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Or it was engineered by a prior civilization in the Paleolithic age and left the virus to roam the earth for this specific purpose (Perhaps all their recorded

Or it was engineered by a prior civilization in the Paleolithic age and left the virus to roam the earth for this specific purpose (Perhaps all their recorded history was digital or otherwise ephemeral so we cant find it, assuming history repeats itself)

Krasnol 7y ago
Erich is it you?
- pilsetnieks 7y ago
  Erich von Däniken is the ancient aliens guy; you're thinking Graham Hancock, he's the ancient advanced civilizations guy.
  - magduf 7y ago
    To be fair, the idea of ancient advanced civilizations is slightly more believable than ancient aliens, simply due to the difficulties associated with traversing star systems. Even worse, both of these ideas, while obvious "crackpot" territory, are much more believable and less fantastical than the claims of most of our current religions, which most people in the world still believe. So as long as we continue to respect peoples' religious beliefs, I have a hard time with dismissing these ancient aliens/advanced civilizations claims out-of-hand.
    - rolltiide 7y ago
      Viruses make a lot more sense as engineered technology intended to prevent a biological error state instead of part of a random evolutionary outcome
      - p1esk 7y ago
        Why?
      - magduf 7y ago
        This makes no sense at all. First, if you have the ability to engineer a bioweapon like this and spread it around to eliminate cancer in humans, why wouldn't you just genetically engineer the humans to not have cancer (i.e., just bake the ability into people, instead of having an airborne agent which will have much less efficacy since not everyone will catch it)? And secondly, why would you want to give people the suffering that comes with colds? So, that leaves 2 possibilities: 1) Cold viruses were engineered, but they evolved to their present state where they're actually a big nuisance rather than a big help, or 2) Cold viruses were just a natural evolutionary outcome. Either way involves cold viruses getting to their present state through evolution (both ways being undesirable to humans), not engineering, and #2 satisfies Occam's Razor better because of what I wrote at the top (i.e., engineering contagious viruses to fix a problem in human biology is a Rube Goldberg-esque solution). I guess if you really want to get wacky, you could postulate that in this ancient society, they had some sort of religion or philosophy that humans shouldn't be biologically "tampered with", so either most people or at least the authorities would have rejected a straightforward medical solution, so some rogue person or group came up with the virus scheme (somewhat similar to how we can't get everyone to actually update their software to fix security vulnerabilities).
SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
The great old ones, in their sunken cities, had no problem with breast and prostate cancer, but they couldn't stand bladder cancer?
- magduf 7y ago
  No, the Atlantians engineered the virus to combat all cancers. But it mutated after their disappearance and now only stops bladder cancer, while causing some really annoying symptoms.

Krasnol 7y ago

Erich is it you?

pilsetnieks 7y ago
Erich von Däniken is the ancient aliens guy; you're thinking Graham Hancock, he's the ancient advanced civilizations guy.
- magduf 7y ago
  To be fair, the idea of ancient advanced civilizations is slightly more believable than ancient aliens, simply due to the difficulties associated with traversing star systems. Even worse, both of these ideas, while obvious "crackpot" territory, are much more believable and less fantastical than the claims of most of our current religions, which most people in the world still believe. So as long as we continue to respect peoples' religious beliefs, I have a hard time with dismissing these ancient aliens/advanced civilizations claims out-of-hand.
  - rolltiide 7y ago
    Viruses make a lot more sense as engineered technology intended to prevent a biological error state instead of part of a random evolutionary outcome
    - p1esk 7y ago
      Why?
    - magduf 7y ago
      This makes no sense at all. First, if you have the ability to engineer a bioweapon like this and spread it around to eliminate cancer in humans, why wouldn't you just genetically engineer the humans to not have cancer (i.e., just bake the ability into people, instead of having an airborne agent which will have much less efficacy since not everyone will catch it)? And secondly, why would you want to give people the suffering that comes with colds? So, that leaves 2 possibilities: 1) Cold viruses were engineered, but they evolved to their present state where they're actually a big nuisance rather than a big help, or 2) Cold viruses were just a natural evolutionary outcome. Either way involves cold viruses getting to their present state through evolution (both ways being undesirable to humans), not engineering, and #2 satisfies Occam's Razor better because of what I wrote at the top (i.e., engineering contagious viruses to fix a problem in human biology is a Rube Goldberg-esque solution). I guess if you really want to get wacky, you could postulate that in this ancient society, they had some sort of religion or philosophy that humans shouldn't be biologically "tampered with", so either most people or at least the authorities would have rejected a straightforward medical solution, so some rogue person or group came up with the virus scheme (somewhat similar to how we can't get everyone to actually update their software to fix security vulnerabilities).

SketchySeaBeast 7y ago

The great old ones, in their sunken cities, had no problem with breast and prostate cancer, but they couldn't stand bladder cancer?

magduf 7y ago
No, the Atlantians engineered the virus to combat all cancers. But it mutated after their disappearance and now only stops bladder cancer, while causing some really annoying symptoms.