4 ms·
Lets design a system for creating dangerous diseases. We'll take millions of some species we know tend to pass viruses to and from people, say poultry and pigs
by justin_vanw 17y ago
Lets design a system for creating dangerous diseases. We'll take millions of some species we know tend to pass viruses to and from people, say poultry and pigs. Now, lets pack as many together as we possibly can, to the point that they are incredibly stressed, and bonus points if they are physically rubbing against each other all the time, and exposed to each others feces. Now, we need to keep the sick ones alive as long as possible. Let's pump them full of antibiotics, steroids, or whatever else might keep them ambulatory. It's important that any sick animals stay with the rest, so that any disease microbe with a mutation that makes the disease more easily spread are captured in the population, and not left to die in some barn where the animal is quarantined, say. Now, make sure that you keep animals in each location at all times, any gaps where there are no animals in a facility (or merely too few to act as a reservoir) would destroy any mutations unique to that population. Finally, have lots of discrete locations with just a little transfer between them. This way, a successful new disease will have to be virulent enough to invade other locations. This means it will have to either spread to wild birds or other animals, or humans. Finally it also means that it will have the chance to evolve in an environment where the hosts have minimal natural immunity to it. Now you just have to sit back and wait, sooner or later something truly deadly will pop out.
To address the article directly: only factory farming has animals penned so tightly they can't even stand up. Only factory farming makes the air so foul that you still can't breath on the next farm over. Only factory farming requires the air in the barns to be completely turned over every 20 minutes to prevent the animals inside from suffocating on fumes from decomposing feces.
- socratees 17y agoI completely agree with you. In addition, Biotech and gene modification cause as much damage to our ecosystem just like factory farming. In fact factory farming in most of the cases is about genetically modified cattle & poultry. Apart from the ethical issue of whether we can let someone patent seeds and genes, we also face the issue where we facilitate the transmission of disease causing genes from one species to another.
- Quarrelsome 17y agoWait... so creating scenarios where the chances of getting diseases is bad? So cities are bad? Hospitals? MRSA was produced in hospitals, are all these ideas bad? I believe these ideas need work. The human race tends to blindly run in a direction until it hits a wall, so our current wall is bird flu and swine flu. Sure, we need to improve our course of direction or find ways to mitigate against these diseases but I don't think it helps trying to paint this "running" as being more "immoral", "wrong" or "greedy" than it would otherwise be.
- jrockway 17y agoWe don't really have a solution to resistant bacteria in hospitals. You have to go there to get medical care, and everything has to be cleaned. This combination of sick people and constant disinfection creates resistant bacterial strains, but unfortunately, the human race does not yet know how to fix this problem. We are doing our best. Factory farming, on the other hand, is harmful to animals and the general health of the planet. We know how to avoid the problems, but it takes a few months longer to get the meat from the animals that way, and time is money. Plus, creating a worldwide pandemic doesn't cut into the profit margin -- treating the animals humanely does. You want cheap meat, riiiight?
- Quarrelsome 17y agoYou can argue this the other way too: Why don't we return to older mechanisms of healing people. Why have hospitals for efficiency when we can have more traveling and local doctors? Factory healthcare is harmful to humans, we know how to avoid these problems but it would be expensive to fund this way and money is money. You want cheap healthcare, riiight? Sorry to me mean and argumentative but I think you're adding some FUD to this debate. The issue at hand is bird flu and swine flu and prevention of these. However I note that animal rights is also being pushed as an agenda. I'm not sure _everyone_ cares about that.
- biohacker42 17y agoMRSA was produced in hospitals, are all these ideas bad? Yes. MRSA is a result of bad use of antibiotics and bad hygiene practice in hospitals. Studies have shown that when a hospital goes above and beyond in enforcing hygiene MRSA, and all other infections, drop perspicuously. We also know that proper use of antibiotics almost never results in antibiotic resistant bacterial strains. So the practices that lead to MRSA, and those include farm use of antibiotics, are bad and should be changed.
- jacoblyles 17y agoI'm sorry, but I'm an engineer and I have a fetish for numbers. Could you quantify the harm that is being done by the methods you oppose? If not, then we really don't have a basis for making decisions. In fact, this tirade looks like a bunch of over-the-top descriptions meant to appeal to peoples' emotions and prejudices - that is, baseless fearmongering.
- justin_vanw 17y agoAs opposed to what, baseless accusations of fear mongering? I live in North Carolina, and if you drive through Cape Fear with the windows open you wouldn't be so sure of yourself. It is not my responsibility to educate you with every comment that I make. My comment was a response to the article, and it's absurdities. If you are too lazy, or perhaps you just don't care enough to look the details of factory farming up for yourself, why are you willing to publicly denounce other people on the same topic?
- easp 17y agoAt least he proposes a hypothesis about the issue. The only hypothesis you advance is basically: I don't believe you, so I don't have to provide evidence either, and besides, you sound like a crazy.