[ExI] Coalition Wants Moratorium on 'Extreme' Synthetic Bio Businesses

[The Avantguardian]

----- Original Message -----
> From: Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com>
> To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> Cc: 
> Sent: Wednesday, March 14, 2012 2:51 PM
> Subject: Re: [ExI] Coalition Wants Moratorium on 'Extreme' Synthetic Bio Businesses
> 
>T hey can want it all they want.  It's nothing to care about unless they
> actually get anywhere.  There is enough money being made off of
> synthetic bio, that no such moratorium can get passed in most
> Western countries.  (Yeah, I know, but it's a silver lining to the
> corruption.)

And it is a severe economic drag on several industries ranging from agriculture to biotech and medicine. Probably billions of dollars in opportunity costs.
 
 Yet this mentality of "if it wasn't evolved by random chance, then that is playing God, and the thing will be an abomination that will run amok!" is always spun as *caution* when really all it really is  is cowardly ignorance. It is perpetuated by the media with formulaic science-fiction and horror plot lines that haven't deviated significantly from "Frankenstein" since Shelley first wrote it.

Fear of the unknown can become a habit of cowardice born of the ignorance.

Whenever I hear a Bioconservative harp on about the dangers of biology, I hear a child advising me "Never play with Daddy's remote control or he will spank you!"

Yet this same guy's wife might have a chihuahua descended from wolves and I can see the shame in the chihuahua's eyes because it knows what his master doesn't. And that is that at heart it is a wolf but it knows it is so weak it would be eaten if it managed to escape its captivity and actually tried to run with the pack. Have you seen seen wolves? Never a hint of shame in a wolf's eyes. Submission occasionally yes, but never shame.
,
Then I think all the ways people routinely play God in day to day circumstance: Whenever an animal breeder changes a breed, (s)he is playing God. Whenever a soldier or a cop pulls a trigger, (s)he is playing God. Whenever a judge swings a gavel, (s)he is playing God. So why aren't there ethicists getting underfoot and tripping up these professions? 
 
Sometimes I want to say to these people: I am a biologist furthermore I am middle-aged and not getting any younger. So give me the damn remote control, kid, before I use my scary biology powers to spank you my damn self!

Yet I refrain, knowing those bastards would say, "See I told you it was too dangerous to allow!" 

 
Stuart LaForge


"The state that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards, and its fighting by fools." -Thucydides.