We we'rnt "Green" in the old days.

[Arragonis]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Hasn't been for decades, because (except for samples held in a couple of high-security labs) the smallpox virus is extinct.

There was a debate recently about destroying this (or maybe a similar virus) - should we make a life-form deliberately extinct ?

[user removed]

I can think of a few life forms I would like to see go extinct .

regards
Mech

[Arragonis]

Originally Posted by Old Mechanic

I can think of a few life forms I would like to see go extinct .

regards
Mech

Ultimately though you have to consider do you want to be responsible for the idea of deliberately making another life form - however harmful or annoying - extinct ? Nobody has had that power before, I find it profound.

[Varn]

I can see a good reason to contain Small Pox. I can see some governments creating massive warfare on civilian populations. Thinking of Red China, North Korea, Iran.

Extinction is a natural part of life. Probably millions of species are now extinct that were once thriving populations, nothing new about extinction.

[Vman455]

Originally Posted by Arragonis

Ultimately though you have to consider do you want to be responsible for the idea of deliberately making another life form - however harmful or annoying - extinct ? Nobody has had that power before, I find it profound.

We've had that power for some time, and continue to wield it. We just don't think about it. When the last passenger pigeon [or insert any number of species here] died, it was too late to ponder whether we should have killed them all or not.

[shovel]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

I beg to differ. Ever know anyone with smallpox, or polio? This is what life was like in the old, old, days: Voltaire, "Letters on the English".

I'm not disagreeing with this. I'm questioning why we're fighting wars against human beings when we could declare wholesale war on pathogens like AIDS and influenza and malaria, and throw equal effort at stamping out the causes of war like resource shortages and cultural inequality, so that both combat and the taking of non-combatant life ceases to be a concept in its entirety. I stopped fighting with my sister when she and I stopped being children. Now, despite being different from each other and pursuing different goals we love each other and respect what each other can do. It's called "growing up" and I'm ashamed of humanity for not doing in 200,000 years what we two siblings managed in less than 20.

That is why I have such distaste for nostalgia. Progress is good. Because of progress we DID eliminate polio and smallpox. That was progress and in order for it to keep working we have to keep progressing.

Hypothetically speaking, if a non-human species of alien came from space and started killing us, it would be the job of the military to fight back, right? So why does the attacking species have to be from space? I'm not saying to put GI's in hummers to stamp out AIDS, but I'd rather spend military money attacking the very real threat of pathogenic disease than the vague threat of some equally vulnerable human neighbors on another patch of land than us.

It's a GOOD thing our recent ancestors killed polio and smallpox. It's a BAD thing that they went on to discover it's more profitable to treat than to cure disease.

Originally Posted by Arragonis

Ultimately though you have to consider do you want to be responsible for the idea of deliberately making another life form - however harmful or annoying - extinct ? Nobody has had that power before, I find it profound.

Well, the "Native" Americans are alleged to have wiped out the Si Te Cah...

[shovel]

To add to that, I spent a lot of time in Los Angeles during the 80s and remember coming over the Grapevine to see a soup-like atmosphere above the valley, resembling this

Now, when I make the same drive there's a bit of smog, but it's nothing like it used to be. More people, but during the 80s there were still an awful lot of carbureted cars with non-catalyst exhaust systems flatulating all sorts of leaden vapors into the air. These days if I get behind some old carbureted junker I notice it because unlike all the modern cars on the road, I can actually smell its exhaust funk. The past sucked, for real.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by shovel

I'm not disagreeing with this. I'm questioning why we're fighting wars against human beings...

At the present time, it's because those other human beings believe that their deity wants them to subjugate the rest of the world. Similarly, it's because in the past different groups of other humans wanted to subjugate the rest of the world to their particular ideas.

[Frank Lee]

I went to L.A. for the first time in the '80s and I was sick the whole time. I think it was because I could scoop the air aside with a spoon.

[Arragonis]

To paraphrase a famous poem - I shot an arrow in the air, it stuck.