Ebola

It is clear that all the major parties will make this worse than it has to be.

For one thing, the companies involved in producing drugs to combat Ebola are incentivized to hold off making the drug available until the epidemic calls for larger, (and thanks to a bidding war) more expensive purchases. This means it has to threaten countries that are not dirt poor.

One of the reasons for bringing a deadly virus to the US rather than treat it in Africa is that it gives the drug an "only in America" vibe, it's that experimental, blah blah blah, can't leave the country, blah blah blah.

As for the government, well, the US would love to get it's hands on what appears to be the most infectious Ebola virus, which can be done under cover much more easily in America. They also want to study the patients and get data that no one else can have, because you know, everyone else is an enemy these days. Although I have a feeling all major countries have grabbed a sample at this point.

It also gives an opportunity for a leak, not that it will leak from these facilities, just that it can be a point of speculation (although it could leak from there, as I suspect this Ebola virus may be airborne or semi-airborne as seen in a few animal strains, which would explain why it is spreading so easily... and from what I heard they didn't take the precautions for an airborne disease, or so they claimed).

The biggest risk is terrorists, all you need to do is steal a body, but then there is also the risk of a State using it and blaming terrorists (which honestly seems more likely than terrorists at this point).

As the wars brew and the American economy takes a hit (not totally sure on that, but if it does, it will hit hard), I have no doubt that the United States in particular will be very interested in using Ebola as a wild card, an easy way to force people off the streets and back into their homes, as they wait for the virus to die out. It also gives the government additional powers over the population and the added fear is always useful to a Roman Empire.

However, they do not want it there in any other case, as it could trigger an economic collapse (major concern) and divert fund away from the military (not that much of a big deal, but why waste). This virus will be fought off well, that is until it is convenient to not fight it off.

I give this a high probability of a major spread throughout Africa (90%) (the reluctance of these companies to even consider working with Africa means they want to wait, which means there is a good chance it will spread, otherwise it is better to sell contracts before the disease dies out), and a medium probability it becomes a issue in the United States within 2 months (50%), and a low probability that it will become a large issue in the United States within 2 months (30%).

Useful Links:

http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/health/article/2000110003/study-new-strain-responsible-for-west-africa-ebola-outbreak

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-20341423 (2012 article on transmission through the air)

Thoughts on Fallibilism, Consciousness, and the value of Competition.

[2014/12/01 Found the link to the video I am talking about in this post: http://nautil.us/issue/2/uncertainty/ingenious-david-deutsch]

I was stoned (immaculate) one night and wrote down a theory, hours later I came across a talk on Fallibilism by David Deutsch(someone posted it on Reddit... can't find it). It was almost identical.

Last night I listened to it in its entirety (you know how it is, you listen to the first half and never get around to the second half) and I came to an interesting thought:

If there is no limit to knowledge, there is no limit to the way knowledge can influence our mind*; but not that it can be anything (i.e. there are impossible ways to arraigning the material of your brain), just that, of what it can be, there are infinite options of them, yet the brain has a finite amount of (physical/material) orientations. Even at the atomic level, or sub atomic, a huge amount of orientations may esist, yet not an infinite amount according to the quantum theory (due to quantization when getting smaller), so multiple (actually infinite?) knowledge states must exist at each quantized orientation... 

So they merge? that sounds wrong. They just exist?... but you have that orientation, so you can go from one option to another option without having to change the orientation, absent of time... and that change primes the orientation to orient to this new anchor? Which can change the biology of you over time? Consciousness affecting biology?

Maybe its random? But then wouldn't you risk confusion? What is the likelihood of simply being the wrong one, what if it is so far off from the correct one that you are just fucked? Maybe it is very rare. Maybe it is influenced by biology, by a previous orientation... by a future orientation? Does it even need to obey the direction of time... Maybe it is consciousness, the connection between the two, free will, or consciousness is the pursuit of knowledge.

Tangent:
Often people are distorted and curve away from the path of knowledge, rather than gravitating towards it. Given the training, it can be corrected, to produce a positive feedback loop directed at knowledge, the good.
It is the desire for the pursuit of the good.
Maybe.

It relates to an earlier thought that day as I thought about the philosophies of my life, this was a breakdown of one of them:

Left-Libertarian Minarchist (depends, in the case of in sufficient competition, otherwise anarchy can work)

When you think you have it, you remove the competition from the pool for the purposes of efficiency... but then it will deviate (by chance, or it already is) and eventually transform to not good, which is evil. Evil is the lack of good?

If I assert that existence is good, then a vacuum would be worse than torture...

1000 years before it diverts back to evil.
Information is good, or the creation of it (that makes more sense, feeling happy isn't really good, it's what made you happy that is good, happy is just an emotional response to good).

Destruction of it is evil.

Why? because that is the side of the coin we are on.
the human perspective is anchored, so it distorts what we see as good, because we are valued more. Our anchor is our greatest value. Good is the other anchor. Like gravity, what we see as good is a combination of the two bodies, which equals one force at one point.

Also last night:

Democracy

It is am artificial free market (a game). That gives everyone a fixed piece of influence per interaction, with formulated interactions agreed upon... by the democracy. Not a chicken egg problem, so much as it is just needing a start, and then it changes over time to optimize the goal of the game... or at least that would be the most moral thing to do, to optimize the rules. The start is very simple, and does not appear hard to have been created on its own.

Notes:*need to develop a proof for this statement, if the conclusion of the theory is false, then there is a limitation.

Also need to flesh out a lot of the last bits in general, they are more wandering thoughts for others to build on rather than truths.

I claim no supernatural powers, my thoughts and conclusions are sourced only from Wisdom, which is a product of Enlightenment. That which is often referred to as Wholly.

Claims made in this book are probabilistic because although I have good intuition and knowledge, without enough information the best I can do is state an event and its likelihood of occurring. I am not a machine, and expect my "percentage likely" score to be less and less off as I calibrate it over time. For now it may be best to look at it as a high, medium, and low score, rather than a literal percentage.

I am an Atheist, but that label will confuse many of you, as the line between materialism and spiritualism begins to blur as we dive into the human psyche. There is no such thing as magic, or gods, or an afterlife, however, the materialistic world produces many bizarre phenomena which left unexplained is often packaged under these headings out of a misunderstanding. I will show you that through materialism; spirituality, fulfillment of the "soul", and even the concept of a Messiah like character can all be easily explained.

Stay cool,
Daniel

[edit: changed some words for the sake of clarity]