Do you believe AIDS can be population control?
 

I have this theory, that AIDS could be population control. I think that (Mother Nature/Earth/GOD/Fate/any other belief you might have) has put AIDS on this planet to in a way control population. Think about it, it's something that really doesn't discriminate in any way. The ones most at risk are the most promiscuous, the ones that also have the highest risk of reproducing. Easiest way to avoid it, is to abstain. Now don't get me wrong here I'm not saying that being promiscuous is wrong. I'm not passing judgement on anyone. I'm just saying that AIDS is here to get people to relax. To open their eyes. It's not something that you'll get past cause you're good, or honest, or hardworking. It just affects the unlucky few whoms lives intersect with another individual who has it. Just a thought, or I could just be nuts.

Um... I'm not touching this.

Could be, some things have some sort of defense system built right into them, so disease in general could be Earth's way of showing us whose boss. Course, there's no evidence to back up the idea that the Earth is thinning out our ranks on purpose.

just as "Mother Nature/Earth/GOD/Fate/any other belief you might have" decided some crazy-odd million years ago to have a few cells mingle with one another and create some kind of living reproducing organism... just as aforementioned people coaxed that fish to step out of the water... just as aforementioned people gave humankind a graps of the most basic tools including fire to further their population...

some things are just coincidence. odd coincidence, yes, but it happens. so this monkey got a nasty cold and just happened to bite this bushman on the right day who just happened to shag his maidservant who just happened to pass it on ad infinitum...

aids is a nasty epidemic, but i doubt there was much in the way of a grand scheme involved in its existance. just my opionion, feel free to form your own.

Nops. I don't think so.

There are better and more "efficient" ways of controlling population.

BTW, can anyone confirm where AIDS actually originated?

well back in 8th grade my sex ed teacher said that theyve tracked it down to the first person that was infected... i dont really know if thats true...
i have heard that it did orriginate in africa...

as for population control i dont think it is...

in any population of organisms there are limiting factors on the population when it approaches its maximum capacity, but the earth isn't at that point yet, so i'm going to say its not population control.

I would say that influenza and malaria are far more efficient killers. Though Aids really does do a good job of keeping itself present within the population..keeping itself alive.

It lies dormant in a people long enough to spread, unlike ebola for example, which kills individuals far to quickly to spread efficiently.

i heard that AIDS/HIV first originally came from apes, and apparently was transferred to humans by some sort of bodily fluid exchange with an infected ape.


anyway, AIDS is far too slow a killer to be a form of population control, methinks. besides, from what i remember, one can get HIV, and never develop AIDS anyway...

There is a lot of misconception. AIDS isn't a specific disease. HIV wears your immune system down, leaving you succeptable. AIDS is the name for all the diseases you get because of their weakend system. If someone dies of AIDS, they may actual have died from 15-20 diseases.

Someone can clean up my facts, because I'm sure they're a little hazy.

Population control..... Well when there is more than one thing its starts to lose value.... In the case of we humans there are 6 billion humans on this planet. That leaves everones individual woth worthless. Lower the population of the world to increase your worth. Thats how I look at it.

As far as I have read I understand that AIDS started manifesting itself simultaneously in New York City and in Africa. Impossible to track down the first case because if people died from it before the diagnostic tests were avaliable and anyone knew what people were dying from.

I don't think there is any sort of higher plan involved, but diseases that kill people are part of human evolution. There is a wonderful book called The Coming Plague by Laurie Garret that talks all about this sort of thing. Just be nature of the shrinking globe and hospital systems we are vulnerable to diseases on a global scale. Many have pointed out some very true facts. AIDS isn't a great killer, but it's better than many such as Ebola or Marburg who kill too quickly to get a chance to infect many people.

an effect of people dying from disease could be termed "population control".
since that's a no-brainer, what's your point?

One theory I heard about the start of AIDS had to do with smallpox. In Africa, they used either apes or chimps(can't remember which), to grow a smallpox vaccine. They think that it was possibly passed on to people through vaccinations. Supposedly there is a SIV(simian immunodeficincy virus) that was thought to be incapable to pass from ape to man, which may have mutated to allow transmission.

grin, interesting argument. I don't buy it though.

good reply.

I tend to agree with phredgreen's last point more so than anyone elses in this thread.

I also do not understand how it can be considered control if I don't conclusively know its origins and have no idea to whom this control belongs to.

That, and I also haven't studied particular hypotheses and theories regarding past plagues and diseases.

I don't have figures on AIDS/HIV, but intuitively I feel that it may take a while before it becomes an effective population control agent.

If you want to know the "history" of HIV/AIDS, and the reasons why it is so widespread, and the lessons learned that are being applied to the SARS outbreak, read "And The Band Played On". I don't remeber the author, but it is an excellent overview.

Ambition
I always get suspicious of people who post such arguments and then never post again in the same thread. I hope you will.

Hope you don't mind me taking you point by point on this one.

Your theory clearly implies a thinking agent, and that is going to lead to the question of whether you have a religious God in mind? Nature does not 'think' and would not do X to achieve Y. Furthermore, if an agent has done this, does it have a moral aspect, or is it purely practical?

If HIV is just 'nature' then of course it doesn't (consciously) discriminate and this means nothing. If HIV is a tool used by a thinking agent, then it certainly does seem to discriminate - you are far more at risk if you can't afford protection, if you share needles, or if you are a homosexual male (in the UK at least).
So either what you say is meaningless or it is wrong.

HIV first spread in the West within the homosexual population and those in this group at still in the highest risk category in the West. Yet these people are at virtually zero risk of reproducing.
In the Third World the risk is now spreading to the unborn babies of infected parents. One in ten of those infected are children. Yet they are neither promiscuous or in any way blameworthy (should you or anyone else choose to take a moral line).

Do you really think AIDS has made people relax? Surely it has made the world a more dangerous, cauitous, suspicious and tense place.

If it only affects a few then it is a rubbish form of population control.
Sadly it affects many millions.

AIDS does lead to the premature and painful deaths of millions of people. Therefore it keeps down the population.
If HIV were intended to be a population control tool then we would have to conclude that the agent using it was either cruel, ignorant or ineffective. It does not lead to a stronger population. In fact the strong, who you would expect to have more sex, are at higher risk. Instead it kills the fit young adults in a population, leaving the very young and the old to be orphaned and unsupported. Eventually the old will die and none will replace them. The population will shrink and become increasingly burdened by the rising proportion of infected sufferers. This is certainyl a way to limit population size, but it is crude, brutal, and, if not cure is found, risks sending some populations into terminal decline.

If the choice is binary, I'd go for option two.

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I belive it is. I also think it was introduced by man on purpose. I know I will get flamed for this but I have my reasons.

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Agreed. Anything that kills people is population control. No point seems to exist for this thread.

I agree there doesn't seem to be a point to this thread

Whatever the pandemic is, it becomes a form of population control by its very nature, and that doens't have to apply to humans.

Notminus, it sounds like you've read too many Tom Clancy books

I think you misunderstand population control.

ANY population will run into problems when it grows large enough. It is inevitable, and it has nothing to do with a deliberate attempt by 'something' to control the population. AIDS is a real problem, but it is not nearly as bad as many of the epidemics that plaqued humanity when the population was a fraction of what it is now.

As far as population control....most populations are self regulating--they get bigger until they 'stabilize' with a birthrate roughly equal to the death rate (I am aware of the simplifications I am making). Humans are still in that growth phase. We have learned to adapt in ways that remove most of the problems that may have existed in the past, so now our population is adjusting to the new level that can be supported.

im gonna have to go a head and say that i strongly disagree with you

in a sick, demented kind of way, i can see how AIDS could be population control. but does that mean we shouldn't do anything about it? besides, i think that there could be better forms of population control if people just worked hard enough and thought it through.

Jello Biafra (lead singer to The Dead Kennedys among other things) suggested that since we've found the gene that causes homosexuality, the more humane population control would be to make people homosexual. It's a crazy idea (one that I'm not sure we could medically do), but pretty funny out of his mouth.

I'd buy that for a dollar.

In 1969, a government scientist who had worked in bioweapon labs said that in 15 years, the US military would have a bioweapon that consisted of a virus with a protein shell never before seen in nature, and with genetic code including recombinant DNA that would allow it to completely destroy the human immune system.

No, AIDS is much much too slow. While it is decimating the poorer countries, the wealthy ones can control it with ever more sophisticated combinations of drugs.

Now SARS might actually be effective population control, especially if it is mutating into a more deadly virus.

I have a neighbor who lived and worked in Sount Africa and was involved politicaly there. During a conversation he told me that some of the people he worked with had showed him plausable proof that it was introduced as a man made biological agent and it spread out of control. This conversation took place a few years back and the tone of his voice and the way of spoke of it really convinced my he truely did belive there was something more to it then blood transfering between humans and apes.