21ST CENTURY WORRIES: Bioterrorism could kill more people than nuclear war, Bill Gates to warn world leaders.

Rapid advances in genetic engineering have opened the door for small terrorism groups to tailor and easily turn biological viruses into weapons.

A resulting disease pandemic is currently one of the most deadly threats faced by the world, he believes, yet governments are complacent about the scale of the risk.

Speaking ahead of an address to the Munich Security Conference, the richest man in the world said that while governments are concerned with the proliferation of nuclear and chemical weapons, they are overlooking the threat of biological warfare.

Well, we’re less than a decade from the setting of Vernor Vinge’s Rainbows End, where this situation obtained:

Every year, the civilized world grew and the reach of lawlessness and poverty shrank. Many people thought that the world was becoming a safer place . . . Nowadays Grand Terror technology was so cheap that cults and criminal gangs could acquire it. . . . In all innocence, the marvelous creativity of humankind continued to generate unintended consequences. There were a dozen research trends that could ultimately put world-killer weapons in the hands of anyone having a bad hair day.

Worse yet, today the civilized world doesn’t seem to be growing, and lawlessness doesn’t seem to be shrinking. Poverty continues to decline, but the politicians may manage to turn that one around too. . . .

UPDATE: Today’s sickest comment burn: “If anyone should know about the devastating effects of viruses, it would be the founder of Microsoft.”