There was this segment on PBS about an amazing discovery, RNA-I, which can shut off a single gene.

This is supposed to offer great possibilities, such as curing lots of diseases, etc.

It can help in decoding the human genome, since, by turning off one gene at a time, you can then see what that particular gene codes for.

Now, how do you turn off a gene in a human being in order to see what that gene codes for? Well, you insert the RNA-I and then watch to see what happens. If the gene codes for melanin, for example, the person would become an albino, since their melanin gene could no longer function.

And how do you get these human guinea pigs for this experiment that promises to bring such great benefits to humanity?

Um, well, I guess if you had huge prison populations and gulags and concentration camps, you could use those people who were going to die anyway. After all, it is for the greater good of humanity.

The TV segment was really very well filmed and produced. The scientists certainly weren't depicted as the Dr. Mengeles they'd have to be to further their research.

Of course they could use animals until they got to genes that humans didn't share with animals. Then they'd need humans. And being at one of our cyclical overpopulation peaks, we have plenty of humans. Life, so precious after the last big die-off, WWII, has become cheap again, and genocides are proliferating.

Animal rights activists and environmentalists are the two groups on the FBI's domestic terrorist watch list. How dare those terrorists insist that it is cruel to experiment on animals at a time when our corporate government wants to promote experimentation on humans!

I've got a bad attitude and I knew I shouldn't have turned on the darned TV.

Stuff happens don't it?


The story, PBS, RNA and Genomes.


How many discoveries that were intended to help humankind in a posative way
have instead been used in the most horrible ways?

Maybe it's easier to count those that have not?


Should we then not discover?
Can't be done even if we wanted too.

The question should then be,
How can we make human intellectual, and emotional evolution advance without the conservative brakes on?

If as a whole earth society we dicided killing each other, and over populating the planet, and in other ways harming the living body that is our planet, if as a species we simply decided these practices just will not do, what would be the result in say, 500 years?
Is it possible for human beings collectively to plan that far ahead?
That's a long time to agree on a lot of fundamental ideas!