[Hplusroadmap] Here's my solution to those 'ethics' calls re: DIY biotech.

[Bryan Bishop]

On Saturday 14 June 2008, Arthur Endlein wrote:
> A ultra resistant bunker made to survive - well, anything at all,
> whose insides would contain means  for information safekeeping, both
> generalistic (as of various common aspects of human society) and
> individual, where the complete life of a number individuals would be

Well, hold on there. I wasn't suggesting that. I'm talking about the 
differences between just being open to all diseases versus having some 
moderatable level of isolation to some of the more pesky viruses, 
bacteriophages and germs out there, just as you isolate your water 
supply from the local river. At least, that's what I'm guessing you're 
doing.

But a 'biobunker' would be another idea, sure. 

> collar). I believe that it would be important to let the subject give
> a personal impression on his/her own life) and "world impact scans"
> (Interpolated and extrapolated data from the raw bulk generalistic
> database using advanced search programs to make a crude report on the
> results caused by that person on mankind). After the main mankind
> annihilation impact, the main computers (actually the main virtual

Annihilation?

> computers, as every single processor core in the bunker's network
> would be used. While in a war against the end of the world, it is
> probably a good idea not waste a single CPU cycle) would use multiple
> arrays of ground and satellite sensors to be able to figure out what
> happened, and then theorize on how long would it take to earth be
> inhabitable once again. As this might take way more time than
> originally predicted, the whole bunker complex would start an
> automatized routine on to preserve it's integrity. Basically, it must
> be time immune, complete with full recycling, mining, design
> rerouting and readaptation, manufacture and repairing. A man made
> life being on it's own, just much bigger than it's biologic
> counterparts. Then a design fork: it must be decided on whether the
> bunker would only serve as a backup storage of humans and ideas, who
> would wait for nicer world conditions to start breeding humans and
> helping them rebuild and maintain a new batch of mankind or it would
> be as well a backup downscaled earth, with a living environment made
> to support a small society of a few hundreds or thousands (well, it
> could, in theory, be made to support any reasonable amount of humans,
> or have means to transport people throughout the globe between
> bunkers). I'll suppose the second, but each of them has it's own
> perks and difficulties.
> When the system finds that the bunker internal area is in a good
> enough shape to support enough beings, it would wake it's human
> breeding facilities (during it's "hibernation" it would still be
> working, actually, by slowly maintaining mutation-free human egg cell
> strains, as we'll probably still not be able to fully synthesize live
> cells by the time we build it), who would start production of bodies.
> Now, the personality backups would probably be first used by
> maintaining the generated humans on stimuli reproduction systems,
> that would try and copycat the sensations of the chosen persons to be
> rebirth. Once ready, it is another complex design decision on how
> would be the newborn's (newreleased, to be exact) relationship with
> it's past "memories". Would direct access to them be allowed, or it
> would have to rely on what it "absorbed" during it's time inside on
> artificial stimuli (with the possibility on not even letting the
> first humans know that they are mostly crude reproductions of long
> dead ones, if it is determined that the impact of both knowing such
> and having to restart humanity would be too overwhelming for most.
> The concept of noble lies is a always complex subject, one that in
> this particular case would have major impact on the future of those
> we'll leave buried even deeper than our long forgotten graves)?
> Well, anyway, this is just an insight, one that might be a bit
> off-topic. Sorry about that.

No, it is not off topic at all, and you have put forward an interesting 
design for a total isolation bunker, but again it's not exactly what I 
was thinking about and just want to make that clear. I don't think that 
a totally isolatable reboot system is going to be necessary, but being 
wrong here is a bad idea. So I'm all for it, just know that the general 
arguments for the biotech toolkits and so on is more akin to "making 
sure that you don't contract the latest disease" rather than "holy 
shit, let's get underground". ;-) But anyway, the design of such a 
system seems to be in line with a few other organizations out there at 
the moment. I recall a plan for a moonbase to do the same with plant 
seeds, but it seemed to be largely corporate-driven / commercial, and 
there were planetary installations proposed as well. That's 
unfortunate. It would be a good idea to find the paths of technological 
development in line with the ultrabiobunker idea that happen to concide 
with all of the other notes and plans that we have running about here, 
and then extracting the useful portions.

- Bryan
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