I request you to review and reword your comment, hyperhopper.
This is hackernews, respond to the core of my comment. From the guidelines:
> Please don't pick the most provocative thing in an article or post to complain about in the thread. Find something interesting to respond to instead.
(Also, ironically by commenting on the post you disable editing, so you made your own request impossible)
I agreed with your post and could expand upon it, but your attitude does not allow for it.
My comment was a soft ball for you to improve rather than doubling down, and for us then to move forward. I do see that my comment ironically broke guidelines too. We can both be better.
And yes, places that have been truly isolated from the Americas until relatively recently are also are places where novel invasive species and pathogens come from (e.g. HIV, Ebola).
I think a more interesting question is what kinds of organisms are treated as highly problematic invasive species in Asia from the Americas. That is, shouldn't we expect Asian species to be susceptible to novel American pathogens?
For example, it's famously known that diseases like small pox wiped out many Native American populations because they had no previous exposure to the disease. Perhaps less known is that it's widely hypothesized that a virulent strain of syphilis wrecked havoc in Europe after being brought back by sailors fro the Americas.