Re:Scientists Hold Secret Meeting to Consider Creating a Syn...
by Zigurd on Saturday May 14, 2016 @01:07PM
(#11697041)
That's a good point, but there are many reasons to think it will be much harder to contain genomics than atomics:
1. You can sense atomic weapons materials at a distance.
2. It takes significant capital equipment to make atomic weapons.
3. It takes precision equipment to make atomic weapons.
4. While theoretical knowledge of atomic weapons is readily disseminated, it is easy to find and target experienced experts in the making of atomic weapons.
I can't find corresponding "choke points" that could control genomics, even on the scale of a synthetic human genome.
I know it's a popular theory but I don't know that it stands up to scrutiny. Nuclear weapons technology hasn't advanced in many years, for example; the few who could do the R&D don't seem interested. Technologies involving cannibis and LSD have not advanced in large part, AFAICT, because they are illegal. How do you overcome those and other obstacles I raised above? Another: Powerful interests freeze development in many industries.
Here's another way of thinking of it, more theoretically: There are an effectively infinite number of technologies that could be developed; only a few are chosen. Almost all tech is ignored.
I think that calling it inevitable is a way to duck difficult questions and obligations, similar to the way that some blame the free market and self-interest for their choices (as if those are gods who forced the mortal's hands).