SCI: How Could an Event in 1997 Cause a Pandemic in 2009? What Happened? , page 2

reply to post by ecoparity

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I agree with these thoughts. All intelligent organizations seek homeostasis. Gaia is no different. We're a cancer on the earth, and gaia will do what she must to reach a balance again. It's only natural.

Here's a link for anyone interested in this: Gaia

reply to post by unityemissions

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My thinking is that Lovelock is a eugenicist, and that "the earth is over-populated" argument has been developed and marketed to serve the eugenics agenda. Not that I don't like Lovelock - I do. I also subscribe to the Gaia hypothesis, and take it further by applying it to biological systems (unlike Lovelock who restricts the idea to the more chemical/climatic).

...Eugenicists believe that economic prowess and social/political power prove genetic superiority. Their main concern is that "the poor breed like rabbits," thereby polluting the human gene pool.

RE: Overpopulation. Every living thing is hard-wired to reproduce if life is threatened - this ensures survival of the species. Conversely, when life is good, reproduction rates fall. Seems obvious to me we should just take care of each other - and not allow the big bullies to take more than they need. Then WE would come into balance with nature, naturally.

It is not the poor masses who are responsible for our planet's problems. Rather, it is corporate greed, and a relatively few unbelievably wealthy power-mongers.

Unlike the poor, the wealthy do not breed like rabbits because they can't. They lost much of their ability to reproduce long ago. A far more reliable indicator of natural selection than economic prowess, in my opinion.

-sofi

Hard to believe nobody's mentioned that Cheney and Rumsfeld's Project for a New American Century was founded in 1997... and that it was 50 years after 1947, when so many significant, world-shaping events occurred. (You've heard of "fifty-year plans," right? If there's one thing to know about Them, it's Their love of numerology.) Saucer retrieved at Roswell, followed in 19 days by the creation of the CIA and Dept. of Defense, and then in four months by someone "accidentally" discovering how to make transistors? Pull the other one. There's no way I'll ever believe it was an accident, that it's all just coincidence... nor will I believe all these new diseases are an accident or coincidence. "Self-organizing criticality," my butt.

Is it easier to believe that not just one or two, but dozens of extremely-unlikely biological mutations and mergings spontaneously occurred all at once, or that someone made them occur? You can know with certainty that people have been deliberately using biological agents since at least the 18th century (smallpox blankets for American Indians in the 1760's), and yet believe that this 1997 explosion of new bio-agents just sorta happened by itself? Let's look at both possibilities for completeness' sake. There are only two possibilities, after all. One of these must be true.

What if there really are powerful evil people out there who are right on the verge of wiping most of us out deliberately? You have to admit that the method to do just that exists right now in bio-labs all over the world, and that a very great many people who own and work in those labs have the opportunity to make it happen. So that only leaves motive. What motive could the powerful have to get rid of most of us, leaving themselves a few bodyguards and slaves each? Well, there you have it right there: they retain their power, they can still live in luxury at the expense of others, they'll each get a country of their very own, and they'll have the natural resources of an entire planet all to themselves. I'd call that "motivation" enough to entice a small group of powerful, evil people to wanna kill us all, wouldn't you? In this scenario, doing nothing means a whole lot of death (and a whole lot of suffering for the few survivors) once They decide to act. In this scenario, it's vital to figure out who They are if you want to have any chance of having a normal life.

And what if all that is not the case, and 1997 really was just random mutations? If so, then no worldwide mass-extinction bio-agent is likely to just spontaneously come into being and go on a rampage, and They won't act, and we won't all die. In this scenario, doing nothing means life just goes on as usual (unless a world-killing virus mutation does occur, of course, which would more than likely be completely unstoppable by the time it's noticed).

So think about the differences between those... and perhaps about what to do to (a) prepare for an "unstoppable" epidemic (hint: colloidal silver generators), and/or (b) locate and stop those making it happen (hint: intervention, both divine and not. Secrets lose all their power once exposed to light...)

Good luck to us all, no matter which possibility is really going on.

Originally posted by soficrow
reply to post by unityemissions

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My thinking is that Lovelock is a eugenicist, and that "the earth is over-populated" argument has been developed and marketed to serve the eugenics agenda. Not that I don't like Lovelock - I do. I also subscribe to the Gaia hypothesis, and take it further by applying it to biological systems (unlike Lovelock who restricts the idea to the more chemical/climatic).

...Eugenicists believe that economic prowess and social/political power prove genetic superiority. Their main concern is that "the poor breed like rabbits," thereby polluting the human gene pool.

I'm interested, why do you think he's a eugenicist? Just for making these claims, or something else?

RE: Overpopulation. Every living thing is hard-wired to reproduce if life is threatened - this ensures survival of the species. Conversely, when life is good, reproduction rates fall. Seems obvious to me we should just take care of each other - and not allow the big bullies to take more than they need. Then WE would come into balance with nature, naturally.

It is not the poor masses who are responsible for our planet's problems. Rather, it is corporate greed, and a relatively few unbelievably wealthy power-mongers.

Unlike the poor, the wealthy do not breed like rabbits because they can't. They lost much of their ability to reproduce long ago. A far more reliable indicator of natural selection than economic prowess, in my opinion.

-sofi

Regardless of socio-economic class, the less intelligent per IQ tests are statistically proven to have more kids especially out of wedlock. So you think the wealthy can't reproduce because....they lost the ability?! Are you thinking most wealthy people are old and shriveled up?

People who are more intelligent are more aware. They look outside of their selves and find the responsibility to limit the amount of children they, and the world, can handle.

How is it not the duty of every citizen of humanity to take responsibility for our actions on the environment? I agree 100% that the corpogovernment elite are instituting policies which are doing the most damage, but it's our duty to put them in check. Each and every one of us.

I tend to agree that the stupid are the majority, and most are breeding like rabbits. I think this is a devolutionary crisis. Does this make me a eugenicist?

reply to post by soficrow

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In addition to the young people this will (and has) killed- and with the knowledge that there was a plan by the governments to release a depopulating agent, here's one more tidbit to "swallow":

www.cnn.com...

Note the end of the interview- not only does CDC expect patients with prior medical conditions, children, pregnant women, etc., to take ill or die from this, they also mention- more than once- obesity as a "pre-existing" medical predisposition to catching the bug. Great way to get rid of a population that has raised insurance rates by billions of dollars, with the expectation that the obese population is the greatest economic strain on the healthcare system. Period. Something to ponder- economics, people with terrible diets who don't exercise (with the rare exception of those who are genuinely overweight for medical reasons); and the perfect opportunity to lower costs accross the board.

reply to post by soficrow

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I hail from West Malaysia, neighboring Singapore. Ironically it was exactly 10 years ago that our country became the scene for one of the deadliest viral outbreak. It was a type of swine flu.

Over 100 people died, mainly pig farmers and it was initially thought to have been caused by a type of Japanese enchapilitis and later thought to be similar to that of the Australian Hendra Virus.

The virus was finanlly identified with the held from US based CDC experts as a new unsen strain and was named after the place it originated from....'Nipah' virus. It was traced to fruits bats who later infected pigs with thier droppings. An excellent documentary was recently aired over National Geography under the title 'Killer Pigs'.

Cheers.

Originally posted by soficrow
"Self-organizing criticality" means forget everything you learned in science class. The rules of biology just changed.

I think you're right, and it's a result of two factors: supra-individual mutation and interaction vector non-linearity.

I guess biology is just catching up to some of this stuff; I have just taken a glance at the current state of computation biomodeling, and it looks pretty weak. There's been lots of advances in TCS complexity theory in the last decade or so that will eventually make their way into new models.

First, with regard to supra-individual mutation (a term I just made up, googled, and found is actually being used). I think the capability of a population of germs, viruses, etc., to adapt and mutate is variable. The adaptation capacity itself evolves:

Natural selection acting on a genetic system will not only discover adaptations, but will also discover more effective ways to discover adaptations. The result will be a genetic system which produces a pattern of variation which is highly differentiated and specialised across the genome.

users.tpg.com.au...

And this capability is not necessarily fully expressed in a single individual of a population. The dynamics of groups within a population can form synergistic evolutionary units, the effects of which are not apparent when studying smaller components.

Combine this with an increase in the number of vectors for interaction and possible migration of phenotypical expression. Humans are creating new 'pathways' for such interactions to occur, at an increasing rate. The obvious example is travel, a well-known disease vector augmenter, but there's so many other factors involved: trade, waterways, environmental homogenization, migratory channeling, etc.

What happens when new "lines" are created by these vectors? Well, if we consider each subpopulation a separate "node", we can being to apply graph and connectivity theory to the problem. This is field that has advanced greatly in the last couple of years - after all, it's what's used to model traffic on the Internet.

An interesting factor, which gives rise to the "criticality": as you add "lines" connecting, at a certain rate, the overall connectivity of the system increases too, when considering possible total pathways of mutation or migration. But, the rate of increase of that overall connectivity is not the same as the rate you add lines! I'd draw diagrams here, but I'm lazy. It increases much faster - a few well-placed connections can "tip" the overall connectivity into new realms.

I think the exponential (or greater) increase in such possible connectivity, combined with the possibility of synergistic adaptations in mutation, and their exploitation by particular germ populations, is directly related to the criticality.

Just spit-ballin' here.

unityemissions - so sorry - I realize I missed your post. Will respond soon.

CultureD and Ian McLean ...

Not to get too technical, but you might find this article interesting.

...Leaving aside the issue of exactly how you define systems biology, one of the objectives of those who would say they are practitioners is to understand the emergent properties of complex systems. Examples of such properties in biological systems are the biochemical switches and oscillators that underlie the cell cycle, and the robustness of biological mechanisms - for example, the morphogenetic gradients that direct early embryonic development - in conditions that are subject to stochastic fluctuation. Ferrell argues that mathematics are required to understand the behavior of an entire system; but acknowledges the value of understanding at a more parochial level the mechanism of parts of it. He gives as a classic example of a switch in biology the gene-regulatory switch [4] that operates the decision between lysis and lysogeny in bacteriophage lambda.

Lambda, which infects E. coli, inserts its genome into that of the bacterium and can then either reproduce itself and lyse the bacterial cell (lysis), or remain in a latent state in which it is replicated with the bacterial genes (lysogeny) until an environmental change flips the switch to the lytic program. The basis for the switch is the competitive binding to DNA of two proteins, one of which (repressor) represses the lytic programme and activates its own synthesis, maintaining the lysogenic state, while the other represses the synthesis of the repressor and activates the lytic programme and its own synthesis, maintaining the lytic state. (The switch is operated by an environmentally controlled cellular protein that decreases the affinity of repressor for DNA.) This mechanism was worked out, as far as I know, without recourse to mathematics.

...In short, the account of the segmentation clock in our review this month is an illustration of emergent properties at two levels, at one of which - the level of devices - no great mathematical sophistication is required; while at the other, where devices are engaged in complex systems, mathematics may be mandatory.

There seems no need for the kind of snobbery displayed (it is said) by the highly quantitative founding biologists at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories, in whose early history exphysicists played a crucial part, and who are alleged to have referred to their nearby colleagues at Woods Hole as biologists 'who don't count'.

Biologists who count. URL

reply to post by soficrow

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Sofi- will put together some research we did on phage arrays to respond to your post (which was fantastic info). Will try to post early in the week- it goes back a few years and I need to dig in the files. Cold Spring is linked to an intitution where we did phage research (that I can share), to support your post.

Your approach to systems biology is critical to not just this outbreak, but to the overall complexity of drug resistance, public and environmental health issues, etc. Great stuff- thank you.

reply to post by soficrow

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The gist of what I'm getting is many of our actions, which on the surface seem to benefit us (or at least corporations) , are actually doing much more harm through their evolving cascading effects. It seems many man-made actions are combining in ways which seem directly opposed to their maker.

Many scientists focus in on the black & white details, forgetting the integration of all life, and the consequent effects their mishaps bring on biodiversity. Am I making any sense? It seems a co-creation between man and nature. Nature is essentially trying to teach us, each step of the way, to think before we act. To measure twice and cut once, but we arrogantly refuse to listen. Now, at the precipice of change, it's time to face our past. The information is there, but are we willing to take heed, and perhaps bring the last bit of pro-action before all that's left is darkness?

Do you personally think we still have greater than a decade to REALLY get our act together as stewards of this planet? There seems to be so much to be done, in so little time right now. The psychopathic dictators must be reigned in. Then we may be able to have free media, free thought, & a true voice. Then these incredibly important environmental issues can be dealt with.

It seems we'll have no choice very soon, but to go one way or the other. Either join in as cosmic beings, currently responsible for maintaining this planet, or self destruct most life on this planet. The more intelligent & aware someone is, the sooner they make the leap out of the box. Most people don't seem to have an abundance of these two. At what point in catastrophe does the heard wake up? Seems to late to soon. What do you think?

Originally posted by unityemissions
reply to post by soficrow

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...many man-made actions are combining

YES

Many scientists focus in on the black & white details, forgetting the integration of all life, and the consequent effects their mishaps bring ...

YES

... It seems a co-creation between man and nature.

YES

Now, at the precipice of change, it's time to face our past.

YES.

And not just a part of our past, like intentionally or accidentally released bio-weapons, but ALL of it. In the context of the whole system, bio-weapons are only one factor - and at this point, a relatively small factor.

Virtually every industry, not just the military-industrial complex, has altered the chemical and atomic structures of our planetary system. Now, the entire system is changing.

To survive, we must change too. At fairly fundamental levels. It's called adaptation and evolution.

Viruses and microbes reproduce quickly, and so, mutate and evolve rapidly. In effect, they are the 'messengers' that bring the new atomic factors into complex organisms' bodies, like ours - as 'disease' - and force adaptation to the changed system, or cause death.

Think supra-organism.

A supraorganism is an individual organism that contains many independent and interdependent organisms that form a biological interaction network in and out of its body.

For example, a human being is a supraorganism that contains bacteria, virus, fungi, and animals in his/her skin and internal organs.

Given that we, as supraorganisms, are made of cooperating bacteria, viruses, fungi and other microbes, then we must assimilate the newcomers to survive on our now-modified planet.

Do you personally think we still have greater than a decade to REALLY get our act together as stewards of this planet?

NO.

I think we have reached a global point of self-organizing criticality, and now can only hang on til the dust settles (ie., we adapt and evolve along with the microbes).

WORSE - if we don't stop dicking with the environment (which includes releasing bioweapons), the dust won't settle and we won't have a chance.

...At what point in catastrophe does the herd wake up?

When reality is manifest, not just potential, in their face, and undeniable. That will be quite soon...

But as I said earlier, our hope lies in our ability to adapt and evolve. Life DOES find a way.


PS. THANK YOU unityemissions for persisting and forcing me to respond. - sofi


ed to add PS.

[edit on 27-5-2009 by soficrow]

Corporations with the capability to do complex risk assessments had it figured out long ago.

Panasonic Recalls Families Over Bird Flu Pandemic Fears

The mainstream articles about this have all disappeared, but Panasonic's policy statement is still online.

G&G Risk Management Activities
There is also a Business Continuity Plan (BCP) to counter the risk of large natural disasters. By fiscal 2010, all business domain companies should have a BCP in place for at least one location.

Panasonic will also formulate BCP for other risks that may threaten business operations, such as a pandemic flu outbreak.

www.panasonic.net...

Everyone figured H5N1 bird flu would be the culprit - and it still could be for the second wave...

But the point is - Panasonic was analyzing the system, and how it was changing. ...We're long past the point where a single event can wreck - or fix - what's happening.

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