4 ms·
Scary stuff. Not because of the reasons cited in the article -- but because I hadn't previously realized that drug cartels have obvious incentives to invest in
by avivo 11y ago
Scary stuff. Not because of the reasons cited in the article -- but because I hadn't previously realized that drug cartels have obvious incentives to invest in synthetic biology expertise.
That sort of capability can later be directed to applications such as massive destruction, or even extortion of nation states. Not to mention experimental organisms wrecking ecosystems. These dangers would (and have) made wonderful movie plots and I'd prefer them to stay on the big screen.
One obstacle in the past has been that the transition from "make lots drugs and robust transportation/communication networks" to "make weapons of mass destruction" has been so long as to be irrelevant. There was no plausible organizational evolutionary path from one to the other. But perhaps that has changed. This is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of applications of synthetic biology to drug creation.
Imagine what the word would look like if you could make nuclear bombs using the same tech used to produce heroine.
Would drug cartels have a thriving side business selling them to ____? Would any nation state be able to control the cartels at all?
- venomsnake 11y agoKilling your customers is bad business. Cartels operate sound businesses. So we have nothing to fear from them. Now this tech in some crazy hands is dangerous. But with the power amplification in modern times - Two generations ago - a person could create a small business or small terrorist act alone. 10 years ago it was possible to have a thousand person billion dollar company and 9/11 ... Now we have a billion dollar company with single digit numbers of employees and we will have the first billion dollar one man company in the next 5-10 years. I leave the rest to your imagination. But you should not be worried from terrorist organisations - disgruntled lone wolves will be the real danger.
- IndianAstronaut 11y ago>Killing your customers is bad business. Cartels operate sound businesses. So we have nothing to fear from them. I highly suggest you look up the Zetas cartel and their methodologies.
- throwawayornot 11y agoI'd argue that they are killing their competitors not customers
- joe_the_user 11y agoSure but the original argument was that the drug cartels have a tremendous potential for violence. That seems established and the "customer" part's a red haring.
- venomsnake 11y agoAnd how many american consumers have been killed by the Zetas?
- avivo 11y agoI think it's a little more complicated than that. Would selling nuclear weapons to african despots kill the customers of of a mexican drug cartel? That said - I agree that lone wolves may be a much worse problem, especially in the long run. For now, there is something to be said for having billions of dollars of drug money to spend on R&D...
- toomuchtodo 11y agoSomething that keeps me up at night is the idea of someone a bit more amoral than usual getting enough experience with gene driver technology, and using it to push genetic modifications quickly through the human species. Don't like someone with $genetic_trait? Tune your virus to target a specific piece of DNA, and then have it remove genetic segments responsible for life critical functions (a la CRISPR CAS9). https://www.neb.com/tools-and-resources/feature-articles/crispr-cas9-and-targeted-genome-editing-a-new-era-in-molecular-biology https://www.neb.com/tools-and-resources/feature-articles/cri...
- shabble 11y agoIt's a worry that's been around for a while: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Plague https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Plague http://eidolon.net/?story=The%20Moral%20Virologist http://eidolon.net/?story=The%20Moral%20Virologist (and probably plenty of others I'm forgetting)