alt Hacker NewsThis is the first time I've seen one of these proposals which highlights a future potential harm and then makes the healthy proposal for radical open COOPERATION and mutual self-restraint instead of a surveillance panopticon and tyrannical oppression as the solution. Bravo!
Recommendations:
* In a first line of effort, the United States should engage scientific superpowers, especially China, to build the foundation for collective restraint. Policymakers and the scientific community should prioritize transparent scientific collaboration, shared risk assessments, and early norm-setting.
* For the second line of effort, the United States should promote collective restraint across domestic, allied, and global scientific communities. This involves combining incentive-reducing measures with monitoring, verification, and other early-stage deterrence tools.
* The United States should take great caution with actions or statements that could foster mistrust or spur strategic competition in the field of mirror life or its enabling technologies.
* The United States must commit clearly to not developing mirror life, even if other actors are suspected of pursuing it.
* U.S. policymakers should advance actions that require long lead times, such as legislation, treaties, and international engagement, in parallel.
* U.S. policymakers should also treat countermeasures and resilience as constrained contingencies.
Replies
I’m sure smart and well intentioned American leaders will act for the global collective good, since that’s totally the way things work now.
off topic but I've noticed this CAPITALIZATION more and more in online discourse. I don't like it, but if you're using it can you maybe explain where it comes from?
It definitely seems like a zoomer thing.
The proposal tries to go against the current trend of US isolationism which burned a lot of good will with the rest of the world, and gain a bit of soft power back. Noble goal, but I’m not sure who wants to align behind the US today and risk getting dumped tomorrow.
On the topic of mirror life, doesn’t it need mirror food? I was under the impression that they couldn’t consume natural sugars for example, and so on. They’re talking about mirror life that uses non-mirrored molecules to propagate? How is mirror life building itself without mirror-everything-else?
I think the catch is there's no money to be made in mirror molecules / life... YET! If that changes, say mirror molecules some how extend life or have a therapeutic use then we're like to see the tune change.
Why do you think such an approach would work, but something equivalent to try to prevent mass shootings / school shooter type gun violence wouldn't? Or would you say that radical open cooperation and mutual self restraint led by governments could stop the American problem of mass shootings like the Las Vegas shooter?
I don't see how you stop terrorism (of the school shooter type, not the Islamic/political type) with inter-government cooperation. Mirror life is just another vector for school shooters but with PHDs.
I'm curious what solutions to Future threats you think qualify as a panopticon, and why the following set of words in this context don't make you worried about the same:
>monitoring, verification, and other early-stage deterrence tools.