[LINK] ABC: 'Cyborg rights 'need debating now''

[stephen at melbpc.org.au]

Hello Roger, and all,

I know it will be way beyond the baliwick of the upcoming ISTS conference,
but extending these thoughts re the rights of future cyborgs, my thoughts
are of concern not so much for life ASSISTED by technology, but, for life
CREATED by technology.

You quote,

"Dr Michael.. points out that (the maker) alone decides how his chip is 
used. She harbours concerns that microchips implanted by corporations 
offer little control for other implantees, particularly chips capable of 
storing greater amounts of information. "The dangers definitely outweigh 
the benefits with regard to commercialised applications," she says.

Taking this further, in a world that encourages genetic engineering in
old-disused-greenhouses, for one semester courses in American community 
colleges, therefore, what are the rights for life created by technology? 

Not only rights of a life created, but also the rights of the rest of us?

For instance:

'Baby Steps to New Life-Forms' May 27, 2010, 9:23 pm 
<http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/27/baby-steps-to-new-life-
forms/>

"Intelligent design. That’s one goal of synthetic biology, a field that 
was catapulted into the news last week with the announcement that a group 
of biologists had manufactured a genome that exists nowhere in nature and 
inserted it into a bacterial cell. The dream is that, one day, we’ll be 
able to sit and think about what sort of life-form we’d like to make — 
and then design and build it in much the same way we make a bridge or a 
car. This would allow us to create a "second nature" — a set of organisms 
that use a different genetic language, and cannot readily interact with 
the life-forms that evolved in the wild."

'Intelligent' design/engineering? Haha .. it's design by suck-it-and-see. 

Can anyone else see, 'killer, and un-killable, bacteria' sweeping earth?

Anyway as i said created-life is way beyond the rights of implanted life
but Roger, one hopes you may slip a warning in there in your ISTS speech?


Cheers,
Stephen