I'd have to disagree with that. Laws are often deliberately made vague. This is to allow for different interpretations. If I'm being generous I'll say they do that in order to make it possible for our legal system to adapt to changing social mores without necessitating the complete revision of our laws. If I'm not being generous it's there for politicians to say that new laws they passed mean whatever they want them to and to make loopholes for their cronies to exploit.
In general, I think we gain more from the former interpretation than we lose from the latter.
And at one point have "enough" tests been run?
Already, GMOs undergo orders of magnitude more testing than their "natural" equivalents. In fact, to date there have been zero illnesses caused by genetic modification of crops - a track record that is not matched by more traditional farming methods.
I would be less disenchanted by the calls for "more testing" if the people protesting the lack of testing weren't also the people destroying test crops.
Governemnt oversight is a good idea. However, there will always be on more test to be run, one more half-witted theory that some scientist, somewhere, will be obligated to disprove. I for one do not believe that our scientific progress should be hamstrung by people who will never accept the technology anyway.
"The federal suit, filed in Washington, D.C., alleges the benign fluorescing gene was inserted using other genes derived from animal and human viruses as well as antibiotic resistant bacteria."
This is true. It's also one of the most asinine thigns to say about genetic engineering. The bulk of genetic modification is accomplished using bacteria mediation. In plants it's usually Agrobacterium tumefaciens, in animals a number of different bacteria and retrovirii. Aside from biolistics (which, yes, does in fact involve shooting cells with a gun that is loaded with DNA segments) ALL genetic modification uses bacteria or virus-derived methods. This is not news and anyone familiar with the technology should be appalled that this trivial bit of knowledge is being used for such blatant fearmongering.
Sadly, I have no mod points right now or I'd mod the parent post up. That's exactly what needs to be done. The development of clear standards and protocols for determining the safety of GMOs. Already GMOs undergo considerably more testing than traditionally bread organisms, but having an open, standardized, publicly reviewed process would be a boon in terms of actual safety. Sadly it woudl do little to assuage the rampant terror that many people feel at the concept, but not much will.
Now we just have to figure out which gov't agency will take it over. The FDA doesn't want it, nor does the EPA nor DOA. I'm loathe to say we need to create yet another government agency, but the buck has to stop somewhere.
It's as much of a gamble as it was for the people who first installed lightbulb sockets in their house - did you know they thought that an empty light bulb socket would leak electricty intot he atmosphere? I've no idea what they thought it would *do* but some people did believe it was a serious risk.
Fact of the matter is, there's always something that we won't know. Will there be mistakes in genetic engineering? Absolutely. There HAVE been mistakes - some of them particularly horrendous - but there will also be triumphs.
We live in a commercial world. Advances are driven by money. This is particularly true of genetic engineering where costs are measured in millions or billions of dollars and decades of research. This isn't something that someone will cook up in his basement lab overnight (and if that *could* happen, would we be better off?).
You're worried. That's fine - I'm worried, too. I'm worried that irrational fear will hold us back from developing the knowledge we need to harness this vast power. I'm worried that a scared public will allow itself to be manipulated into losing the benefits of this technology.
The irony is that the "Terminator" gene is a valid solution to a great many of the real concerns with GMOs. One of the largest issues is the matter of cross-pollination - I don't think anyone wants to see GMOs released into the wild, but so long as we continue to modify plants while leaving their reproductive mechanisms intact this will remain a possibility - all but a certainty, in fact. The terminator gene is an elegant solution to this problem, but it has been blocked by many of the same lobbying groups that have in the past trumpeted cross-pollination as an issue!
I'll add that the detractors of the temrinator gene - claiming that it is simply a case of corporate greed - are using a nonsensical argument. GM crops don't compete against legacy seed. They're much too expensive to produce to have a realistic chance in that market. Instead GM seed is intended to replace hybridized seed such as is marketed by Pioneer. Odd thing is, you have to buy new hybrid seed every year anyway (hybrid traits won't breed true).
Provided they retain their philosophy of not damaging their product - the end-user experience - I'm not overly worried about Google's continued existence. The copanies planning to compete have generally shown a tendency to occasionally break that rule, and I believe that tendency will tend to drive consumers back to Google. until a competitor with a similar philosophy arrives, Google will remain king of the search engines.
But that leads to the question of what Google will do during its reign. ARE we seeing dot-com arrogance? This isn't a new phenomenon - Apple suffered the same thing back in the early 80s.
Well, I look forward to the IPO and seeing where Google intends to go from there.
Same situation here. I switched to working nights and I find I hardly ever see people. It's nice sometimes, but... yeah. You get seriously starved after a while.
I've kinda wondered - I can afford my own house now, but I wonder how many people would be willing to rent out a huge house and live with others just for the interaction?
If I understand this correctly, since this did not actually go to trial no precedent was set. This si good and bad. Good, in hat we don't have a lengthy lawsuit draining the funds of EFF. Bad, however, in that they didn't accomplish the more significant goal of chipping away at the DMCA.
As more cases like this are filed, we'll likely see more instanced of DMCA-abusers opting to settle instead of duking it out. From their perspective if it actually goes to trial they've essentially lost anyway and they're just cutting their losses - both monetarily and by retaining the legal tool that might allow them to intimidate organizatins that are more likely to settle instead of fighting.
Would you mind explaining how it bypasses the Bill of Rights? I don't ask to troll, I'd simply like a better explanation of precisely what rights are being circumvented. It doesn't sound all that different from a Bill of Discovery, excepting that the subpoena is enforcable. Are you referring to it being unwarranted search and seizure?
I'm really not quite clear on the suppose tactile advantage of books.
I suppose some people adore that "new book" smell... me, my sense of smell isn't all that hot and I'm not sure I like the odor of volatizing production byproducts, anyway.
Yes, you can eyeball a book to get a rough idea how far you are, though it's about as easy to look at the "page X of Y" in the corner of most ebook readers.
I honestly don't see the paper vs. electronic tactile experience as "better" and "worse" so much as merely being different. Should ebooks get widely adopted, I suspect that over time consumers will appreciate the inherent advantages to the format and with the inevitable evolution in the software and hardware it will ultimately offer the same quality of "experience" as paper books.
Gene doping and recombinant gene therapy isn't a reality - yet. It will be, though. More importantly, I think, we'll reach the point where fetal gene customization will be possible. How much these technologies will be adopted is largely going to be a matter of cultural preference, but I'm sure there will come a time when people who have been engineered for higher muscle mass, faster reflexes, etc, will want to compete athletically. I can see disqualifying the post-fetal therapies, on the basis that it's the price one pays for having those modifications done. What about the fetal changes, though? Do we disqualify people because their parents opted for genetic modifications?
That there is funding available is immaterial when it's enough to fund maybe ten projects and it's divided among 600-700 or more. Mind, I am speaking of the US funding situation, I really can't say anything about the UK on that issue.
And I won't go into the joys of academic politics in which one is more rewarded for getting more funding than one is for teaching OR doing research.
Part of it, I suspect, is that outside of biological chemistry and a few other select fields, there's really not all that much money for research out there. If you're not into organic chemistry of some sort, it's rough.
I've had mixed results. In the curretn economy most headhunters haven't done a thing for me. A few made an apparent effort but nothign panned out.
Sapphire Technologies got me my current helpdesk gig (then a few months later laid off the recruiter who got me this job); on the opposite end of the spectrum Bernard, Haldane and Associates called me in for an interview and only then admitted that they were headhunters try to sell a service to me - and thne had the gall to suggest that maybe my parents could help pay when I suggested that $3000 was a bit steep for something most headhunters offer for free. Needless to say I was not amused.
One othe rplace I can think of where you'll find jumpsuits - sport fencing. They're called "unitards" and are a lower-cost alternative to the traditional knickers+jacket combo. They're...um... okay, they're no more dorky than the normal part if you can get over the name.
I think the basic gist is right, though - jumpsuits are impratical because we've got an awful lot of important equipment just below waist level that we need to access throughout the day.
Ah, you've apparently missed that crucial little part where I have in fact paid for these things - like DVDs - and am peeved first that I have trouble playing them on my linux box (a functionality I paid for) and that they have entered into this agreement by treating me like a criminal.
THe complaint, I think, is more along the lines of using restrictive anti-copying protection - that is, they are proceeding on the assumption that each and every person who buys the product intends to do soemthing illegal with it. I, too find that an offensive assumption.
It is equivalent to renting a house and then the landlord refusing to give you the keys, instead insisting the you call him whenever you want the door unlocked because "Otherwise you'll just let all your friends in and ruin the carpet"
When I purchase an item, I enter into an agreement witht he seller - I give them money, they give me the product. I expect a certain modicum of trust be offered to me in this, and right now I'm not seeing that in much of the entertainment industry.
I've had reasonably good luck explaijing to my users that not having a password, or having a simple password, is like not having a lock on the front door of their house. Usually they can grasp that analogy. Thank the gods I don't live in an area where people are trusting enough to not lock their doors....
Darn you for pointing that out before I got to reading this thread.
I agree exactly - the heterogentiy of the systems is beyond doubt an important factor in limiting the number of virii/worms/exploits against linux. As linux gains mroe acceptance ont he desktop there's sure to be a move to limit these differences, but the open source community will doubtless keep reinventing the wheel, hence assuring that we won't all be running the same thing.
I'm dredging up memory from five years ago, but I seem to recall there were details of the clothing that indicated it was all likely made by the same person. It's probably fair to say that he was wearing all of his.
Another one to think about is Cyteen by C. J. cherryh. It doens't cover immortality, but it does deal with the increased lifespans made possible by anti-senescence drugs. That's probably got more significance in the near-term. Most readers aren't goign to be in the position to have their children genetically altered for immortality - but WILL be able to get anti-aging treatments. In _Cyteen_, Cherryh describes a society where households slowly transition from one generation to the next in a far more planned method than currently happens.
There's really only one way to find out for sure... we'll have to test.
I've not seen anything to indicate that there's some special "elan vital" that would need to be transferred int he case of body replacement. Who's to say that if you got killed and all your memories were transferred to a replacement body that you wouldn't still be you? There's been an awful lot of speculation, but thus far no experimentation.
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In general, I think we gain more from the former interpretation than we lose from the latter.
Governemnt oversight is a good idea. However, there will always be on more test to be run, one more half-witted theory that some scientist, somewhere, will be obligated to disprove. I for one do not believe that our scientific progress should be hamstrung by people who will never accept the technology anyway.
"The federal suit, filed in Washington, D.C., alleges the benign fluorescing gene was inserted using other genes derived from animal and human viruses as well as antibiotic resistant bacteria." This is true. It's also one of the most asinine thigns to say about genetic engineering. The bulk of genetic modification is accomplished using bacteria mediation. In plants it's usually Agrobacterium tumefaciens, in animals a number of different bacteria and retrovirii. Aside from biolistics (which, yes, does in fact involve shooting cells with a gun that is loaded with DNA segments) ALL genetic modification uses bacteria or virus-derived methods. This is not news and anyone familiar with the technology should be appalled that this trivial bit of knowledge is being used for such blatant fearmongering.
Now we just have to figure out which gov't agency will take it over. The FDA doesn't want it, nor does the EPA nor DOA. I'm loathe to say we need to create yet another government agency, but the buck has to stop somewhere.
Fact of the matter is, there's always something that we won't know. Will there be mistakes in genetic engineering? Absolutely. There HAVE been mistakes - some of them particularly horrendous - but there will also be triumphs.
We live in a commercial world. Advances are driven by money. This is particularly true of genetic engineering where costs are measured in millions or billions of dollars and decades of research. This isn't something that someone will cook up in his basement lab overnight (and if that *could* happen, would we be better off?).
You're worried. That's fine - I'm worried, too. I'm worried that irrational fear will hold us back from developing the knowledge we need to harness this vast power. I'm worried that a scared public will allow itself to be manipulated into losing the benefits of this technology.
One of the largest issues is the matter of cross-pollination - I don't think anyone wants to see GMOs released into the wild, but so long as we continue to modify plants while leaving their reproductive mechanisms intact this will remain a possibility - all but a certainty, in fact. The terminator gene is an elegant solution to this problem, but it has been blocked by many of the same lobbying groups that have in the past trumpeted cross-pollination as an issue!
I'll add that the detractors of the temrinator gene - claiming that it is simply a case of corporate greed - are using a nonsensical argument. GM crops don't compete against legacy seed. They're much too expensive to produce to have a realistic chance in that market. Instead GM seed is intended to replace hybridized seed such as is marketed by Pioneer. Odd thing is, you have to buy new hybrid seed every year anyway (hybrid traits won't breed true).
That level of branding is great but is hardly a guarantee or a justification for complacency.
But that leads to the question of what Google will do during its reign. ARE we seeing dot-com arrogance? This isn't a new phenomenon - Apple suffered the same thing back in the early 80s.
Well, I look forward to the IPO and seeing where Google intends to go from there.
I've kinda wondered - I can afford my own house now, but I wonder how many people would be willing to rent out a huge house and live with others just for the interaction?
If I understand this correctly, since this did not actually go to trial no precedent was set. This si good and bad. Good, in hat we don't have a lengthy lawsuit draining the funds of EFF. Bad, however, in that they didn't accomplish the more significant goal of chipping away at the DMCA. As more cases like this are filed, we'll likely see more instanced of DMCA-abusers opting to settle instead of duking it out. From their perspective if it actually goes to trial they've essentially lost anyway and they're just cutting their losses - both monetarily and by retaining the legal tool that might allow them to intimidate organizatins that are more likely to settle instead of fighting.
Would you mind explaining how it bypasses the Bill of Rights? I don't ask to troll, I'd simply like a better explanation of precisely what rights are being circumvented. It doesn't sound all that different from a Bill of Discovery, excepting that the subpoena is enforcable. Are you referring to it being unwarranted search and seizure?
I suppose some people adore that "new book" smell... me, my sense of smell isn't all that hot and I'm not sure I like the odor of volatizing production byproducts, anyway.
Yes, you can eyeball a book to get a rough idea how far you are, though it's about as easy to look at the "page X of Y" in the corner of most ebook readers.
I honestly don't see the paper vs. electronic tactile experience as "better" and "worse" so much as merely being different. Should ebooks get widely adopted, I suspect that over time consumers will appreciate the inherent advantages to the format and with the inevitable evolution in the software and hardware it will ultimately offer the same quality of "experience" as paper books.
Gene doping and recombinant gene therapy isn't a reality - yet. It will be, though. More importantly, I think, we'll reach the point where fetal gene customization will be possible. How much these technologies will be adopted is largely going to be a matter of cultural preference, but I'm sure there will come a time when people who have been engineered for higher muscle mass, faster reflexes, etc, will want to compete athletically. I can see disqualifying the post-fetal therapies, on the basis that it's the price one pays for having those modifications done. What about the fetal changes, though? Do we disqualify people because their parents opted for genetic modifications?
That there is funding available is immaterial when it's enough to fund maybe ten projects and it's divided among 600-700 or more. Mind, I am speaking of the US funding situation, I really can't say anything about the UK on that issue.
And I won't go into the joys of academic politics in which one is more rewarded for getting more funding than one is for teaching OR doing research.
Part of it, I suspect, is that outside of biological chemistry and a few other select fields, there's really not all that much money for research out there. If you're not into organic chemistry of some sort, it's rough.
I've had mixed results. In the curretn economy most headhunters haven't done a thing for me. A few made an apparent effort but nothign panned out. Sapphire Technologies got me my current helpdesk gig (then a few months later laid off the recruiter who got me this job); on the opposite end of the spectrum Bernard, Haldane and Associates called me in for an interview and only then admitted that they were headhunters try to sell a service to me - and thne had the gall to suggest that maybe my parents could help pay when I suggested that $3000 was a bit steep for something most headhunters offer for free. Needless to say I was not amused.
One othe rplace I can think of where you'll find jumpsuits - sport fencing. They're called "unitards" and are a lower-cost alternative to the traditional knickers+jacket combo. They're...um... okay, they're no more dorky than the normal part if you can get over the name. I think the basic gist is right, though - jumpsuits are impratical because we've got an awful lot of important equipment just below waist level that we need to access throughout the day.
Ah, you've apparently missed that crucial little part where I have in fact paid for these things - like DVDs - and am peeved first that I have trouble playing them on my linux box (a functionality I paid for) and that they have entered into this agreement by treating me like a criminal.
THe complaint, I think, is more along the lines of using restrictive anti-copying protection - that is, they are proceeding on the assumption that each and every person who buys the product intends to do soemthing illegal with it. I, too find that an offensive assumption. It is equivalent to renting a house and then the landlord refusing to give you the keys, instead insisting the you call him whenever you want the door unlocked because "Otherwise you'll just let all your friends in and ruin the carpet" When I purchase an item, I enter into an agreement witht he seller - I give them money, they give me the product. I expect a certain modicum of trust be offered to me in this, and right now I'm not seeing that in much of the entertainment industry.
I've had reasonably good luck explaijing to my users that not having a password, or having a simple password, is like not having a lock on the front door of their house. Usually they can grasp that analogy. Thank the gods I don't live in an area where people are trusting enough to not lock their doors....
Darn you for pointing that out before I got to reading this thread. I agree exactly - the heterogentiy of the systems is beyond doubt an important factor in limiting the number of virii/worms/exploits against linux. As linux gains mroe acceptance ont he desktop there's sure to be a move to limit these differences, but the open source community will doubtless keep reinventing the wheel, hence assuring that we won't all be running the same thing.
I suspect he was referring to rapeseed - known as canola in the US.
I'm dredging up memory from five years ago, but I seem to recall there were details of the clothing that indicated it was all likely made by the same person. It's probably fair to say that he was wearing all of his.
Another one to think about is Cyteen by C. J. cherryh. It doens't cover immortality, but it does deal with the increased lifespans made possible by anti-senescence drugs. That's probably got more significance in the near-term. Most readers aren't goign to be in the position to have their children genetically altered for immortality - but WILL be able to get anti-aging treatments. In _Cyteen_, Cherryh describes a society where households slowly transition from one generation to the next in a far more planned method than currently happens.
There's really only one way to find out for sure... we'll have to test. I've not seen anything to indicate that there's some special "elan vital" that would need to be transferred int he case of body replacement. Who's to say that if you got killed and all your memories were transferred to a replacement body that you wouldn't still be you? There's been an awful lot of speculation, but thus far no experimentation.