The anecdote in this post, about Fermi, Rabi and Szilard considering keeping the possibility of practical nuclear fission a secret, may shed some light on the subject. He thinks that some knowledge is dangerous enough that people who know it may reasonably want to keep it secret.
(much more recently, there has been some controversy about the publication of a way of obtaining a particularily infectious strain of a certain virus, but I can’t find any references for that right now)
(much more recently, there has been some controversy about the publication of a way of obtaining a particularily infectious strain of a certain virus, but I can’t find any references for that right now)
Groups led by Ron Fouchier of the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin–Madison created a storm in late 2011 when they artificially engineered potentially pandemic forms of the H5N1 avian flu virus. In January last year, researchers ended a voluntary 12-month moratorium on such gain-of-function flu research, which can increase the host range, transmissibility or virulence of viruses (see Nature 493, 460; 2013), and work resumed.
This month, Kawaoka’s group reported that it had engineered a de novo flu virus from wild-avian-flu-strain genes that coded for proteins similar to those in the 1918 pandemic virus (T. Watanabe Cell Host Microbe 15, 692–705; 2014). The researchers were able to make a virulent version that could transmit between ferrets, and they concluded that a 1918-like virus could therefore emerge from wild avian flu viruses.
Although fellow flu researcher professor Wendy Barclay at Imperial College said there was nothing wrong with doing the research in a BSL-2 lab: “In nature there is no containment. He’s only doing what happens in nature every day.” Which is true for ebola too.
I think that I remember reading an even better example about publishing scientific results that might have furthered the Nazis ability to produce a nuclear weapon in HPMOR, though I can’t recall where it was exactly. I found that example persuasive, but I considered it a distasteful necessity, not a desirable state of affairs. Hence my confusion at Brennan’s world, which I thought being set in the future of our world was perhaps post-Singularity, and therefore the epitome of human flourishing. Another commenter asked me if I wouldn’t enjoy the thought of being a super-villain, and I thought , um no, that would be terrible, so maybe there are some Mind Projection issues going on in both directions. I don’t know the distribution of people who would gain positive utility from a world of conspiracies, but I’m sure there would be a great deal of disutility with some proportion of current people with current minds. I can see where that world might provide challenge and interest for its inhabitants, but I remain highly skeptical that it’s a utilitarian optima. Using my current brain and assuming stable values, it actually seems pretty dystopian to me, but I’ll admit that’s a limited way to look at things.
I think that I remember reading an even better example about publishing scientific results that might have furthered the Nazis ability to produce a nuclear weapon in HPMOR, though I can’t recall where it was exactly.
Graphite as a neutron modulator, I believe. Ch. 85:
During World War II, there had been a project to sabotage the Nazi nuclear weapons program. Years earlier, Leo Szilard, the first person to realize the possibility of a fission chain reaction, had convinced Fermi not to publish the discovery that purified graphite was a cheap and effective neutron moderator. Fermi had wanted to publish, for the sake of the great international project of science, which was above nationalism. But Szilard had persuaded Rabi, and Fermi had abided by the majority vote of their tiny three-person conspiracy. And so, years later, the only neutron moderator the Nazis had known about was deuterium.
The anecdote in this post, about Fermi, Rabi and Szilard considering keeping the possibility of practical nuclear fission a secret, may shed some light on the subject. He thinks that some knowledge is dangerous enough that people who know it may reasonably want to keep it secret.
(much more recently, there has been some controversy about the publication of a way of obtaining a particularily infectious strain of a certain virus, but I can’t find any references for that right now)
This is a perennial issue, occurring in various forms relating to the preservation of viruses like smallpox, the sequencing of their genomes, and increasing their virulence. Looking in Google News for ‘virus research increase virulence’, it seems the most recent such research would be http://www.nature.com/news/biosafety-in-the-balance-1.15447 / http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/american-scientists-controversially-recreate-deadly-spanish-flu-virus-9529707.html :
EDIT: Sandberg provides an amazing quote on the topic: http://www.aleph.se/andart/archives/2014/07/if_nature_doesnt_do_containment_why_should_i.html
I think that I remember reading an even better example about publishing scientific results that might have furthered the Nazis ability to produce a nuclear weapon in HPMOR, though I can’t recall where it was exactly. I found that example persuasive, but I considered it a distasteful necessity, not a desirable state of affairs. Hence my confusion at Brennan’s world, which I thought being set in the future of our world was perhaps post-Singularity, and therefore the epitome of human flourishing. Another commenter asked me if I wouldn’t enjoy the thought of being a super-villain, and I thought , um no, that would be terrible, so maybe there are some Mind Projection issues going on in both directions. I don’t know the distribution of people who would gain positive utility from a world of conspiracies, but I’m sure there would be a great deal of disutility with some proportion of current people with current minds. I can see where that world might provide challenge and interest for its inhabitants, but I remain highly skeptical that it’s a utilitarian optima. Using my current brain and assuming stable values, it actually seems pretty dystopian to me, but I’ll admit that’s a limited way to look at things.
Graphite as a neutron modulator, I believe. Ch. 85: