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comment by edricarica
edricarica  ·  3419 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Easy DNA Editing Will Remake the World. Buckle Up.

This is fascinating.

I'm not at all sure how far off this is from reality, either - the technology seems to already have come on in leaps and bounds since 2012.

Genetic engineering should worry me more than it does. Maybe I'm just so optimistic about its medical potential that I'm ignoring potential misuse!?

Or maybe I watched too much sci-fi as a kid.

Or maybe I put too much faith in the moral compass of scientists.

What does worry me is how little of the technology appears to be in the public domain. If start-ups are having to pay enormous fees to the (somewhat sinister-seeming) Zhang, that could hurt innovation - or, at least, push researchers to concentrate on the most lucrative possibilities of the technology, rather than those that might be best for humanity.

I feel like I really want to tinker around with this stuff myself! Maybe it's time to go back to university...