Luck and deadly viruses.

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A number of us could escape into the deepest mine shafts until the virus dies down. With a 10:1 women to men ratio we could repopulate the Earth. Regrettably, we would have to do away with monogamous sexual relationships. But it is, you know, a sacrifice required for the future of the human race. I hasten to add that since each man will be required to do prodigious... service along these lines, the women will have to be selected for their sexual characteristics which will have to be of a highly stimulating nature.



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Now I am almost hoping this becomes a pandemic.

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Very interesting indeed.

Myself, I think I've taken permanent damage from past flus. I've had a few where I was coughing up blood. So I think I would be very likely to be in deep trouble and maybe kick the bucket if a tremendously virulent strain became extremely widespread.

On both the negative and the positive side, I've been living with and working with a great percentage of people who have lots of kids. Those kids go to school and bring home viruses to their parents, who pass them around work. Someone is ALWAYS sick at work; there are usually at least two different bugs going around. So I've been exposed to a ton of viruses over many years. I'm thinking my immune system might have more previous exposure to a lot of flu strains than most people's, and that could stand my immune system in good stead.

On the negative side, being exposed to those same people is just more likely to get me exposed the next time, and the building where I live is full of kids, so even if I holed up indoors, I'm sure I'd still get exposure somehow. And just going to the supermarket would effectively expose me to basically the whole planet.

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The H5N1 virus has never been seen before in the human body so having past flu strains will not matter. As far as the people who said they have been good immune systems, it does not seem to matter with pandemic strains such as this one. Whereas in normal flu cases, most deaths occur in the elderly or infant population, a pandemic strain such as H5N1 kills off seemingly healthy young adults just the same as an elderly or infant patient.

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But that doesn't mean there are no similarities between this virus and other viruses. The ability to fight other similar viruses is supposedly helpful in fighting viruses. An example is cow pox and smallpox. When smallpox epidemics were decimating many parts of Europe, turns of phrase became popular that noted how smooth the faces of milkmaids were. This was not just because of access to milk, but because their exposure to cow pox gave them a great deal of added immunity to smallpox.

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I regret to say that in your scenario, the men would be even more heavily selected than the women. If you don't think most dudes would be happy to have 20 wives while you have none, you're mistaken. And to many, your having none would be almost as attractive as their having 20.

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I regret to say that in your scenario, the men would be even more heavily selected than the women. If you don't think most dudes would be happy to have 20 wives while you have none, you're mistaken. And to many, your having none would be almost as attractive as their having 20.

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This is where Darwinism kicks in my friend. I will use all the tools necesary to fight for my 20 wives even if I have to kill 100 men. Better yet, I can kill all the men on the planet and be the only hope of the future. My full time job would be making love to one chick after another. Ah, the perfect world of pandemics.