[ExI] Fwd: On the problems with considering 'ethics' with respect to disease control and prevention.

[Bryan Bishop]

----------  Forwarded Message  ----------

Subject: [Hplusroadmap] Here's my solution to those 'ethics' calls re: 
DIY biotech.
Date: Friday 13 June 2008
From: Bryan Bishop <kanzure at gmail.com>
To: Transhuman Technical Roadmap <hplusroadmap at heybryan.org>

The blog post that I was replying to:
http://community.safenano.org/blogs/andrew_maynard/archive/2008/06/13/synthetic-biology-ethics-and-the-hacker-culture.aspx

Here's my response:
http://heybryan.org/mediawiki/index.php/2008-06-13#Comment_on_Andrew_Maynard.27s_blog_post

Copied below.

============================================

Hey, 


So you ask how to go about the development of that framework so that 
some angsty teens don't go about screwing things up royally. The 
problem with this sort of thinking is that, what if you are wrong? What 
if your ethical framework doesn't work out in the end and bioterrorists 
do emerge and so on? That's not good at all. That's not something that 
regulatory policy is going to stop, that's something that's as bad as a 
disease. Think about the problems that we have with the Center for 
Disease Control and Prevention: they can hardly control the common 
cold, much less the flu, much less anything with more letters to its 
name. 


That's not the way to do it. That's the way to fail. Instead of hoping 
that we can encompass everyone into a regulatory framework (which could 
still be developed anyway, sure), we should be focusing on ways to make 
sure that we aren't, uh, killed. This is going to require change. Does 
anybody remember what was happening back when we were building nuclear 
bunkers? I don't. But from what I can tell, and from what I've read and 
seen, people were beginning to build solutions against nuclear fallout 
(radiation). Yes, politics still went on and people were trying to make 
sure the superpowers at large wouldn't blow everything up -- thus 
developed the Cold War -- but really, people got serious and realized 
that politics might fail and so they took action. They built bunkers. 


Same thing here. The solution isn't exactly bunkers. The solution is 
(partial) isolation, the solution is medical science training, the 
solution is epidemiology and the tracking of diseases, of training the 
population at large to be able to take responsibility for themselves. 
The solution is to implement in vitro meat tanks as much as possible, 
to implement space pods and moderately isolated environments, amazing 
air purification systems, etc. etc. High-class facilities already 
implement these sorts of systems, like in si fabs, BSL5 labs, probably 
a good number of government facilities. But there's no reason that we 
can't start taking this sort of responsibility into our own hands. A 
good first step is the acquisition of the ability to 
maintain 'environmental integrity', such as monitoring for biological 
agents, infections, etc., how to have enough energy reserves when the 
current (thawed) meat supply becomes infected and needs to be trashed 
(autoclaved), etc. etc. One of the minor projects that we can start 
with is face mask technology, seeing where that leads us. There's 
probably a good amount of information on this out on the internet due 
to the proliferation of chemical warfare (so, there's a useful 
byproduct of all that fighting, right?). 


Anyway, an ultimate solution that I hope others will join up with is the 
idea of spacepods. The current International Space Station is an 
illustration of this. Bigelow's expandable space pod is also an example 
of this. The idea is to have a pod that is environmentally isolated and 
can be completely managed, so that *you* control what you breath, what 
you eat, who you allow on board, so that *you* can implement policies 
and make sure you're not going to kill yourself. 


http://openvirgle.net/ 


Another interesting option is to wonder, hey, what if we let our bodies 
die? Why not focus on making backup systems? There's no reason why our 
walking bodies have to be the only ones. Yes, we can clone DNA. No, we 
cannot clone brains. But that's no reason why we shouldn't be trying to 
implement brain backup technology. That's another project that I like 
to focus on. I'm not talking about Mind Upload ( 
http://minduploading.org/research.html is an example of the seeds of 
this ). I'm just talking about the concept of storing information that 
could be used to reconstruct a similar brain. There's going to be loss, 
but frankly I find it acceptable in face of the alternative (i.e., 
total death). 


I hope this helps. I'm the guy you quoted. 


- Bryan
________________________________________
http://heybryan.org/

-------------------------------------------------------
________________________________________
http://heybryan.org/
----------  Forwarded Message  ----------

Subject: Re: [Hplusroadmap] Here's my solution to those 'ethics' calls 
re: DIY biotech.
Date: Friday 13 June 2008
From: Bryan Bishop <kanzure at gmail.com>
To: Transhuman Technical Roadmap <hplusroadmap at heybryan.org>

On Friday 13 June 2008, Bryan Bishop wrote:
> do emerge and so on? That's not good at all. That's not something
> that regulatory policy is going to stop, that's something that's as
> bad as a disease. Think about the problems that we have with the
> Center for Disease Control and Prevention: they can hardly control
> the common cold, much less the flu, much less anything with more
> letters to its name.

Oops. Actually, in all honesty, those guys are doing an awesome job, but 
the common day-to-day infectious diseases, germs, bacteria, viruses, 
etc., are in fact an example of something that they cannot control.

- Bryan
________________________________________
http://heybryan.org/

-------------------------------------------------------
________________________________________
http://heybryan.org/