Re: David Gerrold - War with the Cthorr

John Schilling <schillin@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in
news:9cts14h7rnf9j9s652ctn05up8fismjicg@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 

> On Mon, 05 May 2008 00:18:05 GMT, throopw@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 (Wayne Throop)
> wrote: 
> 
>>:::: bacteria and nukes should be able to finish off the Chtorr. 
> 
>>:: You mean...  the way we've been wiping out AIDS and
>>:: antibiotic-resistant diseases and preventing ocean algae blooms,
>>:: and kudzu, and killer bees, and so on and on, wimpy earth organisms
>>:: that they are?  I think you may have a great deal of unwarranted
>>:: confidence in what technology can do. 
> 
>>: Are we in danger of being wiped out by any of those things? 
> 
>>Arguably, yes, a remote chance.  The remoteness of the chance having
>>essentially nothing to do with how well humans are controlling them.
> 
> I would argue that it has *everything* to do with how well humans are
> controlling them.  We know perfectly well how to control, or even wipe
> out, e.g. AIDS.  We've had the technology and the understanding to do
> so for at least a century.
> 
> We just aren't *willing* to do so.  And rightly so, IMO - better to
> live with the AIDS epidemic, than to live with what we'd have to do
> to eliminate it right now.
> 
> But if "living with it" is off the table, on account of it's going to
> kill us all, then bye-bye AIDS.  Or Kudzu, or whatever.  Kudzu might
> be tougher than AIDS, and Chtorrans tougher even than Kudzu, but if
> it comes to that there's always the Ripley/Hicks doctrine.

Problem with that is that the Chtorrans recover quicker and stronger
after a nuking than Terrans do.  It's been shown many times.  We could,
theoretically turn the entire planet into a ball of fused glass, but
that's what it wold take, and even that is not a guaranteed win. 

Can you say 'Pyrrhic victory"?

cd
-- 
The difference between immorality and immortality is "T".  I like Earl
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