Is this new? I didn't realise we could post TED Talks directly!

Moving this video to notarobot's personal queue. It failed to receive enough votes to get sifted up to the front page within 2 days.

Is this man *begging for more genetic engineering?

Sending this video to Beggar's Canyon to plea for a little attention - beg requested by original submitter notarobot.

TED's own YouTube embed are highly superior in speed and quality
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUxwiVFgghE
*promote

I couldn't agree more with this guy. He even talked about the evils of Greenpeace trying to stop Africa from using biotech. But that's only half of it, they are also against artificial fertilizer and pesticides. Probably responsible for the deaths of millions of Africans.
We need more rational environmentalists!

Promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued - promote requested by cybrbeast.

Mr. Brand is a busy boy. Too bad there are some intelligent people who traced back his activities and thoughts, his spin-mastery and network-building:


http://www.smartmobs.com/2006/12/04/video-of-fred-turner-from-counterculture-to-cyberculture/

Also his name is Stewart Brand (not Stuart)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stewart_Brand

Thanks for pointing out my overtired typo. It has been fixed.
I didn't find the youtube embed any faster, but I agree that the wider screen resolution is a bit easier on the eyes.

>> ^cybrbeast:
I couldn't agree more with this guy. He even talked about the evils of Greenpeace trying to stop Africa from using biotech. But that's only half of it, they are also against artificial fertilizer and pesticides. Probably responsible for the deaths of millions of Africans.
We need more rational environmentalists!


I appreciate Brand's appeal for rational global-problem solving as well as his research and his organization of information, but I share almost none of his enthusiasm for the topics he discussed.

Genetic engineering presumes that humans, in our 50-70 year life span know better than nature. Nature has been at the game of shaping genes, of us and every living thing on the Earth, for a long time. Once a gene has been modified it can stay way for eternity. There is no undo. It is arrogant for any human to believe that even the knowledge of how to meddle with genes should be the same as carrying the wisdom to wield that knowledge without error.

Though it is true that warheads can be dismantled (with significant effort) for use in nuclear power stations, the fact that the bi-product of fission reactors is weapons-grade material remains lost on most people.

Geo engineering is the product of similar arrogance of as genetic engineering. It is fueled by a desire for a static environment. The fact is that the Earth has never stood still, and will never do so (except for that one time in film..).

>> ^notarobot:
I appreciate Brand's appeal for rational global-problem solving as well as his research and his organization of information, but I share almost none of his enthusiasm for the topics he discussed.
Genetic engineering presumes that humans, in our 50-70 year life span know better than nature. Nature has been at the game of shaping genes, of us and every living thing on the Earth, for a long time. Once a gene has been modified it can stay way for eternity. There is no undo. It is arrogant for any human to believe that even the knowledge of how to meddle with genes should be the same as carrying the wisdom to wield that knowledge without error.

If you think something shouldn't be done, because nature knows best, you could carry that same argument to all aspects of our technology, and I doubt you want us to live in pre-stoneage time again. I don't see how nature knows anything, or cares about anything. Nature just functions through mutation and selection. At any time an invasive or disruptive species could evolve. The only safeguard on nature is that evolution moves quite slow.
We have been genetically modifying animals since the first wolf was domesticated. Just look at what kind of freaky dogs we have created since. Or highly productive farm animals that couldn't function in the wild, a dairy cow for example. Now we have the ability to speed up and improve this process. And granted, there is a difference, because now we can move genes into an organism that never were there before, like jellyfish genes in a mammal.
Most if not all species that we engineer have no competitive advantage in nature and will only thrive in our carefully managed farmlands. For potentially more dangerous applications, we need to take adequate precautions and thoroughly test species or build in kill genes that we could trigger. Or just make them infertile.

Though it is true that warheads can be dismantled (with significant effort) for use in nuclear power stations, the fact that the bi-product of fission reactors is weapons-grade material remains lost on most people.

This fact is not lost on many engineers. Many modern reactor designs cannot make weapons grade materials. The reason that many old nuclear plants can do this is because they were specifically designed to make the bomb material and produce energy in the process.
Weapons grade material can also be made without reactors by extracting the fissile component of natural uranium.

Geo engineering is the product of similar arrogance of as genetic engineering. It is fueled by a desire for a static environment. The fact is that the Earth has never stood still, and will never do so (except for that one time in film..).

Of course the Earth doesn't care what we do, it and life will go on no matter what we do, even after a full out nuclear war. The point could be made that we have been geoengineering for a long time now. Just look at our cities, farmland and pollution. The only problem is that some of our geoengineering is potentially harmful to us and nature. Therefore deliberate geoengineering is proposed to mitigate these problems. From a humanitarian view one would want to mitigate these problems to relieve human suffering, just like we try to eradicate horrible diseases.

A good video, only 11 votes, and one of my biggest comments yet
I need to *promote this

Promoting this video back to the front page; last published Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009 9:08am PDT - promote requested by cybrbeast.