Bioterrorism and the Fermi Paradox
1) Space travel requires very large populations (for the wealth)
2) With reasonably powerful computers (to engineer precise enough rockets)
3) [2] implies the ability to rapidly reverse-engineer the populations’ genetics
4) [3] rapidly makes the development of omnicidal pathogens feasible
5) [1] and [4] imply reliable great filter level extinction
The full paper makes a much better case for each of these claims. I’m not convinced bioterrorism is the great filter yet, but it’s a compelling case. I’d say it’s more compelling than nuclear weapons or nanotech at this point.
See on www.docstoc.com
