Comments on: The Kline Directive: Safety Awareness https://lifeboat.com/blog/2012/10/the-kline-directive-safety-awareness Safeguarding Humanity Mon, 17 Apr 2017 05:27:33 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.6.1 By: Benjamin T. Solomon https://lifeboat.com/blog/2012/10/the-kline-directive-safety-awareness#comment-155495 Mon, 15 Oct 2012 18:13:24 +0000 http://lifeboat.com/blog/?p=5711#comment-155495 Siderite, I agree with much of what you say, but I wasn’t discussing the ‘other exterme’. I was discussing what if (using your example) it wasn’t just Nobel’s brother who died but half of Europe? That is what we need to avoid, and I’ll get into this in an upcomming blog post.

]]> By: Siderite https://lifeboat.com/blog/2012/10/the-kline-directive-safety-awareness#comment-155451 Mon, 15 Oct 2012 08:03:10 +0000 http://lifeboat.com/blog/?p=5711#comment-155451 What I was talking about is that risks are always outweighed against the benefits. Safety for the sake of safety did not and will never work out. I think the best example I can think of is Nobel. He invented dynamite, his brother (whom he loved dearly) blew up in the process of trying things out, and the name Nobel then became synonymous with “prize for peace”. There is only one path to discovery, and that is trying things out, hoping you won’t mess up and learning from your mistakes. Not making mistakes, for the sake of safety, is not learning and not discovering anything. Of course, doing something random with the belief nothing can hurt you is madness, but we were discussing the other extreme :), which in my opinion is still madness, but a boring one.

]]> By: Benjamin T. Solomon https://lifeboat.com/blog/2012/10/the-kline-directive-safety-awareness#comment-155322 Sat, 13 Oct 2012 14:32:59 +0000 http://lifeboat.com/blog/?p=5711#comment-155322 I like your comments Siderite.

I don’t think it is ‘ridiculous reasons people … ’ Consider this, it was only in the last few years that geneticists figured out that the ‘junk’ DNA is where the biological switches are encoded.

Imagine that! We haven’t really got an understanding of how the DNA works and we want to produce GMO (genetically modified organisms … I presume that is what you were referring to).

I’m not against GMO. I think that GMO is here to stay and that is the direction humanity will eventually take. But take some precautions. Understand what we are dealing with and how it really works, before doing GMO and GM foods, and before we have on End Of Humanity event. I think that is all reasonable people are asking.

We have been doing GM foods for millennia, the way Nature does it – by selection. This process has all the safety ‘protocols’ embedded. Now to do it by manipulating the DNA we have to learn another lesson, what are these safety protocols and how & why did Nature implement them.

I’ll address the antimatter issue soon. By the way, if we had invented ‘antimatter teleporter’, the theoretical physics is so sophisticated we would have also invented other means of travel and therefore ‘orbit costs to every transport’ would not be significant.

]]> By: Siderite https://lifeboat.com/blog/2012/10/the-kline-directive-safety-awareness#comment-155314 Sat, 13 Oct 2012 12:31:11 +0000 http://lifeboat.com/blog/?p=5711#comment-155314 I agree with you that we have “lawyered up”. We ignore the issues that go against our idea and lobby for the ones that support it. But it is all a consequence of the ridiculous reasons people are stopping science, from idiots fearing GMOs and nuclear powered space probes to intelligent design proponents, scientists have to fight off hordes of mindless zombies that are driven by fear alone. Who would be willing to add to that fear?

Also, it feels natural to me to talk about all ideas, no matter how odd. Maybe an insane idea is genius when you take the insane out and maybe the author can’t do that, but neither can other people be that genius. An antimatter drive would be pretty loony to launch from Earth, but would be perfectly safe from the asteroid belt.

And there are other considerations, like how expensive is safety. Until 9/11 plane travel safety regulations were not lax because the danger was not known, but because it was weighed against the discomfort of millions of people. In other words the passengers were more willing to risk getting killed by a mad bomber than to pass through a zillion checkups and pay more. Assume we would invent an antimatter teleporter. Something that could send us with the speed of light or more to another inhabited planet. Would you really consider placing it on the Moon so it doesn’t blow up and take an entire city with it? Add orbit costs to every transport? Hell, no! We would have it on some remote island or on a large sea vessel and take the risks.

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