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Comment by fxtentacle | Hacker News Reader

Wow this guy is ignorant. Not everyone who is intelligent is a good person. In fact, some people just like to see the world burn. It might only be 0.5% of the population, but I totally get why he's investigated all the time. Selling a kit that allows bacteria to grow where they normally don't just seems like an obviously bad idea to me, even if his science ambitions are good and noble. One can learn a lot about chemistry by synthesizing explosives, but selling a diy detonation kit (even for research and learning) still seems wrong. And the potential to accidentally harm others, for example but getting genetically modified organisms on your skin and then touching stuff seems even higher here.

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I spoke with an inventor, author of many books, and semi-famous Silicon Valley millionaire— whom I respect deeply— who told me that as a teenager he toured a Wunder Bread factory and saw how they used high heat to prevent mold or something. He decided to breed a temperature tolerant mold in his home and then see if he could spread it at the factory on another tour.

That’s curiosity and science, too.

Fortunately, he lost interest after having successfully bred the mold, and never carried the attack out. But you know what, I don’t want kids and sociopaths having easy access to biotech at home. Who knows what hacks will ensue that could devastate crops or economies. The OP says that is a small likelihood. The truth is he has no model that allows rational computation of the risk. The truth is he has faith.

The author of the post understands the practice of science but not the sociology of trust that goes with the community of scientists. I don’t care how safe he declares his ideas to be, it’s not in societies interest to have “Joe’s homemade injectable health serum. You can trust ol’ NASA Joe” available at every roadside stand.

> t’s not in societies interest to have “Joe’s homemade injectable health serum. You can trust ol’ NASA Joe” available at every roadside stand.

Luckily we're already protected from misleading and dangerous medicine with existing law. You're falsely pretending he's doing something worse than he really is. If you're so confident in your belief, why not just use truth instead of exaggeration?

I am not pretending anything. I have made no representation of fact about him other than to state a principle based on a logical extrapolation of his behavior.

I guess the laws you refer to are helping, because according to the story he’s been investigated for practicing medicine without a license. But why not do everything we can, as a society, to protect ourselves from irresponsible people?

Because it limits the freedom of those "irresponsible" people. We could ban every activity that has the slightest chance of harm but then none of us could do anything. No computer tinkering allowed - might create a virus! No chemistry allowed - might create drugs! No dogs allowed - they might bite someone.

It’s very easy to argue with you, because your main tactic is hyperbole. Let’s see, I can do that trick, too. How about this: Oh you think any limits to freedom are intolerable? Then let’s go back to post-Roman Europe. No enforceable law at all! No such thing as civic responsibility!

I can see why you do that. It takes so little mental effort to participate in a discussion and still seem to say something.

I think we need reasonable regulatory limits on a lot of things, such as dumping toxic chemicals in a hole in your back yard, or abusing your children. But not everything; and not infinitely. Engineering mutants and “medicines” at home is generally too risky.

Then don't make ridiculous statements like "But why not do everything we can, as a society, to protect ourselves from irresponsible people?" Of course you know the answer to that question is "because those protections cause problems themselves". It adds nothing to anybody's understanding and is a dirty trick to fool people without making any effort.

Anybody (even a teenager) could do that back then, and anybody (even a teenager) could do it today. Yet, they manifestly haven't. Evidently, it is not very easy to go from a fun experiment to global domination, gene recombination or no gene recombination.

Meanwhile, ranchers are actively breeding antibiotic-resistant bacteria, everywhere, with outstanding success, and sending the resulting strains straight to your local supermarket. Thousands die infected by those strains. Maybe that is a better place to devote attention than a mail-order science kit seller.

Apparently you don’t admit to the risk, but your words are not an argument against doing reasonable things to minimize potential damage from morally stunted hackers.

We can disagree about where to draw the line. I think it’s obvious that genetic engineering should be strongly regulated. I think that is also obvious to you.

We agree that antibiotics are overused.

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