Owning Life

Mapping the human genome. This is incredibly precise. It’s this precision that makes it so dangerous- if gives the owners of the code too much power. Forget taking over the world with armies, or economics, or culture- the world could be conquered with the birth of a single baby. A new messiah of human design.

Look at what they are currently doing with genetically modified plants. I’ve seen the canola fields in Saskatchewan, absolutely nothing but canola plants and dirt. First they design a modified plant that can resist a specific brand of herbicide and pesticide. Then they soak the field with the chemicals; the only thing that survives is the crop. It’s terrible for health and environment, but that’s another issue- look up Monsanto and Greenpeace.

Plants can also be developed to resist natural enemies, to grow stronger and longer- even to spread themselves out and decimate other species. It won’t be long before they can take this type of thing into insects. An army of genetically identical bees that travel the earth pollenating. A race of super-dragonfiles that would breed and spread like wildfire, eat the world’s mosquitoes, then eventually die away from lack of food. - - -The Ultimate BugZapper! What about fish? I think i saw that in a movie, replace the ocean’s schools with genetically modified fish that could breed and grow so fast we could never over fish them. We’re already raising fish inland on farms, why not think on the larger scale? Stock the oceans with genetic super-fish.

I suppose the thinking here is that when we’re thrown a curveball, like a disease killing off all our chickens, the best defense is to create new types of chickens that can survive the disease. Thereby assuming humans can do a better job than nature at dealing with a curveball. This works only up until something comes along that the new design is not immune to. Suppose the world is full of only a few genetic types of chickens, and something comes along that can wipe them all out- thats the end of chickens on earth. Natural selection doesn’t get to step in and save the species. There is no rare genetic strands of chicken out there with that extra something making them immune. There is no strong to survive.

So wait, how to take over the world with a single baby? Well, it probably wouldn’t happen overnight through genetics- sorry. Maybe you could design a superhuman smarter and stronger than anyone else- but it seems inevitable to loose control of anything you create which is smarter than yourself. . .. So i propose to the plotting evil billionaire, design yourself one male son with something genetic that’s within your control, lets say resistance to a certain poison and compliancy to evil schemes. Give the baby tons of money and a pretty face, make sure he does lots of breeding. The family waits until enough generations have passed after him that his gene pool has expanded large enough to sustain its own reproduction. . . ..They then flood the planet with the poison. . . …the only thing remaining are your evil offspring, the soy beans and the canola. -world conquered.

I suppose this is already happening. Money gets passed down through generations and it seems to be terrific for helping avoid disease and poison.