Re: Evolutionary fix of mosquitos

From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Tue Jul 15 2003 - 05:31:56 MDT

  • Next message: Anders Sandberg: "Re: Evolutionary fix of mosquitos"

    On Mon, Jul 14, 2003 at 02:56:19PM -0700, Jeff Davis wrote:
    [Excellent analysis of the problem of mosquitos]
    > Rehabilitate the former bad boy (girl, actually).
    > Enlist her talents. Make her a friend and ally.

    This is a very nice scenario, and I really like the image of
    medical mosquitos flying around with vaccines (the latest updates
    of nanoimmune systems, maybe - better get them into all of the
    environment).

    The main problem is of course that it is hard to achieve this
    optimization in the near future, and that is why I promote the
    cheap evolutionary fix. In 30 years redesign might be the way to
    go, but we can save literally millions of lives in a very
    eco-friendly and fairly low-tech way before that.

    Another issue is of course public goods and ownership. Medical
    mosquitos are wonderful public goods. But I wouldn't trust the
    governments to run the mosquitos, even with very nice health goals
    - because next update might include a vaccination against cocaine
    or that little genetic update making people like taxes better.
    Involuntary medical upgrades have some risks. So rehabilitated
    mosquitos better respect privacy and self-ownership (wear a little
    transmitter telling mosquitos whether they can approach or not?).
    Otherwise the bad girls will become bad government employees...

    -- 
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------
    Anders Sandberg                                      Towards Ascension!
    asa@nada.kth.se                            http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
    GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
    


    This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Tue Jul 15 2003 - 05:38:32 MDT