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I fully concur that he's just saying the same thing over and over again.

He isn't completely crying wolf. The police state is running around like a chicken with its head cut off. Witness the situation with Steve Kurtz who was arrested for growing bacteria at home (for the purpose of creating art works). Quick everyone — run out and dump clorox on your compost heap [lots of bacteria there] (but wait that might violate some obscure EPA regulation involving ground water pollution…).

The bottom line (IMO) is that we have over-reaction where it isn't going to do much good and under-reaction where it is really needed (e.g. solutions like good vaccines and antibiotics for known biohazards).

Also: paying insurance is bound to be quite costly for bona-fide researchers. After all, how do you calculate the risks? Surely the insurance-companies will try and play it safe, asking 'premium' prices to cover their asses… Sooo… Logical conclusion? Do your high-risk stuff secretly, and save a lot of dough. If you find a marketable product, claim you found it accidentialy under *another* but harmlessly looking 'strawman-fits-all' project, that you set up and are paying a lot less insurance for… Secrecy, guild-forming… Is asking for troubles. I'd rather know what 'they' are up to, thank you very much.

I was thinking about the subject of 'insurance' against catastrophic technology… (if such a thing is even possible)

It seems to me that this would hinder research, putting the more advanced, and potentially dangerous, technologies into the hands of, yet again, those who aren't ethically or morally aligned to the betterment of the rest of us. Similar to the idea that gun control means only the criminals have guns, and that actually raises the crime rate — take away the money being used for research from responsible organizations and we might be putting the most devastating 'gun' of all into the hands of people who may not be capable of even understanding what they're aiming at before they pull the trigger. Or worse, understanding, and, like Kadamose has so pointedly espoused, doing it anyway.

Am I over-reacting? Does doing what Joy described defeat an imporant need to do our best to ensure the proper evolution of these technologies within global society?

I get the feeling that Bill Joy is riding on top of a movement of ignorant and fearful perspectives and popular beliefs — ones largely imprinted on the world's population through the realm of entertainment and fiction. He first joined the movement, or wave, a few years ago, and I believe that he liked the consequential 'ride into popular culture', if you will, and since has been trying to get back to the point he found himself at at that time. To me, and maybe only me, it looks like he's simply saying the same thing over and over, in a vain attempt to return to that popular position. I've seen no real progress from him towards logical or reasonable answers to his crusade against deregulation.

I haven't been interested enough in Joy's caterwauling to do any serious research into WHO he actually is, but I also don't think it matters. Until he joins the world's population of people who actually *think* (like Foresight) instead of just *react*, he's simply whining and doing nobody any good.

In any case… There are extremists like Kadamose, who most of the time seem to be writing to read their own words, and then there are responsible, thoughtful, individuals who come together and try to tackle the problems we face in the future, such as Foresight.

I happen to think Joy is more like Kadamose, if not quite as extreme. I myself am more like those of Foresight.

The question I ask myself now is: Does it matter which is in the majority?

And: How much more crying wolf can Joy do before people simply ignore him?

Well, it's quite true that most information can't be kept a secret – but the US military private sector has done a pretty good job at keeping most of its latest technology completely classified. For instance, all these 'UFO' sightings that people from all over the world have seen, and even tape recorded, are simply new, and highly secret, aircraft created by the evil world power known as Big Brother.

One could easily dismiss this claim and ask – 'Why are they not using this new technology for warfare?' That answer is simple. Would you really want the enemy, or the entire world, to know about your ace in the hole? No – this technology will only reveal itself when the US government is threatened by a hostile takeover by another country, or by the enemy within.

Such things are considered to be nonsense – even among the scientific community (those who aren't actively participating, anyway) – but think about it for a moment. If we are capable of creating the 'technology of the gods' (i.e. Nanotechnology), then we 'were/are' also most capable of creating aircraft that flies with no audible sound and does not fly using today's current physics.

As for Bill Joy – I do not consider him to be a neo-luddite. He uses and embraces technology – he's just one of those who are not prepared for the massive flow of information and exponential technological progress we will be experiencing in less than 8 years from now. I'm sure if he had his way, he would prefer that 'technological progress' were put into stasis and simply keep things the way they are now…forever. Most people hate change, and the change that is coming is going to be the biggest change mankind has ever gone through. Bill Joy is just scared, and has every right to be – unpredictability and unknown variables are always something to be concerned about. It doesn't make him a bad guy though – therefore, the malice towards him should be redirected elsewhere.

What Joy fails to comprehend is that attempts to suppress the spread of knowledge are doomed to failure. The patenting system is explicitly setup to allow the spread of knowledge. The copyright system is structured along similar lines though somewhat slower about making knowledge free.

Just to prevent the success of any neo-luddites I downloaded the complete descriptions of 3 plague bacteria and one influenza virus tonight (I'm working on copies of the anthrax bacteria as well). That way if the "thought police" mistakenly adopt the Joy perspective there will still be sources for the information. Interestingly Joy seems to fail to recognize that this is not a "U.S." or "1st World" only topic. The most recent copy of a Yersinia pestis (plague) genome submitted to the Genbank public database came from "Academy of Military Medical Sciences, The Institute of Microbiology and Epidemiology, China".

The information and methods for producing the information cannot be kept secret. The body of knowledge the scientific/engineering public at large has is simply too great to suppress its recreation. How can the regulation of commercial DNA sequencers be a successful deterrent to knowledge generation if the primary components that you need to manufacture them can be extracted from CD-ROM or DVD players/writers (lasers) and digital cameras (CCDs)?

The only way to resolve the problem is to understand what defenses are necessary and engineer them before the hazards present themselves.