Biological hacking soon due to cheap DNA synthesis
I'll stop my one track blog for a while and give you some other interesting stuff I have found
This is an interesting video from a biologist to a group of hackers talking about how hacking biology will become cheaper and easier in the future.
The danger Biohacking is mucking around with dangerous viruses, or making bacteria that eats concrete quickly or other crazy arse things that can muck up the real world TM. With cheap DNA synthesis it should be fairly easy to create your nasty virus/bacteria of choice and let it loose. What was interesting and a bit naive on his part is asking whether there could be a culture of not working with dangerous crap in the biohacker community that emerges. For one, most hackers aren't freaking insane so they wouldn't play around with anything remotely dangerous to their own health/health of their loved ones. Secondly hackers aren't very good at policing themselves anyway, strange that for a bunch of introverted geeks. So no singular biohacking community will emerge, and probably no policing.
I reckon most biohackers will restrict themselves to mucking about with highly artificial stuff that can't exist outside lab conditions.
The danger will be fanatics, as ever, and they are not likely to be stopped by any biohacker code of conducts.
I have recently realised why I am fascinated by this and adaptive computing. I think they are both fire types of technology, immensely powerful with the chance to change society hugely, but with the power to burn and hurt as well. I'm half wondering why people aren't legislating against this. The future will be a wild ride, and I would rather be on the crest of the wave than in the tube, if you'll pardon my stretched metaphor.
Also my vote for coolest looking virus. Bacteriophage
This is an interesting video from a biologist to a group of hackers talking about how hacking biology will become cheaper and easier in the future.
The danger Biohacking is mucking around with dangerous viruses, or making bacteria that eats concrete quickly or other crazy arse things that can muck up the real world TM. With cheap DNA synthesis it should be fairly easy to create your nasty virus/bacteria of choice and let it loose. What was interesting and a bit naive on his part is asking whether there could be a culture of not working with dangerous crap in the biohacker community that emerges. For one, most hackers aren't freaking insane so they wouldn't play around with anything remotely dangerous to their own health/health of their loved ones. Secondly hackers aren't very good at policing themselves anyway, strange that for a bunch of introverted geeks. So no singular biohacking community will emerge, and probably no policing.
I reckon most biohackers will restrict themselves to mucking about with highly artificial stuff that can't exist outside lab conditions.
The danger will be fanatics, as ever, and they are not likely to be stopped by any biohacker code of conducts.
I have recently realised why I am fascinated by this and adaptive computing. I think they are both fire types of technology, immensely powerful with the chance to change society hugely, but with the power to burn and hurt as well. I'm half wondering why people aren't legislating against this. The future will be a wild ride, and I would rather be on the crest of the wave than in the tube, if you'll pardon my stretched metaphor.
Also my vote for coolest looking virus. Bacteriophage