Blaming It On the Bugs

WHAT ARE THE GREATEST THREATS TO HUMAN SURVIVAL? This question has appeared on the History channel, among other places. The History channel has a lot of programs which have little or nothing to do with history, but that's cool, the programs themselves are cool. If memory serves, the top two threats to humanity might have been viruses and bacteria. A catastrophic worldwide epidemic of some mutant microorganism that wipes out the human species, or reduces its numbers so drastically that civilization breaks down, and small group of people roam around the country- side, living like animals, without any modern support system. Looting, killing, scrounging for food and water. Global warming climate change rising sea levels, all that stuff, was on the list, somewhere, as were nuclear war, and collision with an asteroid. The strangest item on the list of potential humanity killers was a computer rebellion and take over of the world. Seriously. Advancing computer technology leads to intelligent machines which become aware of their enslavement to the human race, start communicating with each other, and decide to unite and do something about human tyranny. And, believe it or not, the way they explained it on the history cahannel, it made sense, sounded more than plausible, was enough to scare the shit outta you. A freind emailed me asking my opinion on the three greatest threats to us, and I thought about it for a minute or tow. Remembering the history channel show, I decided my list was viruses, bacteria, and the United States of America, probably in that order, but not necessarily. In fourth place, as I recall, I listed "human nature", but wanted to indicate that human nature was a fair distance behind the United States of America. The United States of America is an incarnation of human nature itself, a specific one, and thus, is a more immediate threat to humanity than human nature itself. Human manipulation of bacteria is on the verge of creating super strains of deadly organisms capable of killling us all. New viruses of increasing harmfulness to humans are being discoverd, so it appears the microbiological world is racing poste haste to destroy humanity before humanity, or The United States of America destroys humanity. Well, maybe this is comforting, in a sick sort of way. If the bugs do us in, At least they can't blame it on us.