Humanity Cavalierly Creates Artifical Life. Our Government And The Voice Of Reason (Concerns Of Risk) Are No Where To Be Found.
This is a big hot button for me as I have remarked before. Many have cited the greatest potential for the extinction of the human race is man himself. Generally these are scientists who are trained to recognize risk - ie, those who recognize great potential for unintended consequences and subsequent impacts on a complex system. Cassandras who use reason and knowledge as their basis for concern are often harbingers of future realities that could easily be avoided.
We have seen countless crises of "invention" throughout the industrial age. And we never seem to admit to the crises until disaster has struck. Thalidomide, lead, pesticides, semiconductor chemicals, mercury, PCBs, Wall Street finance, BP's spill, Chernobyl, Bhopal, strip mining and on and on. All of industrial China and most emerging markets have become disasters as companies strip countries (without a well-developed rule of law) of their resources and spew toxic poisons into the environment at a staggering pace. These are but examples. The list is literally endless and still growing. Most of these disasters were the result of some corporation or group of people who were more concerned about profits and less concerned about proper risk protocols or any harmful risks to society. In fact, cover-up after cover-up attempted to (and still does) hide many crises. Relying on this ex post facto method of dealing with our mistakes when it come to tampering with the forces of life will ultimately lead to some unimaginable disaster.
Many of these biology firms and their founders have a history of pushing the envelope with what appears to me to be insufficient regard for risk - sort of a Goldman Sachs of biology businesses.
Society hasn't even debated the topic of artificial life and here we are creating it. Therefore, we clearly have no regulatory structure and no ethical or scientific standards to ensure research is handled with rigorous methodologies and procedures to keep us from killing ourselves. Biology research has the constructive potential to transform the treatment of diseases, to invent new energy sources and much more. But well beyond any benefits is its ability to completely obliterate humanity and life. In other words, the risks are so enormous they literally cannot be quantified. The risks far outweigh any reward. And for that we should have extremely well-developed bioethics and risk controls.
We treat the forces of the universe as cavalierly as we treat everything else. Which, by the way, is why humanity goes from self-induced crisis to self-induced crisis. We create our own hell. Literally. We don't need some invisible boogeyman to do it for us. And now that we are playing with the unknown awesome forces of the universe instead of toying with muskets and cannonballs, we can almost be assured our future crises will rise exponentially in scope. That is, unless we achieve some level of awareness before we create the credit default swaps of biology and open Pandora's box. Because once we have meddled with the creation of life, the universe won't likely be so kind as to close the box back up voluntarily. And humanity can't be expected to control what we clearly don't understand. Just a handful of hundreds of years ago, Pandora's box opened and unleashed something we didn't understand and nearly half of all life in Europe was vanquished in the blink of an eye. There are many examples of the forces of the universe causing great chaos. And with the population density of today, countless forces of the universe are already stacked in favor of some future disaster. Any uncontrollable mistake will spread like wildfire with six billion people on the planet. It's simply a matter of time and circumstance. We don't need to be waving a lit match near a sea of gasoline by engaging in what we don't understand with little or no regard for risk. We don't need to let the same mess that happened on Wall Street happen with biological research. But it appears without change that we will.
This is more free-market cavalier cowboy bullshit - government should stay out of everything. Free market pinheads say the market will regulate itself. Come back and tell me that when a few billion people are dead. Or Wall Street blows up the world. Or BP creates the largest man-made disaster in decades. Ever notice these free market types aren't very good at math? How many mathematicians have you ever heard describe our economy as free market or self-regulating as libertarians (mostly anarchists who really aren't libertarians) and neoliberal idiots do today?
A market-based economy, not to be confused with a free market, is desirable only because it is proven way to achieve a meritocracy and self-determination in a democracy. Not so we can buy a television from Wal-mart made by someone paid ten cents a day in a slave labor camp or so companies can plunder economies who have no well-developed rule of law. We live in a democracy not a capitalism. Our economic model should support democratic principles not that we should fit our social principles to embrace our economic model as the case today. And that is exactly what is going on. The goals of our economic model should be consistent with the goals of our democracy. Instead our fearless and corrupt leaders and the corporatist masters of the universe have adopted social and political values where those most willing to trample the rights of their fellow man are able to dominate others at the expense of virtue or the betterment of society or of democratic principles. Our democracy is imploding.
In a free society, government is the concerned voice of the people. The earth is a very complex system that we clearly do not understand at any level beyond a thin veneer of crude knowledge. Life has developed over millions of years. It has developed this way not randomly but for a reason. Selections were made. Life has a reason. Einstein told us God didn't play dice or that the concept of randomness is inconsistent with science. (Einstein was most surely right regardless of the current theories of quantum mechanics highlighted in the last link.) For me, randomness is simply a way of stating that the world is without meaning and, by conclusion, so is science, so is metaphysics and so is the thirst for knowledge. I believe a more plausible reality is that our view of randomness is simply a manifestation of humanity's lack of knowledge. We use randomness to explain what we clearly have no answers to or do not understand rather than it providing some universal truth.
For whatever reason the universe and, specifically for this post, life on earth, develops the way it does, in a state of homeostatis or balance that could easily be disrupted with the introduction of a man-made life form. One small change in the system could set off a complex chain reaction. There is absolutely no scientific method available to mankind to determine the impact of any man-made life form on our planet. The unintended consequences of such cavalier arrogance is no different than we see in financial markets today. Or in the self-regulatory neoliberal bullshit in our food, drug, energy exploration and other regulatory agencies. How's that working out for you? But rather than destroying our economy as Wall Street has, such arrogance could destroy human life. One might consider tampering with biology without reasoned debate and proper concern for risk to be far greater than any threat that nuclear war ever was.
The power of life in the universe is an awesome power. We know nearly nothing of its workings and existence. I do not share the celebratory nature of this announcement without any regulatory, ethical or procedural oversight. How can anyone who is even remotely informed of its possible unintended consequences be excited? There has been no concern or standards developed to contain our feeble understanding of these forces. And that will manifest itself at some point.
Where is our government on this issue? More self-regulation served up on a platter of bullshit. Our economy is failing because our democracy is failing. Our democracy is failing because our government is failing. Our government is failing because it has no moral clarity. It has no moral clarify because our government has allowed elitists to hijack rule of law for the benefit of personal fraud. And that is the very reason why research into man-made life is achievable without any risk controls or protocols. Why Wall Street fraud is rampant. Why BP was able to drill 5,000 feet below the ocean with no idea of how to deal with a potential crisis. And on and on and on.
Welcome to the world of the surreal.
Link here.
We have seen countless crises of "invention" throughout the industrial age. And we never seem to admit to the crises until disaster has struck. Thalidomide, lead, pesticides, semiconductor chemicals, mercury, PCBs, Wall Street finance, BP's spill, Chernobyl, Bhopal, strip mining and on and on. All of industrial China and most emerging markets have become disasters as companies strip countries (without a well-developed rule of law) of their resources and spew toxic poisons into the environment at a staggering pace. These are but examples. The list is literally endless and still growing. Most of these disasters were the result of some corporation or group of people who were more concerned about profits and less concerned about proper risk protocols or any harmful risks to society. In fact, cover-up after cover-up attempted to (and still does) hide many crises. Relying on this ex post facto method of dealing with our mistakes when it come to tampering with the forces of life will ultimately lead to some unimaginable disaster.
Many of these biology firms and their founders have a history of pushing the envelope with what appears to me to be insufficient regard for risk - sort of a Goldman Sachs of biology businesses.
Society hasn't even debated the topic of artificial life and here we are creating it. Therefore, we clearly have no regulatory structure and no ethical or scientific standards to ensure research is handled with rigorous methodologies and procedures to keep us from killing ourselves. Biology research has the constructive potential to transform the treatment of diseases, to invent new energy sources and much more. But well beyond any benefits is its ability to completely obliterate humanity and life. In other words, the risks are so enormous they literally cannot be quantified. The risks far outweigh any reward. And for that we should have extremely well-developed bioethics and risk controls.
We treat the forces of the universe as cavalierly as we treat everything else. Which, by the way, is why humanity goes from self-induced crisis to self-induced crisis. We create our own hell. Literally. We don't need some invisible boogeyman to do it for us. And now that we are playing with the unknown awesome forces of the universe instead of toying with muskets and cannonballs, we can almost be assured our future crises will rise exponentially in scope. That is, unless we achieve some level of awareness before we create the credit default swaps of biology and open Pandora's box. Because once we have meddled with the creation of life, the universe won't likely be so kind as to close the box back up voluntarily. And humanity can't be expected to control what we clearly don't understand. Just a handful of hundreds of years ago, Pandora's box opened and unleashed something we didn't understand and nearly half of all life in Europe was vanquished in the blink of an eye. There are many examples of the forces of the universe causing great chaos. And with the population density of today, countless forces of the universe are already stacked in favor of some future disaster. Any uncontrollable mistake will spread like wildfire with six billion people on the planet. It's simply a matter of time and circumstance. We don't need to be waving a lit match near a sea of gasoline by engaging in what we don't understand with little or no regard for risk. We don't need to let the same mess that happened on Wall Street happen with biological research. But it appears without change that we will.
This is more free-market cavalier cowboy bullshit - government should stay out of everything. Free market pinheads say the market will regulate itself. Come back and tell me that when a few billion people are dead. Or Wall Street blows up the world. Or BP creates the largest man-made disaster in decades. Ever notice these free market types aren't very good at math? How many mathematicians have you ever heard describe our economy as free market or self-regulating as libertarians (mostly anarchists who really aren't libertarians) and neoliberal idiots do today?
A market-based economy, not to be confused with a free market, is desirable only because it is proven way to achieve a meritocracy and self-determination in a democracy. Not so we can buy a television from Wal-mart made by someone paid ten cents a day in a slave labor camp or so companies can plunder economies who have no well-developed rule of law. We live in a democracy not a capitalism. Our economic model should support democratic principles not that we should fit our social principles to embrace our economic model as the case today. And that is exactly what is going on. The goals of our economic model should be consistent with the goals of our democracy. Instead our fearless and corrupt leaders and the corporatist masters of the universe have adopted social and political values where those most willing to trample the rights of their fellow man are able to dominate others at the expense of virtue or the betterment of society or of democratic principles. Our democracy is imploding.
In a free society, government is the concerned voice of the people. The earth is a very complex system that we clearly do not understand at any level beyond a thin veneer of crude knowledge. Life has developed over millions of years. It has developed this way not randomly but for a reason. Selections were made. Life has a reason. Einstein told us God didn't play dice or that the concept of randomness is inconsistent with science. (Einstein was most surely right regardless of the current theories of quantum mechanics highlighted in the last link.) For me, randomness is simply a way of stating that the world is without meaning and, by conclusion, so is science, so is metaphysics and so is the thirst for knowledge. I believe a more plausible reality is that our view of randomness is simply a manifestation of humanity's lack of knowledge. We use randomness to explain what we clearly have no answers to or do not understand rather than it providing some universal truth.
For whatever reason the universe and, specifically for this post, life on earth, develops the way it does, in a state of homeostatis or balance that could easily be disrupted with the introduction of a man-made life form. One small change in the system could set off a complex chain reaction. There is absolutely no scientific method available to mankind to determine the impact of any man-made life form on our planet. The unintended consequences of such cavalier arrogance is no different than we see in financial markets today. Or in the self-regulatory neoliberal bullshit in our food, drug, energy exploration and other regulatory agencies. How's that working out for you? But rather than destroying our economy as Wall Street has, such arrogance could destroy human life. One might consider tampering with biology without reasoned debate and proper concern for risk to be far greater than any threat that nuclear war ever was.
The power of life in the universe is an awesome power. We know nearly nothing of its workings and existence. I do not share the celebratory nature of this announcement without any regulatory, ethical or procedural oversight. How can anyone who is even remotely informed of its possible unintended consequences be excited? There has been no concern or standards developed to contain our feeble understanding of these forces. And that will manifest itself at some point.
Where is our government on this issue? More self-regulation served up on a platter of bullshit. Our economy is failing because our democracy is failing. Our democracy is failing because our government is failing. Our government is failing because it has no moral clarity. It has no moral clarify because our government has allowed elitists to hijack rule of law for the benefit of personal fraud. And that is the very reason why research into man-made life is achievable without any risk controls or protocols. Why Wall Street fraud is rampant. Why BP was able to drill 5,000 feet below the ocean with no idea of how to deal with a potential crisis. And on and on and on.
Welcome to the world of the surreal.
Link here.
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