[bradyriddle]

Is it just way easier/accessible to make a bioweapon then I think it is? Serious question. I've seen this pop up a few times.

[mr90210]

One doesn’t need advance chemistry, perhaps what makes it harder to do it is the access to the materials and enough motivation.

Source: my limited understanding.

[neom]

Depends what you're trying to do, light weight bio weapons are pretty easy to make, not an expert but there is ammonia and chlorine that can be used easily. I presume cytotoxins are among the easier of the "bad ones", but the precursors are monitored. that said, I think the risk here isn't about teaching people how to make the stuff we know about, it's about inventing new stuff we've not thought about?

[rimunroe]

Those are examples of chemical agents. Bioweapons (biological weapons) are weaponized pathogens like viruses or bacteria.

[printerphobia2]

in theory you can print out any virus given the sequence which you can find just from googling (e.g. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/1798174254 attaaaggtt...)

[inciampati]

Then you have to boot it up. Bio equivalent of putting the lightning in the rock (semiconductors). The DNA is like the lightning (like the code) the rock is the biological system you drop it into to run it. Booting viruses is not super easy.