[ExI] Fwd: DIY Bio-regulations

Bryan Bishop kanzure at gmail.com
Mon Apr 19 19:01:43 UTC 2010


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Cathal Garvey <cathalgarvey at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Apr 19, 2010 at 3:19 AM
Subject: Re: DIY Bio-regulations
To: diybio at googlegroups.com


..are you asking "What do we think of synthetic biology superweapons,
whether invented to kill, control or terrorise?"

If so, it's my opinion that biowarfare is unlikely to present a
serious option in the near future fir any end of a conflict.

Recall first that biowarfare is an ancient concept and tactic. It has
never been popular because of the risk of backlash. Nowadays it's even
less likely to be popular.

If you're a powerful country, you can afford a decent bioweapon but
your people will need treatment or vaccination before you use it:
nukes are cheaper.

If you're a smaller player, your people will get sicker and die more
if you employ a bioweapon. Your larger foe can afford to develop and
administer treatment.

Can a bioweapon be precisely tailored to kill only certain
ethnicities? Not without harrowing difficulty, and not effectively.

Because all races are ultimately the same barring biologically trivial
idiosyncracies, you'd need to use genetic logic to detect those
differences.

To preserve this state of exceptional, disadvantageous specificity,
you'd have to make the agent very genetically stable. Which leaves it
absolutely vulnerable to immune defence or vaccination. If you don't,
it'll revert to a more general specificity and you'll catch your own
racist plague.

My short answer: the self replicating power of synthetic biology makes
it exceptionally powerful as an industrial, remedial or novel
technology. But as a weapon, it's not practical.

On Apr 19, 2010 7:16 a.m., "etienne thillaye"
<etienne.thillaye at gmail.com> wrote:

Just, since I see that nobody talks about those revolutions yet in
France, which will be the same kind as the nuclear weapon in 1944
(which would explode, or not), translating into reality Kant's
predictions about universal history, shall I... Well...sorry boring
subject...

On 18 avr, 18:27, "Daniel C." <dcrooks... at gmail.com> wrote: > On Sun,
Apr 18, 2010 at 12:55 AM, eti...

> <etienne.thill... at gmail.com> wrote: > > Ever been in love ? Is that genetics ? How to rule emotion...

> For more options, visit this group athttp://groups.google.com/group/diybio?hl=en.

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