[lb0]

True.

> I'm not saying the same is necessarily true of any given 'contagious' animal vaccine, but it could be.

That's what I think I wanted to say.. there is a huge difference to anything self-spreading / replicating - be it self-reproducing true AI nano robotors, simple things as self replicating plants (and here we have already a dozen examples of promised containment not working with bad consequences involved - oops) or 'contagious' vaccines.. it needs to be magnitudes safer, not?

So if as an individual there is a minimal risk to my health by taking a mRNA vaccine, I can decide for myself vs the risk of infection or consequences, or also let my doctor decide. It is also easy to run "trials" among the population for studies. But if there is a risk to our complete biosphere, that is just very different for the risk calculation?

[adriand]

And think about the timescales we are talking about here. We might be creating something that evolves and persists for millions of years. We don’t seem anywhere close to the level of knowledge or wisdom needed to safely do anything that has that kind of long term impact.

[tempestn]

The article discusses a safeguard that would only allow a set number of replications, so the lifespan of the intervention would be limited. (Assuming it works as expected, of course.)