[p2p-research] bio is tech bk

[Ryan Lanham]

On 2/22/10, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> hi ryan,
>
> what you say is in line with the low treshold conditions for peer
> production to occur ... what's your take on security issues?
>
> say, cooking up a deadly virus?
>
> Michel
>


Hi Michel,

Biology is a hardware science...like the early makers of computers.  Cooking
up bad stuff is, unfortunately, not that hard.  Indeed, you are already
seeing it in the elicit drug trades where purity and concomitant dangers
have increased dramatically since the 1980s.

The best chemists in the WW1 era were immediately engaged in making
weapons...mustard gas, for instance (google Fritz Haber...a real genius).

As to bio hazards and especially weapons, I fear the capacity is not that
hard to make the agents.  What is fortunately difficult is distribution and
mass production.  Nature has fairly good defenses.

There are now serious scientists talking about "seeding" other planets--as
in various science fictions.  One even got recent international press by
saying there was a moral imperative to seed.  But the technical difficulties
are considerable.  Living things die.  Big molecules are often relatively
unstable, etc.

I think it would be rare that a person who knows what they are doing would
"accidentally" create a dangerous thing on a large scale.  That said,
drinking the Kool-Aid in a lab could be treacherous.  Dumping it down a
drain to much bad effect...not as likely.

There are macro and micro projects.  In essence, making wine is a DIY
biotechnology.  I know many here are against GMO, but I could see huge
possibilities in making GMOs and putting them into a commons trust for the
betterment of world farming...or people starting vaccine labs for relatively
minor prospects...Cuba, for instance, claims to have made progress on a
prostate vaccine.  Other successes are happening in similar areas for
melanoma and other diseases.  Now that genomes of cancers are being
published, and research is moving to the public domain, it is feasible to
actually be an anti-cancer hobbiest if you are as committed as, say, someone
who would invent their own Arduino system.

I'm personally very excited by this area.  Another one that is similar is
amateur epidemiology and linking genomic medicine with genealogy.  There are
many others.  It is an area as rich as software for its diversity...and the
best items often link two such areas...for example, imagine a
biological Arduino.   Or amateur/open versions of what Affymetrix does (
http://www.affymetrix.com/estore/.  Also, as AGI comes closer, and life
can be manufactured, these will open vast possibilities of "designer
creatures."  Will some of them be weapons...sadly yes.  But most will not
be.  Openness is the friend of peace in my view unless one has
real "trusted" entities.  Most here would not trust states, but I would
trust some states much more than others.  Having the NSA be able to
intercept cell phone calls is net good for human safety...having China do
it...I'm not so sure.  That's why good governance is so important, and why
lumping all governance as evil is so dangerous, IMO.

R.

Ryan
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