|
|
|
|
|
|
by patio11
6115 days ago
|
|
|
As long as we're talking science fiction solutions, I'd like to propose a chemical weapon. It would have to be so safe to humans that you could mix powders of it in your drinking water, in quantities sufficient to create iced tea, without any ill effects. It would have to be simple enough that an illiterate peasant could deploy it using technology routinely available in the early 1900s. It would have to be dirt cheap enough to spray into every home in an at-risk region in Africa. It would have to be patent unencumbered, so that anyone could produce it. It would have to be stupidly easy to synthesize in quantity. It would have to have decades of research put into finding a fumigation protocol to defeat those crafty mosquito's pesky tendency to develop immunities. And it would have to be guaranteed to work, for example, by being successfully used to totally eliminate malaria in every continent inhabited primarily by white people. If only such a magic chemical existed, we wouldn't have to waste time thinking up ways to swat mosquitoes singly with radar-guided laser weaponry. We'd just hire a bunch of folks to go around and spray a bit inside of dwellings, and bam, malaria cases would decrease by 90% within the first season of treatment, saving thousands of lives and removing an enormous economic loadstone from Africa's collective neck. I know, I know, it sounds like a sucky sci-fi book because if the chemical is so perfect then where is the conflict? Aha, you see, that's where we bring in a group of religious fundamentalists who view it as a totemic embodiment of the devil, and will oppose it automatically, no matter the costs, from the luxury of their malaria-free gardens. |
|
|
But, point (very) well made (if somewhat subtle for a significant portion of the audience...)
Edit: Actually, knowing this audience, perhaps not that subtle. :-)