What would it take to exterminate mankind?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Whaleboy
BK & Geronimo: You ever heard of the bacteria-in-petri-dish experiment?

Have you ever noticed that unlike a petri dish, the Earth is not a closed system?

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


That's obviously not true, since the environment is a stable equilibrium, not an unstable one...

Then explain the numerous periods of mass-extinction through-out earth's history.

and we've already given it tons of little pushes.

Indeed.

[Kuciwalker]

Then explain the numerous periods of mass-extinction through-out earth's history.

They occured only through really big pushes.

Even a stable equilibrium will be shaken up. The human body is a stable equilibrium, but even it will die if you shoot it in the head.

Indeed.

... and it hasn't collapsed. By your argument, it's inevitable, so it doesn't matter what we do.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


They occured only through really big pushes.

The size of the metaphoric push is relative, and not at all what I was arguing about.

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

That's obviously not true, since the environment is a stable equilibrium, not an unstable one... and we've already given it tons of little pushes.

Hm, it is stable at the moment.
The question of course is, if the little pushes we give it might accumulate to a greater push within the future.

For example the release of CFC needed tens of years to manifest itself in ozone holes.
Just because the CFCs needed this time to get to the atmosphere layers where it could wreak havoc.

It could be assumed, that other things could also need a long time to manifest themselves in effects humans can notice (and that, like the ozone holes, the effects will be absolutely unpleasant for mankind )

For example, those little pushes could result in several control circuits (lets use the Abbreviation CA) of the ecological system (lets call it Gaia) running out of alignment.
We don´t notice them as they are small, but they are there and they have an influence on other control circuits interlocked by them (lets call them CB).
As we give those control circuits every year these small pushes, the damage gets greater and greater (and the control circuits cannot recover):
The first year (or maybe decade) we get CA out of alignement, which lead tho CB running out of alignment.
The next year/decade CB leads to CC (Control Circuits interlocked with CB) and the Combination of CB and CA running out of alignment leads to CD (Control curcuits interlocked with CA and CB) running out of aligment.
This of course causes a lot of other control circuits running out of alignement the following years/decades

So year for year the damage gets greater and we just notice it, if there are visible effects/disasters occuring because the system has (in some area) run out of Backup-Control Circuits which would otherwise have prevented these effects/disasters.

It´s just hypothetical. But there´s a chance greater zero, that I´m right

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Proteus_MST


All points are probably covered by the attributes mentioned:
The high rate of mutation means, that the virus/bacteria itself creates variations as it goes from victim to victim. Perhaps this will be enough to cover all variations of humans.

And the virus is designed with stealth in foreground, so that mankind hopefully doesn´t even know what hit them by:

Having a long Phase of latency without any symptomes and then a short phase where the disease breaks out in the victim, killing it within short time.
Furthermore the virus/bacteria imitates the symptomes of other diseases as it breaks out, so that the doctors who treat the victims don´t get suspicious that the victim might die of a new disease but rather think it was something they know well. (and at the point the disease breaks out the first infected person hopefully already made contact to numerous other persons, thereby spreading it over a large area [if the phase of latency is sevreal weeks and the victim travels often this would ebe an ideal combination ])
The only point where the world would get warned in time would be of course, if informations of the plans to release such a virus would leak out.

But of course there are small spots where humans live isolated (for example small indian tribes within the rainforest).
Therefore I should introduce a fifth attribute the disease should have:
e) All kinds of animals should be the vectors of the disease. They themselves are not affected by the disease, but they can infect humans the same way that they could get infected by another human carrying the diesease (i.e. by means of bodyfluids and perhaps also by feces)

likely your virus' high mutation rate would spoil the elaborate incubation mechanism when a mutated strain that lacks the incubation rate would jump the gun and blow the secrecy. If the mutation rate of a virus is high it's almost impossible to have the insidious unseen spread of the disease you are counting on to take out the whole species without any warning. The high mutation rate will also likely moneky wrench the silent animal carrier model.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Whaleboy


BK & Geronimo: You ever heard of the bacteria-in-petri-dish experiment?

The bacteria form spores conditions change and they come back.

but Kuci made the most important point.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Proteus_MST
Hm, it is stable at the moment.

You don't understand the meaning of the term. In a stable equilibrium, there are built-in forces that tend to return the system to the equilibrium state.

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Lancer
Dodo birds?

Hunted to extinction, along with the Mauritian blue pigeon.

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


You don't understand the meaning of the term. In a stable equilibrium, there are built-in forces that tend to return the system to the equilibrium state.

The only problem is that planet earth doesn't have any built-in's. It just happens that there are some kind of equillibrium, but that doesn't mean that this can't be changed.

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by BlackCat
The only problem is that planet earth doesn't have any built-in's. It just happens that there are some kind of equillibrium, but that doesn't mean that this can't be changed.

I view it like trying to tip over a pyramid. At first, it'll keep falling over back onto its base. But if you push it far enuf, it doesn't come back. KAPOW!

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by BlackCat
The only problem is that planet earth doesn't have any built-in's.

But the environment does.

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by Zkribbler


I view it like trying to tip over a pyramid. At first, it'll keep falling over back onto its base. But if you push it far enuf, it doesn't come back. KAPOW!

Granted, earth is a pretty stable system considered that it has survived for millions of years, but that doesn't mean that changing parameters can't make the pyramid to fall the wrong way. Question is if humans are capable to make this push wich we really don't know how big is to be.

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


But the environment does.

Such as ?

[Kuciwalker]

Say a bunch of predators are wiped out by a plague. The prey then survive and reproduce more, providing more food for the remaining predators. This makes the predator population increase, returning the system to equilibrium.