| What I was saying there was that you can't find a cure for a disease you haven't discovered yet. Do you disagree? Absolutely. Many drugs targeting one disease have been found to cure others. The list includes cancer drugs, antibiotics, antiviral compounds, etc. And that's just drugs, what about the research itself, isn't it obvious it has implications well beyond any one single thing. And isn't that the case for every kind of research, not just medical? To me this seems obvious. All we need for disaster is one person who's intelligent, driven, and wants to destroy the human race. Again, we already have that, it's called mother nature. HIV, Ebola, 1918 flu, current flu, etc, all natural. Here's where I see the problem with your argument, it assumes great asymmetry. Here's what I mean by asymmetry, I think you imply that if we have the technology to create super viruses on demand that does not mean we'll have anywhere near equivalent knowledge and technology to fight them. I happen to consider that an extraordinary claim. To me the symmetry of knowledge is self evident. Almost as soon as we invent the nuclear bomb, we also invest nuclear power. Almost as soon as we can gene splice, we have gene therapy for humans which has already been successful applied. If we have the ability to create super viruses on demand, then we also have the ability to create drugs for them, to detect them, to stop transmission, and most obviously to create vaccines for them. If you can manufacture the virus, it would be one hell of a cosmic improbability that you are also NOT able to manufacture a vaccine for it. Alternatively if we don't have the knowledge to make viruses and vaccines on demand, that won't stop mother nature from her never ending quest to kills us all. |
I agree there will be unexpected good benefits associated with biotech research.
>Again, we already have that, it's called mother nature. HIV, Ebola, 1918 flu, current flu, etc, all natural.
None of those were designed to be harmful.
>Almost as soon as we invent the nuclear bomb, we also invest nuclear power.
This is not an example of symmetry. The nuclear bomb gave humanity the power to destroy itself forever. Nuclear power has not given humanity the power to preserve itself forever.
>If we have the ability to create super viruses on demand, then we also have the ability to create drugs for them, to detect them, to stop transmission, and most obviously to create vaccines for them. If you can manufacture the virus, it would be one hell of a cosmic improbability that you are also NOT able to manufacture a vaccine for it.
Are you sure you aren't exaggerating? You call that cosmically improbable? Remember, we are talking about things that haven't even been discovered yet.
Let me put it this way. If you had such extraordinary predictive power about which technologies will be invented in what order, you could make a lot of money in the stock market. And extraordinary predictive power is what you need to rule scenarios that are compatible with all formulations of the laws of physics as being "cosmically improbable". I agree that such predictive power may exist in astronomy. I disagree that such predictive power exists in technology forecasting, or pretty much anything involving humans for that matter.
If you continue to stand by this position, I will decide that you're not worth convincing and unlikely to be convinced and leave the discussion.
>Alternatively if we don't have the knowledge to make viruses and vaccines on demand, that won't stop mother nature from her never ending quest to kills us all.
"Mother nature" has no quest to kill us. All the damage that's been done by naturally-occuring viruses has been by accident. So someone who was consciously optimizing to create a maximally harmful virus might be able to do a lot more.