Our Neural Chernobyl, Revisited.

I was reminded of this story (found in Bruce Sterling’s short story collection Globalhead) while reading this article (via Glenn Reynolds) on DIY genengineering.  The author assumes increased ease of home genetics lab work, considers malicious intent, and concludes:

Big species are not the problem. Sure, in popular science fiction movies T.Rex or a Raptor rips apart a bunch of people. But big species make big targets for rifles and fishing harpoons. Plus, lots of guys would love to hunt down the genetically engineered dino that is terrorizing suburbs. It is the littler ones that are too numerous to easily control that pose the bigger threat. Genetically engineered species could really upend whole ecosystems by being very effective at outcompeting other species.

Scientists have discovered some of the genetic variations that make influenza strains more lethal and will in time identify genetic variations that make other pathogens more or less dangerous. Therefore another future threat comes in the form of a genetically engineered massive killer pandemic for humans. The same sort of threat exists for other species. Imagine a flu that would kill most sheep or cows or pigs. Or imagine some genetically engineered pathogen that would wipe out assorted wild species. This will probably become technically doable.

Probably, but it’s not what I worry about. Continue reading Our Neural Chernobyl, Revisited.