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Advances in Bio-weaponry
kjh1 writes "Technology Review is running an eye-opening article on how biotechnology has advanced to the point where producing bio-weapons that were once only possible with the backing of governments with enormous resources is now possible with equipment purchased off eBay. You can now purchase a mini-lab of equipment for less than $10,000. The writer also interviewed a former Soviet bioweaponeer, Serguei Popov, who worked at the Biopreparat, the Soviet agency that secretly developed biological weapons. Popov has since moved to the US and provided a great deal of information on the types of weapons the Soviets were developing."
You are missing the point. Say your neighbor gets pissed off enough to
want to play god. He get your hair, engineers a weapon and the next
thing you know all your family is dead and noone else notices. That's
what genetic targeting allows (potentially, but I am sure it'll be
practical in not too distant future).
Also, think KKK developing a color-of-skin based agent. You could exploit
local cuisine so that only people who eat, say sushi die. The possibilities
are endless. Imagine if every case modder today became humanity modder
tomorrow (by killing off unwanted specimens). Aha, now you are
seeing the problem.
As someone who is doing research in molecular biology right now in a major US
university (at a postdoctoral level), let me assure you a lack of decent edumacation
in the field of biology is not the problem. The problem is that most people will
not consider mutations as something that can affect them. Once this technology
becomes available to 14 year olds and doable with classroom equipment, all bets
are off. And let's not forget the people who are depressed and want to see their
offender dead and they don't care about the world or themselves. And this is before
we even mention terrorists and nation states which TFA was concerned with.
First, we are assuming that technology gets cheaper and easier to use.
Sure, today it is still complicated and requires much education to do
this. Tomorrow, it may well be taken for granted. Remember how coding
was complicated in the fifties, how programmers were a small group who
had training and how designing programs was hard. Now you have ten year
olds building viruses that infect half the internet.
If you are saying, am I afraid that a virus designed by a lone goon
out of spite will strike tomorrow the answer is no. The day after
tomorrow is very worrysome though.
BTW, what's your obsession with guns? They do minimal damage. They may
take out ten people, maybe a few more. If you are pissed at the world or
maybe a race then guns aren't up to the task. If you want
to kill your neighbor and his family, including those cousins in
Australia and kids who moved to Canada, then a virus which infects
everyone and strikes with specificity is far more attractive than a
gun (need to procure it without leaving a trace, smuggle across
borders, dedicate time and money to travel - a virus that could be
engineered in an evening for $100 in chemicals is far more attactive).
As you can see, it is only a matter of viruses getting more
convinient to design and cheaper to make before this explodes. Right
now TFA estimates that it takes $10K and untold amount in education
expenses to make some agents. We can assume that the complexity will
grow and cost will decrease. We are not that far, time to start
planning now.