Maybe I'm too cynical, but that's what I got from it. The video way overstates the ease of DIY viral research and understates how tightly regulated it already is.
Maybe I'm too cynical, but that's what I got from it. The video way overstates the ease of DIY viral research and understates how tightly regulated it already is.
This is manifestly not true. Genetic engineering a bioweapon is not the only way to make it.
You can start with a known agent and use cultures or hosts to select for virulence, and you would be able to get surprisingly far. Just ask Japan.
I never mentioned genetics. I mentioned how cultures are needed to be stored for it to work. If you look even at the ramshackle approach 1970s Japanese terrorists used - that still cost them a coupla million dollars worth to make it happen. Ricin was cheaper for them to work with and ended up having the results they'd wanted.
Not quite the reference I had in mind.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731
A few million dollars is nothing in comparison to the effect releasing a weaponized agent would cause. There is a reason why the United States is the only country lawless enough to allow biowarfare research to continue. I maintain that you would not even need that much money if you weren't too picky about the final product. You could Tiger King your way to a meth lab grade bioweapon for 100k.
If Gregor Mendel could do it, nearly anyone with lab experience could do the same with yersinia taken from your friendly neighborhood Prairie dog. Or a state level actor could go to the ivory coast.