5 ms·

Luddite. In all seriousness, the dangers brought up in the article can only come from a person lacking significant knowledge of bacteria. Unimaginable numbers

by bh42 16y ago

Luddite. In all seriousness, the dangers brought up in the article can only come from a person lacking significant knowledge of bacteria. Unimaginable numbers of bacteria permeate every part of the world, including miles within the earth, deep sea volcanic vents, radioactive waste, the rain drops falling on our heads, and us, up our noses, in our skin pores, our guts, etc. Those simple bacteria evolve at staggering rates, and swap genes like DJ Danger Mouse mixing tracks. Any new synthetic, or extraterrestrial, or magical, life form would have to compete. And unless you believe in magic it is unlikely to out-compete in a pre-existing niche. The grey goo danger often thrown at nano-tech, is possible only if we violate one or more of the basic laws of thermodynamics. And when it comes to antibiotic resistant bacteria, well we are already doing a great job of breeding those within ourselves. But if you grew a barrel full of MRSA and then poured it down your toilet, the SA wold quickly lose its metabolically expensive MR. Because there is no Methicillin in the sewer, the resistance to Methicillin is a disadvantage. And the only way the Staphylococcus aureus could survive is if it dumped this feature. But luckily you're probably taking antibiotics so you are a niche where MRSA can out-compete and thrive.

WilliamLP 16y ago
> And unless you believe in magic it is unlikely to out-compete in a pre-existing niche. Cars are faster than land animals. Planes are faster than birds. Not being constrained by needing to have come from slow gradual iteration might open some possibilities, some terrifying. Biology doesn't produce the wheel. To consider this as a possibility is not to believe in magic.
- someone_here 16y ago
  It is inevitable that we will code a biological species that could not have arisen from gradual iteration. However, there are some wheel-like things in biology: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotating_locomotion_in_living_systems#Wheel-like_rotation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotating_locomotion_in_living_s...
- CWuestefeld 16y ago
  > Cars are faster than land animals. Planes are faster than birds. There's no comparison. I'm sitting here looking out the window at my car, and there are caterpillars out there that are moving faster than it. Not only that, but that caterpillar can refuel itself. And it'll turn itself into new ones next year. In the meantime, my car will sit and rust. Really, it's the height of hubris to think that we can engineer something that works as well as what untold generations has evolved. (And I'll apologize for the tangent, but this is also the fatal conceit of those who believe that any central authority can manage our economy any better than the market can on its own.)
  - WilliamLP 16y ago
    > but this is also the fatal conceit I think considering the possibility that removing gradual iteration as a constraint, or considering the big picture, could lead to improvements of some natural designs, true or not, is unlikely to be fatal! I don't see how anyone would just dismiss this point a priori. Both of those things seem, intuitively, to be fundamental constraints in evolution. Human biology plus technology leads to us out-competing every other similarly sized animal in any land niche we choose. The question is whether bacteria biology plus human ingenuity could have any similar advantages over biology alone. If you trust your snap judgment without extremely careful consideration, I just hope you're not in charge of the relevant policy decisions!
  - weavejester 16y ago
    "Really, it's the height of hubris to think that we can engineer something that works as well as what untold generations has evolved." Why? Technological progress through logical deduction is patently more efficient than evolution through natural selection. Modern technology has already far surpassed the capabilities of natural organisms in a number of areas, all within a geologically minute timespan. Just because a caterpillar can self-replicate, doesn't make it better than a car in every single respect, otherwise we'd be riding caterpillars to work. In terms of self-replication and regeneration, nature has us beat (for now). But if you want to send packets of information halfway around the globe, there is no biological process that comes anywhere close to our technological capability. "(And I'll apologize for the tangent, but this is also the fatal conceit of those who believe that any central authority can manage our economy any better than the market can on its own.)" But it can, or at least, a market with regulatory oversight is more efficient than a completely unregulated market place. Natural environments and unregulated markets suffer from very similar problems. They don't magically gravitate toward the most efficient solution; very often they'll do incredibly stupid things that would leave an intelligent observer scratching their head. However, natural selection does produce very robust ecosystems, which is why life has flourished for millions of years, and why caterpillars will outlast your car. Logically, the best approach is to combine natural selection with intelligent oversight. Left to its own devices, an unregulated market has a tendency to fall into traps which benefits an individual or subgroup for a short time, but disadvantages the market in the long run. The Prisoner's Dilemma, the Tragedy of the Commons and the Market of Lemons are all common effects that can be circumvented by intelligent regulators, but would cause great damage to any market left to its own devices.
- barrkel 16y ago
  I think there's a risk that you're underestimating the scale required to make those things work. Not only are cars and their engines pretty big, but they need a huge amount of infrastructure for their construction (think about where that all that metal came from, never mind everything else), maintenance, feeding (the whole oil economy), roads, signals, piloting, etc.
- bh42 16y ago
  Cars are faster than land animals. Planes are faster than birds. Fuel, jet fuel. Biology doesn't produce the wheel. Tumble weeds? Insects which curl up into a wheel to quickly roll away from danger? Can a car drive up stairs? Indeed if we genetically engineered a large animal to run on gasoline AND provided it with an ample supply of gasoline, it would move faster than anything else... as long as it had gasoline. If we engineered a bacterium to eat oil and/or gasoline and dispersed in the gulf.... already there, eating oil, consuming the oxygen in the water in the process. If we added it to an oil well... already there, lots of bacteria deep within the earth, eating everything from metal to methane. Probably not consuming the world's oil reserve only for lack of oxygen or any other oxidizer. ...some possibilities, some terrifying. Ebola, HIV, the flu de jour all quite terrifying, all 100% natural. And unlike you, they don't care. They will keep evolving and trying to kill you as fast and as hard as they can, every minute of every day.
  - WilliamLP 16y ago
    > Ebola, HIV, the flu de jour all quite terrifying, all 100% natural. If you can't imagine anything more terrifying than those, it is a failure of imagination. See Jared Diamond's point about how when humans and large animals coevolved gradually in Africa, the animals could gradually adapt, whereas when fully evolved homo sapiens were introduced in the rest of the world 40,000 years ago, almost all the megafauna were killed off almost immediately. > They will keep evolving and trying to kill you as fast and as hard as they can, Thankfully, this is wrong. Diseases that kill you quickly are at a severe disadvantage.
    - bh42 16y ago
      I can easily imagine an HIV that's as easy to transmit as the common cold. Franky we got lucky with HIV, it could have been something like that and we along with cheetahs and a few other species don't have much genetic diversity within the species and are thus susceptible to extinction via disease. This is why I want the biotech pedal to the metal. Because in my opinion the probably of us accidental creating something horrific are far less then something horrific being created quite naturally. Like in some shared living space with humans and domestic animals, it could happen in any given moment and spread quickly around the world. We don't need labs to die of something horrible.
- lukifer 16y ago
  This is a good point. At the same time, bacteria have been mutating for much longer than birds or land animals, and they iterate generationally at an unbelievable speed compared to their multi-cellular cousins. The risks should be taken seriously, even the seemingly far-fetched ones, but need to be viewed in the context of an already cut-throat competitive landscape. IMHO, the bigger risk is intentionally designing malicious life forms (bio-weapons) more so than than beneficial ones getting out of hand.
orblivion 16y ago
It doesn't only bother me practically. Yes I did consider the fact that they'd have to compete, though I didn't consider the fact that they evolve all the time anyway, that's a good point. BUT, especially if they're talking about something as drastic as eating up a significant amount of carbon in the air, it will change the ecosystem. It'll pose the same danger as moving animals across continents. But really it bothers me in a different way. I'll say morally, for a severe lack of better term. Maybe existentially. It doesn't sit right with me that we'll be living amongst creatures created in a lab, and that there's no way to differentiate them. I don't believe in God, but I like that we exist within a certain biological framework, it just feels like part of our identity. That the players are allowed to change the rules bothers me.
- fgf 16y ago
  Luddite^2
- JoeAltmaier 16y ago
  Your dog is genetically engineered. Your tomato. Your children. And I don't mean in the lab, but the usual way, by using your intelligence to choose suitable stock and then breeding until you get what you want. The shortcut in the lab is just faster and cheaper, not different in any basic or ethical way.
  - WilliamLP 16y ago
    It has the potential to be different in the way that building a 747 is different than breeding a bird to be able to carry people across the Pacific Ocean. Either may be possible, but it's different.
    - JoeAltmaier 16y ago
      I don't understand, you will never create a 747 with bird genes. In fact, they can do nothing with this technology that could not have been done by infinite monkeys with gene-splicing equipment. The only difference I see is the speed.
  - 16y ago
Devilboy 16y ago
Life on earth has been trying to turn the planet into grey goo for billions of years already. I think we'll be OK.
Herring 16y ago
>Those simple bacteria evolve at staggering rates, and swap genes like DJ Danger Mouse mixing tracks. But they only evolve to the brink of failure http://crnano.typepad.com/crnblog/2009/05/natural-protein-vs-designed-machines.html http://crnano.typepad.com/crnblog/2009/05/natural-protein-vs...

by bh42 16y ago

WilliamLP 16y ago

> And unless you believe in magic it is unlikely to out-compete in a pre-existing niche. Cars are faster than land animals. Planes are faster than birds. Not being constrained by needing to have come from slow gradual iteration might open some possibilities, some terrifying. Biology doesn't produce the wheel. To consider this as a possibility is not to believe in magic.

someone_here 16y ago
It is inevitable that we will code a biological species that could not have arisen from gradual iteration. However, there are some wheel-like things in biology: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotating_locomotion_in_living_systems#Wheel-like_rotation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotating_locomotion_in_living_s...
CWuestefeld 16y ago
> Cars are faster than land animals. Planes are faster than birds. There's no comparison. I'm sitting here looking out the window at my car, and there are caterpillars out there that are moving faster than it. Not only that, but that caterpillar can refuel itself. And it'll turn itself into new ones next year. In the meantime, my car will sit and rust. Really, it's the height of hubris to think that we can engineer something that works as well as what untold generations has evolved. (And I'll apologize for the tangent, but this is also the fatal conceit of those who believe that any central authority can manage our economy any better than the market can on its own.)
- WilliamLP 16y ago
  > but this is also the fatal conceit I think considering the possibility that removing gradual iteration as a constraint, or considering the big picture, could lead to improvements of some natural designs, true or not, is unlikely to be fatal! I don't see how anyone would just dismiss this point a priori. Both of those things seem, intuitively, to be fundamental constraints in evolution. Human biology plus technology leads to us out-competing every other similarly sized animal in any land niche we choose. The question is whether bacteria biology plus human ingenuity could have any similar advantages over biology alone. If you trust your snap judgment without extremely careful consideration, I just hope you're not in charge of the relevant policy decisions!
- weavejester 16y ago
  "Really, it's the height of hubris to think that we can engineer something that works as well as what untold generations has evolved." Why? Technological progress through logical deduction is patently more efficient than evolution through natural selection. Modern technology has already far surpassed the capabilities of natural organisms in a number of areas, all within a geologically minute timespan. Just because a caterpillar can self-replicate, doesn't make it better than a car in every single respect, otherwise we'd be riding caterpillars to work. In terms of self-replication and regeneration, nature has us beat (for now). But if you want to send packets of information halfway around the globe, there is no biological process that comes anywhere close to our technological capability. "(And I'll apologize for the tangent, but this is also the fatal conceit of those who believe that any central authority can manage our economy any better than the market can on its own.)" But it can, or at least, a market with regulatory oversight is more efficient than a completely unregulated market place. Natural environments and unregulated markets suffer from very similar problems. They don't magically gravitate toward the most efficient solution; very often they'll do incredibly stupid things that would leave an intelligent observer scratching their head. However, natural selection does produce very robust ecosystems, which is why life has flourished for millions of years, and why caterpillars will outlast your car. Logically, the best approach is to combine natural selection with intelligent oversight. Left to its own devices, an unregulated market has a tendency to fall into traps which benefits an individual or subgroup for a short time, but disadvantages the market in the long run. The Prisoner's Dilemma, the Tragedy of the Commons and the Market of Lemons are all common effects that can be circumvented by intelligent regulators, but would cause great damage to any market left to its own devices.
barrkel 16y ago
I think there's a risk that you're underestimating the scale required to make those things work. Not only are cars and their engines pretty big, but they need a huge amount of infrastructure for their construction (think about where that all that metal came from, never mind everything else), maintenance, feeding (the whole oil economy), roads, signals, piloting, etc.
bh42 16y ago
Cars are faster than land animals. Planes are faster than birds. Fuel, jet fuel. Biology doesn't produce the wheel. Tumble weeds? Insects which curl up into a wheel to quickly roll away from danger? Can a car drive up stairs? Indeed if we genetically engineered a large animal to run on gasoline AND provided it with an ample supply of gasoline, it would move faster than anything else... as long as it had gasoline. If we engineered a bacterium to eat oil and/or gasoline and dispersed in the gulf.... already there, eating oil, consuming the oxygen in the water in the process. If we added it to an oil well... already there, lots of bacteria deep within the earth, eating everything from metal to methane. Probably not consuming the world's oil reserve only for lack of oxygen or any other oxidizer. ...some possibilities, some terrifying. Ebola, HIV, the flu de jour all quite terrifying, all 100% natural. And unlike you, they don't care. They will keep evolving and trying to kill you as fast and as hard as they can, every minute of every day.
- WilliamLP 16y ago
  > Ebola, HIV, the flu de jour all quite terrifying, all 100% natural. If you can't imagine anything more terrifying than those, it is a failure of imagination. See Jared Diamond's point about how when humans and large animals coevolved gradually in Africa, the animals could gradually adapt, whereas when fully evolved homo sapiens were introduced in the rest of the world 40,000 years ago, almost all the megafauna were killed off almost immediately. > They will keep evolving and trying to kill you as fast and as hard as they can, Thankfully, this is wrong. Diseases that kill you quickly are at a severe disadvantage.
  - bh42 16y ago
    I can easily imagine an HIV that's as easy to transmit as the common cold. Franky we got lucky with HIV, it could have been something like that and we along with cheetahs and a few other species don't have much genetic diversity within the species and are thus susceptible to extinction via disease. This is why I want the biotech pedal to the metal. Because in my opinion the probably of us accidental creating something horrific are far less then something horrific being created quite naturally. Like in some shared living space with humans and domestic animals, it could happen in any given moment and spread quickly around the world. We don't need labs to die of something horrible.
lukifer 16y ago
This is a good point. At the same time, bacteria have been mutating for much longer than birds or land animals, and they iterate generationally at an unbelievable speed compared to their multi-cellular cousins. The risks should be taken seriously, even the seemingly far-fetched ones, but need to be viewed in the context of an already cut-throat competitive landscape. IMHO, the bigger risk is intentionally designing malicious life forms (bio-weapons) more so than than beneficial ones getting out of hand.

orblivion 16y ago

It doesn't only bother me practically. Yes I did consider the fact that they'd have to compete, though I didn't consider the fact that they evolve all the time anyway, that's a good point. BUT, especially if they're talking about something as drastic as eating up a significant amount of carbon in the air, it will change the ecosystem. It'll pose the same danger as moving animals across continents. But really it bothers me in a different way. I'll say morally, for a severe lack of better term. Maybe existentially. It doesn't sit right with me that we'll be living amongst creatures created in a lab, and that there's no way to differentiate them. I don't believe in God, but I like that we exist within a certain biological framework, it just feels like part of our identity. That the players are allowed to change the rules bothers me.

fgf 16y ago
Luddite^2
JoeAltmaier 16y ago
Your dog is genetically engineered. Your tomato. Your children. And I don't mean in the lab, but the usual way, by using your intelligence to choose suitable stock and then breeding until you get what you want. The shortcut in the lab is just faster and cheaper, not different in any basic or ethical way.
- WilliamLP 16y ago
  It has the potential to be different in the way that building a 747 is different than breeding a bird to be able to carry people across the Pacific Ocean. Either may be possible, but it's different.
  - JoeAltmaier 16y ago
    I don't understand, you will never create a 747 with bird genes. In fact, they can do nothing with this technology that could not have been done by infinite monkeys with gene-splicing equipment. The only difference I see is the speed.
- 16y ago

Devilboy 16y ago

Life on earth has been trying to turn the planet into grey goo for billions of years already. I think we'll be OK.

Herring 16y ago

>Those simple bacteria evolve at staggering rates, and swap genes like DJ Danger Mouse mixing tracks. But they only evolve to the brink of failure http://crnano.typepad.com/crnblog/2009/05/natural-protein-vs-designed-machines.html http://crnano.typepad.com/crnblog/2009/05/natural-protein-vs...