Between 2008 and 2014, the US government funded nearly $ 1 billion in synthetic biology research. From 2012 onwards, most of the relevant funds came from the infamous DARPA and other military budgets. Why does the US army love synthetic biology so much (too)?
It has good purposes… It wants, for example, to eradicate malaria by eradicating mosquitoes. It targets also other insects that are seen as dangerous… How will it eliminate them? By placing “mosquito coils” everywhere? No. By developing (it declares…) genetic extermination techniques. So to speak: it will make them sterile so that they do not reproduce.
It sounds (and is) paranoid. One such genetic engineering program was recently tested in Brazil against mosquitoes that carry the Zika virus (there are relevant reports in older issues). The result was that mosquitoes mutated into a “superior” species!…
But why should a technological militaristic arm be interested in the genetic extermination of mosquitoes and other insects and not, say, the Department of Agriculture? It is obvious: mosquitoes are just the field of experimental testing. On the distant horizon (which every DARPA would like to reach as quickly as possible) are weapons. Genetic weapons.
If you hear someone promising you a “revolutionary solution” to this or that problem, brace yourselves. The higher in the division of labor, wealth and power, the more unlikely there are “good and compassionate” people.