ALL errors are random - and I'm not assuming evolution can fix the errors we introduce at all - I'm proposing we analyze the genome, and revert probable error sections to the state they were probably in a not-too-distant ancestor species.
Here's my assumptions for the future researchers attempting to restore a lost species a few hundred or thousand years from now. 1) They will be able to sequence surviving organisms and organic DNA vaults with ~100% accuracy. 2) They'll be able to identify ~100% of sequencing errors in the digital store, through correlation with accurately sequenced species living and "vaulted", and other stored species sequenced using the same technology (hopefully there'd be well-documented information on the technology used to sequence each sample included in the archive) 3) They will have at least a middling decent understanding of the "language" of DNA (not really necessary, but helpful for repairing some of the non-viable hybrids they'll sometimes create)
Assuming those - if you've got accurate data from a related species with a 1% genetic difference, and lost 1% of the original species DNA to sequencing errors, then by replacing all lost DNA with the sequences from the relative species, you'll end up changing about 1%*1% = 0.01% or 1 part per 10,000 of the original DNA to match a related organism. Effectively creating a new hybrid species that's 99% original and 1% the relative. There's no *guarantee* that it'll be viable, but the odds are pretty good with such a small mixing of "foreign blood".
I certainly won't argue that genuine organic DNA vaults aren't far superior for archival purposes. They are. Not least of which because you have a much better record of DNA methylation and any other still-undiscovered epigenetic factors which are probably at least as important to creating a healthy, complex organism as the DNA sequence itself.
However, organic vaults have two major flaws that interfere with them being created: They're expensive, they're and absolutely useless in the short term. They have absolutely no value until such time as you want to restore a lost species, and we don't currently have the proven ability to restore a species even from long-term cryogenically preserved blastocysts, much less from more readily accessible DNA samples. And they're *far* more expensive to create and maintain than a seed vault, where plants naturally provide incredibly well stabilized and self-sufficient embryos, already primed for long-term preservation and easy restoration (e.g. a few months or years after a plague wipes out the species - which is a constant short-term threat with modern agricultural monocultures). (Heck, we've already managed to resurrect thousand-year-old species preserved by nothing more than a clay pot that ended up in the right environment)
Meanwhile a digital store is utterly useless for restoring species without far more advanced technology than we currently possess - and might ultimately prove to be completely useless for the task on its own. But it is relatively cheap to create, and basically free to maintain. And most importantly it is a valuable and immediately useful resource in expanding our understanding of vertebrate genetics, valuable to both the biological and medical sciences.
And hey, it might also prove useful for last-minute, half-assed organic DNA vault, which seems like it might be as much as we can really hope for on that front. Forget all the painstaking collection and cataloging - just scoop up samples of whatever you can get your hands on, desiccate it, and freeze it all in one big heap (maybe at least in sandwich bags with region labels for the convenience of future geneticists). If Species X was ecologically important, then there's probably at least a little dung in there somewhere to provide a DNA sample. Let future geneticists sort it out if it proves necessary - the digital archive will provide at least a handy mostly-accurate reference sheet to identify the samples after they've been accurately sequenced.
Ah, of course. I haven't used Gray codes since college, but they would make perfect sense for such a project. I don't think I've ever even considered using them for non-binary codes, but they seem to have a system worked out.
Of course 2000 revolutions in a second is still 120,000RPM, and you'd need to factor in the "stop, test, accelerate" after every change so the wheels would still probably be torn apart, but you could probably get it done within in under an hour (~30 combinations per second) without too much trouble. Assuming the lock worked flawlessly - but I've known an awful lot of locks that needed to be fiddled with for a second or two to open even with the right combination.
However, 5 seconds with a crowbar seems a little more likely in most real-world scenarios.
The rule of thumb was that that you could have any two of FTL, Relativity, and strict causality. Relativity's been increasingly well-tested, and everybody has just assumed strict causality existed despite a lack of rigorous evidence, and so FTL had to go.
But now that we've torpedoed strict causality, that should make FTL genuinely plausible, should it not?
Add to that the fact that one of the deepest and most fundamental tribal divides has, throughout the history of civilization, been between the rich and the poor, and the problem comes into sharper focus. Especially since the rich mostly make the rules, and as you say, have no problems with others not of the tribe paying the bill.
Add of course they hold their position in large part by fostering further, more superficial tribal divides among the poor - keep the browns and the whites at each other's throats. So too the liberals and conservatives, etc. Keep the other tribes focused on each other rather than their common enemy, so that those who do not stand together, fall together. As an added bonus, as frustration over the gradual fall builds to violence, that violence is mostly directed at each other - we become dogs fighting for scraps outside our master's feast-hall, rather than a unified pack keeping the spoils of the hunt for ourselves.
And of course the evidence suggests that tribalism is baked into our biology, shared by all our close primate cousins, so trying to tackle it head-on is an exercise in futility. Perhaps we can individually rise above our biology - but that doesn't appreciably reduce its effectiveness in controlling the least-intelligent (or educated) masses. And their chains are what must be broken if we are to be free.
It is true that most businesses prefer to outsource such security and contract enforcement to cooperative governments - but organized crime is only moderately more expensive, especially in places where the rule of law is weak.
Less extra-legally, as I recall China (among others) is increasingly exploring city-building treaties that effectively hand them (possibly in partnership with other stable governments) legal and judicial jurisdiction of a region in return for building a city there and attracting investors - specifically to address the investment issues associated with relative lawlessness. Make sure the national politicians get their fingers deep in the tax pie, and would risk a major international incident to try to renege, and you've got a carrot and stick that could be quite effective at promoting rapid industrialization.
China has long been grooming Africa to do for China much what China did for the U.S. - and the Chinese, especially in the upper echelons of politics, do tend to play a well-considered long game. Even if they don't always understand the game as well as they think they do.
Through a physical interface? I find that unlikely. At least one of those luggage combination dials would have to make 10,000 revolutions in the process, meaning it's rotating at 600,000rpm I'd bet good money that centrifugal "forces" would tear it apart long before it reached that speed.
One of the biggest advantages of physical locks over digital ones is that "brute forcing" isn't really viable - you have to either exploit a vulnerability (a.k.a. lockpicking), or ignore the lock entirely and simply break in through less circumspect means. Lockpicking is mostly only relevant if you're trying to be discrete or non-destructive - a crowbar, bullet, chainsaw, etc. is usually a far faster and simpler solution.
And hey, if you can figure out how to do that to elephants, absolutely!:-D
I mention size and domestication because those are changes we already have a pretty good grasp on, seeing very similar genetic changes in many different species, and they would be useful for quickly making elephants into even more valuable and versatile "industrial equipment" than they are now - and if civilization and it's techno-industrial base collapses, such self-propagating organic technology will persist long after the knowledge to create it disappears - unlike a bulldozer which stops being useful soon after access to parts and fuel is lost.
There's other things that could help mitigate risks - such as crop modifications like grafting in resurrection plant genes to bestow extreme drought tolerance (already showing dramatic successes with some closer relatives).
Basically, if you look at history you see that the collapse of civilization is one of those "when, not if" scenarios, and as civilization becomes global the risk of global collapse increases alongside it. And with massive global ecological and climate problems introducing severe "outside" pressure the risk goes up even further.
I think you're sim-interpretting what I'm trying to say. I'm not ascribing intention to anything, I'm describing effects. Just as gravity optimizes towards minimum-differential energies, and makes all sufficiently large objects round, evolution optimizes for long term reproductive success of gene-lines. The balance between accuracy and mutation in DNA replication systems is a big contributing factor to that. Mutate too fast, and you don't have the genetic stability to remain a viable gene-line and die out due to endemic genetic diseases. Mutate too slowly, and you're out-competed by faster-evolving gene-lines. Over the long term mutations which bring the mutation rate closer to the theoretical optimum for the organism and environment will tend to spread throughout the population.
Evolution is a design process of the kind that has most successfully dominated human history - trial and error. No knowledge is needed, not even any intent is needed - just an unrelenting culling process weeding out less viable options. Why do dolphins and sharks look so similar despite having such wildly different evolutionary histories? Because they are subjected to many similar evolutionary pressures, which pushed their body shape towards the same optimal solution.
You do make a good point about current sequencing tending to have errors in similar places - if that is the case, then yes, those places will be a problem. Especially if there's something that makes it so that all/almost all sequenced DNA has the same error in the same place - how would you distinguish that fro "legitimate" DNA without being able to actually "read" it's function competently. The counterpoint, is they're only a critical problem if that place actually housed an important difference that can't be copied from similar organisms that survived or avoided the error. And considering just how much of our DNA that we share with yeast, finding something "similar enough" probably won't be a problem for most things.
>Also, "one thaw and everything is destroyed" is nonsense. I suppose I was being a bit hyperbolic there - sure, thawing for a few days is no problem - but we're trying to preserve information across centuries of climate and likely political chaos. How high a priority do you think preserving a cryogenic facility will get if civilization collapses for a few decades? The caretakers would probably do everything they could to preserve it - but if electrical and fuel supply lines stop running, how longdo you think they can keep it up? Not to
Exactly how long do you think DNA can last relatively unprotected once it thaws?
From what I can tell, recent research suggests that absent any sort of thermal, microbial, etc. activity that would break it down faster, just exposure to ambient moisture breaks down DNA with a half-life of 521 years. That means that after T years, you'll have N=(1/2)^(T/521) of the original sample ( meaning T= -521 log2(N)). To lose 1% of the original DNA requires only 9.6 years of neglect. Of course the losses will be far more random, and it's easy to store a few thousand copies, so you probably have a lot of buffer there.
Both approaches have their value - digital is probably cheaper, and far cheaper in the long term, as well as being far more valuable to current research. And it complements well with even far less comprehensive cryo-vaults, for however long those may last.
It seems unlikely that the modern DNA replication mechanism "just happened" in the current state from nothing. Far more likely it evolved, which means it *was* designed, by the "unintelligent designer" of natural selection. Some early organisms may even have developed 100% accurate replication - but no mutations means no evolution, especially with asexual reproduction. And such organisms would be rapidly out-competed by their evolving compatriots.
"And it's generally unlikely that a replacement of a genuine difference with the baseline similar organism will be fatal" - because organisms B, C, and D and E all evolved from A. They all used to be A, until mutations accumulated. Revert some of those mutations to the state they were in in A, and you're probably fine - you've just removed some of the differences that had evolved between them. The only way you'd be likely to have a major problem is if some other mutations would cause problems if unchecked, but was held in check by the "deleted" mutation. Replace some sections of human DNA with that from a chimpanzee, and you're probably going to get a more chimpanzee-like "crossbreed" rather than something completely nonviable. The base organisms are almost identical - we're not coding radically different proteins, there's just some minor differences in gene expression. Try to do something similar with a pig and mouse, probably not so successful - there's a lot more generations of divergent evolution there.
>We can't get DNA sequence and predict what kind of organism it would produce. DNA is a very complex program that produces specific result in specific circumstances. Exactly - we don't understand the "language", so we can't predict what it does. Assmble a "library" of DNA blueprints of practically every vertebrate on Earth, cross-reference it with our biological understanding of the organisms and their similarities and differences, and you've got a dataset to start decoding the language. That'll be a huge project in it's own right - but assembling the "library" is a good starting point.
> This language wasn't made for anyone to read. Of course it was - unreadable data is just noise. And DNA was designed to be read and implemented by a host of incredibly simple (compared to a human brain) biochemical machines. It as never designed to be easily *summarized*, but being read and obeyed is the entire point. Figuring out what it's saying, and what the implications are, is a big part of genetic research. And it's usually figured out by comparing two similar organisms, one with a particular gene and one without, and seeing what the differences are - very often even independently evolved similar traits will be associated with similar genetic markers, and we're getting increasingly good at identifying them.
>if there is no natural permanent ice on the planet then DNA records are obsolete. No point to revive species if they can't exist in new ecology. Also, at this point humanity will have bigger problems, it will be getting extinct itself.
Nonsense - the survivors of mass-extinctions seem to be fairly random. Surviving such events appears to have less to do with any sort of suitability to the ecology before or after, but rather what's most able to survive the traumatic transition period via flexibility and mobility. Once things have stabilized somewhat then you either resurrect species that didn't survive the transition, or you wait several million years for new species to evolve. And it's extremely unlikely we'll be going extinct. Civilization may well collapse, but we've survived repeated global glaciation (and every previous mass-extinction in the planet's history), despite likely being reduced to only a few thousand individuals at some point. Reason and technology has given us the ability to adapt far faster than evolution allows - an advantage that should preserve the species quite well through a catastrophic global climate transition. Almost everyone might die, but give the survivors a few centuries or millenia, a
I've heard that humans show genetic evidence of being reduced to But it does not take many well chosen individuals to capture a high percentage of the total diversity of a species. Chosen *before* sequencing their DNA? (Afterwards, why not just record a broader sample - difference-encoding makes for incredibly efficient compression)
I have my doubts. Obvious differences are easy to spot - disease resistance strategies though, those are far more important to diversity, and not obvious at a glance.
But absolutely - every additional individual helps dramatically when you're starting from 2. *Especially* if your initial sequencing is imperfect. Even just a 3rd sample lets you eliminate most random sequencing errors (A and B are the same, while C is different - C is probably a recording error rather than a genuine mutation. At worst it gets you a more "average" individual than really existed)
Yes, because everyone is 100% convinced that crony capitalism accurately evaluates and rewards everyone's inherent worth.
And nobody would be interested in subsidizing an much cheaper way to deliver something as fundamentally empowering as internet access to places where most people have only heard of libraries in legend. Not out of egalitarianism, nor out of a desire to increase the taxable income of their population.
Death is one possibility, but competing less effectively is more likely, which could leave the genes in circulation for a long time. Or cancer - lots of cell duplication in a single organism. Biological error rates are probably optimized to maximize the evolutionary advantage of mutation against the disadvantages of crippling developmental defects.
You seem to be saying that problems in *recording* the DNA accurately would be devastating - and I agree. I'm not sure how accurate we are at at this point. Enough? Certainly for microbes, but vertebrates have a much larger genome. My point was that, assuming an accurate recording, problems in the synthesis of new DNA would be tractable. We don't have to understand the system - we just have to be able to duplicate it accurately.
Even with copious recording errors though, the records might still be viable in a future with accurate sequencing and synthesis , simply because there is so much similarity between organisms. You've got two flawed records of most segments, plus accurate records of similar existing organisms. Maybe there's a genuine difference, but probably not. And it's generally unlikely that a replacement of a genuine difference with the "baseline similar organism" will be fatal - it'll probably just remove some minor distinguishing features. You won't get the original organism, but you'll probably get something very similar, and reintroduce most of its genetic distinctiveness to ecosystem.
And of course, we'll also have assembled a wide library of (roughly accurate) genetic information about vertebrates, which would be immensely useful in beginning to understand what makes us different, and the same. Sure there'll be errors - but anything the same between both samples is probably genuine species-level genes - the similarities and differences between species is an immense amount of information to tease apart and advance our understanding of the bio-genetic "language", even if details about specific organisms are often missing. And that understanding, is likely to make it possible to adequately "fix" most lost bits.
Oh, and yes, the oldest ice appears is quite old. But the current Ice Age has lasted 34 million years , and there's a very real chance we may be exiting it more rapidly than ever in the history of the planet. At which point even ice that lasted through the last 8% of it will melt. The Earth's climate is bistable after all, and basically nothing about the climate in the last 34 million years can be expected to project forward across the transition to the radically different realities of a hothouse Earth. The (inter)glacial cycles of the last 30+ million years are nothing in comparison.
Pretty precise - there's only about 0.1% DNA difference within the entire human species, Chimpanzees are about 1.2% different than us. Google says our cells own transcription mechanism has an error rate of about one in 10^10 base pairs (a.k.a. the mutation rate), so that gives an upper limit on how accurate any synthesis has to be. But that's a system evolved for long-term replication of the species across millions of generations, you could probably get away with a much higher error rate for a "single-use" creation system, especially if you could effectively screened the results for viability before investing too much time and energy on them.
I don't know if we're there yet, but it's one of those things that's only going to improve. It might be easier up front to store the DNA in deep freeze, but then you have to keep the system powered and frozen in perpetuity against the day it might be needed - one thaw and everything is destroyed. Digital data though can be stored in stable media - there are formats designed for archiving data on geologic timescales, e.g. as molecular-scale patterns etched onto iridium plates with an electron beam. Do that today, while we have the technology and the knowledge, and they could withstand even the collapse of civilization and be available for the survivors to try to restore species diversity once they regain the technology.
Perhaps. You think all the school shooters, abortion clinic bombers, etc. are all dancing on someone else's strings, rather than being an expression of the culture we've created?
I'm trying to think of another. Islam is blared across all the media as soon as any attack occurs (story to be rapidly dropped when it's discovered the perpetrator was a WCM). Buddhism doesn't spawn a lot or terrorists. Judaism - well they're generally well behaved other than the Israeli government. What other religion spawns enough terrorists to even spring to mind?
As long as they're healthy the defects are recessive, "good" DNA is present, and some of the offspring will be healthy - several generations of aggressive culling will get you a healthy species, especially if you use genetic screening to advise the culling selection. And of course, if we're bringing a species back from digital DNA records then correcting such defects will be trivial (at least on the second try, once we know what the problems are).
The species will still lack genetic diversity, and be correspondingly vulnerable to disease and environmental change, but it will be genetically healthy, and if it survives long enough will gradually develop new diversity over millions of years via mutation and possibly crossbreeding (either or both of which could be artificially accelerated dramatically)
They do it with viruses (easy, since their parasitic nature means you just have to inject their DNA into a susceptible cell for it to suborn to produce the whole virus). They've also done it with some bacteria as well. And yeast. A bit of a step from there to mammals, but a lot of the fundamental techniques are already being developed. Heck, you can mail-order real DNA synthesized to match whatever digital sequence you provide.
Meanwhile, we've been doing nucleus transfers and cloning for decades. Not with astounding success rates, but well enough to know it's feasible and be confident we'll be able to do better in the future. I'm not so sure about replacing just the DNA in the nucleus though - that's likely its own special challenge - though perhaps we could sidestep it a bit by suborning a compatible cell about to undergo mitosis (though that might not be any easier)
Point is, we've already proven it can be done, and some groups are already working on the project to restore already-extinct species - or at least a close approximation of them. A Mammoth cloned using an elephant ovum and host-mother won't be completely a mammoth, it'll have elephant mitochondria at the least, but it'll probably be close enough for ecological purposes.
That won't help us if we manage to completely wipe out most vertebrate life, but so long as we've got one female elephant left that would let us bring back the full complement of elephant species.
True, but they're only sequencing *vertebrate* species - and 66,000 is just about all of those known.
I suppose they figure if we wipe out the smaller faster-living species we'll be too screwed to recover. Or new species will evolve fast enough to fill the niches.
There is no "death by genetic defect" if the original pair is healthy. Inbreeding doesn't cause genetic problems, it just amplifies existing ones. If the original pair is free of recessive problems as well, then ALL of their descendants will be genetically healthy until such time as new problematic mutations are developed. If they do have problematic recessives then some of their descendants will have problems - fortunately in the wild those are usually the first to be eaten, so the gene-pool has a fair chance of staying reasonably healthy. And with luck (or careful breeding) even the recessives can be largely removed from the population.
You'll still have an astounding lack of genetic diversity (such as seen in cheetahs) , which will make the species extremely fragile in the face of infectious diseases or environmental changes, but you won't necessarily have any genetic problems.
Inbreeding is primarily a problem when you have an artificially protected population, a.k.a. people or pets, where the problematic individuals aren't killed early on. Even then there's plenty of heavily inbred human populations with no serious problems, it all comes down to the genetic health of the founders.
So... Christianity? After all white Christian men are responsible for almost all terrorist attacks in the U.S., and nobody ever hesitates to name names when there's even a remote chance that some other religion might be involved. Or when they don't know who did it yet. Or when they know it was a Christian but that doesn't make for good "news".
That is indeed the initial target demographic from everything I've heard - heavily rural areas such as much of Africa, Asia, and the Americas, where many millions of people live at population densities too low to justify paved roads, much less short-range internet infrastructure.
Apple is the one who negotiated a contract that allowed the copyright holder to revoke permission of people to re-download material they already purchased, and then failed to make that point abundantly clear to customers, while encouraging the "cloud only" usage via convenience and promoted usage patterns.
And if Walmart sells me something with an implied lifetime replacement guarantee, and then fails to deliver, then yes, they are liable.
And in fairness it *was* rather peculiar in that it departed greatly from the historical norm for slavery. Pretty much everywhere else the children of slaves were born free, and quite often had a clear route to citizenship as well. Quite often there was a generally accepted route for captured slaves to earn their freedom as well. The idea that someone could be born into lifelong slavery was fairly uncommon.
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ALL errors are random - and I'm not assuming evolution can fix the errors we introduce at all - I'm proposing we analyze the genome, and revert probable error sections to the state they were probably in a not-too-distant ancestor species.
Here's my assumptions for the future researchers attempting to restore a lost species a few hundred or thousand years from now.
1) They will be able to sequence surviving organisms and organic DNA vaults with ~100% accuracy.
2) They'll be able to identify ~100% of sequencing errors in the digital store, through correlation with accurately sequenced species living and "vaulted", and other stored species sequenced using the same technology (hopefully there'd be well-documented information on the technology used to sequence each sample included in the archive)
3) They will have at least a middling decent understanding of the "language" of DNA (not really necessary, but helpful for repairing some of the non-viable hybrids they'll sometimes create)
Assuming those - if you've got accurate data from a related species with a 1% genetic difference, and lost 1% of the original species DNA to sequencing errors, then by replacing all lost DNA with the sequences from the relative species, you'll end up changing about 1%*1% = 0.01% or 1 part per 10,000 of the original DNA to match a related organism. Effectively creating a new hybrid species that's 99% original and 1% the relative. There's no *guarantee* that it'll be viable, but the odds are pretty good with such a small mixing of "foreign blood".
I certainly won't argue that genuine organic DNA vaults aren't far superior for archival purposes. They are. Not least of which because you have a much better record of DNA methylation and any other still-undiscovered epigenetic factors which are probably at least as important to creating a healthy, complex organism as the DNA sequence itself.
However, organic vaults have two major flaws that interfere with them being created: They're expensive, they're and absolutely useless in the short term. They have absolutely no value until such time as you want to restore a lost species, and we don't currently have the proven ability to restore a species even from long-term cryogenically preserved blastocysts, much less from more readily accessible DNA samples. And they're *far* more expensive to create and maintain than a seed vault, where plants naturally provide incredibly well stabilized and self-sufficient embryos, already primed for long-term preservation and easy restoration (e.g. a few months or years after a plague wipes out the species - which is a constant short-term threat with modern agricultural monocultures). (Heck, we've already managed to resurrect thousand-year-old species preserved by nothing more than a clay pot that ended up in the right environment)
Meanwhile a digital store is utterly useless for restoring species without far more advanced technology than we currently possess - and might ultimately prove to be completely useless for the task on its own. But it is relatively cheap to create, and basically free to maintain. And most importantly it is a valuable and immediately useful resource in expanding our understanding of vertebrate genetics, valuable to both the biological and medical sciences.
And hey, it might also prove useful for last-minute, half-assed organic DNA vault, which seems like it might be as much as we can really hope for on that front. Forget all the painstaking collection and cataloging - just scoop up samples of whatever you can get your hands on, desiccate it, and freeze it all in one big heap (maybe at least in sandwich bags with region labels for the convenience of future geneticists). If Species X was ecologically important, then there's probably at least a little dung in there somewhere to provide a DNA sample. Let future geneticists sort it out if it proves necessary - the digital archive will provide at least a handy mostly-accurate reference sheet to identify the samples after they've been accurately sequenced.
Ah, of course. I haven't used Gray codes since college, but they would make perfect sense for such a project. I don't think I've ever even considered using them for non-binary codes, but they seem to have a system worked out.
Of course 2000 revolutions in a second is still 120,000RPM, and you'd need to factor in the "stop, test, accelerate" after every change so the wheels would still probably be torn apart, but you could probably get it done within in under an hour (~30 combinations per second) without too much trouble. Assuming the lock worked flawlessly - but I've known an awful lot of locks that needed to be fiddled with for a second or two to open even with the right combination.
However, 5 seconds with a crowbar seems a little more likely in most real-world scenarios.
The rule of thumb was that that you could have any two of FTL, Relativity, and strict causality. Relativity's been increasingly well-tested, and everybody has just assumed strict causality existed despite a lack of rigorous evidence, and so FTL had to go.
But now that we've torpedoed strict causality, that should make FTL genuinely plausible, should it not?
Add to that the fact that one of the deepest and most fundamental tribal divides has, throughout the history of civilization, been between the rich and the poor, and the problem comes into sharper focus. Especially since the rich mostly make the rules, and as you say, have no problems with others not of the tribe paying the bill.
Add of course they hold their position in large part by fostering further, more superficial tribal divides among the poor - keep the browns and the whites at each other's throats. So too the liberals and conservatives, etc. Keep the other tribes focused on each other rather than their common enemy, so that those who do not stand together, fall together. As an added bonus, as frustration over the gradual fall builds to violence, that violence is mostly directed at each other - we become dogs fighting for scraps outside our master's feast-hall, rather than a unified pack keeping the spoils of the hunt for ourselves.
And of course the evidence suggests that tribalism is baked into our biology, shared by all our close primate cousins, so trying to tackle it head-on is an exercise in futility. Perhaps we can individually rise above our biology - but that doesn't appreciably reduce its effectiveness in controlling the least-intelligent (or educated) masses. And their chains are what must be broken if we are to be free.
It is true that most businesses prefer to outsource such security and contract enforcement to cooperative governments - but organized crime is only moderately more expensive, especially in places where the rule of law is weak.
Less extra-legally, as I recall China (among others) is increasingly exploring city-building treaties that effectively hand them (possibly in partnership with other stable governments) legal and judicial jurisdiction of a region in return for building a city there and attracting investors - specifically to address the investment issues associated with relative lawlessness. Make sure the national politicians get their fingers deep in the tax pie, and would risk a major international incident to try to renege, and you've got a carrot and stick that could be quite effective at promoting rapid industrialization.
China has long been grooming Africa to do for China much what China did for the U.S. - and the Chinese, especially in the upper echelons of politics, do tend to play a well-considered long game. Even if they don't always understand the game as well as they think they do.
Through a physical interface? I find that unlikely. At least one of those luggage combination dials would have to make 10,000 revolutions in the process, meaning it's rotating at 600,000rpm I'd bet good money that centrifugal "forces" would tear it apart long before it reached that speed.
One of the biggest advantages of physical locks over digital ones is that "brute forcing" isn't really viable - you have to either exploit a vulnerability (a.k.a. lockpicking), or ignore the lock entirely and simply break in through less circumspect means. Lockpicking is mostly only relevant if you're trying to be discrete or non-destructive - a crowbar, bullet, chainsaw, etc. is usually a far faster and simpler solution.
And hey, if you can figure out how to do that to elephants, absolutely! :-D
I mention size and domestication because those are changes we already have a pretty good grasp on, seeing very similar genetic changes in many different species, and they would be useful for quickly making elephants into even more valuable and versatile "industrial equipment" than they are now - and if civilization and it's techno-industrial base collapses, such self-propagating organic technology will persist long after the knowledge to create it disappears - unlike a bulldozer which stops being useful soon after access to parts and fuel is lost.
There's other things that could help mitigate risks - such as crop modifications like grafting in resurrection plant genes to bestow extreme drought tolerance (already showing dramatic successes with some closer relatives).
Basically, if you look at history you see that the collapse of civilization is one of those "when, not if" scenarios, and as civilization becomes global the risk of global collapse increases alongside it. And with massive global ecological and climate problems introducing severe "outside" pressure the risk goes up even further.
I think you're sim-interpretting what I'm trying to say. I'm not ascribing intention to anything, I'm describing effects. Just as gravity optimizes towards minimum-differential energies, and makes all sufficiently large objects round, evolution optimizes for long term reproductive success of gene-lines. The balance between accuracy and mutation in DNA replication systems is a big contributing factor to that. Mutate too fast, and you don't have the genetic stability to remain a viable gene-line and die out due to endemic genetic diseases. Mutate too slowly, and you're out-competed by faster-evolving gene-lines. Over the long term mutations which bring the mutation rate closer to the theoretical optimum for the organism and environment will tend to spread throughout the population.
Evolution is a design process of the kind that has most successfully dominated human history - trial and error. No knowledge is needed, not even any intent is needed - just an unrelenting culling process weeding out less viable options. Why do dolphins and sharks look so similar despite having such wildly different evolutionary histories? Because they are subjected to many similar evolutionary pressures, which pushed their body shape towards the same optimal solution.
You do make a good point about current sequencing tending to have errors in similar places - if that is the case, then yes, those places will be a problem. Especially if there's something that makes it so that all/almost all sequenced DNA has the same error in the same place - how would you distinguish that fro "legitimate" DNA without being able to actually "read" it's function competently. The counterpoint, is they're only a critical problem if that place actually housed an important difference that can't be copied from similar organisms that survived or avoided the error. And considering just how much of our DNA that we share with yeast, finding something "similar enough" probably won't be a problem for most things.
>Also, "one thaw and everything is destroyed" is nonsense.
I suppose I was being a bit hyperbolic there - sure, thawing for a few days is no problem - but we're trying to preserve information across centuries of climate and likely political chaos. How high a priority do you think preserving a cryogenic facility will get if civilization collapses for a few decades? The caretakers would probably do everything they could to preserve it - but if electrical and fuel supply lines stop running, how longdo you think they can keep it up? Not to
Exactly how long do you think DNA can last relatively unprotected once it thaws?
From what I can tell, recent research suggests that absent any sort of thermal, microbial, etc. activity that would break it down faster, just exposure to ambient moisture breaks down DNA with a half-life of 521 years. That means that after T years, you'll have N=(1/2)^(T/521) of the original sample ( meaning T= -521 log2(N)). To lose 1% of the original DNA requires only 9.6 years of neglect. Of course the losses will be far more random, and it's easy to store a few thousand copies, so you probably have a lot of buffer there.
Both approaches have their value - digital is probably cheaper, and far cheaper in the long term, as well as being far more valuable to current research. And it complements well with even far less comprehensive cryo-vaults, for however long those may last.
It seems unlikely that the modern DNA replication mechanism "just happened" in the current state from nothing. Far more likely it evolved, which means it *was* designed, by the "unintelligent designer" of natural selection. Some early organisms may even have developed 100% accurate replication - but no mutations means no evolution, especially with asexual reproduction. And such organisms would be rapidly out-competed by their evolving compatriots.
"And it's generally unlikely that a replacement of a genuine difference with the baseline similar organism will be fatal" - because organisms B, C, and D and E all evolved from A. They all used to be A, until mutations accumulated. Revert some of those mutations to the state they were in in A, and you're probably fine - you've just removed some of the differences that had evolved between them. The only way you'd be likely to have a major problem is if some other mutations would cause problems if unchecked, but was held in check by the "deleted" mutation. Replace some sections of human DNA with that from a chimpanzee, and you're probably going to get a more chimpanzee-like "crossbreed" rather than something completely nonviable. The base organisms are almost identical - we're not coding radically different proteins, there's just some minor differences in gene expression. Try to do something similar with a pig and mouse, probably not so successful - there's a lot more generations of divergent evolution there.
>We can't get DNA sequence and predict what kind of organism it would produce. DNA is a very complex program that produces specific result in specific circumstances.
Exactly - we don't understand the "language", so we can't predict what it does. Assmble a "library" of DNA blueprints of practically every vertebrate on Earth, cross-reference it with our biological understanding of the organisms and their similarities and differences, and you've got a dataset to start decoding the language. That'll be a huge project in it's own right - but assembling the "library" is a good starting point.
> This language wasn't made for anyone to read.
Of course it was - unreadable data is just noise. And DNA was designed to be read and implemented by a host of incredibly simple (compared to a human brain) biochemical machines. It as never designed to be easily *summarized*, but being read and obeyed is the entire point. Figuring out what it's saying, and what the implications are, is a big part of genetic research. And it's usually figured out by comparing two similar organisms, one with a particular gene and one without, and seeing what the differences are - very often even independently evolved similar traits will be associated with similar genetic markers, and we're getting increasingly good at identifying them.
>if there is no natural permanent ice on the planet then DNA records are obsolete. No point to revive species if they can't exist in new ecology. Also, at this point humanity will have bigger problems, it will be getting extinct itself.
Nonsense - the survivors of mass-extinctions seem to be fairly random. Surviving such events appears to have less to do with any sort of suitability to the ecology before or after, but rather what's most able to survive the traumatic transition period via flexibility and mobility. Once things have stabilized somewhat then you either resurrect species that didn't survive the transition, or you wait several million years for new species to evolve. And it's extremely unlikely we'll be going extinct. Civilization may well collapse, but we've survived repeated global glaciation (and every previous mass-extinction in the planet's history), despite likely being reduced to only a few thousand individuals at some point. Reason and technology has given us the ability to adapt far faster than evolution allows - an advantage that should preserve the species quite well through a catastrophic global climate transition. Almost everyone might die, but give the survivors a few centuries or millenia, a
I've heard that humans show genetic evidence of being reduced to But it does not take many well chosen individuals to capture a high percentage of the total diversity of a species.
Chosen *before* sequencing their DNA? (Afterwards, why not just record a broader sample - difference-encoding makes for incredibly efficient compression)
I have my doubts. Obvious differences are easy to spot - disease resistance strategies though, those are far more important to diversity, and not obvious at a glance.
But absolutely - every additional individual helps dramatically when you're starting from 2. *Especially* if your initial sequencing is imperfect. Even just a 3rd sample lets you eliminate most random sequencing errors (A and B are the same, while C is different - C is probably a recording error rather than a genuine mutation. At worst it gets you a more "average" individual than really existed)
Yes, because everyone is 100% convinced that crony capitalism accurately evaluates and rewards everyone's inherent worth.
And nobody would be interested in subsidizing an much cheaper way to deliver something as fundamentally empowering as internet access to places where most people have only heard of libraries in legend. Not out of egalitarianism, nor out of a desire to increase the taxable income of their population.
Death is one possibility, but competing less effectively is more likely, which could leave the genes in circulation for a long time. Or cancer - lots of cell duplication in a single organism. Biological error rates are probably optimized to maximize the evolutionary advantage of mutation against the disadvantages of crippling developmental defects.
You seem to be saying that problems in *recording* the DNA accurately would be devastating - and I agree. I'm not sure how accurate we are at at this point. Enough? Certainly for microbes, but vertebrates have a much larger genome. My point was that, assuming an accurate recording, problems in the synthesis of new DNA would be tractable. We don't have to understand the system - we just have to be able to duplicate it accurately.
Even with copious recording errors though, the records might still be viable in a future with accurate sequencing and synthesis , simply because there is so much similarity between organisms. You've got two flawed records of most segments, plus accurate records of similar existing organisms. Maybe there's a genuine difference, but probably not. And it's generally unlikely that a replacement of a genuine difference with the "baseline similar organism" will be fatal - it'll probably just remove some minor distinguishing features. You won't get the original organism, but you'll probably get something very similar, and reintroduce most of its genetic distinctiveness to ecosystem.
And of course, we'll also have assembled a wide library of (roughly accurate) genetic information about vertebrates, which would be immensely useful in beginning to understand what makes us different, and the same. Sure there'll be errors - but anything the same between both samples is probably genuine species-level genes - the similarities and differences between species is an immense amount of information to tease apart and advance our understanding of the bio-genetic "language", even if details about specific organisms are often missing. And that understanding, is likely to make it possible to adequately "fix" most lost bits.
Oh, and yes, the oldest ice appears is quite old. But the current Ice Age has lasted 34 million years , and there's a very real chance we may be exiting it more rapidly than ever in the history of the planet. At which point even ice that lasted through the last 8% of it will melt. The Earth's climate is bistable after all, and basically nothing about the climate in the last 34 million years can be expected to project forward across the transition to the radically different realities of a hothouse Earth. The (inter)glacial cycles of the last 30+ million years are nothing in comparison.
Pretty precise - there's only about 0.1% DNA difference within the entire human species, Chimpanzees are about 1.2% different than us. Google says our cells own transcription mechanism has an error rate of about one in 10^10 base pairs (a.k.a. the mutation rate), so that gives an upper limit on how accurate any synthesis has to be. But that's a system evolved for long-term replication of the species across millions of generations, you could probably get away with a much higher error rate for a "single-use" creation system, especially if you could effectively screened the results for viability before investing too much time and energy on them.
I don't know if we're there yet, but it's one of those things that's only going to improve. It might be easier up front to store the DNA in deep freeze, but then you have to keep the system powered and frozen in perpetuity against the day it might be needed - one thaw and everything is destroyed. Digital data though can be stored in stable media - there are formats designed for archiving data on geologic timescales, e.g. as molecular-scale patterns etched onto iridium plates with an electron beam. Do that today, while we have the technology and the knowledge, and they could withstand even the collapse of civilization and be available for the survivors to try to restore species diversity once they regain the technology.
Perhaps. You think all the school shooters, abortion clinic bombers, etc. are all dancing on someone else's strings, rather than being an expression of the culture we've created?
Perhaps it is more appropriately termed "British-style slavery" - the Americas were after all colonies during the heyday of the slave trade.
Though with the other objections brought up, perhaps I was just misinformed.
I'm trying to think of another. Islam is blared across all the media as soon as any attack occurs (story to be rapidly dropped when it's discovered the perpetrator was a WCM). Buddhism doesn't spawn a lot or terrorists. Judaism - well they're generally well behaved other than the Israeli government. What other religion spawns enough terrorists to even spring to mind?
As long as they're healthy the defects are recessive, "good" DNA is present, and some of the offspring will be healthy - several generations of aggressive culling will get you a healthy species, especially if you use genetic screening to advise the culling selection. And of course, if we're bringing a species back from digital DNA records then correcting such defects will be trivial (at least on the second try, once we know what the problems are).
The species will still lack genetic diversity, and be correspondingly vulnerable to disease and environmental change, but it will be genetically healthy, and if it survives long enough will gradually develop new diversity over millions of years via mutation and possibly crossbreeding (either or both of which could be artificially accelerated dramatically)
They do it with viruses (easy, since their parasitic nature means you just have to inject their DNA into a susceptible cell for it to suborn to produce the whole virus). They've also done it with some bacteria as well. And yeast. A bit of a step from there to mammals, but a lot of the fundamental techniques are already being developed. Heck, you can mail-order real DNA synthesized to match whatever digital sequence you provide.
Meanwhile, we've been doing nucleus transfers and cloning for decades. Not with astounding success rates, but well enough to know it's feasible and be confident we'll be able to do better in the future. I'm not so sure about replacing just the DNA in the nucleus though - that's likely its own special challenge - though perhaps we could sidestep it a bit by suborning a compatible cell about to undergo mitosis (though that might not be any easier)
Point is, we've already proven it can be done, and some groups are already working on the project to restore already-extinct species - or at least a close approximation of them. A Mammoth cloned using an elephant ovum and host-mother won't be completely a mammoth, it'll have elephant mitochondria at the least, but it'll probably be close enough for ecological purposes.
That won't help us if we manage to completely wipe out most vertebrate life, but so long as we've got one female elephant left that would let us bring back the full complement of elephant species.
True, but they're only sequencing *vertebrate* species - and 66,000 is just about all of those known.
I suppose they figure if we wipe out the smaller faster-living species we'll be too screwed to recover. Or new species will evolve fast enough to fill the niches.
There is no "death by genetic defect" if the original pair is healthy. Inbreeding doesn't cause genetic problems, it just amplifies existing ones. If the original pair is free of recessive problems as well, then ALL of their descendants will be genetically healthy until such time as new problematic mutations are developed. If they do have problematic recessives then some of their descendants will have problems - fortunately in the wild those are usually the first to be eaten, so the gene-pool has a fair chance of staying reasonably healthy. And with luck (or careful breeding) even the recessives can be largely removed from the population.
You'll still have an astounding lack of genetic diversity (such as seen in cheetahs) , which will make the species extremely fragile in the face of infectious diseases or environmental changes, but you won't necessarily have any genetic problems.
Inbreeding is primarily a problem when you have an artificially protected population, a.k.a. people or pets, where the problematic individuals aren't killed early on. Even then there's plenty of heavily inbred human populations with no serious problems, it all comes down to the genetic health of the founders.
They're sequencing vertebrate species - add that word and the first Google results say there's only 40,000 instead of the 8.7 million total estimate.
So... Christianity? After all white Christian men are responsible for almost all terrorist attacks in the U.S., and nobody ever hesitates to name names when there's even a remote chance that some other religion might be involved. Or when they don't know who did it yet. Or when they know it was a Christian but that doesn't make for good "news".
That is indeed the initial target demographic from everything I've heard - heavily rural areas such as much of Africa, Asia, and the Americas, where many millions of people live at population densities too low to justify paved roads, much less short-range internet infrastructure.
Apple is the one who negotiated a contract that allowed the copyright holder to revoke permission of people to re-download material they already purchased, and then failed to make that point abundantly clear to customers, while encouraging the "cloud only" usage via convenience and promoted usage patterns.
And if Walmart sells me something with an implied lifetime replacement guarantee, and then fails to deliver, then yes, they are liable.
And in fairness it *was* rather peculiar in that it departed greatly from the historical norm for slavery. Pretty much everywhere else the children of slaves were born free, and quite often had a clear route to citizenship as well. Quite often there was a generally accepted route for captured slaves to earn their freedom as well. The idea that someone could be born into lifelong slavery was fairly uncommon.