Life’s Illusions 001

18. April 2009 by Wizard.

Today’ quote:

Trusting people is easy, if they have no meaningful influence over the course of your life. You can never trust an “organisation”.

- Wizard

 There are very few people who set out to define themselves as bad or evil. Most of us are fundamentally well intentioned and percieve our actions (or at least most of them) to be beneficient. Before making decisions and taking actions that will effect others, I try to remember that old saying: “The road to hell is paved with good intentions”.

And on a similar tangent, to quote Rama: “… And when you have gained lots of personal power, you can do nice things for people … like stay out of their way … right?”

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Techno Rubble - In the Beginning

18. August 2008 by Wizard.

Back in the early 1990’s … a programmer whom I occasionally worked with used to hire a stall at various computer markets and sell compilations of Shareware on CD ROMs. I had a growing collection of out-dated hard drives, graphics cards and miscellaneous PC parts, so I joined him one day to see if I could sell them. 

Needing some simple but effective signage, I came up with the idea of calling my collection of computer related dregs “Techno-Rubble“. Since anything that didn’t get sold that day was likely to end up as landfill, this was in fact a chillingly accurate and succinct term.  

Even today, I still experience a sense of frustration when I throw out a perfectly functional piece of equipment for no other reason than it is too slow to be usefully productive. The only up side is, that at least now some of our Techno-Rubble will be recycled. 

Having built and repaired more PCs than I care to remember, going right back to the days of the original 8086 PC, there are several points that have become rather obvious over time. 

The first is that the old saying “they don’t make them like they used to” is quite literally true when applied to PCs. The second is that the most common causes of critical PC failure are heat related. And thirdly, no matter how much you have in the way of resources (CPU speed, hard drive space, RAM) you will eventually need more. It’s purely a question of when. 

To be realistic, computers have always failed over time for various reasons. So, what has changed? The answer is surprisingly simple … our attitudes! 

The expectation of devices being “built to last” has been supplanted by “the need for speed”. Consumer technology no longer wears the burden of having to last, because we now expect to be upgrading at least every two to three years (or sooner). This simple reality is reflected in the nominal one-year warranty on the majority of consumer products.

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BioWars - Biological Warfare Goes Mainstream

15. August 2008 by Wizard.

If the twentieth century is remembered for the birth of atomic energy and computer technology, the twenty-first will be remembered as the time when the species human strove to take control of its genetic destiny and stand amidst its gods of old. 

The ramifications of biotechnology go far beyond such issues as tinkering with the genetic make-up of the corn in your favourite breakfast cereal, or even the rights of the homosexual community to raise genetically conforming children. Silicon will give way to DNA, or quite possibly, a hybrid technology that combines the two. 

When Mary Shelley penned the story of Frankenstein’s Monster in the late 1800’s, it raised the issue of humankind’s desire to play god. The desire to control nature and even life itself. Shelley imagined this in the surgical context of taking body parts from the dead and creating a single artificial life, a golem or soulless entity. We currently play the even more dangerous game of Genetic Mix & Match, where the distinction between plant and animal could very rapidly blur (too bad if you’re a vegetarian). 

As with any technology, this is not all bad news. A disease and hunger free utopian world society may be the result. It could even be argued that this “next leap” is an evolutionary step in itself. However history suggests, that as a species, we humans break more than we fix with our technological tinkering. So perhaps the considerable commercial and military interest in these developing biotechnologies should be ringing some fairly loud warning bells.  

Biodiversity – Options for Life

It has taken nearly 50 years for the realization to hit home that ecological and environmental conservation are an evolutionary (and even commercial) necessity and not just an idealistic dream. 

As the global human population continues to expand, our collective hunger for resources, need for living space combined with the effects of the pollution we produce (now pleasantly referred to as “Climate Change”, are quite literally squeezing many other forms of life right out of existence. 

So what is Biodiversity?
In any plant or animal species there are genetic variations (often very subtle) between the individual members of that species. These variations allow subsequent generations of the species to adapt to changes in environmental circumstances, evolve suitably to colonize new environments and allow a species the flexibility to evolve solutions for things like diseases that may arise (evolve) in the future. 

In a broader context there is the variation between different species. Each has evolved to fit within the complex mosaic that is the natural world. Each is interdependent on other species. The removal or change of any one element of this mosaic can and will ultimately flow through to effect the entire picture. 

Many of the advances in our agricultural and medical technologies arose from the biodiversity existent in nature. Every species that is lost or compromised therefore reduces the potential of life on Earth. If for no other reason, that is why all life should be considered sacred.  

What is Monoculture?

(or Bio-wars at the Breakfast Table and GM Food)

Monoculture (also called broad-acre farming) involves planting vast areas with what are essentially genetically identical plants (billions of them). These plants have been purpose bred or genetically developed to provide a consistent nutritional value, suit specific growth/harvest patterns and (of course) to realize a maximum financial return for the consortiums that farm them. 

This principle is not new. Many staple foods (both plant and animal) have undergone continuous “customization for human needs” in varying degrees for the last 5,000 to 10,000 years. 

So who cares if our Cornflakes are a GM (Genetically Modified) food, as long as they taste good and provide the nutritional benefits we think we’re paying for? If only it were that simple. 

In an undisturbed ecosystem, a species is restricted to living within the habitat for which it is adapted or has evolved. If wind facilitated cross-pollination were to occur between, for instance, a lowland species of corn and a mountain species, only those hybrids capable of adapting to their respective environs would survive. 

There is a numbers game being played here, which is now being skewed by human intervention. When you have crops measured by the square mile, you produce an immense quantity of pollen. This can be carried by the wind right around the planet. By sheer volume of pollen, the properties of the monoculture variety may be passed on to other (even wild) varieties. This genetic pollution can cause a dangerous reduction in biodiversity. 

Several years ago, farmers in England in the vicinity of a GM food research facility found their crops to be contaminated with GM food hybrids. Imagine the legal scenario, in the years ahead, where a company has a patented plant genome that it sells by license, which is detected in other crops. Who pays whom? Or perhaps, who gets sued? And more importantly … will it be too late? 

A further twist is the production of sterile crop species which allow seed manufacturers to maintain control over patented plant genomes. Though this means that the farmer has no option but to purchase his annual seed stock, it may at least prevent genetic pollution. Of course, it would require only a single non-sterile mutation to mess this wonderful theory up.  

Human Fertility – The Ethics of Procreation

In the future, the species human will pay dearly for the devastation being wrought on the natural world. Another given is that we will pay even more dearly for the genetic protectionism practiced on our own species. 

With technological advances we are able to live for longer periods (current research suggests the possibility of circumventing the ageing process). Diseases and medical conditions that were once fatal, or so disruptive as to bring about fatality are now regularly survived. Neo-natal care permits babies to survive regardless of brain damage, malformed organs and a multitude of previously fatal conditions. This “save all” attitude is socially and financially expensive in both the short and long term. 

The Darwinist view of evolution or “the survival of the fittest”, appears to be acceptable only when applied to all species other than our own. Without passing moral judgement on such issues as the “right to life” and also the “right to cease life”, etc., we seem to be heading for an interesting conundrum. On one hand we have medical practices and technologies that will “save life at all cost”, regardless of the deeper social ethics involved … while a new (and for many, frightening) genetic technology may eventually be used to clean up the somewhat polluted gene pool resulting from the former. 

There is of course a catch. Technology and its implementation are expensive. There will be those who can afford it, and those who can’t. Not surprisingly, the “can’t” group is likely to be many times larger than the “can” group. This raises the spectre of financial discrimination (ie, the social class systems our societies pretend not to have) transforming (or perhaps mutating) into genetic discrimination. (The movie GATTACA touches on some of these social issues.)   

Biocomputing – Science Fiction in the Flesh

By now we should be comfortable with the terms and concepts of “hardware” and “software”. Before too long we may also need to get our heads around the idea of “wetware”, the use and integration of organic structures for the purpose of computing. 

A state of the art supercomputer is essentially no more than an incredibly fast abacus. It has an IQ no better than that of a brick and almost certainly even less personality. 

With the development of Neural Network software (modelled on the brain’s neural connections), serious progress is being made towards achieving computer based AI (Artificial Intelligence).  

For Neural Networks to work effectively though, parallel processing (multiple linked CPU’s processing simultaneously) is required. This technology is currently becoming the new standard for the personal computer (PC) and will continue to grow for quite some time to come. 

There will however, always remain one fundamental difference between hardware and wetware. In a living organism the neural connections are the wetware, analogous to a computer’s hardware but with the distinction that the wetware can evolve and grow (upgrade itself) as circumstances require. This provides one of the most compelling reasons why computer development will ultimately go down the biological (biotechnology) path. 

Theories and primitive research into biocomputing began in the 1970’s. Silicon based technology however, offered a faster commercial growth path. As a result, Silicon computer technologies attracted more research and development funding, which left biocomputing in the R&D backwaters and/or “Too Hard” basket. With the current computer technologies rapidly approaching their molecular limits, the electrodes in the Petrie dish may once again receive a greater level of attention. 

Of course from a technical perspective, if you can “think of it”, sooner or later (depending on resources) you will be able to build it. But … what rights do we assign to the genetically engineered life form (or perhaps cyborg – cyber organism) that will greet us when we boot up the PCs of the future. Are we not potentially looking at what will ultimately become a technology-based slavery?  

Conclusion

The real biological war extends far beyond the development of particularly nasty viruses and bacteria in secret military laboratories. Such technologies are a very real “military” threat, but the battle for the future is for now being fought in the shopping aisles and at the dinner table. 

Our choices as consumers and voters will determine the future evolution of life on Earth, including that of our own species. This of course precludes the intervention of an omnipotent deity and/or planetary collision with a large celestial object, in which case (as I’m sure you are aware) your insurance policy will be voided … and all bets are off !!

 
 
© 2000 – 2008 Wizard / Peter Nowak
Incept: 17/08/2000 - Updated: 13/08/2008
Not much had to be updated … which should perhaps be of concern?

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