First, I think outsourcing is insane. It's fucking stupid. Take a look at the history of powerful nations, and look at how they got that power and how they lost it. Germany became a megapower by tricking Britain into allowing it to develop a huge chemical industry, which everyone else outsourced to. Their top notch product and hard work for low dollars allowed a broken, second-rate country (in comparison to Britain at the time), to snowball in size quickly — and as it turned out, dangerously.
America was one of the nations that refused to outsource to Germany. As a result, it spent a decade producing crap labelled “Made in America“, but, at the end of it, it dominated the markets and rose to power (especially after Germany shot itself in the foot — at least now they've learned their lesson and are sticking to financial war). Being able to control all steps of the design, manufacturing, and marketing process was key in this. We've already watched large sectors of the tech industry being to collapse as we outsource work to potentially hostile nations.
But now they're going to outsource biotech to nations that are barely friendly with the US? Hell, even if they're not at war with the US, these nations are already at war with each other, threatening to blow out into the surrounding region. Outsource planet-killer weaponry tech to India? No offence to India, but seems to me that's playing with fire (more, more).
Nuclear weapons won't wipe out humanity. It's just not going to happen. Even if the superpower nations blew off the majority of the bombs they have, the end result is knocking humans back a bit historically (and I really doubt it would be more than a 75 year throwback), and the planet becomes a gorgeous nature reserve — most animals are not as sensitive as we are to radiation and would do fine. Chernobyl now has beautiful herds of wild horses running near the old nuclear reactor (more, more).
Biological weapons on the other hand could be produced in a small lab for very low dollars in comparison to the cost of nuclear. Deploying them is easy (again, in comparison to nuclear — it's still not easy)…. and they really do have the ability to be a species-wide suicide pill. It's one of the few ways that we could wipe all or almost all human life off the planet.
Nurse: I don't know how I'm going to find your vein.
Me: It's very prominent, I'm sure you can do it by feel if you can't see it.
Nurse: Oh, I don't know if I can find it.
(At this point I'm getting annoyed because I think she's being crass).
Me: Do you say that to your black clients as well?
Doctor: Now Shannon, you have to remember we're in Yorkville. These two only respect money… So let me ask you about your businesses. Would you say it's fair to say that you've been successful financially?
Me: Yes, extremely well.
Nurse: Oh! I love your tattoos, you're so interesting!
It really was like that.
I've written this before here, and I'll write it again: the mainstream doesn't actually have a problem with tattoos per se. Their issue is with the outsider. Once they know your tattoo doesn't mean that, they stop seeing them. They even switched to using the word “your decorations” over “your tattoos”.
It always grosses me out when money opens the door to the secret clubhouse, but I hope that maybe it helps them see people with tattoos and piercings in a different light.
