There is a beauty in decay. Imagine an old barn, its roof sagging with moss, the red paint worn away by the elements. Now imagine that beauty, but for the entire world. This is the promise of smallpox and other biological weapons.

Humankind has constructed wondrous technological marvels around the globe over the last ten thousand years. Just because it’s our time to go doesn’t mean the Taj Majal or Vegas Strip need to be reduced to ash. Birds, bees, and fish need not die along with humankind.

Naysayers will point to smallpox’s lack of effectiveness in the past to argue against it. While it is true that the most deadly strains in past centuries barely met a mortality rate of 90 percent, it is important not to dismiss modern innovation. Some simple refinement, unrestricted by international treaties, could easily combine smallpox with a strain of ebola to ensure it is consistently hemorrhagic. Pseudotyping the strain to alter its outer shell can make it immune to common vaccines, rendering hundreds of thousands of doses stockpiled around the world inert.

The stage is already set for the new and improved smallpox to make its big debut. Since the disease was eradicated in 1980 from everywhere except a few labs in the United States and Soviet Union (plus the entire nation of North Korea—oops!) natural immunity and resistance are a dream of the past.

Need any more convincing? Even if some small slice of the population lives through smallpox, those left will have no way to keep modern civilization from crumbling. Measles, malaria and the rest of the gang can clean up the leftovers.

Smallpox isn’t just for the rich like nukes are. Instead of costing billions in maintenance and needing to be delivered by submarines, the end of the world can be contained in a tiny glass vial to be smashed in a crowd.

So next time your buddy’s ready to ride a warhead, remind him to calm down and climb off that phallus; there’s an easier way to end the world: all you need is a cough.