AIDS

[ramonesfan]

Could AIDS be the major factor that is putting the human population in check? This is a very basic concept. Let's take an example: In a pond, the fish population is increasing rapidly. Let's say they eat algae. Eventually the pond's population of fish is too high and the algae can't reproduce fast enough to feed all the fish. A lot of fish die because there isn't enough food to support them.

Could AIDS be doing this? The human population is huge right now and it is about time something thins our numbers out.


discuss

[Skikamukazi]

No. AIDs is not killing enough people to keep the populus "in check". Well, not most of the world... Maybe so in Africa.

*note* I am in no way racist or judgemental towards Blacks. I just got done watching some Dave Chapelle is all.

[ramonesfan]

I realize it is not killing enough people. I think AIDS cases will escalate, not stay the same, not drop. The only thing i think will stop this is modern medicine. This may sound bad, but i think we should give researching cures a break. If we find cures to things such as AIDS and cancer, the population would soar.

[whorlichan]

Not to mention all that life-saving stuff we do right from birth. There's a thing called Natural Selection, and we've been screwing with it for a very long time--babies are being born that need round-the-clock healthcare that the government ends up paying for, when even 100 years ago they would not have survived more than a few days after birth.

Things that should keep the population in check--responsible decision-making, for exmaple, on the part of people who are able to become parents--aren't being done. And things that could bypass the need for responsible decision-making, such as birth control and abortions, are being denied to the people who actually want and/or need them.

AIDS is not going to cut the population as much as it should be cut. It's just going to drive people to fund "cures" that eventually breed super-diseases that no one can touch. Maybe one of those will finally drive down the numbers of people.

[ramonesfan]

It seems like we will have destroyed Earth by that time and will inhabit a different planet. The super-disease isn't going to kill off too many people for this reason. If we move to Mars or somewhere, there probably wouldn't be any diseases there. The human race would keep reproducing until we are spread across the Universe. Boy am I glad I will be dead by then.

[Skikamukazi]

It seems like we will have destroyed Earth by that time and will inhabit a different planet. The super-disease isn't going to kill off too many people for this reason. If we move to Mars or somewhere, there probably wouldn't be any diseases there. The human race would keep reproducing until we are spread across the Universe. Boy am I glad I will be dead by then.

Exactly, I don't care about that. I will be dead.

[stlunatic0124]

Could cigarettes be doing this? Could drunk driving be doing this? Could cancer be doing this? Could another act of genocide like the Holocaust do this? You could say that for anything, I'm sure an STD isn't going to put the human race in check.

[chickendude]

We'll just end up building space stations and crap and have people live in orbit
Or if they find water on Mars underground we'll just go over there with our AIDS

Its more than likely going to happen, after we die, maybe even just before we die

[-Skooter-]

This post, this entire thread, is absolutely pointless. The fact is, HIV, and AIDS are diseases. WE have to get them, WE have to spread them. This is in no way caused by science, or relevant to the bearings of the Earth. It is something that we have spread and we have caused to be an epidemic, and in any sense, do you really think that a disease is going to knock off any mass amount of 6 billion people? Realistically, it just wouldn't work.

[Anuj]

Well, not too sure if any of you guys have studied surivival of the fittest, evolution, and all that lovely jazz, but eventually, if AIDs does manage to spread and basically kill everybody on the earth, there will be a few people with mutated genes which allow them to carry the virus, but not actually have any symptons of it... (oh wait, there already are people like that...)

So if two carriers mate, there might be a small chance that the baby becomes a carrier, and is not actually infected... So eventually, AIDs will just be a disease that everybody is "immune" to, in the sense that we won't be affected by the side affects of it... Because we're all carriers and can't be affected by it =\

[Skikamukazi]

Well, not too sure if any of you guys have studied surivival of the fittest, evolution, and all that lovely jazz, but eventually, if AIDs does manage to spread and basically kill everybody on the earth, there will be a few people with mutated genes which allow them to carry the virus, but not actually have any symptons of it... (oh wait, there already are people like that...)

So if two carriers mate, there might be a small chance that the baby becomes a carrier, and is not actually infected... So eventually, AIDs will just be a disease that everybody is "immune" to, in the sense that we won't be affected by the side affects of it... Because we're all carriers and can't be affected by it =\

Bingo!

[chickendude]

see:
bubonic plague
beginning of Renaissance

maybe AIDS will lead to the technological renaissance because it will cut down our numbers so much that we might be smart , ok I dont know what I'm talking about

[Anuj]

So what you're trying to say...

is that only stupid people can get AIDS? Fraid not =\

[-Skooter-]

I agree, I doubt highly that everyone infected with the disease are complete idiots. I think that it's possible that they could've been a little more precautious, but hey, shit happens. On top of that, Anuj's theory seems completely exceptable. We've over come just about everything else, why not AIDS? I don't think that one disease is going to kill off even a hurtful amount of the population considering we have millions of diseases out there and everyday people die, and yet, there is no harmful decline in the population.

[GuidoHunter]

The modernized world has given up on population control. Earlier (and still now in the case of the more "primitive" peoples), it was done by contraception, infanticide, and war to alleviate the pressure of pushing against the land's carrying capacity.

Now we don't have that worry because we have artificially high carrying capacity which currently sustains us.

As for diseases being a population check, it's ridiculous. As Skooter said, AIDS just isn't going to kill off a substantial amount of people (at least enough to be considered population control) in this day and age just because we know so much about it and can prevent its spread. Even the bubonic plague wasn't a population check, but rather a method check. After it, everyone knew they had to be more sanitary and avoid flea-ridden rats, and the population soared.

If anything is keeping the world's population in check (even to a minor extent), it's us. In America, for instance, you rarely see parents having more than four kids when it was very common just a few generations ago. Also, China's got the squeeze on their population, so their billion won't become billions for a long time.

Oh, and whorli, a super disease just won't exist. There's always a way. =)

We also won't get rid of HIV like we did with Smallpox just because it's a virus, but containing it is certainly possible.

--Guido

http://andy.mikee385.com

[ramonesfan]

You guys are calling AIDS a disease, correct me if I am wrong, but i believe AIDS is just when your immune system fails. You don't get AIDS from having sex, you get HIV which often leads to AIDS. Wouldn't it be impossible to be immune to HIV because it is always mutating?

[GuidoHunter]

AIDS: Acquired ImmunoDeficiency Syndrome

It's a disease caused by the Human Immunodeficiency Virus. A cold is a disease, is it not? It's not just a failing of the immune system to a certain extent.

And yes, you can't contract AIDS, per sé. You just get the virus, and after a long time of it ravaging your body, the problem gets upgraded to the status of terminal disease.

It's impossible to be immune to HIV because it's a virus, not because it's always mutating, assuming that that's even true.

--Guido

http://andy.mikee385.com

[The_Q]

It's impossible to be immune to HIV because it's a virus, not because it's always mutating, assuming that that's even true.

From what I understand, it actually is always mutating. The reason you can't be immune to it, though, is by the time you should have been making antibodies to fight it the virus has destroyed the lymphatic system.

So pretty much, you're screwed from the time you get it. No pun intended.

Q

[GuidoHunter]

You can't make antibodies against virii, hence the absence of vaccines and cures. The virus lives in your own cells (for the most part) and makes them work for it. So, to stop the production you have to either block the virus from entering your cells or destroy the infected cells. Chemo does the latter, and scientists are working on drugs for the former.

--Guido

http://andy.mikee385.com

[cmb]

you know if people had a bit more abstinence that could slow it down the aids problem.I would think :?

[iggymatrixcounter]

(back on topic)

Somewhere I read that Wars, famine, and diseases keep the human pop down.

AIDS = disease (debate if you will but it kills so in my book it's a disease)

So technically yes AIDS is doing its part to keep the population of human down along with other factors. (Afterall without these 3 things how many people do you think would be alive right now???)

[MonkeyFoo]

Rather than posting an intelligent resonse to this one, and going on and on as I typically do, I'm just going to say what I don't like about the thread:

- Ramonesfan said "[I]t is not killing enough people." That's just wrong to say.

- Guido said virii. That's not a word. It bothers me. Just say viruses, it's originally a collective noun I think, and by the time we came to recognize "a" virus as a single thing, we been a-speakin' english. So, we don't need to make up a fake latin plural. I can't be sure my memory serves me right on all of that, but virii is definitely not a word. Grr.

- Don't think about it, make fun of it! Why else would I have had AIDS slogans on my signature for several months? Silly intellectuals.

[QreepyBORIS]

There are treatments for AIDS and HIV. They work for only a few weeks before the virus mutates and becomes immune to it, though. Also, I think the treatment is pretty bad for you itself.

There has been a recent breakthrough, though, which I think prevents the HIV virus from replicating by denying it access to a part of your chromosomes, or it makes it difficult to enter the cell or something. I don't remember. Maybe it's in this thread and I just got too lazy. :P

[GuidoHunter]

- Guido said virii. That's not a word. It bothers me. Just say viruses, it's originally a collective noun I think, and by the time we came to recognize "a" virus as a single thing, we been a-speakin' english. So, we don't need to make up a fake latin plural. I can't be sure my memory serves me right on all of that, but virii is definitely not a word. Grr.

Touché. Thanks for the correction (verified by both dictionary.com and by Webster).

@cmd: Yes, but we're way too sexual a species to give up sex.

@iggy: You know what else is doing its part to keep the human population down? Lightning bolts, sharks, forks, video games, trees, gravity, water (in the form of Dihydrogen Monoxide, of course), metal, botulinum toxin, food, and ANYTHING ELSE THAT KILLS PEOPLE.

@Qreepy: It was hardly a breakthrough. Although new treatments are great, it certainly wasn't the first one. By the way, the thread was in Chit Chat.

--Guido

http://andy.mikee385.com

[Jam930]

It's possible that there will never be a cure to aids.

We're all patient and confident, sitting back and throwing money at the research... but it's entirely possible that a thousand years from now, aids is still around... and so is the cold.

[esupin]

you know if people had a bit more abstinence that could slow it down the aids problem.I would think :?

The problem is most people don't get tested for HIV and dont't know that they've come down with AIDS until it's too late, especially in third world countries, where this is a real problem.

I was in China last summer, and HIV is becoming a real problem there, too. I saw these huge banners at Beijing Airport that translate somewhere along the lines of "Abstinence can prevent AIDS" and "Beware(probably not the best word to use, but..) of AIDS."

[msbrunnettemickey]

Guys.
One day i will become a genetic engineer.
And.. i'll find a cure for AIDS and other STDs.

There.

[Jam930]

I'm sure that's easier said than done.