Rattle wrote:

First, it would be easier to create and release this highly destructive virus from the genetic data than it would be to build and detonate an atomic bomb given only its design, as you don't need rare raw materials like plutonium or enriched uranium. Synthesizing the virus from scratch would be difficult, but far from impossible. An easier approach would be to modify a conventional flu virus with the eight unique and now published genes of the 1918 killer virus.

Bill Joy is still wrong. Now Ray Kurzweil is wrong too.

Creating a virus is non-trivial. This isn't something we need to worry about terrorists doing. The sky is not falling.

Bill Joy and Ray Kurzweil are both kooks. They can join the ever growing list of social misfit multi-millionaires who take their intellect far too seriously and are also kooks, like Danny Hillis, Vint Cerf, and most of the MIT media lab leadership.

It seems like the only person who's able to channel their money and thoughts into something that actually might bring about something positive and worthwhile to the worlds populace has been Woz, and he was the guy everyone thought was the kookiest back in the day.

RE: Recipe for Destruction^WIgnorance^WFear - New York Times