by

John Wright

A Strategic Plan for Using the Fruits of Genetic Engineering

Let us start by getting beyond the hocus-pocus and anti-science aspects of the genetic engineering subject. First, the rate of progress in developing well understood and well controlled biological change to the human animal here is slow due to political issues within the USA, that are presumably a byproduct of regressive religious beliefs. Yes, there will be some resistance based on religious beliefs but the unspoken resistance comes from some of those individuals who enjoy genetic advantage today, i.e. some of the pseudo-intelligent wealthy. It is a control issue.

Given even the best of circumstances, with full funding and wide political acceptance, a good twenty to thirty years will elapse before we see much in the way of useable scientific results from genetic engineering. That is to say, a very large amount of fundamental research has yet to be done to even support projections like mine regarding elimination of physical weaknesses of all forms and significant increase of human intelligence. There is no hastening the process. Science moves along at its own pace, and throwing money at the challenge will not change much of anything. Simply think about all the monies collected or designated for cancer research between 1930 and 1990. Nothing truly useful happened until we started to understand cancer at a DNA level. If the state of knowledge is primitive and essential tools are not available, meaning they have yet to be discovered, all the money in the world will make no difference.

The tantalizing early results we see today regarding subjects like stem cell research can easily mislead us into thinking Nirvana is just around the corner. Well, I am not a pessimist, but I am a scientist, and I am trying to make clear that the most likely beneficiaries of genetic engineering research will be your grandchildren. That calls for the long view in planning and executing. Call it deferred gratification or any other term that means we have to wait. Yet, the prize is there for the taking if we apply our time and our money to building a better future for Humanity.

It is thus appropriate to speak of plans for using the fruits of genetic engineering from a strategic position, not from a tactical position. Any useful strategic approach must have a few fundamental aspects … 1) That there will be progress and use is absolutely given, for there is no force today or tomorrow that will deter humans from seeking immortality. After all, we have been using our religions for thousands of years in pursuit of that goal. It is intrinsic that we want to live forever and that we will do whatever we have to do to gain that condition. Time is simply not an issue, for we will progress until we get what we want, provided we see signs of regular progress. 2) The best way to assure progress is to have a stable world, economically, militarily and environmentally. We need the best cooperative work from researchers all over the planet, and one way to assure that environment is to stabilize our world in all aspects. That means many of the issues I addressed in Destiny and later articles about our physical environment and our control of population growth must be solved on behalf of giving us the necessary time to develop genetic engineering to its fullest extent.

Humanity has indeed come a long way since the cave dwellers. We owe almost all of our thanks to the creators among us who were and are the physical scientists, for it is only their work that has enabled Humanity to grow. Our social scientists and creators of ideologies have assisted by helping us to be organized in our better societies, but do realize that all the serious problems throughout history that are still with us today are those the ideologists and social scientists could not solve. Why? Because most humans are too ability limited to learn how to live kindly and sensibly together. We never have found a form of government or a religion or any other social structure that could deal effectively with human limitations, in a Humanitarian manner. The hard reality of reliable advancement coming almost in entirety from the physical sciences is difficult for those who are not scientists to accept, for we all want to feel important and relevant to the present and the future. Most of us are not, never have been, and never will be essential, unless we evolve genetically. For that to happen we have no choice but to assist scientific efforts on our behalf. A sound strategy for making that happen is to educate everyone on the planet about our utter dependence on the physical sciences for progress, such that ideologies and forms of government are seen as temporary necessary evils. Unfortunately, most believers in religions also have to discard their futile and self-serving cosmic beliefs.

Serious and productive research in genetic engineering is taking place at this time all over the planet. Even in the USA. Such legislation as we have seen that purports to limit scientific endeavor is simply lip service to religious zealots. The research is being carried on under wraps as many of the powerful want to enjoy the progress just as quickly as it can be made to happen. Yes, we are backward in failing to embrace stem cell research publicly and wholeheartedly. That will change. In the interim, it is most likely that the greatest advances will come from other nations. The USA is merely one ordinary player in this single most important drama in our entire history as a species.

This subject requires little comment in that legislation presumed to control election donations has already been passed … and bypassed. There is no way that the members of the Congress will be allowed to pass effective legislation to halt control of government by the wealthy. Yes, of course the Congress could do that, but can you picture the majority of the Senators and Representatives showing the courage to fall on the sword relative to their own jobs?

This means that the infection of our very seat of federal government is so severe that the only means to effect real change is through a federal level proposition system, which would give we ordinary voters the opportunity to define the laws that we want and force the Congress to take action. It turns out that proposition systems now are in place in many states. Why? You know the answer as well as I, and it is that the state legislatures have failed to act according to what the citizens have wanted, making the proposition approach the only viable way for the people (yes, I mean we common people) to force government to operate on our behalf.

To take this operation to the federal level requires a massive grass roots effort, far larger in size and trouble than anything we experienced in the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960’s. Homeland Security and all other available police agencies will be used to stop such a movement, violently. The missing link to the whole process, however, is causing the ordinary citizens to realize the impact of the chronically committed crimes of the Congress and the Executive branch and the Supreme Court that have undermined our financial security and damaged our environment, and then to take the necessary action. Thus, it is necessary to find an event trigger to initiate the process and breathe life into common citizen concern about government.

I do not know what that event trigger might be. All I do know is that failure to capture our sense of moral outrage will result in the continuing decline of our country and in particular in the lives of the ordinary citizens. A federal level proposition system is mandatory to redirect our own government to operate on our behalf. There is no other apparent choice that could or would be effective at this time in our history.

I regret that I lack the creative imagination and requisite knowledge to initiate such a movement. That reality forces me to halt this article subject, with the hope that other like-minded people with superior knowledge will start us on the path to a federal level proposition system.

Today is Election Day, November 2^nd, 2004. Both major political parties have huge teams of lawyers (in the thousands) ready to contest election results in any states where counting errors might swing the election to either side. The Florida debacle in the year 2000 election for president was the seeping pus that first brought our attention to the sad reality that even our votes are being discounted to force election results. Even our Supreme Court reneged.

At the time most of us figured that procedural problems and physical voting materials would be upgraded within four years to produce a fair result. Instead, we see new methods that lack auditability, and a continuing crooked "legal" process to deny individuals the right to vote. This is seen in not letting certain people register to vote and in discarding the votes of those names selected as people who might have been felons. The partisan efforts to disenfranchise poor Blacks are so visible and outrageous that no one should have any confidence in our election process, at a national level, not just in Florida.

This final abomination may be the needed trigger/precipitating event I mentioned earlier, but only if the election today results in massively contested results. On one hand I want that to happen to force change. On the other hand I foresee very serious destabilizing spillover problems if we fail to resolve discrepancies and miscounts quickly, which means that we could fail to elect a president in time for a January inauguration. If that happens, and if similar problems are identified regarding congressional seats and state elective positions, we could see the beginning of a civil war. I do not want a civil war, but effective election reform is mandatory on a massive national scale. Yes, unfortunately it may be necessary to have that war.

The USA is a minor part of world population. It is natural that common USA citizens would have primary interest in our life and only secondary interest in what happens outside our borders. Globalization in both commercial and governmental areas has changed our ability to think and especially to act as isolationists. Our federal government is experiencing major difficulty in exerting the will of our wealthy on the rest of the world. Indeed, with offshoring and major capital investment in countries like China and India, our government has essentially lost control of our wealthy individuals and corporations.

This change can have no other result than the rapid decline in the strength of the USA relative to other countries, both economically and militarily. The oligarchy of the wealthy is in itself subject to future attack from the governments of the nations receiving investment capital. It is simple self-interest that will cause all nations to operate against any perceived external force, economic or military.

Today I read the text of the recently released videotape prepared by Osama Bin Laden. His announced intent and identification of fundamental problems are so perfectly aligned with what I have been preaching for the past six years that I find myself wondering how long our leaders will be able to continue their deceptions both here and elsewhere on our planet? The immediate issue is theft of oil and resistance to us so doing. I am starting to see Al Qaida as a general-purpose organization that will soon appear throughout all continents as the voice of the angry disenfranchised citizens. This is truly a huge problem … for the wealthy leaders, the World Bank, etc. This is not what I had hoped would be our evolutionary path to the future.

What I am saying is that global colonization is being resisted effectively and that we are in the early stages of a global civil war, in which all the downtrodden countries will harbor what today we call terrorists. I hope that gets your immediate attention, for I just said that a major bomb is about to explode, that will have ugly consequences for a very long time, and I mean decades at the least.

The so called War on Terrorism that is presented to we citizens of the USA is so feeble regarding cause and effect that the truth will not stay hidden much longer. This situation will not lead to the world as we want it to be fifty years from now. There is simply too much negative momentum to ignore.

I suppose I have disappointed most of you by talking about present and pending ugly realities instead of constructing some magical approach for all of us to have a lovely world. That is too bad, for it is now obvious that any idealistic approach to the future cannot ignore forces that threaten to tear us apart. Even worse, those forces are not only what our leaders refer to as terrorism, but instead a very large war of the haves Vs the have-nots.

Surely you must see the irony in having such wonderful advances in science, and the promise of a dynamic future for Humanity, at precisely the time we are on the threshold of major global conflict. I shake my head in disappointment and disbelief that we could be so stupid as a species, and especially that our leaders could be so blind and so willing to repeat the worst parts of human history.