When I first started researching this, preparing for tonight, I assumed that’s where the story ended.
But ten years later, a russian scientist - the former head of the Soviet biological weapons program - came to the United States. He claimed that the Soviets had been stockpiling smallpox, planning to used it as a biological weapon. And that he had had a change of heart and dismantled the program.
We don’t know how trustworthy his account is. But there is a very plausible alternate history, where smallpox could have been unleashed again, and one of our species’ greatest achievements turned to ash.
And the most comforting thing I’m able to say about all that is…
…it didn’t happen that way.
We live in the branch of history where the cold-war subsided. Where the soviet biological weapons program was quietly dismantled. Where the World Health Organization developed protocols to respond to Smallpox should it ever be released in an attack.
This is not a story with a definite ending.
It’s not a story about something inevitable.
But it is a story about something that’s possible, when we get our shit together.
So if you are facing a challenge that feels insurmountable, and you’re looking around at 2016 and feeling like humanity is just worthless, and you feel alone.
Remember.
That there was once a pit of suffering 500 million bodies deep. There was once an invisible demon that ravaged our world, that crippled and killed for thousands of years. Unstoppably. Until one day we stopped it.
And at a time when the most powerful nations hated each other, when the world trembled in the shadow of nuclear annihilation… there were people working together. Doing their best.
Building systems flexible enough to be adopted in cultures across the world, from the largest city to the smallest village. Powerful enough to slay one of the deadliest adversaries we have ever encountered.
Smallpox killed 500 million people. But we live in a branch of history where it might never kill again.
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