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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><b>From:</b> extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org> <b>On Behalf Of </b>Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat<br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [ExI] We're not ready<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal>On Wed, Feb 26, 2020 at 6:57 AM spike jones via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:<o:p></o:p></p></div><blockquote style='border:none;border-left:solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt;padding:0in 0in 0in 6.0pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-right:0in'><div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>There have been persistent rumors that the coronavirus may have been created in a lab as a bio-weapon.<o:p></o:p></p></div></div></blockquote><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>>…Without any evidence for this position, Occam's Razor suggests it's just another natural virus, originally in animals and transferred to humans via less than sanitary culinary practices… Adrian<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Ja. At some point it isn’t clear that Occam’s Razor will indicate an evolved virus however. Biotechnology is moving over this planet like a wave. It doesn’t require a lot of expensive equipment. It is easy enough to foresee that high school students will be fooling with CRISPR technologies and creating who knows what.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Something that has been on my mind for a long time: we have a lot of rhetoric about how humans are destroying the planet and so forth. We know that nukes can wipe out a city. If biotech gives any person the ability to infect millions, a bio-tech enabled crazy loner, convinced that humanity is a cancer on Gaia perhaps, sooner or later she will do it. Oy.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>When these numbers came out, it surprised me in a way. The mortality rates for COVID-19 don’t look all that different from previous emergent viruses:<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><a href="https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-age-sex-demographics/">https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-age-sex-demographics/</a><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>spike<o:p></o:p></p></div></div></div></div></body></html>