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Oh, I agree that neither power wants the peasants to have them. But make no mistake -- both governments want them, and desperately. There is no universe where

Oh, I agree that neither power wants the peasants to have them. But make no mistake -- both governments want them, and desperately. There is no universe where there is a multi-lateral agreement to actually eliminate these tools. With loitering munitions and drone swarms, they are ALREADY key components of nation-state force projection.

hollerith 2y ago
I'm old enough to remember the public debate about human cloning and human germ-line engineering. In the 1970s some argued like you are arguing here, but those technologies have been stopped world-wide for about 5 decades now and counting because no researcher is willing to work in the field and no one is willing to fund the work because of reputational, legal and criminal-prosecution risk.
- hcurtiss 2y ago
  Engineering humans strikes me as something different than engineering weapons systems. Maybe as evidence, my cousin works in the field for one of the major defense contractors. Please trust that there are already thousands of engineers working on these problems in the US. Almost certainly hundreds of thousands more world-wide. This is definitely not a genie you put back in the bottle. AI clone wars sound "sci-fi" -- they are decidedly now just "sci."
  - hollerith 2y ago
    >This is definitely not a genie you put back in the bottle. I don't think a defeatist attitude is useful here.
- inetknght 2y ago
  > those technologies have been stopped world-wide for about 5 decades now and counting because no researcher is willing to work in the field That's not true. I worked in the field of DNA analysis for 6.5 years and there is definitely a consensus that DNA editing is closer than the horizon. Just look at CRISPR gene editor [0]. Crude, but "works". Your DNA, even if you've never submitted it, is already available using shadow data (think Facebook style shadow profiles but for DNA) from the people related to you who have. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRISPR_gene_editing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRISPR_gene_editing
- mike50 2y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_Jiankui_affair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_Jiankui_affair

hollerith 2y ago

I'm old enough to remember the public debate about human cloning and human germ-line engineering. In the 1970s some argued like you are arguing here, but those technologies have been stopped world-wide for about 5 decades now and counting because no researcher is willing to work in the field and no one is willing to fund the work because of reputational, legal and criminal-prosecution risk.

hcurtiss 2y ago
Engineering humans strikes me as something different than engineering weapons systems. Maybe as evidence, my cousin works in the field for one of the major defense contractors. Please trust that there are already thousands of engineers working on these problems in the US. Almost certainly hundreds of thousands more world-wide. This is definitely not a genie you put back in the bottle. AI clone wars sound "sci-fi" -- they are decidedly now just "sci."
- hollerith 2y ago
  >This is definitely not a genie you put back in the bottle. I don't think a defeatist attitude is useful here.
inetknght 2y ago
> those technologies have been stopped world-wide for about 5 decades now and counting because no researcher is willing to work in the field That's not true. I worked in the field of DNA analysis for 6.5 years and there is definitely a consensus that DNA editing is closer than the horizon. Just look at CRISPR gene editor [0]. Crude, but "works". Your DNA, even if you've never submitted it, is already available using shadow data (think Facebook style shadow profiles but for DNA) from the people related to you who have. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRISPR_gene_editing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRISPR_gene_editing
mike50 2y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_Jiankui_affair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_Jiankui_affair