In a message dated 4/29/00 1:33:34 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
bradbury@aeiveos.com writes:
> So, the question I would pose for humanity is:
> Should we create a long term goal the neutering of all rapidly
> replicating biomass species, especially bacteria, and modify
> them so they cannot support rapidly mutating viruses, so as to
> reduce our long term risks of extinction?
I don't think that would be a reasonable option.
The amount of work is at least as staggering as
the ongoing "green goo" experiment is. A much more
realistic option would be basic hygenic measures,
essentially each person ultrafiltering everything
they contact. Further, the kinds of techniques
that could obliterate environmental organisms are
necessarily related to the techniques that could
obliterate us, and I'd very much rather such
techniques weren't used on a wide scale.
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