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Some friends spent time volunteering at a charity in Russia in the early/mid 90s. When they went out, the charity had just been given an entire army base. Every
by mattkevan 11y ago
Some friends spent time volunteering at a charity in Russia in the early/mid 90s. When they went out, the charity had just been given an entire army base. Everything was left except the weapons – equipment, uniforms, personnel files, the lot.
If that's what a charity managed to acquire through official means, it's quite scary to think what others might have got their hands on.
And my friends got some very warm hats.
- DanielBMarkham 11y agoIt was -- and is -- an insane period of time to live through. What concerns me is that during the last days of the old Soviet Union, they knew the jig was up. They knew it was all falling apart. So they started hiding stuff. Everywhere. Papers were destroyed. Chemical and biological weapons were taken out and buried. So there's one problem with "dangerous stuff we know about and we're worried that it's not being protected well", then there's an entirely different (and more dangerous) problem of "dangerous stuff we never acknowledged existed and nobody has records for where it is any more."
- throwaway2048 11y agoluckily almost all biological and chemical weapons are not stable, and quickly degrade without sophisticated storage. This is especially true of the most nasty stuff (nerve gas, viral agents, etc), which can break down within days of lacking precisely controlled refridgeration.
- DanielBMarkham 11y agoThank you for reminding us of this. This was also in the book, and I forgot to mention it. It's a little ray of hope. Of course, between CRISPR and the fact that much of the knowledge about these bio agents have been in people's heads for decades, there is still a considerable amount of risk in this area.