Re: [silk] More from Bill Joy

["Arsalan Zaidi" <arsalan_zaidi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Eugene Leitl" <Eugene.Leitl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <silk-list@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2001 8:38 PM
Subject: Re: [silk] More from Bill Joy


> Most of the technologies are relatively high-threshold. It's relatively
> difficult to build a superhuman AI or a free-environment selfrep capable
> nanosystem in total isolation, without information exchange to your peers.
> By the time this will become doable the world will be a very different
> place already. In some respects, less vulnerable, and be it due to larger
> diversity and wider distribution (more eggs spread over more baskets).
>

Slightly OT. I sometimes wonder at the excitement the concept of
self-replicating nano machines generates. Wouldn't it be far easier to use
existing micro-organism to do the work you want? Better to use existing
'code' rather than re-inventing the wheel.

> > 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.
>
> This is a low efficiency process you described. Things become much harder
> when you engineer pathogens at the molecular level in a more controlled
> fashion than brute force mutagenesis and functional screening.
>

Why bother?  An engineered organism and one generated using a more brute
force technque will both kill your target. Of course, you'll have to do more
work if you want it to do something specifically nasty.

> However, that was not my point. Engineering pathogens is fundamentally
> noncontrollable,

True. Nature does it all the time too :-)

so you have to work at the infrastructure for realtime
> screening and containment. Aerosol sniffers, pathogen DNA screening both
> in vitro and in vivo, realtime reporting and deployment of curfews and
> personal sterile seals are doable, albeit expensive and nonquantitative
> strategies. Sure you're fucked if you have to control animal vectors
> (mosquito was a good, albeit climatically limited example),

Maybe it's doable in the some parts of the world. Here the health services
have a tough time controling age old cureable and preventable diseases.

Another great vector is the rat (or the parasites it carries). They're
present in just about every major city and are impossible to eradicate.
Besides, if you use something like bubonic plague then the more rats you
kill, the greater the number of homeless fleas and the greater the risk of
infection!

but we're
> talking about a long-running global holocaulst programme, or isolated acts
> of biological terrorism in areas of high host concentration and
> promiscuity.
>

Acutally, if you're looking to knock out a city, but don't want the disease
to hang around forever, something like Ebola might do the trick. It spreads
fast and kills quickly. Too quickly in fact, making it self-limiting. If you
want to kill large portions of the world population, something like HIV
(only airborne!), might be more useful.


> Once you realize that pathogen engineering is noncontainable, you shift
> your countermeasure focus to other areas. Pathogen umbrella is one of the
> easiest problems, unfortunately.
>
What's a pathogen umbrella. Sounds fashinable! :-^

> > 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.
>
> I'm interested in quiet, pragmatic solutions to the problems. I don't
> think the establishment is quite up to the task, but nor is the general
> populace. Roughly spoken, they haven't got a clue, and even if, they're
> missing basical capabilities in rational risk assessment.

What kind of 'quite, pragmatic solutions' could there possibly be?

--Arsalan.