thought "Here we go" and have ranted each time. Like the bubble and the panics, it shows once again how slowly the mass of humanity picks up on things, even of a highly dangerous nature. I see you were quick on the case [thanks to my advice I hope, or at least prompted a little by your kiwi methane canary]. Then I decided, no, it's a fizzer. The reaction seemed to have controlled it. Then, suddenly, over a week, we got a bunch more cases and deaths [not just the newly reported ones from China]. Now, it seems to be fizzling again. With 30% masks, I suspect it is in trouble, along with many other infections which are hugely destructive of hordes of people. Inadvertently, the new attention to hygiene could put hospitals out of business, in the infectious diseases departments anyway. Even AIDS is going to lose its grip. Diseases need vectors of transmission to hang onto their hosts. People are closing off many transmission modes and that'll annoy a LOT of diseases. The scary part is that with a lot of people now infected, the probability of a virulent mutation increases and the rate of propagation could soar as well as the mortality of it. It was only in considering the disease that I thought of what diseases actually are and do. They are genocide weapons employed by the genetically immune [or at least able to host the bug while surviving] to kill off competing humans. Those who can't host the bug are killed! I have never thought of disease like that, though I've been aware that Europeans brought bugs to New Zealand and those bugs killed off swarms of Maoris. It is symbiotic warfare! The bug and resistant humans gang up to kill off those who can't carry the bug, which also has the happy outcome of making a lot of territory available for the tough humans to take over to propagate their gene pool. Anyway, whether the UN or Bush approves or not, it's genocide and germ warfare. So far, no big deal. But it's a dangerous area for those of us who are susceptible. Mqurice