[Thunderhawk]

[youtube]nYu0EuVJnE8[/youtube]

http://www.wired.com/2015/07/crispr-dna-editing-2/


If it really is as easy as its made out in the ted talk, I think it will happen. There will be people with the skills required, be they scientists, technicians or astute youtube viewers, who will develop gene engines for reasons they think of as noble "to make mosquitos hate the taste of humans, or vermin and insects that are terrified of certain smells (which we will then mass use)" to the malevolent "devastate the Asian Carp, ladybug, African bee, etc.."

So what will be the aftermath? I don't think niches will remain empty, I think others will fill the gaps. I also think that the species being targeted will have pockets of mutant/xenophobic survivors - mutants will have the chance to survive and mate with other mutants (likely their relatives) to preserve and accentuate their mutant traits, rather then be reabsorbed into the mainstream genepool. Some species are very xenophobic, I suspect they will survive and their tendencies made more extreme.

[jakell]

If this is just starting to filter into the public domain, then we can reasonably assume that the military will have predicted what a useful biological weapon this could be several years ago.

[Harmattan]

@jakell
In the real world the army does not have access to secret technologies years before everyone else thanks to the alien connection. The Cas9 revolution started in 2012 for everyone.


And bacteriological weapons are crap anyway for modern armies, as they would contaminate you too. Unless they are not so dangerous (Ebola only killed a few tens of thousands) or you isolated the target country (but then why bother with a virus?) or you isolated your country (could work for North Korea I guess). Even racially-targeted viruses will likely be either too weak (too few targeted genes) or will spill too much and kill too many of yours.

The only people for whom those weapons are good are apocalyptic maniacs, and those so obsessed with their racial hatred that they could kill half of their own people.


In a more realistic fashion, CRISPR is excellent for GMO and in-vitro eugenism. Good news, it was time we improved the human IQ!

[jakell]

I don't understand your 'alien' remark , but just because a weapon is indiscriminate doesn't mean the military (apocalyptic maniacs) won't be interested in it.

[Bridgeburner]

I don't understand your 'alien' remark , but just because a weapon is indiscriminate doesn't mean the military (apocalyptic maniacs) won't be interested in it.

Yeah, BIOPREPARAT did a lot of research into this sort of stuff. Wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if this was continued.

AFAIK China is the only nation publically announcing its intense committment to genetic-engineering/biotechnology, especially with regards to humans, and it's not hampered by ethical conundrums. I'd expect them to make great gains, perhaps even be the first nation to embrace eugenics properly on a societal level.

[Thunderhawk]

Any thoughts on the ecosystem impact and food web if a great many "pest" species have a massive reduction in number?

I believe Mikema talked about crisper-Cas9 a year or so ago.

[mikema63]

I wouldn't be surprised if I did talk about Crisper at some point.

This is a very clever and very powerful tool with a lot of potential and not a lot of downside.

Probably you wouldn't see massive die offs of pest species because if it came to that you could always build a counter engine that edited out the engine that was killing off the species.

I would prefer if most of the research remained in labs with stringent bio-security protocols but like she said a smart high schooler could do it at home with the right equipment so it's unreasonable not to expect some engines to get out. I would hope the EPA could be expanded so that they could monitor populations for errant gene drives.

Edit: Nobody does bio-warfare, it's pretty shitty compared to conventional warfare.

Don't count the US out in the genetic engineering front either. We do a lot of stuff. While we are more careful than china about bioethics we built a lot of the tools like gene engines.

[jakell]

Any thoughts on the ecosystem impact and food web if a great many "pest" species have a massive reduction in number?

I believe Mikema talked about crisper-Cas9 a year or so ago.

It's appropriate that you put 'pest' in inverted commas because what we call pests are just regular organisms trying to make a living, they just like the same sort of food as we do. You quite rightly talk of the ecosystem because, beyond our rather narrow self interest, they are part of a larger ecosystem and if we move to change them significantly or remove them, there will be waves throughout that ecosystem, possibly, even some serious ones ie unintended consequences.

Most of our pest control at present is locally focused, so even if it cause some destruction on a small scale, it doesn't indiscriminately move through the whole population.

[Potemkin]

It's appropriate that you put 'pest' in inverted commas because what we call pests are just regular organisms trying to make a living, they just like the same sort of food as we do.

Indeed. In fact, from the point of view of almost every other species on Earth, it is humans who are the 'pest'. Over the past few millennia, our numbers have multiplied to plague proportions.

This classification of certain animals as 'pest' species is probably a relic of religion - in the Judeo-Christian tradition, God explicitly gave us dominion over the other animals, with the logical implication that any species which we don't like or whose mode of life or numbers are inconvenient for us is somehow in 'rebellion' against us and must be punished. We think that we are clear-minded and rational, but in fact our thinking is still guided by Iron Age superstitions and attitudes.

[Harmattan]

No, we call them pest because as humans we are concerned with humans interests and adopt human-centric points of view. Which is totally fine.

But of course, now we are all so fucking rich that we have the leisure to worry about the poor mosquitoes (even though some of us do so for pragmatic and indirectly selfish reasons). Which is very good. Although I would prefer if many animal lovers could worry a bit more about humans first.

[Dagoth Ur]

As though losing mosquitos would have zero associated reactions that might be totally fucking unpredictable and dangerous. It isn't like that could ever bite humans in the ass.

[mikema63]

No one is seriously suggesting killing of mosquitoes in the scientific community. The only time killing off a population was brought up was in the case of invasive species and even then only with extreme caution to protect that species in it's native habitat.

What was suggested to be done with mosquitoes is to make them unable to carry malaria, which wouldn't do the mosquitoes any harm and would be very much to our benefit.

[Thunderhawk]

No one is seriously suggesting killing of mosquitoes in the scientific community. The only time killing off a population was brought up was in the case of invasive species and even then only with extreme caution to protect that species in it's native habitat.

I'm glad the scientific community is being moral. I don't believe everyone else will be. Controls could be set up.. but then I think about other "controlled" things. Is, and would, the equipment needed to make members of a species with a gene engine built into their DNA, reasonably easy to acquire? Reasonably easy, like gun, moderately hard like assault rifles, or difficult like missiles?

Most of our pest control at present is locally focused, so even if it cause some destruction on a small scale, it doesn't indiscriminately move through the whole population.

What would stop a modified organism from moving indiscriminately?

[mikema63]

Moderately hard. Mostly because of the knowledge requirement and cost.

To make anything really serious would be extremely difficult because it would involve a huge amount of knowledge time and effort required to do something that involves multiple interacting genes.

Of course there is risk involved just like everything else, but they are manageable risks.

[jakell]

Most of our pest control at present is locally focused, so even if it causes some destruction on a small scale, it doesn't indiscriminately move through the whole population.

What would stop a modified organism from moving indiscriminately?

Assuming that an organism is lightly modified and still mostly identical to its peers, then it would be subject to the same physical limitations.
In this case, light modification is essential really as we are looking for something that will occupy the same ecological niche, too many changes and we are not modifying an organism, but inventing a new one that is not similar enough to replace the existing population.

Here though, I wasn't talking about individuals moving through a population, but modified genes which, if we look at the example of the red-eye mosquitos in the video, have no limitations.