Online gamers cracks AIDS enzyme puzzle.

[crimsonedge]

Fuck nature.
"Nature" does not have a consciousness. "Nature" does not have your best interest at heart.

Humans are subject to nature, the laws and circumstances that govern the climate and biodiversity of life on the planet. It has no consciousness, but is set up in a way to consistently look for a balance. It is also in humanity's interests to try to find and seek a balance in nature, if we plan on surviving on this planet for very much longer. A population of 10 Billion + would be pushing it a bit overboard. Nature also dictates survival of the fittest, and that the strongest and smartest carry on their genes. Humans to carry along the weakest and save the dumbest would mean there would be a negative effect. The ones fighting civil wars with each other using technology hundreds of years old, obviously aren't the cream of the crop of humanity. If their population explodes due to our intervention of bringing in technology, modern science and food, the 200 million we save now will just eventually turn into 2 billion suffering much greater down the road. If we just keep giving them stuff and helping, then they are never going to learn how to improve themselves, and in our ignorance of thinking we are actually helping them, we are instead making them suffer greatly in the future when they are still holding their hands out and we no longer have the resources to keep giving. Earth at a population of 10 billion will be very strapped for food and resources, especially if a substantial portion of that are in underdeveloped countries. Diseases like AIDS are just a small way of nature seeking to create that balance.

[Raype]

Sooo....who wants to explain to him the correlation between long lifespans/lack of disease/affluent lifestyle and birth rate?

Anyone?

[Nemkoon]

Sooo....who wants to explain to him the correlation between long lifespans/lack of disease/affluent lifestyle and birth rate?

Anyone?

Maybe if Mistral doesn't beat me to it.

[Cookie Monster]

I just shared an opinion even knowing that it wouldn't be popular on here. This thread has a lot to do with AIDS, and I don't want it being cracked or cured, because it is one of natures ways of population control. I will leave my opinion at that, and I stand by it.

That's not your opinion, as you always say to poorly excuse yourself, it's your ignorance showing. Again.

[Andy_Jerk]

If we just keep giving them stuff and helping, then they are never going to learn how to improve themselves, and in our ignorance of thinking we are actually helping them, we are instead making them suffer greatly in the future when they are still holding their hands out and we no longer have the resources to keep giving.

I admit that a lot of charities appear to have become a kind of parasitic racket that is expanding suffering populations as if the plight of those nations is itself a kind of marketable commodity. This book talks about it in detail, among some other great philosophical concepts:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishmael_%28novel%29

Thank God for Netflix because it is kind of weird not to have children of my own but be constantly attacked by commercials shoving all this guilt down my throat. Why don't they show the parents having sex in those commercials? Oh, because I'm not supposed to think about irresponsible people acting like whatever choices they make ultimately become my problem. It even happens in the US with people taking fertility drugs and then acting like I should support their sextuplets. I'm not saying that I shouldn't feel socially responsible to the betterment of humankind, but it's really inappropriate for them to take such a reproachful tone with me. Adult individuals are either fully sentient human beings accountable for their actions or they are animals that need to be dealt with accordingly. Unfortunately many people would prefer to grey out into a kind of adolescent quasi-adulthood that gives them total freedom to make extremely bad choices and then pass the buck as if someone else should clean up their mess.

[Elin]

Anyone who would have the audacity to say they wouldn't want to see a cure for AIDS must be a moron. Is this what you really mean?

Since you seem to be so keen to weed out the chaff of humanity, perhaps we should just execute all those with disabilities? They were born that way, and obviously that's nature's way of telling us that they don't deserve to survive.

Even if we take as true the frankly disgusting view that those who contract HIV through irresponsible actions deserve death, by opposing a cure to the virus, you're wishing death upon a good number who contract it through simple misfortunes. Poorly screened blood transfusions, unfaithful partners, children born to HIV-positive parents, simple lack of information about the virus... If you'd damn people to death for no other reason than their having been in the wrong place at the wrong time, then frankly "moron" is far too generous a word.

[Baumshlager]

Sooo....who wants to explain to him the correlation between long lifespans/lack of disease/affluent lifestyle and birth rate?

Anyone?

Trying to explain to him that the countries which have higher income,better health care,better educated population and an overall higher standard of living have lower birth rates would probably be an exercise in futility,so to spare us all from a wall of text,i'll just leave this here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demogra...onomic_paradox
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_transition

With a world population slightly under 7 billion and an annual growth rate of 1.2 percent,i would hardly say that our planet is over-populated.

If anything,we need more people,and suggesting that someone's life is less valuable because he/she is HIV positive or lives in an undeveloped country is idiotic,at best.

On topic - making even the smallest progress in combating any disease,let alone HIV/AIDS is great news.

[crimsonedge]

Resources are already getting strapped pretty tight. There isn't enough resources on this planet for every country in the world to be elevated up to an industrial society. Everyone creates their own value, its not something that everyone is given equally. Some are more useful and productive than others, its just a fact. All humans are not equal.

And I would wager the lower birth rates in modern society as a result of a drastic change in culture and drastically increased costs of living. The cost of raising children in modern society is more expensive than it has ever been. This is a problem that needs to be addressed. The ones with the greatest capacity for growth are the ones having the least amount of population growth. The ones with an even lesser capacity to sustain this growth are exploding in population and holding their hands out to the rest of the world. This won't be sustainable for much longer. Regardless of where the growth is coming from a 10 billion + world population is just too many people. I agree with the balancing out of growth in modern countries to an extent, but we don't need to go around promoting and assisting it in the 3rd world. Let nature take its course. China knows they got too many people, which is why they have policies to stop it from getting out of control.

The lowest IQ people having the most children is PROBLEM, not a solution.

Population problems will only be solved with the right policies, and looking into colonizing space if we plan on going much past the 10 billion mark. We don't have the technology currently to even consider the later, maybe in 50 years.

I'm thinking about quality of living, not quantity of people living.

Most of you are concerned with here and now, I'm looking at the game from a few steps ahead. We need to start looking at things realistically here instead of an empathetic/emotion driven view point. Empathy and emotion will lead to ignorance and self destruction. Humans are their own worst enemy. The survival of Humanity as far as being sustainable on this planet and surviving long enough to develop the technology to colonize space and leave this rock is my utmost interest. Not some random child suffering from AIDS, I am looking at the bigger picture here.

[Andy_Jerk]

.

Everyone creates their own value, its not something that everyone is given equally.

Took me 31 years to figure that out.

[Raype]

Resources are already getting strapped pretty tight. There isn't enough resources on this planet for every country in the world to be elevated up to an industrial society. Everyone creates their own value, its not something that everyone is given equally. Some are more useful and productive than others, its just a fact. All humans are not equal.

Incorrect. The world is a lot bigger and more abundant than you and many others give it credit for. Sustainability on a global scale is entirely possible.

And I would wager the lower birth rates in modern society as a result of a drastic change in culture and drastically increased costs of living. The cost of raising children in modern society is more expensive than it has ever been. This is a problem that needs to be addressed. The ones with the greatest capacity for growth are the ones having the least amount of population growth. The ones with an even lesser capacity to sustain this growth are exploding in population and holding their hands out to the rest of the world. This won't be sustainable for much longer.

Protip: it's always been that way. The lower classes have always outbred the aristocracy. It's never been a problem before, why should it now /your own argument

Also, while you can make an argument that cost factors in, some of the lowest birth rate countries among first world nations have extremely low death rates (particularly among children) and longer life expectancies. For a simple correlation, the second highest life expectancy in the world has the second lowest birth rate. The lowest is 9th (well ahead of several natinos on LE). One of the highest birth rates in the western world happens to be the US. Guess which country has a fairly low life expectancy? One look at the tables has caused statisticians to add it to the list of possible things to take into consideration. There's a lot more at play, even subconsciously, than you think when it comes to societal trends. IE: When people aren't expecting to be dead by 40, having kids (or a kid) in the 30's doesn't seem so bad.

The lowest IQ people having the most children is PROBLEM, not a solution.

The Idiocracy argument is as idiotic as the future it claims is likely. In reality, this has always been the case. IQ doesn't mean what you think it means, but let's avoid that for now. Several studies on the hereditary effect of IQ have been fairly inconclusive. There's pretty wild fluctuations and the closest to a predisposition tends to be normal IQ range parents having normal IQ range kids. In other words, stupid people having stupid kids doesn't really work that way. Adding to this, intelligence is a highly environmental factor and somewhat of a choice. If you're looking around and seeing morons that's probably because a lot of people around you choose to be stupid. Much like how your brain is clearly choosing to let in only the most ignorant thoughts it can. Alternatively, it's an indicator of a failing school system. While the nature v nurture debate is still out, we can clearly say that knowledge is not hereditary. And that's a far better indicator of a person's worth to society than any culturally biased quotient exam ever was. Oh, and by the way, IQ scores have been steadily rising for centuries and the trend has been continuing. People today are smarter than they were 200 years ago. Who'd a thunk it?

Population problems will only be solved with the right policies, and looking into colonizing space if we plan on going much past the 10 billion mark. We don't have the technology currently to even consider the later, maybe in 50 years.

Bad science fiction much? We're at least 2-3 centuries away from stellar colonization. At least. No, being able to theoretically land on mars and breathe canned air for the rest of your short life is not going to work for anybody.

Most of you are concerned with here and now, I'm looking at the game from a few steps ahead. We need to start looking at things realistically here instead of an empathetic/emotion driven view point. Empathy and emotion will lead to ignorance and self destruction. Humans are their own worst enemy. The survival of Humanity as far as being sustainable on this planet and surviving long enough to develop the technology to colonize space and leave this rock is my utmost interest. Not some random child suffering from AIDS, I am looking at the bigger picture here.

Yes, because expecting to travel to other non-sterile planets in excessively sterile environments when we're not even able to handle our native bacteria strains is a good idea. The closest to extra-terrestrial organisms we found happened to be made of poison. You work out how we're supposed to survive an abundance of that when we have difficulty controlling a simple blood borne disease.

And once we get their we're totally going to be able to survive, diplomatically handle the locals, and build a perfectly sustainable and functional society when we can't even do that shit here.

[captain handy]

Hey if we run out of space on earth we could all live unda da sea!!!


What's this thread about again I'm confused.

[Nemkoon]

Trolling a troll.

[crimsonedge]

Incorrect. The world is a lot bigger and more abundant than you and many others give it credit for. Sustainability on a global scale is entirely possible.

Everything from non-renewable resources, to food is going to get scarce in the future. Food will be much too valuable of a commodity to just be giving away to people for free.

Protip: it's always been that way. The lower classes have always outbred the aristocracy. It's never been a problem before, why should it now /your own argument

I'm not talking about Aristocracy, I'm talking about modern society as a whole, sure we may live like kings compared to the poor sobs in Africa, but that doesn't technically make us wealthy.

The Idiocracy argument is as idiotic as the future it claims is likely. In reality, this has always been the case. IQ doesn't mean what you think it means, but let's avoid that for now. Several studies on the hereditary effect of IQ have been fairly inconclusive. There's pretty wild fluctuations and the closest to a predisposition tends to be normal IQ range parents having normal IQ range kids. In other words, stupid people having stupid kids doesn't really work that way. Adding to this, intelligence is a highly environmental factor and somewhat of a choice. If you're looking around and seeing morons that's probably because a lot of people around you choose to be stupid. Much like how your brain is clearly choosing to let in only the most ignorant thoughts it can. Alternatively, it's an indicator of a failing school system. While the nature v nurture debate is still out, we can clearly say that knowledge is not hereditary. And that's a far better indicator of a person's worth to society than any culturally biased quotient exam ever was. Oh, and by the way, IQ scores have been steadily rising for centuries and the trend has been continuing. People today are smarter than they were 200 years ago. Who'd a thunk it?

From what I read about it, there are a variety of factors, that determine intelligence, but genetics are one of the largest factors. Differences in human appearance and genetics is mostly attributed to differences in environment.

200 years ago, they didn't have IQ tests, and there is no accurate way to compare humans now to 200 years ago as far as raw cognitive ability goes. Judging on the way they solved problems in ancient times, I would say ancient man was just as capable of solving problems as we are today, considering what they had available.

Bad science fiction much? We're at least 2-3 centuries away from stellar colonization. At least. No, being able to theoretically land on mars and breathe canned air for the rest of your short life is not going to work for anybody.

This is why its very important they start putting some serious effort into getting off this rock, because I doubt we got 2 or 300 more years of sustainable climate on this planet. Interstellar travel? I would have to agree with you we are likely 2-300 years away from, but we could colonize the solar system sooner than that, if effort was put into it. All they would need for a sustainable power source is a working efficient fusion reactor, probably 20-50 years away. This could power a space colony, or a moon/mars base, and a propulsion system for a craft. Right now they got nay-sayers saying its not possible, just because they can't figure it out immediately.

Yes, because expecting to travel to other non-sterile planets in excessively sterile environments when we're not even able to handle our native bacteria strains is a good idea. The closest to extra-terrestrial organisms we found happened to be made of poison. You work out how we're supposed to survive an abundance of that when we have difficulty controlling a simple blood borne disease.

There will never be a complete stamping out of viruses/bacteria that are harmful, the best we can do is make sure we can't be devastated by them. A virus like Ebola, or Small Pox uncontrolled could be devastating. AIDS is limited mostly to certain groups of people living unsanitary, and unhealthy lifestyles. Things like the Plague in the middle ages were also as a result of unsanitary conditions. I think we do just fine in keeping our native bacteria and viruses in check. Keep things clean and sanitary, and you can eliminate most viruses/bacteria that are harmful. Even things like the Flu, if you just wash your hands frequently you are much less likely to get it.

And once we get their we're totally going to be able to survive, diplomatically handle the locals, and build a perfectly sustainable and functional society when we can't even do that shit here.

There is no such thing as a perfectly sustainable, perfect functional society, nor can there ever be one. But we can do better. The best diplomacy is through the barrel of a gun. Humans are warlike in nature, it is in our instincts to conquer and acquire. Humans are also territorial, like many other species of animals, or we would simply be the planet Earth instead of hundreds of countries.

Trolling a troll.

Since when? This is my bridge.

[Mistral]

Everything from non-renewable resources, to food is going to get scarce in the future. Food will be much too valuable of a commodity to just be giving away to people for free.

Scarcity is a relative concept. Even if demand for resources outstrips supply, economic imperatives will lead to the development and extraction of new resource deposits previously uneconomical in previous supply-demand ratios. These deposits are frequently already known, such as the shale oil deposits of the western US, closed mines in the Mesabi Range or the Iberian Pyrite Belt, or even the historical development of Middle Eastern oil, which only occurred after oil use soared during the Cold War. In addition, technological imperatives also extend the development and extraction of existing resource deposits. Malthus' greatest failing was his presumption of arithmetic growth in agricultural development, which failed to account for technological developments such as synthetic fertilizers, mechanization of agriculture, the expansion of and into new resource pools/economic markets such as Africa and Asia, and today, GM. Scarcity of food today stems not from lack of agricultural production; we actually produce far more food than is necessary to feed all of the people of the world today. Scarcity of food today stems from failure to distribute this food in an equitable fashion. Population trends will only exacerbate this issue; the breadbaskets of the world, such as those in China, Ukraine, and the USA, are generally located in regions with stable or declining populations.

From what I read about it, there are a variety of factors, that determine intelligence, but genetics are one of the largest factors. Differences in human appearance and genetics is mostly attributed to differences in environment.

200 years ago, they didn't have IQ tests, and there is no accurate way to compare humans now to 200 years ago as far as raw cognitive ability goes. Judging on the way they solved problems in ancient times, I would say ancient man was just as capable of solving problems as we are today, considering what they had available.

Incorrect. For one thing, you seem to have a fundamental misapprehension about IQ tests. IQ tests are always normalized to the population being tested - the average is always 100, by definition, to avoid issues such as accounting for possible correlative and causative effects in an ill-understood field. There is in fact a well-known documented effect, however, referred to as the Flynn effect. In essence, there is a continuous and consistently linear increase in IQ test results over time, requiring constant renormalization every time such tests are revised. This is attributed to a variety of factors, and the idea that actual intelligence is rising over time is subject to question, but the fact that such test results are increasing even as quality of life, education, and other similar benchmarks of cultural progress are expanded, and on a global scale, generally correlate directly to these benchmarks, indicates that a genetic component of intelligence, while undoubtedly present, is not necessarily the primary component of actual expressed intelligence.

This is why its very important they start putting some serious effort into getting off this rock, because I doubt we got 2 or 300 more years of sustainable climate on this planet. Interstellar travel? I would have to agree with you we are likely 2-300 years away from, but we could colonize the solar system sooner than that, if effort was put into it. All they would need for a sustainable power source is a working efficient fusion reactor, probably 20-50 years away. This could power a space colony, or a moon/mars base, and a propulsion system for a craft. Right now they got nay-sayers saying its not possible, just because they can't figure it out immediately.

This is an interesting thing to say. After all, my opinion is much the same, but it goes one further. Space exploitation is a natural progression of existing trends and will occur as economic imperatives of supply and demand on Earth drive the development of LEO and beyond. We already put hundreds, if not thousands of satellites in active orbits ranging from LEO to GEO and beyond, which is the first step. Continuing development into cheaper surface-to-orbit launches (driven by such mundane things as GPS receivers for cars and sat phones) will drive the front-loading of costs down for manned as well as unmanned operations, which will gradually permit more extensive operations to be attained. The last thing we need is to artificially drive a bubble that will ultimately pop prematurely and set the industry back decades out of nothing more than sheer impatience.

There will never be a complete stamping out of viruses/bacteria that are harmful, the best we can do is make sure we can't be devastated by them. A virus like Ebola, or Small Pox uncontrolled could be devastating. AIDS is limited mostly to certain groups of people living unsanitary, and unhealthy lifestyles. Things like the Plague in the middle ages were also as a result of unsanitary conditions. I think we do just fine in keeping our native bacteria and viruses in check. Keep things clean and sanitary, and you can eliminate most viruses/bacteria that are harmful. Even things like the Flu, if you just wash your hands frequently you are much less likely to get it.

Incorrect, and this attitude is both outdated and extremely insulting. Milady has already pointed out how HIV is not limited solely to certain lifestyles. It can occur in a wide range of people in every walk of life, just as other illnesses can occur in such ways. Besides, this is why we seek to control such illnesses, precisely through this action. We may not be able to create a disease-free society in the next 50 years, say, but that is no reason for, as you yourself say, "nay-sayers saying its not possible, just because they can't figure it out immediately," like you. The treatment of disease is necessary to ensure that we cannot be "devastated" in the future, such as in the case of smallpox. Vaccination is a fundamental tool in that particular case to ensure control.

There is no such thing as a perfectly sustainable, perfect functional society, nor can there ever be one. But we can do better. The best diplomacy is through the barrel of a gun. Humans are warlike in nature, it is in our instincts to conquer and acquire. Humans are also territorial, like many other species of animals, or we would simply be the planet Earth instead of hundreds of countries.

"Right now they got nay-sayers saying its not possible, just because they can't figure it out immediately." Isn't that what you said? You may not necessarily be incorrect in the "warlike" nature of humanity, but you are incorrect in every other particular. Even assuming such a nature, which is itself not a given, it ignores the fact that we are not limited to our base natures. We grow and expand as people and societies. Generally, violence has decreased over the millenia people have been in existence. Hunter-gatherer societies of the most primitive sort generally exist at a state of low-level endemic warfare; there is no diplomacy beyond at the "barrel of a gun", as you put it, but this expresses itself in a low quality of life and a high mortality rate. As societies develop, mature, and grow to encompass greater and greater numbers of people, they must in turn become more flexible and capable of compensating for the commensurate increase in numbers of opinions, and this must by necessity include the creation of new outlets for differences of opinion beyond simple warfare. These outlets, created and developed internally, then extend outward. The concept of peace through marriage, where an arranged marriage between two families created ties of blood, is a primitive example of this viewpoint relying on the concept of a societal bond as carried by blood, the clan structure that underlies the fundamental principle of family which formed the original view of society. Beyond family came the town, where people who lived and worked side by side began to develop similar bonds based on shared experience. From there, the development of nationalism, for instance, allowed for new structures of societal cohesion to be created, beyond the family, based on perceived commonalities of language and culture, which permitted larger populations to be linked together - no longer Schwaben or Rhenish or Baverian or Saxon, or Hohenzollern or Wittlesbach or Wettin, but German. Ideology, as republicanism in the United States of America, too created a similar and parallel bond between disparate peoples. Development in diplomacy and discussion through newfound commonalities made conflict resolution possible without recourse to violence; compare the end of Czechoslovakia which, despite economic and social differences between the industrial Czech Republic and agrarian Slovakia, was peacefully discussed, arranged, and ultimately implemented, to the collapse of Yugoslavia, for instance, where such peaceful bonds had been broken through decades of Serbian dominance and repression. It is possible to solve problems without bloodshed, without the power that stems from the barrel of a gun, in a superior fashion that can be equitable, fair, and even beneficial to both parties, in large part due to the necessity that drove the development of such methods stemming from the stable methods used to govern and mediate between larger and larger populations. Population growth drives social development by necessity, and social development will never occur without, at the least, a perceived necessity. Stability is, after all, the fundamental watchword of society.

[Nemkoon]

Why hasn't he been banned? I mean, seriously?