When Biology Becomes Software

I see trouble ahead. There are so many potential consumer issues here that I don’t know where to start.
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2019/09/when_biology_be.html

Then there’s the whole corporate patenting of everything in sight (and much that’s out of sight).

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I have visions of Terra-forming future planets.

Are we that close?

Perhaps a little redesign of our own planet might be in order?

But which option will we choose.

  1. The seawater powered organism that converts CO2 to a hydrocarbon more efficiently than a solar panel provides electrical energy?
    or
  2. The gene adaption for corn that ensures the economy of the USA does not collapse under a 4C average temperature increase? Handier if the corn can also grow under a sea of salt water.

Marketing 101 suggests we should look to the dreamed of benefits, the real profits and play down the risks.

And a great excuse to throw caution to the wind. If you have a go…? Sorry, that line has been taken. You get …?

Not a new idea. With a little help from patented gene engineering, it could go even more …

And now even Putin has seen the light, well some one in Moscow.

P.S.
We appear to already have a very effective tool for suggestion 1, although it simply stores carbon in a more traditional form.

If only mangroves would stop growing on prime coastal and developers dream canal estate sites.

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