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While reading this I thought the author didn't seem informed on the subject at all, and rather more interested in creating panic. Director for the Center for C

While reading this I thought the author didn't seem informed on the subject at all, and rather more interested in creating panic. Director for the Center for Cultural Conservatism Okay. Right.

jerf 17y ago
Are you sure he's wrong? If so, how are you sure? For one thing, recall that these are amateur hackers at the beginning of the hacking curve; today playing with E. Coli, five years from now in possession of full-on sequencers, producing and inserting arbitrary DNA, ten years who knows? He may in fact be right. As much as we'd all like to dismiss the possibility, I don't actually see a rational basis to declare that he's absolutely wrong. We don't know. Nobody know. There are some arguments you can make about why he's wrong, but all the arguments are probabilistic, about how evolution probably would have discovered something of that lethality, but it's only probabilistic.
- smhinsey 17y ago
  He can be right (i.e., there is a risk from bioterror) and still be misleading. His complaint boils down to: dangerous bioagents can be easy to grow. we know this.
  - biohacker42 17y ago
    Dangerous bioagents are being grown at a phenomenal rate all around the world, every day. Swine-flu, HIV, Ebola, MRSA, everything else - comes NATURALLY.
    - smhinsey 17y ago
      i am not sure if you think i was saying something else, but i agree 100%. this is extreme foolishness.
      - biohacker42 17y ago
        I might have been replying to someone else.
- biohacker42 17y ago
  Yes I am sure he's wrong. Read through my recent comments for a slightly more elaborate explanation in an that amateur bio hackers thread. For even more information take some college classes in the life sciences.
- stavrianos 17y ago
  Even if he is right, this isn't something that can be stopped. Even if you manage to stop all the innocent hobbyists, you'll never stamp out the malicious ones. Seems to me that, assuming bad shit will happen, the best thing to do is get as far up the curve as possible as fast as possible. It's like, in the Sarah Connor chronicles, she's trying to hold back the singularity by firebombing the houses of AI researchers when the only real answer is to set off the singularity yourself so at least you can hope to sculpt it.

While reading this I thought the author didn't seem informed on the subject at all, and rather more interested in creating panic. Director for the Center for Cultural Conservatism Okay. Right.

jerf 17y ago

Are you sure he's wrong? If so, how are you sure? For one thing, recall that these are amateur hackers at the beginning of the hacking curve; today playing with E. Coli, five years from now in possession of full-on sequencers, producing and inserting arbitrary DNA, ten years who knows? He may in fact be right. As much as we'd all like to dismiss the possibility, I don't actually see a rational basis to declare that he's absolutely wrong. We don't know. Nobody know. There are some arguments you can make about why he's wrong, but all the arguments are probabilistic, about how evolution probably would have discovered something of that lethality, but it's only probabilistic.

smhinsey 17y ago
He can be right (i.e., there is a risk from bioterror) and still be misleading. His complaint boils down to: dangerous bioagents can be easy to grow. we know this.
- biohacker42 17y ago
  Dangerous bioagents are being grown at a phenomenal rate all around the world, every day. Swine-flu, HIV, Ebola, MRSA, everything else - comes NATURALLY.
  - smhinsey 17y ago
    i am not sure if you think i was saying something else, but i agree 100%. this is extreme foolishness.
    - biohacker42 17y ago
      I might have been replying to someone else.
biohacker42 17y ago
Yes I am sure he's wrong. Read through my recent comments for a slightly more elaborate explanation in an that amateur bio hackers thread. For even more information take some college classes in the life sciences.
stavrianos 17y ago
Even if he is right, this isn't something that can be stopped. Even if you manage to stop all the innocent hobbyists, you'll never stamp out the malicious ones. Seems to me that, assuming bad shit will happen, the best thing to do is get as far up the curve as possible as fast as possible. It's like, in the Sarah Connor chronicles, she's trying to hold back the singularity by firebombing the houses of AI researchers when the only real answer is to set off the singularity yourself so at least you can hope to sculpt it.