Tag: glenn reynolds

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.

“Remember, drinking buddies don’t let drinking buddies get marched off for mandatory sensitivity training.”

It’s the last line of a good article on the decline of academic relationships inside the academy itself (via Ann Althouse, via Glenn Reynolds). The very short version? Professors and teachers in the same college don’t hang out any more, which makes them easy meat every time somebody with a chip on their shoulder decides to offer one of them up on the altar of insensitivity.  And the people running the colleges don’t actually mind, because this works out for them in the long run: makes it easier for them to do the diversity hiring that keeps the chip-on-their-shoulder people quiet.  Of course, hiring primarily for diversity makes it harder to develop personal academic relationships (which leads to hanging out), so…

This would all be Nasty Fun hysterical, with a double helping of schadenfreude, except for one thing: in about sixteen years I have to send my kid to one of these places for an education.  Having them collectively remove their craniums from their rectums before then would be optimal.

Moe Lane

PS: It’s been years since high school Latin, sorry.  I don’t even feel like looking up what those two plurals would be.

Crossposted at RedState.