This 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.
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?
One could argue that it's just what's old becoming new again. In older English capitalization of words was often used to add emphasis or imply meaning beyond what could be conveyed in a sentence by itself. For instance from the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
I don't actually know why this faded and got gradually replaced by our quite specific rules. It seems like a nice way for an author to be able to express much more meaning in the exact same number of characters.
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.
because as it was never observed to date, it could be assumed it does not exists yet, as the the article makes it sounds like it's very artificial / constructed
Except in the world of "anything is possible," mirror life would have no food. All biomolecules are chiral.
On the other hand, the recommendations are all commonsense, and don't only apply to mirror life. For instance...
>>> 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.
This is something which has been thought about by those in the field, and the conclusion is that it’s probably possible to engineer an organism with an ample food supply,
“ Achiral nutrients are available in quantities sufficient for growth of common bacteria in a wide range of natural environments, including within potential hosts (1). Further genetic engineering could provide mirror bacteria with pathways needed to consume abundant chiral nutrients such as d-glucose.
Growth of mirror bacteria outside of the laboratory is therefore plausible. However, their interactions with other lifeforms would differ profoundly because of their reversed chirality.”
That was the belief - but it was found it was possible to grow E.coli on non-chiral molecules that are commonly available.
The worry then is that the immune system will ignore the wrong-chirality infection.
Incorrect. There are symmetric achiral molecules. Which can be consumed as food for both normal, and mirror life, thus creating competition for resources.
> Except in the world of "anything is possible," mirror life would have no food. All biomolecules are chiral.
Many essential biomolecules, nutrients, and amino acides are achiral (e.g. carbon dioxide, water, ammonium, phosphate, sulfate, glycine, and more). Mirror organisms could easily - at least in the realm of plausibility - function as autotrophs to convert sunlight, CO2, etc. into organic sugars, or extract energy from inorganic materials like hydrogen or iron paired with CO2.
Non-threat. Life has evolved and re-evolved thousands if not millions of times. One of those iterations would have been mirror biology if it were viable.
I just assume the worst people in the world will have all the power and push for the most deranged reality possible, and somehow routinely get surprised when it’s twice as bad as I imagined.
Maybe it could, maybe it could not. If it could and we had no defence against, it could be disastrous, even world ending (for us). The precautionary principle applies.
I'm not sure what advantage you see to a government in restricting this.
This 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.
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.
One could argue that it's just what's old becoming new again. In older English capitalization of words was often used to add emphasis or imply meaning beyond what could be conveyed in a sentence by itself. For instance from the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
I don't actually know why this faded and got gradually replaced by our quite specific rules. It seems like a nice way for an author to be able to express much more meaning in the exact same number of characters.
Every time I see it I think of those YouTube videos people used to make: Ben Shapiro OWNS feminist with FACTS and LOGIC. Definitely sets the bozo bit.
I don't get it though. If you want to create emphasis why not use asterisks?
Ha! HN makes it italic. I forgot that.
You can use two to make keep asterisks like *this*
El presidente does this a lot. Maybe it’s leaking out.
It’s against the guidelines because it’s been used for emphasis (with varying degrees of classiness) since before the beginning of the Internet.
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.
So, my first time learning that mirror life is a thing and about its terrifying implications. I guess that's enough internet for today.
If mirror bacteria could spread and avoid the body's immune defences, why has it not already evolved?
because as it was never observed to date, it could be assumed it does not exists yet, as the the article makes it sounds like it's very artificial / constructed
Extremely relevant: https://www.hoover.org/research/biosecurity-really-strategy-...
See also “Your DietBet Destroyed the World” https://laprade.blog/your-dietbet-destroyed-the-world
One of my favourite short stories, it’s always stuck with me since it was posted to HN a few years ago.
Except in the world of "anything is possible," mirror life would have no food. All biomolecules are chiral.
On the other hand, the recommendations are all commonsense, and don't only apply to mirror life. For instance...
>>> 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.
This is something which has been thought about by those in the field, and the conclusion is that it’s probably possible to engineer an organism with an ample food supply,
e.g in this report
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ads9158
“ Achiral nutrients are available in quantities sufficient for growth of common bacteria in a wide range of natural environments, including within potential hosts (1). Further genetic engineering could provide mirror bacteria with pathways needed to consume abundant chiral nutrients such as d-glucose. Growth of mirror bacteria outside of the laboratory is therefore plausible. However, their interactions with other lifeforms would differ profoundly because of their reversed chirality.”
That was the belief - but it was found it was possible to grow E.coli on non-chiral molecules that are commonly available. The worry then is that the immune system will ignore the wrong-chirality infection.
See p.14 of https://stacks.stanford.edu/file/cv716pj4036/Technical%20Rep...
Incorrect. There are symmetric achiral molecules. Which can be consumed as food for both normal, and mirror life, thus creating competition for resources.
> Except in the world of "anything is possible," mirror life would have no food. All biomolecules are chiral.
Many essential biomolecules, nutrients, and amino acides are achiral (e.g. carbon dioxide, water, ammonium, phosphate, sulfate, glycine, and more). Mirror organisms could easily - at least in the realm of plausibility - function as autotrophs to convert sunlight, CO2, etc. into organic sugars, or extract energy from inorganic materials like hydrogen or iron paired with CO2.
Non-threat. Life has evolved and re-evolved thousands if not millions of times. One of those iterations would have been mirror biology if it were viable.
I thought they were concerned with people living on their devices. Like a mirror digital world. Too bad.
Ah, another edition of "Don't Create the Torment Nexus". Expect startups to race for a demo of mirror life soon!
I just assume the worst people in the world will have all the power and push for the most deranged reality possible, and somehow routinely get surprised when it’s twice as bad as I imagined.
Ad companies need mirror life to create mirror ads that can bypass ad blockers.
Welcome to the information age, where the perpetual hype brinkmanship knows no bounds.
Welcome to the automation age, where the bleeding edge gets ever bloodier
Leaving this here for no particular reason: https://www.rifters.com/real/STARFISH.htm#prelude
Would dextro bacteria even be able to infect levo based life? Or is this just some fearmongering about bio to give more power to the government?
Maybe it could, maybe it could not. If it could and we had no defence against, it could be disastrous, even world ending (for us). The precautionary principle applies.
I'm not sure what advantage you see to a government in restricting this.