Technology futurists are expected to look decades into the future. The purpose is to grapple with the concepts of basic science, and to identify and guide the most important aspects of scientific research into useful developments and products. There is, of course, no good or evil in the advancement of scientific concepts – that comes later. But what is certain is that whatever comes out of the stew pot of science can and will be used for good and for evil.
In the 1980s, I created a program called Bioengineering for Material Applications (BEMA). BEMA’s intent was to use the huge advances in genetics to make useful things like adhesives, structural materials, electronics, optics, and a whole host of items with unique properties. This was the good side of biotechnology —– but always lurking in the background was the evil of biological warfare. The United States and many other civilized nations circumvented this evil by claiming that weapons related genetic engineering research was for defensive purposes only. (Of course, to defend you have to know what you are defending against.)
The COVID pandemic raises significant questions. Is it the first of an unknown number of evils coming from the advances of genetic engineering? Apparently, the Chinese communist government understands the evil implications quite well.
In the early 2000s, the Chinese military recognized a couple of significant things when it came to biological warfare. First, natural destructive viruses, bacteria and microscopic beings are difficult to control at best – the bubonic plague was so destructive that it decimated the human population of Europe. Second, and this is critical, genetic engineering could be used to create destructive artificial life forms.
Significantly, these destructive “new” life forms had an advantage. They could be controlled. They could be highly contagious yet minimally lethal. They could be sufficiently similar to natural life forms that there would be confusion about the “natural” nature of whatever life form emerged. The payoff of such biological weapons would be to destabilize an enemy without triggering all-out war. And there was one other significant aspect of such weapons, whoever developed them would have the antidote without requiring massive investments in trial and error research.
The defined Chinese communist goal of “precision non-lethal injury” is to damage an enemy but in a way of their choosing. The idea is not to terminate a human life but to physically and mentally damage a human life. An example might be to weaken the heart of a soldier so that he cannot effectively fight but can still consume military resources. But this is not the totality of the impact as a nation’s economy, military, culture and political structure can be destabilized by the resulting confusion and misallocation of resources.
There has been considerable debate about the origin of the COVID-19 viral pandemic. The evidence of “gain of function” has been exposed. It stretches credulity to believe that this virus magically appeared out of thin air rather than from a bioweapon laboratory in Wuhan. COVID-19 fits the biological weapons design parameters of the “precision non-lethal injury” type of warfare.
Was this release accidental? – or was it deliberate to test the extent to which “new and artificial” life forms could create a new military paradigm? – or was it the sinister preparatory step to a wider war, aka, “plausibly deniable pre-war”? The obvious question to be answered was could COVID-19 do what it was designed to do. Was it reasonably effective? Was it controllable? (The virus variants appear to have a mind of their own. They may just undo the plans to control them and thus become another wild natural virus.)
Do the “warp speed” vaccines introduce their own viral paradigm as they attack the basic COVID-19 virus? Some in the scientific community have said that vaccines accelerate the viral mutation process. (Again, the virus variants thus created would have a mind of their own, and function outside the initially intended controls.)
In Greek mythology, a wife’s curiosity caused her to open a box that had been left in the care of her husband. Once opened an eternity of curses, troubles, and ill will fell upon mankind. What the Chinese military, and a lot of other evil doers, have forgotten, is that the curses can’t just be limited to a select group but will eventually affect everyone. The scientists might be able to create COVID 19 and they might even be able to control it at first, but life will find a way.