Kylonicus

I agree, I remember when I was about 7 my family visited the redwood trees in California, I'll always remember them. I wish we had more trees like them.

Thanks Azurephoenix, If Ebola wasn't enough, one could combined multiple diseases, the use of 5 or 6 different viruses, that way if the body could defeat one disease, it might not be able to defeat all the diseases, decreasing survival rate. People would be willing to do whatever it takes to get a hands on treatment, even kill their own druglords. Which means that they would become subsurveant to the next dictator and what not. This could be applied to one small oil rich country, and with the resources from one small oil rich country, you could setup cues in other third world countries. Your backers would be rewarded richly, your soldiers would be rewarded richly, the current administration which is robbing the people would die, and it would simply be one dictator replacing another. However, once you acquired a large enough number of countries, you could then begin focusing on actual social problems, you could establish yourself as like a monarch, and indoctrinate the people to think of you as such.

Thanks for all your assistance Blue Noise, you've been a great help to me.

No, I didn't get the transfusion idea from the movie outbreak. I have never seen that movie. I got my information from a documentary on ebola, in which out of the thousands upon thousands of infected people, like 8 survived. One of the nurses got infected with ebola. The doctors knew that the procedure was risky, and any other pathogens which were in the patients blood would infect the nurse, but they had no other choice. After the transfusion, the nurse was fine, and could function(not as well as before I think, not due to infection, but due to the damage to internal organs caused by the infection previous to the immunity granted). This is how I think that ebola could easily be tackled. It's been proven to work, why not have it work again? This isn't pseudo science, it's proven fact! It would be an effective way of eliminating enemy combatants. This is a science forum, however this is the political section of the science forum. I am not flaming people, nor am I criticizing other peoples beliefs. Am I scary, yes kind of. Am I a future dictator, maybe, but more likely I'll be a future dictator's henceman, developing this that or the other and solving problems(being a dictator is alot of stress, plus there are alot of assasination attempts made on your life all the time), if the dictator knew I was completely loyal, and if I didn't cause him problems, he wouldn't shoot me, and I would have a relatively high place within the government.

Woah

BTW, THANK YOU, your answers are helping me ALOT, The stuff I need to buy in order to do this is very expensive. Cost like 325 bucks per 50 ug. But you think that the antibody might not target the horse protein, if they are very, very similar in structure?

Then perhaps, if it were a horse, or some other large mammal, do you think that the antibody would be against the NogoA protein, that came originally from the rat?

BTW, thanks for answering my questions Blue Noise. If I were to inject NogoA from a mouse, into a rabbit, and there were differences, so that the rabbit developed an immunity to NogoA mouse version, would that cause the NogoA in the rabbit to be targeted? I am assuming it would, because part of the antibody would remain similar enough to the NogoA rabbit version, that it would attach itself to the similar portion causing it to have the same effects as if it had been originally innoculated. Am I right?

I think we should have a military technology/tactics forum, that I think would be neat.

If the protein source was mouse, and I wanted to inject it into another mouse, do you think it would probably still develop an antibody to it?

I mean, there is a cure to ebola, it's a blood transfusion from a survivor, but if they didn't know that, then most of the people there would either die off, resisting invasion, which means all you would have to do is wait, or join you, which means the problem is solved.

What about using a plane, and bomb the tar out of the country? Or using a biological weapon to infect the populace their, like ebola or something, and the only way to avoid dying, is to join us. Very simple, join us, or die. That kinda strategy.

Anybody got any ideas on how to takeover a small country? I was thinking it would be kinda fun to takeover some place like Venezuela, I mean, I'd make a much better dictator than Hugo Chavez. Or Columbia. It would be alot of work, and kinda risky, but I think if I got enough backers I(or anyone else for that matter) could takeover a country like that. Any thoughts?

True, it would be difficult to find a drug that was that addictive and yet that potent. Perhaps if people were only slightly addicted, but their cognitive functions were temporarily impaired(it's easy to make compounds which make individuals cognitive impaired, that can rapidly disseminate into a population), then people were to get to the supply depots where the addictive compound was supplied, then that might solve the problem of needing a high potency addictive compound.

I think that although genes have a heavy influence on genius, it takes a good environment to make a genius out of someone. However, genius is largely genetic. I just think that a large number of people would get pissed off that some elites get privileges and they don't, like they do with everything else.

Alot of these "great leaders" or great scientist, were really heavily controlled by their environment. If Einstein had been in public schools today, do you think he would have produced half as much valuable research as he did?

I think we need to become shorter as a species too, Another physiological alteration we need, would be larger anterior cingulates, HUGE anterior cingulates, that would make us sharper. Large right prefrontal cortex delayed gratification/abstract reward center. Make us super hard workers with alot of self-control.

For 1, they containment the countries, 2, the shorter period of time it takes for a weapon to work, the easier it is to trace it back to it's source. Which is essentially what we do NOT want to do. If you poisoned China, or Saudi Arabia or some other place, and they found out, they'd hit you with everything they've got, and rightfully so. The solution then is to not get caught, or by the time you do get caught it's too late for them to do anything. Prions work well because the symptoms are vague, they produce a slow deterioration in ability(which means that the pilots and what not wouldn't be able to fly given enough time), and they are very hard to find the source of. This would be an effective way of annhiliating enemies in the third world, for their resources. This is especially great, because due to 9/11, we can blaim it all on terrorist. We've got a scapegoat. The reason we aren't as effected is due to better medical care and detection, and better terrorist enforcement. The source is the terrorist. This will simultaneously kill off countries which are our enemies, and hieghten the response to the terrorist. Every country, fearing biological attack, would be more willing to step up and fight terrorism. But don't worry, it's not like I'd ever do anything like this, I would never get consent from the U.S government.

Exactly, we are controlled right now by one form of control, why not have another? Which one brings the highest quality of life? In an AI ruled government, you can think for yourself, you can feel, and even hate the government. The governments job is to protect you, and make sure your taken care of. It's not going to eradicate you, or imprison you. The only way that it would is if you started becoming a danger to yourself or others i.e terrorist. Those individuals we want locked up anyway. It's not like your a complete drone. Your only a drone soasfar as protecting you from yourself, and protecting you/others from each other. It would also sometimes impose on your life for the greater good, and to make your personality a better one. There are 4 ways of motivating people, theres reward, theres punishment, theres the lie, and then theres mind control. By keeping these things as abstract as possible, we can eliminate their real cost and focus on goals which are more important. Then once those more important goals are taken care of we can focus on whatever we want. The more important goals are taking care of EVERYONE's needs. Everyones got them. We all need the same things, food, water, shelter, sometimes medical care, love, purpose, meaning. Without these things everyone fails. If everyone had them, then the greatest amount of marginal utility would be gained, nobody would really suffer.

I was thinking that the party would be essentially promoting with almost no incumberance, the use of genetics, hormonal alterations, physiological alterations to better mankind. The group's goal would be to focus on making humanity stronger, altering people so we have better brains, and what not. To my knowledge there is a ton of biomedical research out there, it just needs to be applied. I can think of many clinical trials where they have used Nogo antibodies, and it caused axonal regeneration, and dendritic regeneration, and it's helped spinal cord patients. I mean, there's a ton of research that the FDA hasn't really approved that much for human use, but that would greatly improve the lives of those willing to take a risk. The Transhumanist Party would be focused on expanding biomedical research for the purpose of improving humanity, past humanity. If you want catlike eyes, or a superhuman physique, you should have the right to them. The Transhumanist Party also would like to use epigenetic manipulation on infants prenatally, and hormonal manipulation, so that our population has an extremely high degree of intelligence. The Transhumanist Party would want everyone to have equal access to genetic engineering, and would want everyone who wanted to have it, have it. The Transhumanist Party would believe that many problems of humanity could be solved if we were simply smarter as a species, and therefore providing everyone with the opportunity to get smarter, benefits everyone. The Transhumanist Party would believe that genetic discrimination will occur, some naturally being smarter/more adapted to the environment than others, and therefore the ONLY way to prevent this form of genetic discrimination is to provide genetic alterations to any and all who need/want them. It would strongly be against favorable genetic alterations for the rich, if you research a genetic alteration, you can use the government labs, but it becomes available to everyone. This way there is no genetic discrimination that the rich get versus the poor, excluding breeding. They would strongly be in favor of new biomedical research, especially stem cells. They would strongly be in favor of the environment, by destroying our biodiversity, we are hurting ourselves. They would strongly be in favor of research on immortality, so that no one should every have to suffer death again. They would, instead of focusing on supply-side economics(which didn't work but had a valuable goal) like the Reagan administration, or instead of simply raising aggregate demand by increasing government spending, the Transhumanist would try to directly increase the investment into more infrastructure to decrease business cost. They would subsidize the cost of building new factories or what not, thus getting the advantage of increased aggregate demand by increased government spending, and increasing the total amount of supplies/resources available for the general public to use through increased investment. Thus decreasing price level, and increasing aggregate demand at the same time. This would hopefully(by directly increasing the amount of investment), increase the amount of production. They would also focus on trying to use the Fed to lower the interest rate, which would help increase investment, and at the same time, decrease the aggregate demand through other means.

Bigger brains, GAP-43 would need to be upregulated(this has been done in lab mice, and it made the mice have a CNS that could regenerate without any apparent negative side effects), higher antioxidant levels, I would say that we should be shorter(although I have no room to speak I am at least 6 foot 6), the shorter we are the less blood has to be pumped to the outter extremeities, which means less work on the heart, which means that blood can flow faster, assisting the brain(my opinion). Or it just causes more stress on the heart. If you were going to have a huge brain, you would need all the resources you had to be focused on keeping that brain up and running.

You might still look into progesterone regular. Progesterone even if taken with testosterone and estrogen will make you inhospitable to children. It's been shown in mice. So even if you keep your sex drive, it won't be for children, you'll just be inhospitable towards them.

I was wondering what people thought about the idea of starting a party built off of the basis of genetic engineering?

Yah, your right about that. What about prions/mad cow disease though, if we could make a treatment for that, and if the western world(Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan included) countries poisoned enough foreign countries fast enough, without them detecting it, then perhaps we could takeover. I don't know how effective these means would be for acquiring skilled labor, but I do believe they would be excellent for acquiring natural resources.

I was thinking of a way to invade enemy countries, that would allow rapid conquering, and assimilation of enemy populations. I was thinking of combining a sleeping nerve agent, with a nerve agent that's addictive, so that people would be knocked out by it, then once they woke up, they would be complete slaves to whomever could provide the drugs. I was also thinking of combining with a compound that would slightly lower the body temperature. This way when you invaded, you could easily tell whose had the effect of the agent and who hasn't. Those who haven't have a slightly higher body temperature, which means they were probably part of the military, and should be shot. If they just so happen to have a gas mask, then they should either A) be shot, or B) be given the addictive compound to control them. The addictive compound is only a short term solution for control, but it allows rapid assimilation. I was also thinking of what if we created a virus, for which only we had the treatment/cure, and if we could make it as fast spreading as ebola, but as silent as AIDS, if we could make it spread from one person to another, but make it where it only appeared like 10-15 years after exposure, that way there would be maximum opportunity for the carrier to infect others, then we could use this to takeover foreign countries. I believe if the virus were to simply make 99% of the population mentally doctile, and if it spread to the rest of the world, and we could keep it out, and it wasn't apparent who was causing it(we would need a plausible excuse why we weren't being "as" effected by the disease, such as we have better access to expensive medical procedures or this that or the other). If they don't accept our rule, they either become mentally doctile, or die. After they realize what's happened, given enough time, and once the disease becomes apparent in the majority of the population(if not the whole population) then the foreign nation would be forced to develop a cure, or to join us. If we had problems with them, we could either use addictive compounds and conditioning to control them, computer chips and dependency(they die if the chip is removed), or transcranial magnetic stimulation(which can be just as addictive if not more so) and conditioning. This work is theoretical, and for theoretical purposes only. I find this amusing to the think about. I just want to know what the problems would be with this, excluding ethical ones, due to the fact that I am also interested in many other areas of pursuit, neural regeneration, curing cancer, HIV treatment, why not be interested in biological weapons as well.