I think this could have far greater dangers in the creation of super diseases.
How long until China turns this into a weapon by creating a virus with the spread of a common cold and the devastation of Ebola?
How long until China turns this into a weapon by creating a virus with the spread of a common cold and the devastation of Ebola?
Please delete the comment as I do not seem to be able to.
Mostly.
Bio weapons are amongst the top threats we pose to ourselves as a species.
There’s a youtube series by a guy who made a virus to cure himself of lactose intolerance via gene therapy, that was pretty eye opening. To go from what he did to making a targeted bioweapon is not that much of a leap.
I was responding to someone talking about world leaders, after all. And maybe targetting on not being an ethnicity would be possible to, but who knows? So it seems China might actually be more vulnerable to something like this, having so many Han Chinese. I have no clue with what that corresponds with genetically, if anything -- but how you get from what I said to "us" "suddenly thinking" that "China is out to commit genocide" you'd have to explain, the opposite seems much more "obvious" -- the most obvious thing to engage with would be with what I actually wrote though.
The overarching point here, to me, is maybe opening a pandora's box for a few benefits, most of which we could mostly have with good diet and being nice to each other, and possibly giant or species-ending drawbacks, might be a bad idea, and how "nobody would be so stupid because it would be indiscriminate" doesn't strike me as very convincing. Not even if it was necessarily indiscriminate I would be convinced by that, but let's just take that bit for granted. Why would it be indiscriminate though? Serious question, serious answers please.
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...because the world has been ended by kids making their own nuclear weapons? What?
Backyard nuclear devices don't end the world, but can still cause a lot of harm. Superdiseases made in a garage might one day have civilization-crippling consequences.
Top scientists would struggle to create a super disease today. Worrying that a kid will do it when the technology is commoditized is putting the cart well before the horse.
They irradiated their own planet ?
If something like that fit in the constraints of life on earth it'd most likely be here already.
Very few countries if any, admit to having a bioweapon program, let alone one based on gene-edited bioweapons.
This makes them great weapons for poor countries who don't care about indiscriminate killing, but bad weapons for large countries that want precision strikes against specific enemies.
Not to mention most combatants don't do their own arms development - that only really makes sense if you are nearing state of the art or effectively lack a market (say nuclear weapons).