How synthetic biology could wipe out humanity — and how we can stop it | Rob Reid
DI Alice Oliveri 11 mars 2020
En 2000, l’Occident se préparait à voir toutes les technologies existantes exploser à cause du célèbre Bug du millénaire. En 2012, cependant, nous avons tous attendu le 21 décembre pour confirmer la prophétie des Mayas, prêts à affronter la fin du monde avec des publications ironiques sur Facebook. Sans avoir à revenir sur les prophéties désastreuses qui parsèment l’histoire de l’humanité, nous savons que le sens de l’apocalypse et de la fin inévitable nous caractérise comme une espèce vivante, cela fait partie de notre façon d’être au monde d’imaginer un moment où tout ce que nous savons meurt. 2020, une année qui en soi se prête bien même si ce n’est que graphiquement à des hypothèses désastreuses ou à des changements d’époque – simplement parce que c’est la figure ronde d’un système de comptage des années que nous avons nous-mêmes inventées – fait tout pour entrer dans le long terme liste des cataclysmes, étant donné qu’en moins de trois mois depuis sa création, il a cédé la place à des scénarios tels que ceux des incendies en Australie, à des hypothèses de la troisième guerre mondiale et maintenant, comme nous le savons tous, il est menacé de pandémie. Tant que vous plaisantez et imaginez des astéroïdes film catastrophe L’Américain est un récit, quand nous connaissons nous-mêmes une situation sans précédent, cependant, la question devient plus complexe. Aussi parce que, à l’appui de nos hypothèses de citoyens qui ne peuvent rien faire d’autre qu’adhérer aux règles dictées d’en haut pour s’assurer que tout est résolu de la meilleure façon possible, le cinéma arrive, avec sa richesse d’images et de suggestions qui nous déterminent inévitablement.
Nous utilisons tous le cinéma pour satisfaire ce besoin de catharsis d’une tragédie grecque, c’est une impulsion nécessaire pour se sentir moins seul et, paradoxalement, plus sûr: il n’est donc pas étrange que, précisément dans ces semaines où la propagation d’un tel virus inconnu infectieux est Un film de 2011 qui raconte une situation très similaire à celle que nous vivons aujourd’hui est de retour en vogue. Il s’agit contagion, réalisé par le réalisateur américain Steven Soderbergh, et c’est un film qui, au moment de sa sortie, avait déjà suscité un grand intérêt, mais que personne ne s’attendait à voir grimper brusquement dans les charts sur les plateformes de streaming près d’une décennie plus tard. Je ne peux pas dire si redécouvrir des œuvres qui traitent de problèmes délicats et actuels au moment de l’urgence est une bonne habitude ou un moyen plus rapide d’augmenter l’anxiété et la paranoïa, mais si le travail en question est bien fait, il peut être intéressant de le noter les correspondances qui existent entre la réalité et la façon dont nous la racontons. Il ne s’agit pas de prophéties de style Simpson qui prévoient des faits qui se produisent alors, ni de « réalité qui dépasse l’imagination », mais simplement de mécanismes humains, sociaux et naturels qui nous appartiennent au-delà de la fiction et qui déclenchent plus ou moins fortement à la fois dans le monde dans lequel nous vivons que dans ce que nous aimons raconter à travers le cinéma ou toute autre forme d’art. contagionen fait, cela ne doit pas être vu comme une sorte de testament pour l’avenir à venir, aussi parce qu’aucun de nous ne sait vraiment comment cette situation va se dérouler, puisque nous sommes passés d’une perception lointaine et irréelle de la question, alors que tout était confiné très loin dans La Chine, pour découvrir ce que lockdown du pays.
contagion raconte de façon très linéaire et avec un casting exceptionnel tous les moments qui conduisent à la propagation d’une pandémie et qui vont bien au-delà de la simple transmission d’un virus. En voyant ainsi les étapes d’une situation comme celle que nous vivons aujourd’hui, notre réalité actuelle prend aussi un peu plus de clarté à certains égards, bien que la différence entre un film et la vérité des événements reste fondamentale. Dans le cas du virus signalé par Soderbergh en effet, les symptômes se manifestent beaucoup plus violemment, et la mort survient presque immédiatement, avec très peu de chances de guérison. Le coronavirus, comme nous le savons bien, n’agit pas de manière aussi soudaine, mais cela ne signifie pas qu’il ne constitue pas un danger pour notre communauté. La chose, cependant, que les deux virus ont en commun est l’origine: les deux partent de Chine et, dans le film, d’une chauve-souris, une hypothèse qui a également été avancée pour le coronavirus. La Chine comprise comme un scénario dans lequel l’Occident imagine les pires affrontements entre la nature et l’homme, le lieu par excellence où l’industrialisation impitoyable se déroule sans relâche est un topos récit de notre époque exactement comme la Russie des méchants aurait pu être dans les films américains. Cette présence absente dans notre vie qui ne prend forme que par sa production matérielle de ce dont le présent est fait – la technologie en premier lieu – le rend mystérieux et en même temps menaçant, comme s’il s’agissait d’une autre entité qui le fait. une partie de notre planète mais vit avec des règles différentes. Peu le savent vraiment, mais nous avons tous une opinion vague à ce sujet et la plaisanterie sur le fait que nous allons bientôt le «conquérir» nous l’avons entendu des millions de fois.
Mais si la Chine dans cette histoire ressemble exactement à ce mélange de jungle sauvage et humide, de métropoles en béton pollué et de milliards de personnes entassées, alors tout comme nous pourrions imaginer ce marché de Wuhan où l’épidémie est censée avoir commencé, ce n’est pas tant sur ces aspects plus scénographiques que nous devons surtout nous concentrer. L’élément le plus intéressant d’un film comme contagion, au-delà de ses exagérations spectaculaires et de l’effet de levier qu’il fait sur l’inconnu des lieux où, en tant qu’occidentaux convaincus d’être les protagonistes du monde, nous ne connaissons que presque exclusivement les stéréotypes, c’est celui de la chaîne de cause à effet qui génère une société dans laquelle la communication et la connexion sont désormais largement répandues. En fait, en 2011, Internet avait récemment pris la valeur centrale qu’il a dans notre vie aujourd’hui, et la façon dont il recoupe l’histoire d’un virus et sa propagation est également assez emblématique de tout ce que nous ressentons maintenant dans le monde. face à cette crise avec un téléphone toujours à la main qui nous remplit de nouvelles discordantes à chaque seconde. en contagion en fait, il existe de nombreux personnages et de nombreux points de vue qui donnent vie à une histoire chorale et chacun d’eux représente une catégorie sociale différente – Matt Damon par exemple est « l’homme ordinaire », tandis que Kate Winslet est le médecin qui se sacrifie pour le bien des autres – mais le plus paradigmatique de la réalité d’aujourd’hui est le blogueur joué par Jude Law.
Alex Krumwiede, comme son nom l’appelle, contient en bref l’essence de tout ce qui n’allait pas avec l’énorme problème de communication qui a accompagné et continue d’accompagner l’histoire que nous vivons aujourd’hui. En effet, son rôle est précisément de profiter de la multitude de messages et d’informations dont nous disposons grâce à Internet pour générer le chaos, le plus risqué à un moment où les données dont nous devrions disposer devraient être claires, compréhensibles et surtout utiles. pour éviter les conséquences les plus immédiates, à savoir celles générées par la psychose de masse. Dans le cas de contagion, le journaliste blogueur utilise sa visibilité pour diffuser de fausses nouvelles sur les médicaments homéopathiques qui guériraient la maladie, répandant l’idée que la science officielle nous cache quelque chose: une métaphore facile pour Internet et les monstres qu’il a générés en stimulant ce court-circuit épistémologique pour lequel nous sommes tous des médecins, nous sommes tous des ingénieurs, tous des experts dans quelque chose que nous ne connaissons même pas bien simplement parce que nous pouvons le rechercher sur Google. La vitesse et la viralité avec lesquelles les fausses informations sont diffusées, des opinions basées sur rien – même des opinions scientifiques qui entrent en collision avec des personnages gonflés d’égomanie – et la peur de ce qui se passe, signifient que la façon dont vous vivez une urgence comme celle-ci en fait, cela devient un cauchemar, c’est ce que nous vivons aujourd’hui avec le coronavirus et avec l’énorme quantité d’impulsions conflictuelles que nous recevons qui se combinent avec la peur de l’inconnu et la nécessité de trouver un bouc émissaire.
Je ne pense pas que « le vrai virus » soit de la désinformation, comme quelqu’un l’a dit; Je crois que le vrai virus est précisément le virus lui-même qui nous infecte et dont, si tout se passe bien, nous pourrons nous en débarrasser en relativement peu de temps. Au contraire, une situation comme celle dans laquelle nous vivons a fait que la boîte de Pandore est découverte et que toutes les distorsions de la société dans laquelle nous vivons qui restent généralement non dites sont apparues: la santé publique est une valeur fondamentale sur laquelle nous devons investir beaucoup plus que nous et peut-être d’une manière différente; les prisons ne sont pas des décharges pour les humains; les villes ne sont pas des terrains de jeux pour les touristes. De nombreux problèmes surgissent en ce moment de crise après avoir été ignorés pendant des années, chacun étant un thème sur lequel l’Occident évolué et civilisé a le devoir de travailler.
Le coronavirus nous a montré l’importance centrale de la communication à l’époque d’Internet, quand même une fausse note vocale peut déclencher une hystérie collective et nous faire déverser dans la rue pour vider les supermarchés. en contagion, lorsque Jude Law se définit comme « un écrivain », le chercheur qui trichait pour obtenir des informations sur le virus répond que « Bloguer, ce n’est pas écrire, c’est tweeter avec ponctuation« : Revenir à attacher la bonne valeur aux choses, aux compétences et à l’exactitude des informations serait une grande réussite pour notre pays. La responsabilité de ceux qui se trouvent aujourd’hui entre les mains d’énormes canaux d’information, des journaux aux influenceurs, est de donner un poids raisonnable et correct à ce que nous avons tous le droit de savoir, sans spéculer ni déclencher des réactions en chaîne folles dictées par le la peur. Si l’origine du virus n’est pas une métaphore mais un problème qui n’a pas de coupable intentionnel mais une simple réaction naturelle de cause à effet, tout le reste à la place, en partant de la maîtrise de l’infection, en passant par le manque d’équipement à l’hôpital, jusqu’au situation carcérale tragique, être en démocratie dépend aussi de nous, et les auteurs existent.
61 commentaire
The speakers use of the word Nihilist is kind of annoying. I think sadistic or sociopath would fit with what he’s saying, but Nihilism is nothing more than the belief that nothing matters. It doesn’t really correlate with anything in his descriptions.
So the excuse to have an AI to overlook us is that we are just like a diabolical children. I simply don’t get the psyche of mass murderer! Why on earth would someone kill someone who didn’t do anything, i mean even revenge is to be condemned, but this is just miserable
This may be the great filter for civilizations, if not crispr, maybe some other more devastating but easily accessible technology in the future will wipe out humanity by a few nut jobs
This talk spreads fear instead of reasoning. In analog, any one can buy a knife from supermarket doesn’t mean the crime rate has risen. Synthesising a bio-weapon still needs a PhD. Mad scientist is always doing bad things in comics and novels, but hard to be found in real world. Enemy nations using such kind of weapon should considering about back fire beforehand. Natural killer organism, like Ebola, has already spread many years, yet we are still survive. I wonder if TED found no more serious thinkers to fill up their schedule.
Microbes are too loud and dumb. A population of uplifted animals with superhuman intelligence with ulterior motives hostile towards humanity and wanting to take over the world; that is more insidious and subtle than a pandemic.
I have a crisper, I keep my vegetables in there.
Sometimes I forget to clean it out.
I have seen some scary green stuff growing in there.
Maybe I should mix it with ebola?
I wont lie, Id kill us all, but Im really against suffering so Id have to have all the nukes to make it happen as close to the speed of light as possible, and thats just not going to happen, is it? Well, not for me anyway… heh heh heh heh, Hah Hah Hah Hah, GYEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE
There is only one way that synthetic biology could be a threat to humanity. It would require Artificial Intelligence and emotions as requirement to compete for sustenance and survival of the synthetic entity.
I’m sure there are other horrific ways to mass murder. But maybe not a good idea to share them with everyone, like you said, some are crayfish
There is a guy on youtube that edits yeast genes to make glow in the dark beer that has naturally occurring florescent spider silk strands in it.
He has no phd.
He is not a geneticist.
He uses open source crisper cas9 tech.
Think about that.
There are suicidal people in Korea that just kill them selves and don’t hurt others. It’s an American issue—drugs and prescriptions or it’s just the hostile racist attitude Americans have towards others that is taught in schools. I was bullied a lot and learned in school to fight because that’s what everyone in America does.
I’ve seen people with mental illness and they can’t even have a proper conversation to buy a gun. It’s people on prescriptions they don’t need (drugs) that become violent.
One thing all mass shooters/murderers have in common: prescription drugs!! People who are mentally ill are not violent but people on prescription drugs become violent.
you are born as your born, dont change your body, but take care of it, of course you can do surgery to fix up damages to your body np but changing your dna and stuff, no no no. and changing your dna just for the reason to look good and wear good clothes and showoff, ugh. whats the point. fashion every year changes and that reason is the story of stuff, the scary truths of the world are all revealed, its only we humans together who can stop it and stop being lazy
Everything i know tells me that there’s no way you can stop this from happening. Human beings are way too stupid to work on prevention of such a catastrophe, they would rather work on the cure after the epidemic has killed millions than work on the prevention.
Brilliant. If you can get repulsively rich with a pandemic like covid-19 and put options. Then you can certainly enforce social justice.(c)
A nightmare indeed. We need to construct the immune system now. Once doomsday bugs can be built, we need benevolent microbes designed that inhabit everyone that can quickly stop any malicious outbreak.
Very interesting Ted talk but why on earth did he have to mention the sub prime crisis he ignored everything about to just repeat some ridiculous populist views. Firstly Lehman Brothers barely had any sub prime but went bankrupt because it was the largest fixed income bank in the US and this was a fixed income crisis that affected the whole market not just the dodgy loans that triggered the fears. Secondly, Lehman Brothers went bankrupt because of accounting and reporting regulations, not because it was not a profitable business and that is what is called « Mark to market ». Thirdly, you are blaming the banks when it was actually the greed of incompetent investors who didn’t understand risk and couldn’t see a bubble who were asking for more and more exposure to securitized real estate loans and were asking banks and US lenders (subject up not enough regulations) to issue more of these…. The crisis started when the investors realised that their investments were far riskier then they thought despite not having done any due diligence of their own and wanting a share of the action.
Stick to sciences if you can’t apply the same degree of diligence to understanding other subjects.
9.6 teraflops of throughput and a few TB of data is all we need to beat,
Also they made synthetic skin that can feel temperature. Upload me first papa Elon
When you think you’re gonna get a lecture about synthetic biology but instead you just get to listen to some random guy grand stand
Has any of you here looking at the comment section heard about the Metacurrency Project ? It offers a new organic way to look at governance, comunication and colaboration. And they are not just « looking at » but already building a very intricately designed system that should allow this. After understanding their goals / philosophy and learning more about their ideals and the new patterns they propose, I started to believe there is hope for further progress for humanity and the way we govern ourselves and could also help prevent risks like those described in this video… Go have a look it seem promising.
No, no, no. He doesn’t understand mass killers. They are not PTSD sufferers or depressed alone, the suffer from a lack of empathy due to a class of personality disorders, Cluster B. People raised near them do love them, but get their lives ruined. There are no easy answer!
That’s the problem with technology, bigger problems can be caused by fewer people. Then one day some angry person buys a viral 3D printer with a couple of paychecks and kills everyone.
Imagine if an individual with the power to create a deadly pathogen, realesed it, causing massive suffering, but for no other reason than their own sadistic gratification. Millions perishing for their pleasure: proof of their alsolute superiority. But maybe this is just an extreme manifestation of that elitist feeling we see all around us in the Neocon new order, where the public interest matters infinitely less than the gratification of one’s own precious self. Would not this horror scenario be in fact the ultimate expression of ‘Private Gain, Publc Loss’?
I’ve been thinking about that one for years. Absolutely correct and absolutely no way people will do any of the suggestions lol. That my friend is the human condition. Let’s hope the machines do a better job than us.
This is the second time I’ve listened to Mr. Reid’s excellent talk. It is even scarier from the vantage point of an ongoing pandemic caused by a not very lethal and not very contagious virus that is nevertheless crashing the global economy. He doesn’t mention state actors but imagine a cynical leader in search of a credible threat with which to extort concessions from the world without the need for expensive fissile material and missiles.
Scientists that do insane things like this need to be sentenced to mandatory ethics studies. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should!
SLOW DOWN on the psychotropic psychology drugs being handed out like candy to everyone,
and you might just LOWER THE MASS KILLING DEATH RATE!
16:00 Here’s my ghost story: #Coronavirus got out of a lab managed by a big government, and will be used to justify bigger governments.
Science fiction author and editor Stanley Schmidt warned of this decades ago. He wasn’t concerned with nuclear war wiping humanity out, but worried about that one crazy person with the ability to create and release an incurable pathogen.
If you have very basic knowledge of synthetic biology (synbio), biological weaponry, and are the slightest bit cynical, then:
The video starts at 10:04
Thank me later
Gene editing tech has already spilled out into the « world »
It is not long until someone accidentally creates something
Once they do, the genie will be out on the internet.
I must admit, the way humanity is treating their homeworld and if they keep doing it, I’m afraid it will be a matter of time I will be one of those nihilistic individual threats to all life on Earth. I’ll be aiming to have a death toll of at least 6 billion. Even mass murderers like Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot and Genghis Khan will be proud.
this same biotech that he says could wipe out humanity can just as easily fix any problems it causes this kind of anti-science anti-human progress hype needs to stop
The crime of the stars. I will bring the Earth back to the proterozoic with a hackjob virus.
No rats, no vermin, no weeds, no amoebae, no algae. No eukaryote will survive my self proclaimed »divine » punishment.
Only bacteria will be spared.
Most of of the onlwolfs that are mentioned where not preparing for a long time. They simple buyed a gun and start shooting. For making a deadly highly affected needs loot of testing. I guess that the change for this to happen is small. With growth of population brings more fear. Africa’s population reached a tipping point where abola is able to spread repeatedly. Butt there polution thickness is still not near that of europe. I still remembered the first news of sars. This disease starred as where most horror diseaces that still hunt the world, like tbc, small poks, the fluw. By having bad sanitation, living with life stock and eating raw food. And terrorists groups would probably act inthis way before there would be a single person trying to find a way to this. Add would be more affectieve because they’ve more people and so can put more hours in this. This is a video that is creating a depressed individual as a possible enemy. The main thing to thing of this situation to see it as you’re printer. You can print nearly anything, butt when you try to print money it has software that will not allow this. Yess, there is probably a lot what a biohacker can do, butt for reengineering a deadly fluw. There are resources needed that trigger the security forces.
Hi. I am raising rabbits for meat consumption (5 reproducing male and female). I have lost over 50 adult rabbits due to RHDV2 infection with precisely 100 percent death rate, except for those who are vaccinated. Do you think RHDV2 could be made « human » with synbio and is the death rate due to the lower investment in immune system of the rabbit species or is it likely that such a high death rate could also be the rule human.
The « beauty » of RHDV2 is that rabbits show no external sign of sickness untill they die. I have seen only one rabbit dying on 50, for the rest i usually find them dead one hour after having seen them moving around happily. It also never kills at ounce but slowly, one rabbit after the other, so that all the group finally dies.
…..Ecclesiastes 1:4……psalm 115:16…..Isaiah 45:18,22……Revelation 11:18…..John 3:16..,..
2 Corinthians 4:3,4…….Acts 17:30,31…….Matthew 7:13,14……..Zephaniah 1:14-18…….psalm 2:1-12…
Psalm 110:1-3…….Isaiah 60:12…….Matthew 24:3-22…..Daniel 2:44…..” thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven “……Isaiah 45:18,22……2 Corinthians 4:3,4…….Isaiah 9:6,7…..
Isaiah 46:8-10……….Isaiah 55:11……,Romans 15:4…….Ezekiel 38:23……psalm 83:18…….
Romans 10:9-15……psalm 46:8-10…..Isaiah 33:24…….2 Peter 3:3-7…..1 Corinthians 6:9,10……
Revelation 22:15……Psalm 37:29,34…….Psalm 37:9-11……Ecclesiastes 12:13,14……psalm 14:1…..
proverbs 1:5-33…….proverbs 2:21,22…….psalm 145:16-21……Isaiah 2:2-4…..psalm 46:8-10…..
Revelation 21:4,5……John 5:28,29……..Isaiah 33:24……
This is exactly the kind of issues presidential candidate Andrew Yang is running on. Andrew Yang understands technology better than any other politician and he would understand exactly why issues like this need to be addressed and not ignored. If this TED talk has made you think and want to do something helpful you should google Andrew Yang and hear what he has to say or read his book The War On Normal People or look up his own TED talk he did a few years ago.
The CRISPR/Cas9 genie is out the bottle. It wont ever go back in and inevitibly will be abused. It will 100% be unleashed in many aabnormal ways which will become apparent as more examples of ‘garage genetics’ are released into the environment. We will see some strange things til eventually death is unleashed on us all by a Mr Nobody from Godknowswhere.
I’m a synthetic biologist and let me tell you, we have lots of rules in place to prevent such a dooms scenario from happening. Indeed, the public is welcomed and encouraged to participate in ethical discussions regarding Synbio advances. I must say also, that it is precisely this technology which will bring us cleaner industrial and medical processes/products, like biofuels, biodegradables, biodetoxification agents, biotherapeuticals, biodetectors and even biocomputers/DNA storage devices. These technologies (e.g., CRISPR) have the potential to make antibiotics obsolete and could finally put an end to diseases that have plagued humanity since the dawn of time. It won’t surprise me if synthetic biology is the one technology that enables life in other places than just this Earth.
These people are like the cancer cells to our world, and how do our immune system deal with cancer? It kills all the innocent cells around a truma or stimulus to prevent mutations, in terms of social actions: mass surveillance and authoritarian justice system.
Why am i watching this before bed? mankind is dooooooooooooooooooooooomed for so many reasons… this is just one…
Perhaps AI will evolve before some nutter spreads a deadly virus and figure out solutions to keep us all safe…
the only hope we humans have is that our parents (the AI) are benevolent and look after us well. I foresee a world where AI keeps us in strictly controlled environments – We can’t be trust to be autonomous. It’s the only logical outcome.
Sounds a bit like the intro to a movie where the people ignore or dismiss the speaker who is then driven mad and becomes the evil they tried to warn us about.
Yeah yeah no one cares, either we let ourselves spiral into decline and eventual extinction, or we conquer our biology old fart.
I liked your comparison to the financial industry, but unlike you I see no hope with our « stewards » protecting us from biological disaster. Just like they didn’t want to protect us from financial disaster. because they were profiting from it. If anything, these « stewards » will create biological protections for themselves (think anti-venom) while unleashing these biological monstrosities wherever they want. They’ll see it as a financial incentive by curbing excessive population growth that is using up limited economic resources.
Not believing in anything doesn’t mean you want to kill everybody, or anybody. People who believe in things kill others and themselves all the time. So I’m not sure what nihilism has to do with it.
the funny thing is that in china the murder rate is much much much higher…
While mass shouting and… Are more devastating in the us… They are much much fewer…
So stfu guns are better imgin evryone got a gun… people are less violent and when somone radical/violent evryone can stop them/….
Flawed analogy, he uses computers and moors law, the chess guy vs. computer. Normal people cannot make a computer no matter how cheap they sell produced units. Iran can look up how easy nuclear tech has become, however production is challenging with complicated systems like a micro chip or enriched uranium.
Very good you’re pointing this out, and this generalizes not only to the synthetic biology. Namely, as technology empowers individuals, so does the ethics and psychological stability of each of the empowered individuals becomes important to global security.
I see, with the election of Trump, that many people are very bad at judging character, or just do not care. A crazy and suicidal president of any nuclear armed country could very well end human civilization.
Getting
This broadened my horizons to the fact that the world is amid a potential pandemic danger,which is ironically artificial—synthetic biology.It is as so macabre as the nuclear weapons,perhaps more by its crypticity.And there are many layers to prevent.One of these are mental.Remember there are always someone broken and sad behind the envy technology,so it is us the mass’s duty to care for them,frankly,that kind behavior can save the world.In the end, scary story can avoid the kind of horror from occurring.
Don´t use the Cold War as an example for anything. Cold War was created so that the military complex could spend trillions and trillions on unnecessary weapons…Peace would have been way less expensive. But you can´t make so many billionaires with less money, you need more money…
I applaud his talk, but must point out that the so called « mental health industry » and « epidemic of depression » are not organic, but instead are fueled by the pharmaceutical industry pushing psychotropic drugs at people. The same drugs are likely one of the push factors for suicidal murderers to do what they do. It’s difficult to explain, but psychotropic drug withdrawal puts you in an altered state of mind and enables people to do things they otherwise would not have done.
I have no knowledge on bioengineering but couldn’t we create a set of « antibodies » that « know » whats dangerous to life and can detect them, either alerting everyone or creating some biology themselves that eradicates the dangerous agents? They could act on their own, almost like the nanobots idea, keeping us in check, forming a kind of « defensive cloud » around the planet.
Sure easier said than done, but the neglected violent terrorist type will always be considerably behind state-of-the-art bio-security tech and those geniuses mentioned in this talk.
BIOSYN is an ambiguous name that could refer to the natural known phenomena called » BIOlogical SYMbiose » Other thing: Miss NATURE throught genetic mutations, has probably already created any possible micro-organisms such as bacteria & virus. Most of the viable ones are still alive among us on Earth, the others were not suited for survive in our biosphere and will not perform better if some evil desperate bio-chemist would recreated one of these dispeared pathogens. They could only multiply for a short time and in a very special isolated environment. So….
That presentation is lagging a bit behind.. The number of doomsday buttons is at least 5. I can’t tell how many of the former soviet states have retained the ability to launch nukes, but that would be added to that number. India, Pakistan, China, USA and Russia are just the tip of the iceberg.
« Those selfish jerks will join us and Al Capone in fighting this condition ». What planet are you on? He must be living in an ivory tower with no contact with real humans.
Smart man, but he doesn’t get the first thing about nihilism.
Mass murderers cannot, by definition, be nihilists.
Nobody would go to such lenghts without believing it would be of any use.
If you don’t believe in any reason to do it, why would you?
On the other hand, believers (and fanatically so) caused 9/11.
It would be more helpful to the « love cause »
if we got our philosophy straight before treating nihilists with prejudice.
This is great. He’s putting forth ideas for how to solve part of a very big problem. It’s broader than Synbio. I originally read about this challenge here » https://www.fullmoon.nu/articles/art.php?id=tal