From: The <The@Hermit.net> To: "'virus@lucifer.com'" <virus@lucifer.com> Subject: RE: virus: Re: Hermit and evolution Date sent: Fri, 4 Jun 1999 19:19:47 -0500 Send reply to: virus@lucifer.com
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-virus@lucifer.com [mailto:owner-virus@lucifer.com]On Behalf
> Of Robert Odom
> Sent: Friday, June 04, 1999 2:54
> To: virus@lucifer.com
> Subject: virus: Re: Hermit and evolution
>
>
> The program you're describing sounds like facism to me.
>
>
> ThReE wOrDs: ChUrCh Of ViRuS
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>
> I think that this demonstrates a lack of knowledge on your part, rather
> than any failing in the suggested plan. Either a lack of knowledge about
> genetics and the horrors of genetic disease, or about fascism or most
> probably about both. While the program Joe Dees mentioned would be much
> smarter, and I would love to see it implemented, it offers less of a
> choice to people and unless a voluntary and non-contagious vector were
> available, it would probably meet far stiffer resistance than a purely
> voluntary campaign.
>
People would not be "infected with" healthy genes unless they
requested and on an individual and voluntary basis (besides having
to pay for it).
>
> The program that I suggested would have the key elements of choice and
> reward. No threat whatever - although of course, the economic cost and
> possible damages that the state (if forced to provide care to
> offspring), offspring (if competent) or court (if offspring are
> incompetent) could claim from people who are so uncaring as to continue
> to spread defective genes and condemn their children to uneccessary
> suffering and shortened lives might act as an additional persuasion to
> people to join the program. You do realise that the suggested plan would
> potentially reduce health costs by over 70% if 80% of the population
> participated in such a program. That is far less fascist, than "forcing"
> children to be innoculated against smallpox? Yet the "forcing" of the
> smallpox vaccine improved the quality of life for 100's of millions of
> people. Do you believe that was wrong?
>
> The benefit to people whose parents adopted such a plan would be
> enormous. It would probably add an average of 20 years of healthy
> productive life to people in countries that adopted it, while
> practically guaranteeing a decline in births. Which would put any
> country that did not adopt such a plan at an immense disadvantage.
>
> Medicine and other fruits of scientific and technological development
> have caused average lifespans to double in the last four centuries...
> unfortunately, this has a cost associated with it. The same advances
> have removed much of the cost penalty of genetically flawed material and
> made it possible for defective genes to be propagated at far higher
> levels than ever before. Hopefully the fruits of the Human Genome
> Project will allow us to correct this tragic state of affairs.
>
> TheHermit
>
> >From WWWebster
>
> Fascism, n: 1 often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or
> regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above
> the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government
> headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social
> regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition
> 2 : a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or
> dictatorial control <early instances of army fascism and brutality -- J.
> W. Aldridge>
>
> PS Please explain how you see the plan as fascist? Or were you just not
> thinking? Or are you a Christian and believe, as your book of myths
> claims that your gods do, that illness, pain and suffering are things
> that should be encouraged and thus should not be cured?
>
> P.P.S. I have tried to demonstrate how serious the problem is below.
> Sorry for the lousy format, but it is the best I can do with ASCII...
>
> In the following, assume that X is a healthy gamete and F is a faulty
> one. Assume that F is recessive, i.e. it is not so faulty as to cause
> death when a single F is received, but is fatal with an F from both
> parents. Assume that each couple has all the permutations possible with
> a normal distribution. This is not necessary, it doesn't change the
> percentages, but this exhaustion by enumeration of the possibilities
> will show that there is nothing up my sleeve :-)
>
> Assume a couple with one healthy partner and one partner with the faulty
> gene
>
> Parent generation | XX x XF |
> filial generation | xx xf fx xx |
>
> So each child has a 2/4 chance of receiving F (i.e. 50% chance of being
> a carrier of the faulty gene, 50% chance of being healthy). Prior to
> modern medicine, the chances of this offspring surviving to breed were
> low and problems were self correcting. Today these children are likely
> to survive and may well breed with others having the same faulty
> gametes.
>
> If we assume that the faulty gamete is widely present in the population
> based on the above distribution i.e. each child has the chance of
> meeting a partner with the same distribution of the faulty gamete, lets
> see what happens.
>
> | 1 XX x XX |2 XX x XF |3 XX x FX |4 XX x XX |5 XF x XX |6 XF x XF |7 XF
> x FX |8 XF x XX |9 FX x XX |10 FX x XF |11 FX x FX |12 FX x XX |13 XX x
> XX |14 XX x XF |15 XX x FX |16 XX x XX |
>
> |1 xx xx xx xx |2 xx xf xx fx |3 xf xx fx xx |4 xx xx xx xx |5 xx fx xx
> xf |6 xx ff xf fx |7 xf fx ff xx |8 xx fx xf xx |9 fx xx xf xx |10 fx
> xf xx ff |11 ff xx fx xf |12 fx xx xx xf |13 xx xx xx xx |14 xx xf xx fx
> |15 xf xx fx xx |16 xx xx xx xx |
>
> So now the offspring have a 4/64 chance of dying. A 24/64 chance of
> being a carrier and a 36/64 chance of being born normally.
> Today this situation is quite likely. And you can see how faulty
> material can distribute extremely rapidly. And it is exactly this very
> rapid distribution of faulty material through societies that implies
> that we need to start working on the problem quite urgently as the
> initial distribution phase of faulty material is fast, and remains fast
> so long as the faulty gamete is present in only a small percentage of
> the population.
>
> It is only when we realize that for example, lung, cervical and breast
> cancers, which are relatively modern diseases, are passed on in this way
> that we realize exactly how disastrous this distribution really is in
> terms of health care. And while lung cancer distribution is affected by
> other factors, e.g. Radon and other environmental factors, it maps
> extremely well to population genetic distributions. Breast and cervical
> cancers are influenced by sexual and child bearing patterns but the
> correlation with genetic groupings are inescapable. As are cardiac and
> vascular diseases to say nothing of the "obvious" genetically determined
> diseases such as sicle cell anemia. Or why your life insurance policy
> will be weighted if you have family members who have died of cancer or
> cardiovascular events...
>
>
>