“I think saving one billion lives when there were only about three billion of us is quite a parlor trick.” Interesting I had never heard of this guy before your post.
This issue made me think a lot about wisdom and technology. I am not the first to note that the rate of change and growth in the former does not seem to keep pace with the latter. Wouldn’t it be amazing if it did? What a world that would be!
I remember learning more about the guy. Even amongst my history book club I've recommended him as a different kind of book but mostly people don't care. My wife works in a bookstore. There have been enough books written about Jesus and Lincoln to fill a library. I think Lincoln is good for 15K+.
I love your comment. The world would be a better place if we spent a lot of effort balancing wisdom when we discover the next shiny technology object. It seems we aren't built out of the box for that stuff.
Who makes the decisions? Who looks at all the probabilities of change? For instance, what would happen if we wiped out all mosquitoes? How many other animals depend on them as their source of nutrition? Maybe an all plant based one will have to be invented.
The reason I wrote this was because how thoughtful the woman from Berkeley actually was. I picture the scientists as just steaming forward and she was talking about all the ethics and risks. This is all so complex as you describe. The mosquito case is FASCINATING. What is being evaluated at this time is a mechanism to splice a gene such that IF the mosquito was a genetic carrier of a disease AND it was not sterile, bring sterility forward for the given mosquito so that the cycle for mosquito + target disease will break the cycle. There is SO MUCH that can go wrong.
I especially like your plant-based mosquito comment ROFL
I think the Chinese researcher is still under sanction who used CRISPR to edit babies a number of years ago.
I think there are lessons in the heavy use of Round-Up and allowance to patent ilfe (seeds) -- that seems to have been a major mistake and should be revisited. I'm guessing even though there are downsides, agri-business is never going back to the lower yield seeds.
“I think saving one billion lives when there were only about three billion of us is quite a parlor trick.” Interesting I had never heard of this guy before your post.
This issue made me think a lot about wisdom and technology. I am not the first to note that the rate of change and growth in the former does not seem to keep pace with the latter. Wouldn’t it be amazing if it did? What a world that would be!
I remember learning more about the guy. Even amongst my history book club I've recommended him as a different kind of book but mostly people don't care. My wife works in a bookstore. There have been enough books written about Jesus and Lincoln to fill a library. I think Lincoln is good for 15K+.
I love your comment. The world would be a better place if we spent a lot of effort balancing wisdom when we discover the next shiny technology object. It seems we aren't built out of the box for that stuff.
Who makes the decisions? Who looks at all the probabilities of change? For instance, what would happen if we wiped out all mosquitoes? How many other animals depend on them as their source of nutrition? Maybe an all plant based one will have to be invented.
The reason I wrote this was because how thoughtful the woman from Berkeley actually was. I picture the scientists as just steaming forward and she was talking about all the ethics and risks. This is all so complex as you describe. The mosquito case is FASCINATING. What is being evaluated at this time is a mechanism to splice a gene such that IF the mosquito was a genetic carrier of a disease AND it was not sterile, bring sterility forward for the given mosquito so that the cycle for mosquito + target disease will break the cycle. There is SO MUCH that can go wrong.
I especially like your plant-based mosquito comment ROFL
I think the Chinese researcher is still under sanction who used CRISPR to edit babies a number of years ago.
I think there are lessons in the heavy use of Round-Up and allowance to patent ilfe (seeds) -- that seems to have been a major mistake and should be revisited. I'm guessing even though there are downsides, agri-business is never going back to the lower yield seeds.