Two of my favorite intellects, Rob Reid and Sam Harris, discuss an important topic for the preservation of human civilization: genetically engineered pathogen policy https://samharris.org/podcasts/special-episode-engineering-apocalypse/
Minute 19 and 50: there will always be people who want to wipe out humanity.
Hour 1:10 we need synbio research and it’s coupled to our survival in different ways.
But the internet never forgets — the code for smallpox was published years ago, and in the years subsequent, we are having exponential progress in gene synthesis and biomanufacturing.
Genetically modified pathogen policy is more important than ever, and long overdue. It was the focus of my second blog post ever (with most of the material in the comments): http://jurvetson.blogspot.com/2004/08/genetically-modified-pathogen-gmp.html That was 17 years ago, and the execution risk has grown exponentially, whereas progress in human culture (a societal immune system) is relatively glacial.
I updated it for FORTUNE in 2006: http://jurvetson.blogspot.com/2006/06/brainstorm-questions.html and Rob has given it MUCH more thought over the past four years.
Lest ye need another reason to listen, a quote from the comments below: ”Biological warfare is the largest threat to the human race, a substantially bigger threat than nuclear war.” — Newt Gingrich
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