UK bioethics body promotes gene editing of human embryos

From F. William Engdahl July 23: ‘Son of Frankenstein? UK Body Backs Human Embryo Gene Editing’

style="color:#003300;">“Though the announcement is couched in terms that make it seem humanitarian, as potentially a huge advance in science, an agency tied to the British government is encouraging efforts in gene-editing of the DNA of human embryos. It belongs in the category of eugenics. Not surprisingly, the footprints of Bill Gates and the Rockefeller eugenics circles, and major pharma groups as well as GMO seed companies are found here.

Following a well-placed article by Microsoft founder and major GMO supporter Bill Gates in the prestigious New York Council on Foreign Relations magazine, Foreign Affairs, strongly endorsing the development of so-called genetic editing, the UK’s Nuffield Council on Bioethics, a part Government-funded advisory body, has now released a report titled ‘Genome Editing and Human Reproduction’.

[See ‘Gene Editing for Good; How CRISPR Could Transform Global Development’

Bill Gates, foreignaffairs.com] Oh, what an evil putz you are, Sir Waiting for Superman.  What a sick and ungodly vision of global development you have!

“The report and the people behind it, including the Government’s Medical Research Council, indicate that a major push is underway to convince the public that genetic manipulation of human embryo DNA, so-called gene editing, is desirable and beneficial.

Among its conclusions the report states, “use of heritable genome editing interventions to influence the characteristics of future generations could be ethically acceptable.” It adds that, “research should be carried out on the safety and feasibility of heritable genome editing interventions to establish standards for clinical use.”

With many sentences stressing that the decision should only be licensed “on a case-by-case basis subject to assessment of the risks of adverse clinical outcomes for the future person,” by a national competent authority; and “strict regulation and oversight,” the report opens a Pandora’s box of eugenics issues, the long-standing agenda of circles such as the Rockefeller Foundation, Rockefeller University, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and others.

The focus is use of new technologies for gene editing, including CRISPR-Cas9, to “alter a DNA sequence(s) of an embryo, or of a sperm or egg cell prior to fertilisation.”

[My understanding is that an embryo IS a fertilized egg, but moving on]:

“The aim would be to influence the inherited characteristics of the resulting person.” They elaborate, “We refer to these as ‘heritable genome editing interventions’ since the altered DNA may be passed to future generations…” The scientist who first suggested developing gene drives in gene editing, Harvard biologist Kevin Esvelt, has publicly warned that development of gene editing, in conjunction with gene drive technologies, have alarming potential to go awry. He notes how often CRISPR messes up and the likelihood of mutations arising, making even benign gene drives aggressive. He stresses, “Just a few engineered organisms could irrevocably alter an ecosystem.” Esvelt’s computer gene drive simulations calculated that a resulting edited gene, “can spread to 99 percent of a population in as few as 10 generations, and persist for more than 200 generations.”

He was discussing gene editing of mosquitoes. Now the debate is moving on to gene editing of human embryos.”

From ‘The Terrifying Implications of Gene Drives: a PSA’, Feb. 28, 2018, (Café Babylon version, caucus99% version):

Gene drives are a controversial new technology that uses CRISPR-Cas9 to spread a specific genetic trait through an entire species or population – in some cases with the purpose of driving species to extinction. Current gene drives experiments have been conducted on insects, rodents and plants. If the inserted genetic trait results in only male offspring, as is being attempted for rodents and mosquitoes, a full wild population or even a species could go extinct. As far as is known, gene drives have never been released into the environment anywhere in the world.

“Gene drives organisms pose unique threats to nature and livelihoods”, says Silvia Ribeiro, Latin America Director for ETC Group. “It is the first time that the biotech industry has intentionally designed GMOs to spread aggressively in the natural environment and contaminate wild species. It seems surreal that a decision to impose such great dangers to a mega diverse country such Brazil would be taken by a small technical commission, without even involvement of either Congress or civil society”. [snip]

“Because of the technology’s power and inherent risks, Gene drives are considered a potential bioweapon. According to 1,200 emails released under access to information requests by a group of civil society organizations, the US Military has become one of the main funders of gene drives research at the global level. (They acknowledge the potential use as a bioweapon but allege that their interest is only defensive.) The second biggest funder of gene drives is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which claims to be supporting the development of the technology to combat pests, such as the mosquitoes that carry malaria, by genetically eliminating their ability to reproduce.”

Back to Wm. Engdahl:

“Also notable is the CEO and Director of the Francis Crick Institute, Sir Paul Nurse, geneticist and former President of the Rockefeller University in New York. In 2009 Nurse hosted an exclusive meeting at the Rockefeller University of hand-picked billionaires, invited by Bill Gates and David Rockefeller, to discuss the problem of “over-population.” They reportedly called their group The Good Club, and it included, according to reports, billionaire financiers Warren Buffett, George Soros and Michael Bloomberg.

Grave Concerns

The fact that today the same Sir Paul Nurse heads one of the world’s largest and best financed biomedical laboratories where they are doing gene editing of “donated” human embryos, suggests that a very dangerous agenda is being advanced under the banner of gene editing. And the fact that Bill Gates and his huge foundation, a major investor of Monsanto (now Bayer AG), have been funding experiments in gene editing for more than a decade, including CRISPR, suggests that gene editing could soon become a new name for human eugenics.”

And from Jacob Levich’s ‘The Real Agenda of the Gates Foundation’, Café Babylon version, caucus99% version), a few squibs:

IV. A Broader Agenda“Behind BMGF’s coordinated interventions in pharmaceuticals, agriculture, population control, and other putatively philanthropic concerns lies a broader agenda. In a recent interview Bill Gates briefly strayed off-message to warn of “huge population growth in places where we don’t want it, like Yemen and Pakistan and parts of Africa.” His use of the majestic plural here is revealing: in spite of much rhetoric about “empowering poor people,” the Foundation is fundamentally concerned with reshaping societies in the context of ruling-class imperatives.”

The Bill and Melinda Gates’ foundation gave $4.6 million to the Massachusetts-based startup behind the device, MicroCHIPS in January of 2014, a long-lasting implantable birth control device that can be turned on and off with a remote control [thus hackable]. With this device — a tiny hormone-emitting microchip — women who decide they are ready to conceive can essentially flip a switch and start trying, according to the MIT Technology Review.”   Bill Gates had suggested creating the device to MicroChips.

Townhall.com, July 13, 2018:

“Bill and Melinda Gates “are particularly committed to exploring how our family planning efforts can meet the needs of young women and girls.”  [As evidence, Bill had once tweeted Melinda’s heavy anxieties over watching those African women walking about, and simply loaded down with chirren had made him a devotée of ‘family planning for…women who could become part of the consumer society, earn $, and even get their own bank accounts, even, without those human burdens.]

“Presumably, the birth control microchip is still being tested. Though where, and by whom, remains largely a mystery. The question is troubling, especially considering the Gates’ ongoing interest in vulnerable, impoverished nations. It is also yet unknown how the device is performing, and how much longer before it gains FDA-approval and becomes available to women in America.” 

Is it already available in sub-Saharan Africa? But good on them, as the Gates Foundation often tests products on the unwitting in order to speed up the testing process (see also Jacob Levitch, Part III.Gates and Big Pharma:
“Guinea pigs for the drugmakers”

‘Genetically modified babies given go ahead by UK ethics body’; The Nuffield Council on Bioethics says changing the DNA of a human embryo could be ‘morally permissible’ if it is in the child’s best interests, the guardian.com  Some excerpts:

“But the report drew immediate criticism from some quarters, with one lobby group accusing the authors of opening the door to the unrestricted use of heritable genetic engineering, and an age of genetic haves and have-nots.”

“The prospect of modifying genes in human embryos has long been controversial though. For a start, the procedure has yet to be proven safe. In a study published in Nature Biotechnology on Monday, British researchers found that the most popular tool for genome editing, Crispr-Cas9, caused more damage to DNA than previously thought. If the scientists are right, gene editing could disrupt healthy genes when it is meant only to fix faulty ones.”

“Marcy Darnovsky at the Center for Genetics and Society in California said that the report recognised that if reproductive gene editing was permitted, it would be used for enhancement and cosmetic purposes. “They dispense with the usual pretence that this could – or, in their estimation, should – be prevented. They acknowledge that this may worsen inequality and social division, but don’t believe that should stand in the way. In practical terms, they have thrown down a red carpet for unrestricted use of inheritable genetic engineering, and a gilded age in which some are treated as genetic ‘haves’ and the rest of us as ‘have-nots’.”

Amen to that.

From bbc.co.uk , 17 July 2018:  ‘Editing human embryos ‘morally permissible, Should we or shouldn’t we be allowed to modify human DNA in future children?

“The use of genome editing in embryos for assisted reproduction in humans is currently prohibited by UK law, but is permitted in some research. Scientists can do gene editing on discarded IVF embryos, as long as they are destroyed immediately afterwards, for example.”  (And you can betcher bottom dollar that they’re all destroyed after seven days.)

“Commenting on the Nuffield Council of Bioethics’ review of genome editing, Dr David King, Director of Human Genetics Alert, said: “This is an absolute disgrace. We have had international bans on eugenic genetic engineering for 30 years. But this group of scientists thinks it knows better, even though there is absolutely no medical benefit to this whatever. The Nuffield Council doesn’t even bother to say no to outright designer babies. The people of Britain decided 15 years ago that they don’t want GM food. Do you suppose they want GM babies?”

[And again: “Gene drives are a controversial new technology that uses CRISPR-Cas9 to spread a specific genetic trait through an entire species or population – in some cases with the purpose of driving species to extinction, and/or as bioweapons.”]

A video from MIT explains CRISPR cas-9 genome editing:

Mind-boggling , terrifying stuff.

None of the reports had mentioned ‘UN panel warns against ‘designer babies’ and eugenics in ‘editing’ of human DNA, Warning that rapid advances in genetics make “designer babies” an increasing possibility, a United Nations panel today called for a moratorium on “editing” the human genome, pending wider public debate lest changes in DNA be transmitted to future generations or foster eugenics’, news.un.org, Oct 2015

“In 2004, former Secretary-General Kofi Annan questioned whether such processes might promote a world dominated by eugenics like that imagined by Aldous Huxley in the novel Brave New World.

“The greatest fear is that we may be trying to ‘play God,’ with unforeseeable consequences, in the end precipitating our own destruction,” Mr. Annan warned then, asking whether the dangers outweigh the benefits and where the line should be drawn between what is feasible and what is desirable or ethical.”

But if this mid-summer iteration is taken to the UN for discussion, who pays attention to the UN anyway?  Aside from that, which nations and Lords of Philanthrocapitalism  can exert muscular influence on the UN?

But: what could possibly go wrong?  (Or right, depending on one’s point of view and ultimate goals…)

(cross-posted from Café Babylon)

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wendy davis's picture

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detroitmechworks's picture

I wouldn't exist.

My family is prone to heart attacks. Knock that risk factor out, and there goes a whole line of people.

Depression is supposedly Genetic. Scratch that one off the list.

Webbed Toes. (Just two, but if they're going for perfection, that's gone too)

Immunity to CS Gas. (Absolutely going to edit that one out. Nothing worse than somebody who can still fight when exposed to riot countermeasures.)

Anti-authoritarian tendencies... Probably a genetic marker, since the DOD is screening veterans for PTSD and disability genetic markers. (No shit, they call it the Million Veteran Program. They've been taking gene samples from Veterans and correlating them with EXTENSIVE questionnaires. I stupidly signed up at the VA when they requested, then I got the questionnaire. When I read it... I burned my questionnaire. The VA sent me three more copies until I assume my blood was no longer viable for testing.)

So, yeah, I don't trust this one with a 20 meter cattle prod. You know the rich will engineer "Perfect" children and highly recommend that everybody submit to screenings to ensure that their kids are perfect for their caste. Yeah, it's Brave New World, Version 0.1

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

wendy davis's picture

@detroitmechworks

every Barbie can marry a Ken and live happily ever after, see? and there may be something similar for sub-saharan africans , yemenites (will they all look like black and brown bill gates clones?), all armed with their smartphones for digital banking and shopping.

seriously, once gates had shown a female african farmer in her field, checking the local weather report...'see? she can maximize the profit for her sorghum crop (or was it his GM Yellow Rice crop?)

good on ya for burnin' the questionnaire. sounds pretty X-files to me. but you gotta think some women somewhere are carrying some of those manipulated embryos, no? i confess i'd also asked for 'cloning gone wrong' images, they were too unbearable to bring. not quite like a giant thumb on chicken legs j/k, but...

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detroitmechworks's picture

@wendy davis how deep the rabbit hole goes on this one.

I strongly believe that Genes are not the Prison of the soul, and I strongly resist any attempts to make them so.

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

wendy davis's picture

@detroitmechworks

i'm not sure that this issue is about souls (or spirits, for that matter) per se,
although i may not be following your drift.

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detroitmechworks's picture

@wendy davis Which I enjoy. It's sort of representative of the philosophy I try to follow.

When I mean the gene is the prison of the soul, is that I have no doubt that engineers will put specific safeguards if they determine they're capable of doing it. What if you could prevent somebody from EVERY thinking certain thoughts, because they literally had no capacity to do so?

It would create a prison of the soul. Yeah, philosophical and theological objection, but I think it's still valid.

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

wendy davis's picture

@detroitmechworks

i’d thought you’d been perhaps pinging the nature/nurture duality. of course bigPharma has plenty of pills for forgetting, not feeling, as do many illicit self-medications, including the opioids we’re told are killing so many by overdosing. but i don’t think the CRISPR science is that advanced, and although i made a weak try at catching up on DNA wiki in catch-up mode, i still know Next to Nothing. but the development of DARPA super-soldiers might have that as a scientific ‘want’. if the world lasts that long, of course

but the video caused me to think how much could go wrong, even knowing that gene-splicing in the GMO food and seeds sector 'they' seem to have down to a...science.

the other question mr. wd and i have been bouncing around is if folks like gates and many others of the Darker World, as well as the ruling classes have consciences or not, but the development of a conscience is a hotly contested subject as well. and even many who say they have consciences are biased by religions of whatever flavor, tribalism, eschatologies, etc. but that may be part of what you're darkly imagining.

“It would create a prison of the soul.”, but you’ll guard against, and good on you.

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k9disc's picture

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“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu

wendy davis's picture

@k9disc

close to a giant thumb on chicken legs, but DARPA's been working on super-soldiers; maybe that'll be a thing, too.

thanks for the chortles, k9disc.

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wendy davis's picture

@k9disc

it wasn't until i saw the video that it struck me: 'Khan, genetically engineered'. but c'mon, that was in 1982! (she whinged in her own defense...)

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this has and is currently being tried. I mean, what are you going to do....call the bio ethics police? Think of the possibilities for new weapons, maybe even genocide. You don't have to outright kill, just make sure your enemy can't reproduce. Not that we aren't doing a good job as it is. Or maybe a new flu....

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wendy davis's picture

@Snode

which is why i'd repeated 'And again: “Gene drives are a controversial new technology that uses CRISPR-Cas9 to spread a specific genetic trait through an entire species or population – in some cases with the purpose of driving species to extinction, and/or as bioweapons.”

perhaps the eradication of an entire ethnicity/color? and of course one wonders about the true origin of AIDS in africa, but that's a very long and prone-to-conspiracy subject, isn't it?

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Or maybe it's about Cordwainer Smith's underpeople.

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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

wendy davis's picture

@The Voice In the Wilderness

i yam clueless as to your references, smile. you one a dem frankenfish on legs?

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TheOtherMaven's picture

@wendy davis

"Delta" is to Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" (people cloned and graded intellectually by Greek letter-designations).

"Underpeople" is to genetically engineered intelligent dog-people, cat-people, etc. in various Cordwainer Smith stories.

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There is no justice. There can be no peace.

wendy davis's picture

@TheOtherMaven

it's been so many decades since i'd read brave new world that the systems and designations hadn't rung bells in my currently hollowed out cranium.

and i'd never read the cordwainer smith stories. wow.

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TheOtherMaven's picture

@wendy davis

what he wrote was high-octane and most thought-provoking.

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There is no justice. There can be no peace.

wendy davis's picture

@TheOtherMaven

his writing must have been. whooosh.

and later i was laughing at myself that even cofi annan in 2004 remembered brave new world so well. hell, maybe even the designations, lol.

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NO!!!!
Even the most bat-shit crazy Libertarian knows about unintended consequences.
Nothing good can come of this.

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wendy davis's picture

@BORG_US_BORG

the cautionary principle because: unintended consequences? but some of this, of course, will be intentional consequences, gone right or...haywire.

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snoopydawg's picture

The Gates foundation has been involved in several diabolical plans, but people thought that they were just kidding. I've never thought that. Bill Gates has stated that we could bring the population down from 7-1 billion through vaccines. Does anyone think he was kidding?

Again some evil fukk has way too much money and time on his hands and instead of doing things that would raise people out of poverty he spends his time and money coming up with shit like this.

IMG_2098.JPG

.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

wendy davis's picture

@snoopydawg

he either believes or pretends to believe that he's doing just that: making the world better, and millions believe in his con job. they even have their own tab at the guardian, as does the rockefeller foundation. one has to read between the lines, of course to divine the meanings of the articles; some ore just fluff, of course.

and their twitter account meshes with it to an extraordinary degree, so much virtue signaling about saving the world, education for women (his way) for the poor to advance the poor out of poverty, (hidden) eugenics, high tech necessities, and the world genuflects before bill and melinda as gods.

@cordeliers on twitter had recently noted that since 'giving away his fortune in 2002 (?) his net worth has trebled to $90 billion as of today. some noblesse oblige philanthropy, eh? ah, i dunno, it's kinda depressing, really.

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and cited things like eliminating genetic diseases and even tendencies as being a tremendous boons to mankind. And talking about birth control for third world women? What kind of monster would be against that? A genocidal monster. And I'd have been right, but now I see no talk about genetic diseases, and birth control. All the talk is how third world women could get bank accounts? Now you're right. Now it's not about making people's lives better, it's about Rich people's genocidal wish lists.

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On to Biden since 1973

wendy davis's picture

@doh1304

IS purported to be this: "And I'd have been right, but now I see no talk about genetic diseases, and birth control, but what sort of heritable diseases are worth trying to minimize at the expense of the many inherent dangers, as well as the designs of the 'new creators'?

i'm losing my concentration, my apologies, but for me, even this tweet, which i'd decided not to feature...on #world population day...is a con, but is instead a teaching tool in disguise: the population bomb will not sustain all of us, so he knows which breeders need targeting. what he/they know, but do not say, is that in the developing world, resource use is less than a seventh of that in the consumer-society-driven 'developed world'.

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@wendy davis
a risk analysis og eliminating genetic diseases (sickle cell anemia is historically the most well advertised, but the list is huge and terrible, see: https://www.medicinenet.com/genetic_disease/article.htm#chromosome_abnor...) though "eliminating" talk assumed critical judgments.
Personally, I believe that the reward is so great that it dwarfs almost any risk - except the risk of a small number of evil people controlling the technology.
As for overpopulation, I'm a little sick of the "third world people use less resources" argument. True, but the argument confuses prosperity with greed and wastefulness,(I am a zealous proponent of livimg with less, but I have no interest in living like a resident of sub saharan afruca, or for that matter Japan) and denies the damage done simply by taking up so much space. Not only is it damaging ecologically to plow enough land to feed 7 billion people, the social and psychological damage is complex and subtle, but terrible.

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On to Biden since 1973

wendy davis's picture

@doh1304

i happen to disagree vehemently, and if that makes you see me as evil, i'll just have to live with it (smile). your position of the human population bomb and its unsustainablity is shared by most liberal websites, so you’re in good company. as for the rest of your last paragraph, i won’t spend the time arguing against it, or my favoring eco-socialism. before any of it matters more, there may be another pandemic, nuclear war, more proxy wars in general, that make sure the surplus population is amply decreased. no more useless eaters!

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@wendy davis

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On to Biden since 1973

earthling1's picture

Maybe a bootlegged version could be unleashed upon the earth that eliminated the "greed bug". And inherited too.

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Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

wendy davis's picture

@earthling1

if so, i'd be into a bootleg copy for self-interest and self-centeredness markers. seeking power bootlegs, oh the lists are so long.

but srsly, did you watch the video?

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mimi's picture

@wendy davis
I would say there is a genetic marker for greed, because there must be a genetic marker for humans' insticts to want to survive. I would say greed is the logical consequence of wanting to survive and thus making sure before any other person can eat the beans, you tend to want to eat them yourself. That is kind of greedy, no?

Who do you think can overcome that greed and share the beans with his fellow 'brother'? I would say mothers. They would give their last bean to their babies and rather suffer hunger themselves than allow their babies to go hungry and starve. People also let starve their beloved elderlies easier than they would accept their kids starving.

So, may be, greed is a genetic thingy ?

OMG, I have read now around 60 percent of your article. Couldn't go on further.
I suggest splicing Gates dna to the point it is cut out and nothing is been left. I have to pull myself together to read on and I do not have the words to express what I feel. Rest assured it is an issue I can lose my marbles over and go ballistic.

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wendy davis's picture

@mimi

but as to human desire to want to survive, i of course, maybe in error to your comment, thought of ‘survival of the fittest’ (spencer as well as darwin, apparently). and the ‘fittest’ were the individuals with the most ability to replicate themselves, which (again, as i understand it) is one prime directive of all species, including bacteria and viriuses. but the thinking back in the day also depended on species ‘within a particular environment’, and imagine how humans have tinkered with many ‘evironments’ for so long, for better or worse, and some have ‘adapted’ only too well. but that’s a much longer discussion.

and our culture/s in the west have been based on competition, not cooperation, thus resource wars, empire, and a captalistic model many say is in its death throes, but the ‘throes’ are laid onto the backs of the Rabble classes, which is part of the incoherent responses from leaders around the globe. meaning, i reckon: i don’t think greed is innate. mothers giving their beans to their chirren, yes, but fathers often do as well. but the one-on-one acts of true self-denial might be mirrored within (at least metaphorical) tribes, and when that tribe needs more than it can secure, often ‘tribes’ compete with other tribes, at least some some anthropologists claim so, and history does seem to back them up.

i’m flailing to describe the images in my mind here...perhaps in a better world, we will share not compete, work together as one tribe, with all equally deserving in cooperation. no ‘others’ to be feared, no ‘others’ unrecognized as our brothers and sisters under the skin.

except for the bill gates of the planet, then? yeah, i was depressed about all this when i woke up this morning.

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@earthling1 @earthling1

Hey doc, I've been afficted with this debilitating greed the last few weeks, can you give me one of those shots to cure it.

Smile

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Beware the bullshit factories.

In the Jurassic Park world they're able to clone dinosaurs from 200 million year old DNA. Left unsaid is that if they can clone dinosaurs from 200 million year old DNA than cloning people must be a really common thing. The fact is they can clone people now, and CRISPR and stem cell technology could allow a mad genius to clone super people. That's still a long way away. Stem cells are just beginning and right now they're using them to cure blindness in people with macular degeneration. Gene therapy (gene editing) is also just beginning with cures for hemophilia B and the more common hemophilia A. In Utopia, where nothing ever goes wrong and there is no inequality, if you need a new heart or liver or leg, the doctor will just take a few of your skin cells turn them into stem cells and grow you new ones, just like what you had when you were 20 years old. If the organ had a cancer gene in it, the doctors, or robot, will just edit it out of the stem cells before growing your new part.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRnSnfiUI54]

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Beware the bullshit factories.

wendy davis's picture

@Timmethy2.0

and the gene therapy your referencing is on individuals, i believe, not embryos? but the seduction of 'eradicating disease' is very strong. another project billy microsoft is funding is a cure for alzheiemers, he provided seed money, more 'philanthropists' are joining him. of course we (meaning 'I') shouldn't be so cynical as guessing how much their fortunes will increase, if, and when.

i'm out for the night, thanks to all. tonight's lullaby 'no more greedy guts':

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKmAb1gNN74]

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@wendy davis @wendy davis

and the gene therapy your referencing is on individuals, i believe, not embryos?

Yes it's on individuals. The stem cells still largely come from embryos. Only a few embryos, from fertility clinics that dispose of many, daily. They've been turned into "immortalized" stem cells that provide a continuous supply to researchers. The goal is to turn skin cells or some other cell into stem cells, so that any organ that is grown has the same DNA as the person the organ goes into so that there isn't any rejection by the immune system. But they need embryonic stem cells to get there. I believe they are very close as skin cells have been turned into stem cells.

The mad genius scenario I was thinking of, was to take a bunch of stem cells, use CRISPR, or another techonology to alter the DNA, and then grow an army of super clones, genetically disposed to obey their creator.

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Beware the bullshit factories.

wendy davis's picture

@Timmethy2.0

the massive number of comments by assange-hating trolls on the wikileaks twitter account. they've vanished, i guess they can be deleted? ah, well, i dunno how the twit machine works.

what i'd meant to ask was that if those therapies were performed in utero (in fetuses)or already born people.

and ooof, the stem cell research was/is a hot-button issue for the right-to-live movement.
as to this:

"The mad genius scenario I was thinking of, was to take a bunch of stem cells, use CRISPR, or another technology to alter the DNA, and then grow an army of super clones, genetically disposed to obey their creator."

ay yi yi. yeah, cloning hu-mons might still be illegal, but when did that stop anyone, say...darpa? i haven't really checked in with that group for over a year, but iirc, they were working toward soldiers who needed no or little sleep, for one thing.

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mimi's picture

@wendy davis
Buffy Sainte Marie. I always forget her name, but never forgot, when I heard her singing "No No Keshagesh - for the first time. It was on TOP made possible by Meteor Blades and the other elderly Ojibwa poster there. I was triggered a lot to learn from them. I never understand how my mind choose what it remembers and what it decides to forget.

Thanks, for posting her song exactly right now on this spot in the thread. I read that she lived on the HI island of Kauai and some time not long ago said she returned to make a record.

Sigh. I hope she comes back. Great lady, great music, great spirit. And you are a great blogger (a little tough sometimes for a culturally non-native American and English speaker, but I get enough light out of it. Smile )

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wendy davis's picture

@mimi

she did stop recording for a time to involved herself in projects galore, read her wiki sometime. she's cree (saskatchewan), which i'd forgotten, not mi'kmaq, although she was adopted by a mi'kmaq couple at some point.

this is her twitter account, and while i wasn't that nigh on her 'power in the blood' album, i'm sure jazzed to hear her new 'medicine songs', based on 'war is a racket':

so glad you read this diary; i know it's along slog, but i did edit out as much as i could and still have a pretty full view of this New Picture. to me, the Picture is like some megalomaniac's bad acid dream.

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mimi's picture

@wendy davis
I had to close my eyes to listen to the lyrics. The music was underneath the lyrics. I think it's a great piece of art I had a hard time to look at. The animated images overpower the lyrics which are overpowering the music.

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@Timmethy2.0
DNA only lasts something like 50,000 years. We can clone wolly mamoths, but not dinosaurs.

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On to Biden since 1973

k9disc's picture

biowarfare a politically useful tool.

"... advanced forms of biological warfare that can "target" specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool."

Man, going back to the PNAC and Joint Vision 2020 would be an interesting journey. I might have to pick them back up.

I wonder if I have them on a hard drive around here... only 20TB of data lying around... Wink

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“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu

wendy davis's picture

@k9disc

please have at it, amigo.

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