building a bacteria that eats all metals would be world-ending: Most elements on the periodic table are metals. If you engineer a bacteria that eats all metals, it would eat things that are essential for life and kill us all.
Okay, what about a bacteria that only eats “stereotypical” metals, like steel or iron? I beg you to understand that you can’t just sub in different periodic table elements and expect a bacteria to work the same. There will always be some material that the bacteria wouldn’t work on that computers could still be made with. And even making a bacteria that only works on one material, but is able to spread over the entire planet, is well beyond our abilities.
I think list of lethalities is nonsense for other reasons, but he is correct in that trying to do a “pivotal act” is a really stupid plan.
As I said I don’t know much about microbiology and chemistry so I cannot challenge anything you said. It seems consistent with other answers as well telling me that there is no way of doing it. I was queezy about it anyways since teleporting our technology back to the stone age and committing 99.9% of humanity to die is quite extreme.
building a bacteria that eats all metals would be world-ending: Most elements on the periodic table are metals. If you engineer a bacteria that eats all metals, it would eat things that are essential for life and kill us all.
Okay, what about a bacteria that only eats “stereotypical” metals, like steel or iron? I beg you to understand that you can’t just sub in different periodic table elements and expect a bacteria to work the same. There will always be some material that the bacteria wouldn’t work on that computers could still be made with. And even making a bacteria that only works on one material, but is able to spread over the entire planet, is well beyond our abilities.
I think list of lethalities is nonsense for other reasons, but he is correct in that trying to do a “pivotal act” is a really stupid plan.
Thank you for you answer!
As I said I don’t know much about microbiology and chemistry so I cannot challenge anything you said. It seems consistent with other answers as well telling me that there is no way of doing it.
I was queezy about it anyways since teleporting our technology back to the stone age and committing 99.9% of humanity to die is quite extreme.