China pushing the envelope on science, and sometimes ethics

[kimba1]

probly a misspelling to his name. bowen

it`s likely sounds different then it looks

might sound like bun.

[Plane]

The Soviet Union had developed dozens of unstoppable bio wepons , they had massive production facilitys .

Why didn't they use it?

I think that they didn't ever figure out how to cure their problems without us.

Also we might have used our Atomic wepons in retaliation , just before we expired.

If the Soviet Union didn't need our grain and Europes cash   , if they had perfected an annonimous delivery ,  .. If they were actually crazy , ... we might have already seen this war.


Now the problem might become smaller entities bewing able to develop this capability and being crazy.   The Soviet Union made being stodgy a virtue but at least no attack was comeing out of a small sub group of them. 

[Michael Tee]

<<And if you don't, it's very likely your armor will not stop the bullet.>>

You just keep making tougher and tougher armor and experimenting with all kinds of bullets, all kinds of guns, all kinds of propulsive devices.  Nobody who puts on an armoured shield knows in advance what kind of bullet is going to be fired at it.  You analyze the shield that failed to see why it failed.

[Amianthus]

You just keep making tougher and tougher armor and experimenting with all kinds of bullets, all kinds of guns, all kinds of propulsive devices.

So, how do you do that testing? You're advocating designing armor without ever having seen a bullet. If you have the bullets available to test with, it's a safe bet you already know how to make bullets. Earlier you said that we could design defenses against biological weapons without knowing anything about them.

Nobody who puts on an armoured shield knows in advance what kind of bullet is going to be fired at it.

No, but you know what type of bullet it's rated to stop. Because it was designed with knowledge of the types of bullets out there.

[Michael Tee]

<<Earlier you said that we could design defenses against biological weapons without knowing anything about them.>>

That is not what I said.  I said without knowing how to make them.

Generally, biological agents fall into various categories and against each category is a specific defence or a range of defences.  They act in various known ways, so your defence employs various tested countervailing techniques.

You can't stay ahead of the designers of "designer" biological agents because there are so many ways that they could design the next generation of agents.  All you can do is prepare state-of-the-art "all-purpose" defences, to be modified as new agents come on the scene as revealed in actual combat, or, hopefully, by intelligence gained prior to actual combat.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Bowen is usually a Welsh name, from Pembrokeshire. It means "Son of Owen".

I suppose it could seem more Chinese if spelled differently: Bo Wen, or Bo Hwen (but 'Bo' does not seem Chinese to me).

There are at least seven ways of writing Chinese in the Roman alphabet, none of them very logical to English speakers. Westerners devised the Wade-Giles system and the Yale systems, the Postal system (used for place names) and EFEO (devised by the French). The Chinese devised the Qien Xinzi (for the Min language) and Bopomofo systems. Hanyu Pinyin seems to be the favorite these days, because the government of the PRC has adopted it.

It is not obvious how to pronounce Chinese to most English speakers. Mao Tse-Tung and MaoZedong are two spellings of the same name, as are Zou Enlai and Chao En-Lai. It certainly is not obvious to any English speaker how to pronounce Qien Xinzi.

Part of the problem is that there is no logical way to express tones in the Latin alphabet, and Chinese languages have several tones (four is the usual number, I think). Those funny marks used in spelling Vietnamese are a Frencophine attempt to transcribe tones: as I do not know Vietnamese, I cannot comment on how effective or accurate this really is. But it does seem to work for the Vietnamese, at least.

And then there are various different Chinese languages: among them Mandarin, Cantonese, Min, Wu, plus a variety of languages (sometimes inaccurately called 'dialects' ) of minorities that are not Han Chinese.

The International Phonetic alphabet would be most accurate, but it is rather complicated.

[Michael Tee]

<<and Chinese languages have several tones (four is the usual number, I think).>>

Four in Mandarin, eight in Cantonese.  Somebody with a better ear than mine might actually be able to detect the differences between all eight tones, but I gave up a long time ago.

[Amianthus]

Generally, biological agents fall into various categories and against each category is a specific defence or a range of defences.  They act in various known ways, so your defence employs various tested countervailing techniques.

*Known* biological agents act in "various known ways". There is still a lot about biology - even just human biology - that we know nothing about. Limiting research by US companies in certain areas does nothing to "pull back back the curtain" on what we don't yet know.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Eight tones. I have trouble with four.

I have heard that the reason Chinese opera always has characters running down the side of the screen is that when the songs are sung, the tones are lost, and this makes the words indecipherable, or at least confusing.

It is harder to listen to Chinese opera for me than even most rap and hip hop. Thirty seconds and my fingers autonomously head for my ears. I can't help but think that "Klingon Opera" on Star Trek was sort of a parody of Chinese opera.

Some of the noise in Tibetan Buddhist rituals are said to be intended to frighten away evil spirits, and it is indeed hard to believe that it does not have the potential to frighten. Rap and hip-hop are obviously intended to annoy the elders.

[Michael Tee]

<< Limiting research by US companies in certain areas does nothing to "pull back back the curtain" on what we don't yet know.>>

The problem is, if the U.S. wishes to maintain the fiction that its research into biological warfare is defensive only, is that while it is pushing into new frontiers of offensive research, the enemies that it is allegedly "defending" against could be pushing into other new frontiers.  If the enemies decide to base their offensive weapons on their newest bio-warfare discoveries, all the research done by U.S. scientists on new frontiers in offensive biowarfare will be of no use whatsoever in defence.

[Amianthus]

That's why the research needs to be wide ranging and not limited to the US government.

[Plane]

<< Limiting research by US companies in certain areas does nothing to "pull back back the curtain" on what we don't yet know.>>

The problem is, if the U.S. wishes to maintain the fiction that its research into biological warfare is defensive only, is that while it is pushing into new frontiers of offensive research, the enemies that it is allegedly "defending" against could be pushing into other new frontiers.  If the enemies decide to base their offensive weapons on their newest bio-warfare discoveries, all the research done by U.S. scientists on new frontiers in offensive biowarfare will be of no use whatsoever in defence.

Is haveing offensive capability evidence of ill intent?

The Soviet facility was able to turn out high volumes of toxic or infectious agents.

President Nixon nixed offensive capability in bio wepon or chemical wepon.

[kimba1]

It is harder to listen to Chinese opera for me than even most rap and hip hop. Thirty seconds and my fingers autonomously head for my ears. I can't help but think that "Klingon Opera" on Star Trek was sort of a parody of Chinese opera.


lol
good one xo

In always joke the reason my dad left china got nothing to do with the marxist, it`s the opera.