Antibiotic-Resistant Superbugs

Imagine a world where a single cut to your finger could kill you. A world where breaking a bone or giving birth could be a death sentence. No, this isn’t our pitch for Hemophilia: The Movie. This is the world that we’ll all be living in by 2050. Ever since Alexander Fleming accidentally discovered penicillin, the ability of microbes to kill us has declined drastically. Unfortunately, this has coincided with a steep rise in quack doctors prescribing antibiotics for every malady and farmers shooting their animals full of the stuff.This long-term exposure to all classes of antibiotics has allowed bugs to evolve a resistance to these drugs. The worry is that soon every bug on Earth will follow suit. At that point, we’ll reach Armageddon. In a post-antibiotic world, roughly 10 million people will die horribly each year—around one every three seconds. Most of those deaths will be concentrated in Asia and Africa, but Western countries will feel the pain, too. So we should all be lobbying companies to develop new antibiotics, right? Great idea, but what’s their incentive? It costs billions to make a new drug, and companies will never recoup the costs. If they started selling it, all the bugs would build defenses again.The new drug would have to remain as a “weapon of last resort,” devastating any possible profit margin. So no one invests. Unless we come up with an alternative funding model fast, the microbe victory could be here sooner than we expect.

A Deadly Global Pandemic

When Spanish flu hit in 1918, it was one of the worst pandemics the world had ever seen. Between 20 and 50 million died—more than were killed in the whole of World War I. A third of the world’s population got terribly sick. Ever since, we’ve been nervously waiting for the next great pandemic. There have been contenders. SARS, swine flu, and H5N1 (bird flu) all caused understandable scares. Ebola also got people worried, although the Ebola virus was never much of a threat outside West Africa.While none of these resulted in mass deaths, that’s not because of our superior pandemic-avoiding skills. The right virus could still devastate the planet in weeks. Scarily, medical professionals already have some contenders.Perhaps the scariest is Nipah virus. A disease that jumped from pigs to humans in Malaysia in 1999, it now has small, regular outbreaks in Bangladesh. The symptoms are terrifying. Vomiting, fever, and muscle pain quickly give way to coma, which swiftly leads to death. As many as 70 percent of those infected die. Such a rate would make Spanish flu seem like a walk in the park. Rift Valley fever is another candidate. An Ebola-like disease, it infected 90,000 Kenyans in 1997. Unlike Ebola, Rift Valley fever can be transmitted by mosquitoes. One look at how quickly Zika virus is spreading should prove how scary this is.That’s before we even get to viruses like Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). Chances are, the next pandemic is already brewing. If we’re unlucky, it might be the Big One.

Nuclear War Between NATO And Russia

The fear of a nuclear exchange between NATO members and Russia fell out of favor around the late 1980s. Until, that is, 2016 rolled round. In May 2016, Alexander Richard Shirreff, the former deputy commander of NATO, outlined what he saw as the odds of a major war between the West and Russia. His grim prediction was that the world was on course for a nuclear exchange by 2017.Shirreff’s argument can be boiled down to three basic things: Ukraine, Putin’s paranoia, and NATO expansion. According to the former general, the annexing of Crimea by Russia in 2014 has destroyed the post–Cold War settlement. Following international sanctions, Russia has become increasingly paranoid about what it sees as NATO expansionism.Shirreff’s prediction is that Russia will try to break through NATO encirclement by annexing the rest of eastern Ukraine and then invading the Baltic states. Since Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are members of NATO, that would de facto spark World War III. What’s the spark that could set off all this death and destruction?An accident. Russian planes are currently playing chicken with NATO jets in the Baltics on a near-daily basis. Earlier this year, two Russian bombers were intercepted heading for the UK.Neither side wants a war. But if NATO shoots down a Russian plane or a Russian pilot accidentally kills a NATO serviceman, things could spill over extremely quickly. And that means a conflict dragging in four of the world’s nine nuclear powers.

Nuclear War With China

The only thing more objectively insane than getting dragged into a nuclear conflict with Russia would be getting dragged into one with China. Terrifyingly, this is a real possibility.Welcome to the South China Sea, where China has spent the past few years claiming territory that smaller countries lay claim to. This wouldn’t be a global problem except that the US is frequently allied with those countries. That means if China decides to enter full empire-building mode, the US is duty bound to step in.As is the case with Russia and the Baltics or Ukraine, no one seriously thinks that either the US or China wants a war. The two countries have military arsenals that would ensure annihilation of huge swaths of the planet if they went toe-to-toe.The problem is, a single slipup at times of heightened tension could accidentally trigger World War III. Just recently, China intercepted US spy planes over the region, and there have many near misses over the last few months. Things have become so dangerous that some analysts are predicting a possible war between the US and China as early as 2018.

Ebiniz:
Nuclear War With China

The only thing more objectively insane than getting dragged into a nuclear conflict with Russia would be getting dragged into one with China. Terrifyingly, this is a real possibility.Welcome to the South China Sea, where China has spent the past few years claiming territory that smaller countries lay claim to. This wouldn’t be a global problem except that the US is frequently allied with those countries. That means if China decides to enter full empire-building mode, the US is duty bound to step in.As is the case with Russia and the Baltics or Ukraine, no one seriously thinks that either the US or China wants a war. The two countries have military arsenals that would ensure annihilation of huge swaths of the planet if they went toe-to-toe.The problem is, a single slipup at times of heightened tension could accidentally trigger World War III. Just recently, China intercepted US spy planes over the region, and there have many near misses over the last few months. Things have become so dangerous that some analysts are predicting a possible war between the US and China as early as 2018.

If this happens, the Us would have them pulverised in a flash.

ELYMAXiimus:
If this happens, the Us would have them pulverised in a flash.

Wow.. so ure one of those that under estimate china

ELYMAXiimus:
If this happens, the Us would have them pulverised in a flash.

You underestimate China

RedHand:

You underestimate China

No, I don't. The US are just too way ahead for them.

Op, bia come and finish this thread now..
cc: ebiniz