Originally posted by Ahmose
this s--- has been real, people.
this is only the first that the public gets to hear of it "officially".

Thats what I was thinking as well.

What is the gap between military - public knowledge.. close to 40 years or so for technology?

Originally posted by vagabondrobb
I was just doing my daily browse through the BBC news website and stumbled across this article:

A top UK scientist who helped sequence the human genome has said efforts to patent the first synthetic life form would give its creator a monopoly on a range of genetic engineering.

Yes,

Dr. Venter is about one of the LEAST ethical scientists working out in the private sector right now - just the kind of self serving maniac you DON"T want working on such paradigm changing technology such as this.

I think many of you who do not have a background in the biological sciences are underestimating the significance of this latest breakthrough.

No - it is not creating life from scratch - however add in donor eggs and the soon to be practical artificial wombs - and there will be almost no creature current, extinct, or imagined that will not be able to be created in a sufficently sophisticated bio-lab - anywhere on the planet.

While if Humans were of an agreeable nature - this would be heralded in as a new age of man - alongside the splitting of the atom - and man's other momentous achievements.

Even in that ideal case 17 layers of redundant protections would likely be needed to insure the survival of our current biosphere.

Now - give one the worlds greediest scientists this power - working in a field with no formal regulation - on a planet plaqued with petty inter-species conflicts - on the soil of the worlds most sophisticated military apparatus - and one can see how a worst case scenario is almost garaunteed!



I'm know luddite - but this could go south very quikly if we don;t take our Govt.'s back from the petty thieves and con-men who are currently looting the planet.

In this day and age - if you vote along party lines - then you have
completely lost your mind!

And - as for those who say the government has had this power for decades - perhaps - but I seriously doubt it - they aren't magically ahead in every field you know.

(though they are in many)

I wonder how long it will be until someone pattents a real Unicorn - that seems like a relatively straight forward engineering challenge - which will bring some upcoming entrepeneur a nice fortune!

The T-Virus from Resident Evil of video game lore can now be created. Prepair for the zombiefication of the human species.

Originally posted by TruthMagnet

Socially we are simply not yet ready for this particularly technology.

Indeed. Maybe the scientists are ready, but the ones paying them obviously aren't, they still wage wars and spend way too much money protecting themselves from others who are doing the exact same thing. The day the world economy isn't relying on insane war spendage, weapons' trade, that day world politics will have reached the same level of development as the science behind this headline. As far from creating, let's say a new bird or for that matter a new kind of fly from scratch as these guys are, today's politicans are just as far from being capable of handling this technology positively without the risk of the "mad president" in terms of govening and handling foreign affairs.

If that Kim dude from NK can develop and stock nukes, what will stop anyone from creating something really bad from their kitchen table using a mere computer and relatively simple lab equipment. Today you could buy genes over the net and do most of what you have to with this tech, but then you'll have to buy the genes first. What then when all you need is to download a couple of megabytes from some rogue site to bring out the henta virus, just because you hated the world that day?

great....

humans cant even care for the planet/animals we share it with (oil spill) and someone goes and creates an SBE?!

we humans do like to stumble alot dont we...

Originally posted by Djdoubt03
The T-Virus from Resident Evil of video game lore can now be created. Prepair for the zombiefication of the human species.

zombie plinking anyone?! if their gonna do it, it better be soon, cuz it will suck if they make zombies when im too old to go running around blasting them.

Originally posted by ahmonrarh
great....

humans cant even care for the planet/animals we share it with (oil spill) and someone goes and creates an SBE?!

we humans do like to stumble alot dont we...

Well - I think - just like with disclosure - it's more complicated than that.

Our current politically systems - there are really just incremental improvements over our original tribal systems - where the most aggresive and ambitious (and sometimes the most amoral) tend to rise to the top of the pack.

The problem is - as Govt. became less directly accountable to "tribe" - more and more sociopaths and borderline psychopaths flourished in the new political heirarchies.

(where these types would have been deposed in the smaller - more directly accountable - tribal units)

I think we simply need to get the intelligent, altruistic, minority phenotypes into positions of power - and we will soon see the kind of greatly improved societies that are easily envisioned by everyone from ancient philosophers to modern science fiction authors.

Once in power, these neew, modern day, philosopher kings, will redesign the system to keep it positively balanced towards progress and equality of opportunity.

Then, and probably only then, will Humanity really be ready to embrace such truly transformational technologies such as the one announced here.

It simply requires the people to will it to be so!