4 ms·

bio-terrorism is not effective.

by Omavel 5y ago

tyingq 5y ago
What's "effective" mean in this context? The anthrax letters in the US in 2001 certainly dominated news cycles.
- ekianjo 5y ago
  And killed very few people. That's what we call terrorism (lots of news coverage for very few deaths) - it's not effective in doing anything but news cycles.
  - tyingq 5y ago
    5 envelopes, 5 dead, 17 more infected.
  - emptyfile 5y ago
    >it's not effective in doing anything but news cycles. That's literally the desired effect. What you're thiking of is war.
    - ekianjo 5y ago
      I was referring to the original comment above: > It sounds like you could infect thousands/millions Its not the right way to infect millions of people. It does not scale. Therefore not effective.
  - triceratops 5y ago
    "Terror" is the point of "terrorism". It's in the word.
    - ekianjo 5y ago
      Terror only propagates through mass media. Mass media is the issue.
      - PKop 5y ago
        Given that an attack of this sort would be propagated through mass media, then the claim that the attack would be ineffective is wrong.
        ekianjo 5y ago
        ineffective to kill millions which was the initial claim.
    - inglor_cz 5y ago
      Point of terrorism is achieving a political change through terror. Terror is not the end in itself. From this point of view, mailing of anthrax in 2001 was very inefficient.
      - jessaustin 5y ago
        We need to expand the set of possible actors and goals. The anthrax campaign happened immediately after 9/11. The result of the campaign was the end of effective political opposition to the massive expansion of military and "secret" aspects of the USA government made possible by 9/11. Cui bono? Certainly not the several implausible patsies the authorities immediately had lined up to blame. Numerous USA calamities make a lot more sense when we study them with an eye toward who benefits rather than who is blamed.
      - Dah00n 5y ago
        What made 9/11 such a successful terrorist attack was that it made the US live in fear. That is a change (and it hasn't changed back). Terror (fear) is a perfectly fine end in itself for terrorism. The anthrax mailing caused changes and fear in US society with very little work. That sounds like a very efficient terrorist attack IMO.
  - Dah00n 5y ago
    > it's not effective in doing anything but news cycles. "The unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims" is a definition of terrorism. Death count is irrelevant (outside of spreading fear itself). Zero deaths in a terrorist attack could still be a very effective attack. Spreading something that causes a hideous disease in a city and causing mass hysteria could be an excellent terrorist tactic. Likely better than a bomb that kills a few people.
- myWindoonn 5y ago
  The most effective bioterror attack in the USA was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_Rajneeshee_bioterror_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_Rajneeshee_bioterror_atta... and it killed zero people, affecting 751 people in total. Bioterror is expensive and difficult. For prions specifically, the main "problem" (which is a good thing overall for us) is that they're naked proteins, and they denature relatively quickly when outside of a protective environment. Spray them onto crops? Crops and soil are covered in small bugs and microbes which break down anything too long, including proteins and carbohydrate chains. No, in order to have prions in the food supply, you need something like cannabalistic cow-raising practices or other ways of recycling prions in a wet+hot safe environment.
  - Apocryphon 5y ago
    So you just inject them into the food supply?
  - Johnny555 5y ago
    Can’t you just spray them into a hamburger meat grinder at a meat packing plant to protect the prions in beef? But it’d be a pretty ineffective terror attack if it takes 10 years for people to show symptoms… though that could also mean that attack was already made 5 years ago and we just don’t know yet.
  - Marsymars 5y ago
    > For prions specifically, the main "problem" (which is a good thing overall for us) is that they're naked proteins, and they denature relatively quickly when outside of a protective environment. How does this jive with the seemingly extreme difficulty of effective sterilization of prion-contaminated objects? https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/32/9/1348/291736 https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/32/9/1348/291736
  - Dah00n 5y ago
    >affecting 751 people in total. That is not how terror is defined though. The amount affected by terrorism is the amount of people that get terrorised by the act, not the amount that gets sick, dies or know someone who did. Using your definition 9/11 only affected aprox. 10.000 people but in reality if cased mass hysteria and fear in the US (and elsewhere) that is still there today.
nabla9 5y ago
Terrorism that is effective is usually called warfare, genocide or something else.
- natmaka 5y ago
  Indeed. http://exiledonline.com/wn-38-ira-vs-al-qaeda-i-was-wrong/ http://exiledonline.com/wn-38-ira-vs-al-qaeda-i-was-wrong/

bio-terrorism is not effective.

by Omavel 5y ago

bio-terrorism is not effective.

tyingq 5y ago

What's "effective" mean in this context? The anthrax letters in the US in 2001 certainly dominated news cycles.

ekianjo 5y ago
And killed very few people. That's what we call terrorism (lots of news coverage for very few deaths) - it's not effective in doing anything but news cycles.
- tyingq 5y ago
  5 envelopes, 5 dead, 17 more infected.
- emptyfile 5y ago
  >it's not effective in doing anything but news cycles. That's literally the desired effect. What you're thiking of is war.
  - ekianjo 5y ago
    I was referring to the original comment above: > It sounds like you could infect thousands/millions Its not the right way to infect millions of people. It does not scale. Therefore not effective.
- triceratops 5y ago
  "Terror" is the point of "terrorism". It's in the word.
  - ekianjo 5y ago
    Terror only propagates through mass media. Mass media is the issue.
    - PKop 5y ago
      Given that an attack of this sort would be propagated through mass media, then the claim that the attack would be ineffective is wrong.
      - ekianjo 5y ago
        ineffective to kill millions which was the initial claim.
  - inglor_cz 5y ago
    Point of terrorism is achieving a political change through terror. Terror is not the end in itself. From this point of view, mailing of anthrax in 2001 was very inefficient.
    - jessaustin 5y ago
      We need to expand the set of possible actors and goals. The anthrax campaign happened immediately after 9/11. The result of the campaign was the end of effective political opposition to the massive expansion of military and "secret" aspects of the USA government made possible by 9/11. Cui bono? Certainly not the several implausible patsies the authorities immediately had lined up to blame. Numerous USA calamities make a lot more sense when we study them with an eye toward who benefits rather than who is blamed.
    - Dah00n 5y ago
      What made 9/11 such a successful terrorist attack was that it made the US live in fear. That is a change (and it hasn't changed back). Terror (fear) is a perfectly fine end in itself for terrorism. The anthrax mailing caused changes and fear in US society with very little work. That sounds like a very efficient terrorist attack IMO.
- Dah00n 5y ago
  > it's not effective in doing anything but news cycles. "The unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims" is a definition of terrorism. Death count is irrelevant (outside of spreading fear itself). Zero deaths in a terrorist attack could still be a very effective attack. Spreading something that causes a hideous disease in a city and causing mass hysteria could be an excellent terrorist tactic. Likely better than a bomb that kills a few people.
myWindoonn 5y ago
The most effective bioterror attack in the USA was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_Rajneeshee_bioterror_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_Rajneeshee_bioterror_atta... and it killed zero people, affecting 751 people in total. Bioterror is expensive and difficult. For prions specifically, the main "problem" (which is a good thing overall for us) is that they're naked proteins, and they denature relatively quickly when outside of a protective environment. Spray them onto crops? Crops and soil are covered in small bugs and microbes which break down anything too long, including proteins and carbohydrate chains. No, in order to have prions in the food supply, you need something like cannabalistic cow-raising practices or other ways of recycling prions in a wet+hot safe environment.
- Apocryphon 5y ago
  So you just inject them into the food supply?
- Johnny555 5y ago
  Can’t you just spray them into a hamburger meat grinder at a meat packing plant to protect the prions in beef? But it’d be a pretty ineffective terror attack if it takes 10 years for people to show symptoms… though that could also mean that attack was already made 5 years ago and we just don’t know yet.
- Marsymars 5y ago
  > For prions specifically, the main "problem" (which is a good thing overall for us) is that they're naked proteins, and they denature relatively quickly when outside of a protective environment. How does this jive with the seemingly extreme difficulty of effective sterilization of prion-contaminated objects? https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/32/9/1348/291736 https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/32/9/1348/291736
- Dah00n 5y ago
  >affecting 751 people in total. That is not how terror is defined though. The amount affected by terrorism is the amount of people that get terrorised by the act, not the amount that gets sick, dies or know someone who did. Using your definition 9/11 only affected aprox. 10.000 people but in reality if cased mass hysteria and fear in the US (and elsewhere) that is still there today.

nabla9 5y ago

Terrorism that is effective is usually called warfare, genocide or something else.

natmaka 5y ago
Indeed. http://exiledonline.com/wn-38-ira-vs-al-qaeda-i-was-wrong/ http://exiledonline.com/wn-38-ira-vs-al-qaeda-i-was-wrong/