Re: [silk] More from Bill Joy

["Arsalan Zaidi" <arsalan_zaidi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Eugene Leitl" <Eugene.Leitl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Udhay Shankar N" <udhay@xxxxxxxxx>
Cc: <silk-list@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2001 3:06 PM
Subject: Re: [silk] More from Bill Joy


> We don't need peasants with torches, we need safe and sane people at the
> controls. I'm not sure public discussion is the best way to get there.
> Maybe it is. I honestly don't know.
>
>

Bill Joy
>I think a scientific
>organization that has a good code of conduct can police its own behavior to
>a large extent--certainly to a large enough extent--to reduce the risk

I really don't think this approach will be successful. The people who wish
to do as they please aren't really going to lay down and say sorry when a
bunch of goateed PhDs wag their fingers disapprovingly at them.

Do you know how easy it is to engineer a new disease? Follow these 4 easy
steps...

1) Get yourself a known pathogen. E.g. Malaria. (good luck trying to keep
this one out of peoples hands!)

2) Get yourself an X-Ray machine (easy to obtain and easy to build)

3) place infected petri dishes under X-Ray machine and zap.

4) Test for increased pathogenic potential.

Lather Rinse Repeat.

With a couple of million individual microorganisms per dish, it won't be
long before you get some interesting results.

Face it. There is *no* way this can be stopped.

And what are we going to do? Have commitees decide who is 'worthy' to aquire
knowledge about a certain subject or apply that knowledge? Can you really
trust a bunch of oldies intersted in preserving the status quo ? The cure
seems worse than the disease.

--Arsalan.