tl;dr The Dutch created a super flu that could kill half the human race, left it without armed guards for any terrorist to seize, and even wanted to openly publish how to make it for anyone to see.
>A deadly strain of bird flu with the potential to infect and kill millions of people has been created in a laboratory by European scientists – who now want to publish full details of how they did it.
>A genetic study showed that the new, dangerous strain had only five mutations compared to the original one, and all of them were earlier seen in the natural environment – just not all at once. Fouchier’s strain is as contagious as the human seasonal flu, which kills tens of thousands of people each year, but is likely to cause many more fatalities if released.
>"I can't think of another pathogenic organism that is as scary as this one," Paul Keim, a microbial geneticist who has worked on anthrax for many years, told Science Insider. "I don't think anthrax is scary at all compared to this."
>The study was carried out by a Dutch team of scientists led by Ron Fouchier of the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam, where the mutated virus is stored under lock and key, but without armed guards, in a basement building.
Apparently he did actually leak how to make the virus a year ago as well.
Daniel Torres
Only weaklings get viruses anyway lmoa >mfw yearly flu epidemics
Brayden Ramirez
I SWEAR TO GOD IF YOU MENTION SMALL FOAMY BEERS ONE MORE FUCKING TIME WE WILL UNLEASH THIS FUCKING VIRUS
Joshua Diaz
sounds like something out of a stupid cataclysm flick
Josiah Hall
Well, Pakistan, Iran and North Korean got nukes from our technology. And Iraq has chemical weapons from us.
I guess a killer virus would be another cool product to export.
Matthew Bell
...
Jaxson Bennett
whoa thats more foam than beer
is it just the angle, or are they really that small?
Adrian Wood
So what you're saying is that when this study gets published terrorists will make a super-virus. How, where will they get the equipment and the know-how?
Owen Parker
>is it just the angle, or are they really that small? What are you talking about? That's just a normal glass of beer, m8.
Ethan Bell
If they don't publish how to make it, nobody can figure out how to cure it. Then when it breaks out of the laboratory, we're all fucked up.
There's two sides on this coin too
Hunter Lewis
shouldn't you design this stuff with cure in mind from get-go?
Jordan Miller
ppsssst he is american
Ayden Thompson
Drowning yourself isn't enough? You'll want to take us all with you?
Charles Morris
I don't think that's a realistic possibility, usually they just reverse engineer the virus to figure out the cure. I know that the argument is that you shouldn't create stuff like this in the first place but it's science and it's better that it's figured out in a legit lab than some 200 IQ terrorist figuring it out in his secret lab for genocidal purposes
Landon Rogers
The chances of it developing all 5 necessary mutations to mutate it into a genetic supervirus capable of wiping out half of humanity naturally is fairly low, much lower than the chances of it escaping or being released. Even if it is justified in being made, leaving it without armed guards was dumb and wanting to publish it for the general public to see was even more so.
Quite a few educated people with Masters degrees/PhDs have joined terrorist groups-it's not hard to imagine someone with a degree in biology doing so as well. And terrorists can get quite a deal of sophisticated weaponry fairly easily, it wouldn't be much more of a stretch to get the equipment needed to make viruses.
Matthew Reed
>armed guards >at a university This isn't America.
Jaxon Moore
Granted I'm more scared of states like North Korea getting it since they have more technical know-how and the ability to produce it.
Elijah Walker
>American education This guy is probably over 20 years old and is still that stupid. Scary.
Brody Perez
It shouldn't have been stored at a university, it should have been stored at a military lab. It's like having a university tinker with a nuclear bomb and not securing that shit against intruders, it's just dumb.
Ian Roberts
>American education
Is all you can say. Where am I being unreasonable? Both the US and Russia only carry out this type of research in heavily guarded facilities (Vector Institute in Russia and military facilities in America). We don't leave this shit to chance.
Matthew Robinson
I happen to have worked with phd students in biology from King Saud university. They were barely at the level of students doing their bachelor-thesis here. The illegal market for that kind of equipment is also not quite the same as it is for weapons
Jonathan Campbell
I'm not talking about meme countries like Saudi Arabia-I'm talking about western-educated defectors. Quite a few members of ISIS came from British universities, for example.
Ethan Stewart
I'm not sure if we even have military labs.
Our military research is done by private organizations, like Airbus Netherlands, Damen Ship Building and TNO (Institute for Applied Scientific Research).
Andrew Cruz
>Quite a few members of ISIS came from British universities, for example. Did they, my understanding was that they came from the unemployable uneducated muslim youth in European countries
Dominic Wood
Releasing the information to the public leads to more people working on it, finding a cure and such. IMO it would be more immoral not to publish what they found, at least if it's published there is more of a chance of humanity surviving it if it is ever unleashed.
Exposing an uncontrollable supervirus to the public hardly fits the agenda of any major terrorist organization and the tech to make such substance is not in the wheelhouse of one that might want to do such a thing.
We come to the argument of whether it's okay to design superweapons such as nukes. Yes, they present a huge risk to humanity but the innovations it led to have been essential for our need of power. Two sides of the coin, all we can do is hope it leads to more good than evil.
Elijah Diaz
This desu. Add that this is the first time someone publicised it. Perhaps the virus is already in a freezer with armed guards somewhere in Russia and the US.
Julian Myers
>Armed guards >Near something that could literally kill the population of the entire country This isn't America. America actually has a functional defense department while our minister of defense wears a skirt.
Alexander Bailey
>university tinker with a nuclear bomb Weellllllllll, I better not tell you who runs our nuclear reactors then. :^)
Jonathan Wright
You would be surprised. About a quarter of ISIS recruits from the West are college educated or above, and most are at least high school graduates. This is largely why they have been able to launch fairly sophisticated cyber attacks among other things.
Jason Carter
Why not just bury it? If I was the queen of rotterdam i'd say bury it and be done.
Brody Nguyen
do you have any, you know, sources?
Samuel Hernandez
Pray tell, i'm dying of curiosity
Ryan Howard
A research institute that works with four technical universities.
Aaron Peterson
I raise you with reactors built by Frenchmen and Russians
Hudson Hill
How have you not nuked yourselves yet? I'm amazed.
Also somewhat dismayed, I thought you guys ran on solar/wind power completely. It's a sad thing when such a nice developed country like yours relies on nuclear energy.
>They are perhaps more educated than we would expect," Dodwell said.
A third went to high school and a quarter had a college education; only 17 percent said they stopped their schooling after elementary or middle school. That level of education was higher than the average for many of the countries the men called home.
about everywhere from teenagers up until men in their 60s," Dodwell added. "We're talking about very diverse backgrounds from an education perspective — individuals who list their education as none up to those who listed their educations as Ph.D.s, masters degrees, MBAs … Everything from laborers to doctors and lawyers."
Dominic Bennett
>Also somewhat dismayed, I thought you guys ran on solar/wind power completely. It's a sad thing when such a nice developed country like yours relies on nuclear energy. Except they rarely, if ever, have a positive rendement you double slav. Nuclear energy is at the moment the most clean source of energy that actually generates more energy than it costs to produce on average.
Joseph Campbell
You know we're sitting on the biggest gas field of Europe right. Plus we have some of the biggest energy traders of the world.
Our energy isn't exactly clean. We're really lacking behind. But we aren't nuclear either. Belgium is nuclear, but the Netherlands just has some reactors for science.
None of that suggests the educated ones came from the west
Nathan Sanchez
>half of the EU's gas production is Dutch nice
Lincoln Turner
96% of our power comes from non renewable sources unfortunately. Germany is atleast trying to go green tbqh but the rest of europe sucks compared to them.
Our farmers here get massive butthurt because of this. They say they get depressions seeing those wind mills.
Dominic Sanchez
You know, the Netherlands has no need to work towards energy independence, like the rest of Europe.
We own the biggest private oil company of the world (Shell), the biggest oil trader (Vitol), have our own gas (Groningen gas field). So our politicians just look at it from a financial perspective.
If Russia stops supplying Europe nothing happens here. Our exports just go down.
Noah Perry
It does not (yet) for most countries
Samuel Parker
Fuck them this more important than their feelings :D
Aiden Barnes
Shell is introducing hydrogen fuel for cars though. So soon we'll be in the business of green energy.
Nathan Gray
The Netherlands: not giving a fuck since the 16th century.
Liam Diaz
How do we eradicate* the Dutch menace once and for all?
*except for their female hockey team
Hudson Barnes
>imblying it will become mainstream before oil becomes scarce
Andrew Wilson
Why the fuck do they want to publish full details?
Dominic Reyes
You have to send all 7/10 and above australian women here.
Jayden Carter
We bouwen momenteel 400 tankstations in Duitsland. Dus het zou best snel kunnen gaan.
Aiden Scott
hydrogen fuel is a failur. Audi and BMW experimented with it and decided to not do further investigations.
Main problem: It's very very highly explosive. Your car will explode like in a Steven Seagal movie crashing against a wall.
Nicholas Williams
Ja maar dit gebeurt allemaal in duitsland. Ik hoop dat duitsland hun invloed in de EU eerder gebruikt dit mainstream te maken in plaats van dat ze moeite doen om syriers hier te krijgen.
Grayson Torres
According to Shell it's simply a chicken and egg problem, if car manufacturers or oil companies start with it first. So they took the initiative.
