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Gene editing is easy. All you gotta do is make the right presumptions.
Next to money, America worships technology most intensely. Most of us believe that no matter what problem arises — climate change, water shortage, soil exhaustion, oil depletion, whatever — technology will solve it (and somebody will make a ton of money). The belief is shored up by a constant stream of ads and stories in the industrial media about the wonders in store for us just as soon as Technology gets around to its next miracle.
This faith is not without basis in our history. I can remember many times Technology intervened in my life in a thrilling way: when we first got electricity in our remote farmhouse (you can flood a room with brilliant light just by flicking a switch!); when we got running water upstairs (no more treks to the outhouse when it was 20 below zero!); when I saw television for the first time (it was I Love Lucy); when I got my first computer (it stores 50 pages of text on a single floppy disc!); and yes, when I got my first smartphone.
But there comes a time when rampant technology, like increasing wealth, becomes toxic. And that time has surely come. In small ways — an entire generation living life through the screens of their hand-held devices and writing stupid, ungrammatical things with their thumbs –and in large ways. One of the most spectacular ways that Technology is flaming out is in the field of genetic “engineering.”
At some point, reporting on this subject (and most others) changed from reporting what had been achieved, to reporting on what might one day be achieved if plans turn out. We’ve been subjected to years of propaganda about how genetic “engineering” will cure disease, feed the world and ensure that every child is above normal. We’ve been told that it’s precise, foolproof and completely safe. Now that a few researchers are turning away from the dazzling future to study the reality, we might be well advised to hold our applause.
- It’s not “engineering” and it’s not “editing”; recent studies have shown that standard procedures for altering animal DNA have routinely introduced contaminants — DNA material from goats,cows, mice and bacteria — of which the “engineers” were unaware.
- After 20 years of applying genetic “engineering” to crops in order to increase yields and reduce reliance on chemicals, yields have not increased significantly and the use of chemicals has increased.
- Having conquered the worlds of plants and animals, the “engineers” have moved onward and upward to humans. A Chinese scientist gained world fame last year when he blessed infant twins with a genetic modification that might reduce their chances of contracting HIV. Later studies showed that he failed to achieve the modification he intended, and that what he did do increased the twins’ chances of dying young. Oops.
- With three Big Pharma companies racing to deploy a gene-altering therapy to treat muscular dystrophy in humans, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania found the therapy often killed, or caused extreme behavioral changes in, pigs and monkeys. Oh, snap.
Common sense, rationality, and mounting evidence tells us: genetic behavior is far too complex for us to ever understand, let alone master, and we should stop screwing around with it before we unleash some unimaginable horror on the world.
But the beat goes on. Like religionists everywhere and everywhen, the true believers respond to failure by doubling down, and demanding that we have faith and give them more money to carry on. Like the husband caught in bed with his wife’s best friend, they insist they are in the right and demand, “Who you gonna believe? Me or your lyin’ eyes?”
Our basic mistake is our failure to account for consequences as far back and further as the invention of the arrow that led to depletion of wild prey and the necessity for agriculture Our technological solutions to problems have created bigger evermore intractable problems that required technology solutions that were in truth only ever postponements of consequences. Now here we find ourselves at the end of the line and the consequences of a technology is near synchronous with it deployment This and its dependence on exosomatic energy means the game is up for this “Borg” species I’m glad I won’t be around for the transition to whatever is next for our species
“But the beat goes on. Like religionists everywhere and everywhen, the true believers respond to failure by doubling down, and demanding that we have faith and give them more money to carry on.”
i often hear similar memes about how technology will save us… so we have myths of a magic, unlimited future with solar pv, wind generators, electric cars, supersonic transport, bases on the moon and mars, and continued infinite and unlimited growth.
these are wonderful cornucopian dreams, which are totally divorced from reality. like jeebus, technology is no savior. there are limits and we are bumping up against them now. flights of delusion and fantasy (while understandable) are only temporary comforts.
the sobering fact is we are in a hell of a mess and there is no pleasant solution to our horrific predicament. so i try to focus on the remaining good days we get… because these are the good old days.
When future aliens arrive here to our dead planet, and the Search and Salvage team returns to the Mothership, the Commander will ask, in a tired voice: “Please tell me … for once … you found something we can use down there,” and the reply will be, “Yes sir, we did actually!”
The S&S team leader will then hand the Commander a roll of duct tape. “It doesn’t look like much Commander, but I assure you, it could be of great value to us. In fact, it is hard to believe we can criss-cross the universe without it.”
“Interesting. It does make a nice sound when you peel it back. This is it, then?”
“Unfortunately that is all, Commander. Everything else we found in the ruins of the humans was junk.”
Furthermore…
“Sir, we have determined the dominate species of this planet was composed primarily of the inorganic compounds of steel, rubber, and plastic”.
“And, it appears the dominate species was served by an organic bipedal species”.
Commander, “That explains the round sticky stuff”.
Technology is all well and good as long as you’ve got the energy to run it. And energy is what we’re now running out of.
I recall a saying traditionally attributed to the Arabs: “My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet plane. His son… will ride a camel.” :D
Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum, sort of the Augustus Caesar of the mighty nation of Dubai:
“My grandfather rode a camel, my father rode a camel, I drive a Mercedes, my son drives a Land Rover, his son will drive a Land Rover, but his son will ride a camel.”
If Shiekh Rashid had had the foresight to hire you as a speech writer, perhaps posterity would’ve been left with a much more memorable quote.
Your back-to-camel timeline is more accurate. Rashid’s original quote goes one son too far!
We have reached well past the point of diminishing returns on technology. Consider how much ordinary radio changed the world, people could communicate across oceans in real time instead of at the speed of travel. It was invented by a handful of people working with modest resources. Now a whole ‘campus’ of misdirected genius brings us another disposable distraction that seems to drive people farther apart.
And the devices have so dumbed us down that many, nay most people do not understand that technology is no substitute for energy.
Devices haven’t dumbed anyone down. Many more people have become interested in “technology” due to being able to afford useless junk categorised as “technology” by media and advertising.
The average person in the 50s and 60s was if anything even more clueless about engineering, let alone the unsustainability of industrial economies. They just didn’t encounter very much of the pseudo-scientific feel-good PR fantasies of current science/tech journalism.
I was an average person in the 50s and 60s, during which time I did engine teardowns and transmission rebuilds on my own cars. wired houses for electricity, installed plumbing and flew airplanes. And I read countless articles in Popular Mechanics about how we would all have personal carplanes one day soon, and travel regularly to the moon on vacation. So this has been going on a long time, and the fact that I can’t do any of these things anymore is not because I’m dumber (although I am freaking old, so you could make the argument) but because the devices have been over-crapified.
Pulp science mags are a far cry from the deliberate, targeted PR and marketing hype embedded in STEM journalism. The Jetson-mobile wasn’t an actual product, smartphones with 3 cameras are.
And yes it is a shame that quotidian DIY has faded away but fixing pipes (using cheap, abundant tools and parts you do not know how to make) does not require understanding (or wanting to) how the global industrial empire really works. There is a reason why your worldview (& mine) is so uncommon.
1954 8th Grade Civics Test –
Could You Pass?
https://rense.com/general75/pass.htm
Perhaps you could pass it, but I’ll wager the last 2-3 (multiple choice) generations would fail miserably.
Americans educated in the 50’s & prior put men in space using slide rulers ffs. Sure they had help by Nazi rocket scientists, but they used slide rulers too.
The only thing those generations have in common is their paranoid, hysterical Russia blaming-bashing.
To paraphrase someone else’s brilliant observation: I have a device in my pocket capable of bringing me the entirety of human knowledge in an instant. I use it to look at pictures of kittens and argue fiercely with strangers.