[-empyre-] Re: life, dna

On Oct 7, 2007, at 9:00 PM, empyre-request@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au wrote:

There is no problem with the below as long as the new forms of life have
the same rights as earlier and subsequent versions. Just as recent
govenment thinktank studies have accepted that intelligent machines will
require the same citizenship rights as human beings, similarly
'artificial life' will require the same rights as normally evolved life,
starting with notions of equality and emancipation.

Sure, but think about this for more than a second... which human beings? Whose rights are to be comparatively used here?
The model that Venter represents has been party to the denial of rights to already existing beings across the world. That's why capital wants novel beings... to give them the rights it has denied those already alive? Just tell the nanobots to get in line... behind the poor, domesticated animals and anything living over a source of fuel.
It's totally disturbing to witness the speculative discussions of "ethics" regarding these developments, personally. Ethics is the professionalization of violence. The development of synthetic genomics is a political reality that doesn't care about theological and philosophical "concerns" regarding what "humanity" is, anymore than capital cares about that same "humanity" it regularly considers expendable.
In all honesty, these developments may offer a hope for dealing with the energy/climate crisis... but i don't, for a second, imagine it to be liberatory to the oppressed. At best (without the kinds of regulatory work called for by the ETC Group), it might allow for the struggle against oppression to continue under ever more brutal conditions.
The iDC list recently had a discussion about the suicides by Indian farmers and copyright law being shaped in Iraq that is creating similar conditions as it has in India - good for Monsanto, bad for farmers (to simplify). If we want to look to the "rights" that speculative capitalists/technofuturists like Venter assign to "humans", there's a worrying example.
On another, less ranting note, in terms of this discussion, i'd recommend Jackie Steven's "Symbolic Matter: DNA and Other Linguistic Stuff"
http://www.jacquelinestevens.org/articlesessays.html
Lots of stuff by Richard Lewontin
http://www.gene-watch.org/genewatch/articles/16-4lewontin.html
(also have enjoyed Judith's perspectives here! - and assuming that everyone took note of Eugene's excellent 2 books on genomics/ bioinformatics)
best,
ryan

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