Fellow time travellers, as you know we did sterling work wiping out Super Syphilis in Siberia, an event remembered as Tunguska. Now we know the origin of Aids, the Belgian Congo in the 1920s. It’s future capital, then known as Leopoldville, now Kinshasa. Today it’s a city of 9 million people, known for the “Rumble in the Jungle” to boxing fans.
Here’s the plan. We send one of these back to the centre of Leopoldville in 1920, with a population of several tens of thousands. Then, we detonate it. It will destroy the city and the surrounding countryside, purging the “perfect storm” by nuclear fire.
Of course, lots of people will die and the neighbouring Brazzaville across the river, the capital of French Equatorial Africa, will also be destroyed. I know what you’re thinking - why not shoot patient zero rather than nuke him. Unfortunately a new patient zero always arises a days or weeks later, so nuking it from orbit is the only way to be sure.
Do we interfere and wipe out the cities? Is smothering Aids in its crib worth the destruction and casualties? All those in favour vote AYE, all those opposed vote NAY.
I voted nay. If we have this time machine, I’d rather just, with the benefit of hindsight, encourage the medical community and world governments to take AIDS as the serious public health risk it is much sooner than they did.
There are at least two distinct varieties of HIV, did they both arise from the same general area?
And the cleanup and rebuilding effort will bring in a lot of workers to the area, and they will want entertainment. Seems you might just delay it by a few months of years.
Also as the article says Kinshasa had become a hub for markets and trade and had 1 million rail passengers passing through daily. I’m thinking you don’t abandon that kind of economic powerhouse, and demand for trade and transport would just see it rebuilt so then HIV starts spreading slightly later.
I’m no doctor, but the HIV-1 group M pandemic, the bad one, definitely did. After we blow up Big Ivan there won’t be much left to rebuild. It’s at least 1,350 times more powerful than the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, combined.
I vote no. Blowing up cities will have consequences beyond just destroying a disease. This could easily cause more than enough additional war and strife in the long run to make up for the deaths prevented.
Not the same cities, no. From the OP’s first article, my bolding:
I know people here are often a bit sketchy on African geography, but Cameroon is several hundred miles from Kinshasa and hosts 3 distinct varieties of HIV of its own.
And this solves nothing - people in the region will still be eating bushmeat, SIV would still make the jump to HIV, so it’s no different than the “take out patient zero”
option the OP pooh-poohd, only with tens of thousands of other innocent lives lost.
I think this is the most abhorrent hypothetical I’ve ever seen posted on the Dope, BTW.
Aw, thanks. Taking out patient zero doesn’t eliminate the “…combination of factors in Kinshasa in the early 20 Century created a ‘perfect storm’ for the emergence of HIV, leading to a generalised epidemic with unstoppable momentum that unrolled across sub-Saharan Africa”
So that’s why it was pooh-poohd. Plus it would be rather boring to discuss, a bigger reason. You’re also talking about group O in Cameron, group M (over 90% of cases) originated in the Congo.
(For the record poll inspired by this past thread on ebola, but with HIV substituted. I don’t think it would be a good idea either, btw, just wanted to see how many would favour that trade-off).
See, this is typical. Every time somebody suggests the callous murder of thousands of Africans you show up and get your panties in a twist. Why can’t you just come to grips with the fact that lots of foreigners spend considerable amounts of time thinking of ways to kill people on your continent?
I mean, you’re not even in the same country. What right have you got to demonstrate this much empathy?
I cannot be objective about this hypothetical. I lost quite a few friends and lovers to AIDS, and I’d do just about anything for them not to have died. It’s very difficult to weigh their lives against any number of strangers with any objectivity.
