On Wed, 28 Aug 1996, Richard Lawson wrote:

Harold Ancell wrote:

Just talk to a vegetarian; they live *much* cheaper lives, food wise.
Prices tell you something....

I guess I miss the point you're trying to make here.  Fruits and
vegetables are cheap, yes, but if you had all the people who eat meat
suddenly demand the same fruits and vegetable, wouldn't that drastically
affect supply as well as cost?

Yeah, but no one lives on meat alone :)

And in a crisis, I'd think the gov. would impose price controls (an old 
standby of govs in food crises throughout history)

close to Armageddon.

I don't understand this as well; are you saying that the lost cattle
would have no impact on the food supply?  I truly find this hard to
believe, even though I may be betraying my own ignorance.

Cattle EAT far more than their caloric value.  To the extent that cattle 
and other domestic animals eat food that is edible by humans, killing off 
the cattle could potentially increase the amount of food available to 
humans.

Getting your calories through cattle is tremendously inefficient.

Pigs aren't quite so bad, but they're still less efficient than just 
eating the pig feed yourself...but Pigs taste better :)

It would be *real* hard to create just one that's this specific.
Also, create that much viri, and the possibility of a mutation that
includes humans as a host is---frightening.

I'll throw the same argument at you that I did at John - in the future,
anything is possible (I mean really, how can we possibly exceed the
speed of light?).  I admit to having thoughts about mutation myself but
decided not pursue them - again, if I had to examine every ramification
of the disease, I'd lose the story very quickly.

In ten years?  I'd like to pray we won't have viruses that scary in ten 
years...I'd like to live my whole 70 years.

Well, it was my (unwritten) assumption that the virus 'hides' itself in
the atmoshphere, becoming dormant and benign, until it comes into
contact with certain kinds of DNA.  This would only be possible in an
engineered virus (and no, I have no idea how; then again, I have no idea
what exactly anti-matter is).

I think this would only be possible wiht a magic virus...

And Anti-matter is matter where all the particles have the reverse of 
their normal electrical charge.  The electrons are positively charged and 
the Protons are negatively charged.

(My Physics class in action :)


John Walter Biles :  MA-History, Ph.D Wannabe at U. Kansas         
ranma@falcon.cc.ukans.edu      bailesu@komodo.hacks.arizona.edu  
http://www.hacks.arizona.edu/~bailesu/falcon.html 
http://www.dhp.com/~wraven/john/index.html
"It's good to kill the King."  "I still think the Saxons should have 
put a higher price on our heads.  I'm more valuable than 25 librum."
--Frequent quotes from our PENDRAGON sessions.