Re: [ox-en] garage gene synthesis
- From: Graham Seaman <graham seul.org>
- Date: Sun, 14 Dec 2003 16:13:32 -0500 (EST)
On Sat, 13 Dec 2003, Stefan Merten wrote:
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Hi Graham and list!
2 months (65 days) ago Graham Seaman wrote:
Slashdot has a discussion on a paper:
http://www.molsci.org/~rcarlson/Carlson_Pace_and_Prolif.pdf
Didn't read it yet but...
predicting the ability of people in the near future to do genetic
manipulation on affordable equipment at home (crrent price for a DNA
synthesizer 10,000 dollars and dropping..)
...a similar thing came up before.
Entirely in line with oekonux discussion on fabbers etc but bringing
up a whole load of new and scary questions... looks like a very
interesting paper (which makes explicit comparisons with free software)
Actually I'm not very astonished about such ideas. I mean genetic
manipulation is to some high degree an information thing and thus a
natural subject to similar processes as we see in Free Software.
Can you explain what you think are the new and scary questions?
If a new physical virus is as easy to make as a new computer virus,
people will make them. If it is as easy to make as a new computer
virus, then the only way to stop them being made will be to stop the
knowledge of how to make them being shared. But we already know that the
only way that it is possible to prevent knowledge being shared is by
total dictatorship over all aspects of life.
The scary part is thinking 'yes, I would like people to be stopped
from making new diseases'. And looking at the consequences.
Of course what immediately comes to (a leftist) mind is that genetic
engineering is bad. Full stop.
Why?
However, why can't genetic engineering be seen as just another
technology with a very high potential. Such high potential is always
both dangerous and empowering. However, as far as I can see the
negative and dangerous things today mainly come from the embedding in
capitalism. I mean manipulation of corn for instance is more or less
to maximize the profits of some seed companies. On the other hand
there are these genetically modified bacteria producing insulin - is
that bad?
No, unless it has side effects you don't mention.
Graham
Mit Freien Grüßen
Stefan
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