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I'm just imagining a terrible racist dystopia where totalitarian fascist regimes use gene drives and co. to weaponize the DNA of their population. Imagine the s
by m_mueller 9y ago
I'm just imagining a terrible racist dystopia where totalitarian fascist regimes use gene drives and co. to weaponize the DNA of their population. Imagine the social effects of people who look a certain way having genes that make it such that their babies will inherit certain traits with 100% chance. You'd end up with actual race wars. Children would be raised to avoid interacting with other races. shudder
- jessriedel 9y agoIt would take hundreds or thousands of years to play out. Not a very effective strategy for a despot.
- Xeoncross 9y agoGenetics have already played out enough for people to kill based on them. Look at Hitler. Look at African civil wars. Look at the riots/revolutions against "foreigners" in Asia.
- ejstronge 9y agoI'm confused about your African civil wars comment - what were you referring to?
- skissane 9y agoI presume at least one thing it is a reference to is the Rwandan genocide.
- eru 9y agoThere were quite a few civil wars in Africa to pick. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_Africa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_Africa and search for 'war' to find a few.
- richardknop 9y agoSeveral genocides happened in Africa so he could be referring to one of them (Rwanda genocide as mentioned next to this comment is well known, recent genocide in CAR and so on) or all of them in general. Most western people are mainly familiar with Holocaust as the big example of genocide but there have been several comparable horrific events across continents (Africa, Asia and I think also South America).
- bilbo0s 9y agoI think what jessriedel is pointing out is that bullets, nerve gas, and machetes are a good deal more effective tools for a despot to use to eliminate a population than DNA.
- tw04 9y agoAll of those are obvious to outside observers and often invite outside intervention. This would allow them to cement their legacy with far less risk of being overthrown. Think nk or many of the Arab oligarchy states.
- intended 9y agomeaning that despots arent the issue, but the more durable and long lived motivated organizations are. just need a suitable crazy preacher to write a book and build a support base. despots makes it easy to think in short time frames
- m_mueller 9y agoI'm not worried about the actual effects on human traits, I'm worried about effects on society.
- narrator 9y agoI'm risking a huge pile of downvotes here, but the aforementioned totalitarian fascist regimes could just put this stuff in vaccines and mercilessly ridicule anyone in their population who suspected anything.
- andrepd 9y agoThat's why independent scrutiny is important.
- TeMPOraL 9y agoThat's also why vaccination is sacred, and anything done to harm it, or using it to cause harm, should be treated as a crime against humanity and have perpetrators dragged in front of the international court. I'm, in particular, thinking of the assholes from CIA who thought it was a great idea to have its agents pretend they're being vaccinators, while in reality doing genetic testing in search for Bin Laden's family members. The resulting, fully justified, fear caused huge damage to Polio eradication efforts, and has cost some innocent health workers their lives.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- djsumdog 9y agoEugenics?
- tim333 9y agoYou'd have a job making it work on normal humans as they could get a DNA test and use donor stuff from someone without the gene. I guess a fascist regime could ban DNA tests but in that case it might be easier for them to just kill people in the old fashioned manner.
- m_mueller 9y agoI think gene drives are just the beginning. If this kind of technology gets mass adoption, soon you have gene firewalls (i.e. anti-genedrive-genes), firewall suppressors etc.