From: Doug Jones (random@qnet.com)
Date: Tue Aug 08 2000 - 18:35:48 MDT
Spike Jones wrote:
>
> Paul Hughes wrote:
>
> > ...a development like [malicious biotech] would seem to substantially
> > lessen our odds of making it off this rock. I can think of several different
> > types of individuals who would have no qualms about developing and releasing
> > something like this...
>
> Ja, and another headache is how prevent taking malicious
> individuals with us when we leave this rock, or breeding new
> ones there. In the age of technology sufficiently advanced that
> a single murderous individual has the power to wipe out the entire
> population, even universal surveillance might be insufficient
> protection. We would need big-brother-esque detection
> of malicious thought patterns.
>
> Bill Joy's notion of relinquishing biotechnology would still
> not totally protect, for the thought police would be needed
> to ensure that *everyone* complied with the agreement.
> Now, this is a rather revolting development. {8-[ spike
Widely scattered space habitats would inherently slow the spread of
diseases, particularly if travel time is measured in days rather than
hours. The time en route would allow more thorough health & agriculture
screening than is the norm today, so the main vector for engineered
diseases would be active distribution devices instead of unknowingly
infected carriers.
Distributed systems are robust, even though some nodes might be lost to
hostile action. None of this addresses how we make it through the next
decade or two, though.
-- Doug Jones Rocket Plumber, XCOR Aerospace http://www.xcor-aerospace.com
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