August 2013
A decision is neutral it is neither good nor bad, it is of the moment, however it may be religious or the final result of that decision that makes that initial judgement appear as being good or bad. It is the path selected by that decision that creates the movement that may have good or bad consequences for the individual, family, country or the world in general. Hindsight determines if it is good or bad, foresight only opens the possibility of it being good or bad.
To identify the universal bad decision is difficult as the same decision for one person may be very bad for another it may prove very good. For example a person decides to place a £10,000 bet on a horse that loses, for him it is a bad decision but for the bookmaker it was a good decision to take that bet. It means the same decision that we may regard as bad or even evil may be viewed by another person as good or justified.
Concentration Camps where people were imprisoned and died were they good or bad? It depended on the person looking at the decision. Those created by the Germans in WW2 were bad when viewed by the inmates and the world but necessary and justified when viewed by the awful judgement of the Nazis. Those Concentration Camps created by the British during the Boer War in South Africa at the time were thought to be necessary and justified, although viewed with the benefits of hindsight we may take a different view and say they were all a result of Bad Decisions.
A good or bad decision can only really be determined long term on how it affects yourself personally or those close to you and ignoring the alternative results. The Universally Bad Decision is therefore very hard to identify to that extent I will try to create a possible Universal Bad Decision story, in the end it will be you who has to decide if it is good or bad when the short and long term view is taken into consideration. Or you may make the easy decision and always regard it as bad.
SO HERE
He was the Director of a Germ Warfare Research Centre and had been working at the research centre in Russia for a number of years. He felt the work was necessary because he had been through the war with Germany and knew that more than 27 million of his fellow country men had died. He knew that many countries in the west were also working on biological warfare. Although in recent years he only knew of one country that actually had engaged in germ warfare that being the Japanese with their Unit 731 and the germs being dropped on the Chinese during WW2. He knew that the Americans had inherited much of the research work that the Japanese had done.
He was afraid like many Russians that the Western powers would attack Russia. History had told him of numerous attacks that had come from the West on his country from the times of the Teutonic Knights in 1242, through to Napoleon, Crimean War, First World War, the support given to the White Armies during the Communist Revolution, the Second World War and the long years of the Cold War, all his life he had felt this fear for himself and his mother land.
Now the communist state had collapsed and the future was uncertain, his working life was drawing to a close. He should retire in the next year or so but his pension in the new state was uncertain. He viewed the future with pessimism to the extent that he was becoming more and more depressed.
He considered the world's situation and could see that the peace of the world, its wild life and its resources are under threat for a number of reasons. Perhaps the greatest threat comes from the World's population growing at a rate that's creating food, material shortages, the destruction of the forests and growing CO2 pollution. Eventually this may lead to the need for some countries to look at areas of the world to feed their growing population. Threats coming from the growing populations of countries surrounding Russia, he thought they would see her vast areas of the Steppes as a potential source for expansion. In a war of attrition, Russia with the size of its population would be defeated, when compared to the population sizes of some of these surrounding countries. These wars would lead to the destruction of millions of people and property especially if nuclear weapons are used.
With this long term view to his homeland in mind he decided that he needed to create a solution. He had within his control, a means which could reduce the population of the world and thereby eliminate the threat to his home land, world's resources and in the long term future of mankind in general. He had made his decision, for good or bad, he would launch a germ warfare attack on the population of the world. Mainly because all the other nations only talked about the problem of world population and the exhaustion of its resources and they do nothing but talk. He believed that in the end mother nature will bring about the collapse of human populations as it has occurred numerous times with other animals. So he thought he would help her out before war, the cruelty of prolonged starvation, disease and the exhaustion of the earth's resources carried out the cull.
Within his control in the vaults of his Research Centre he had containers of Variola Major virus a disease that usually kills about half of those infected within a short time 12 to 15 days. So if untreated the population of the world could be reduced to about half of the current number and well within the ability of the earth to satisfy a population of this size. Importantly the reduction would not be brought about with any damage to the earth or its resources, just a reduction in humans numbers. He realised that it would not be very nice but in the end the world's population who survived would eventually be better off.
He had read that the Black Death wiped out a large percentage of the populations in Europe during the 14th century. For the survivors because of manpower shortages it freed them from serfdom and set them on course for a better life for their descendant being freed from this slavery.
He being the Director decided that before he put the final part of the plan into action he would ensure sufficient doses of vaccine for the people of his home land were manufactured. Once this part of his plan had been accomplished he would be ready for the second part the distribution of the Virus around the world. Once an outbreak occurred he would ensure his fellow citizens were vaccinated as he would have the vaccines ready. He had seen the computer models and he knew that he had to infect at least a given number for the disease to be self sustaining and complete the reduction.
He knew the major difficulty in any germ warfare operation is not the production of the germs but the distribution of the pathogens over the area of concern. The Japanese had fired shells containing germs, spayed it from aircraft, etc. but he was faced with the need to distribute the virus over a wide area of the world. As the world was comparatively peaceful air travel should be a simple affair.
The particular virus he intended to use was one that was normally distributed by droplets in the atmosphere taking about 12 days before the first symptoms appear. This incubation period will give him time for him to travel round the world by air before the disease appears. He will keep the pathogens in his luggage that travels in the cargo bays of the aircraft and so is less likely to be so closely inspected as hand luggage. When he arrived at his hotel he would spray the virus into the hotels air condition system. He would endeavour to visit as many hotels as he could and travel between cities by public transport, the metro system anything that carried lots of people, all the time spraying the virus. He would then catch another plane and travel to a new country where he intended to repeat the distribution process.
Within a few weeks he expected that there would be a pandemic with smallpox breaking out all over the world and because vaccination had ceased when smallpox was wiped out in the general population of the world, the death rate he anticipated would be in the many millions, similar to the pre-vaccination days. The world's population would have been greatly reduced and those who just talked about world population reduction would not have to do anything.
He realised what he proposed to do could be considered evil and bad by bring about the demise of so many people but he felt that people die any way and in the long run his decision for Mankind and the earth in the coming centuries will be beneficial. If nothing is done world population may crash. This way the population is reduced but most importantly the world's resources remain intact for the future benefit of mankind.
SO
Tell me would it have been a Bad Decision? perhaps in the short term bad, but what about in the long term, forgetting his chosen method, would mankind and the wildlife of the planet benefit from a reduction in the size of the world population?
Now if you think that it was a bad idea.
Change his nationality from Russian to British. Consider he preserves the whole of the British Nation and the Commonwealth. What now?
Many times we can see the bad decision change into good and visa versa.