The New Librarians

[Scott Badger]

jporter wrote:
> 
> There is a whole new breed of librarian and a new library in the making.
> Clinton's limp wristed sanctions against human cloning are meaningless. The
> genetic information curently being harvested, and the gene manipulating
> tools and techniques being developed, portend an interlocking network of
> bio-data bureaucracies, which threaten to redefine civil liberties. Current
> tests of bodily fluids for subversive compounds are intimidating, but
> nothing compared with the ability to plug a subject's genetic profile into
> a huge, cross-referenced data base. Not just talking about the joint
> academic/industrial effort known as, "The Human Genome Project," but
> something a whole lot more sinister than that.
> 
> The ability to read fingerprints or retinas like bar codes is already being
> marketed. The ability to scan the DNA from a few buccal squam's, or other
> easily accessible samples, for a growing number of indentified traits,
> "defects," etc., is rapidly becoming marketable, and will become more
> attractive as the data base and "markers" become more refined. (Why hire
> someone with a tendency toward unprofitable behavior, predicted by their
> "genescreen," let alone sell them health or life insurance?).
> 
>  Laws are useless to protect against the temptation represented by this
> type of power, except that they serve to push the technology into the
> waiting arms of the non-civilian sector, guarding "our" national security.
> The technology of dominance and control is taking on a life of its own. But
> our legal system is in chaos concerning these issues- Who has jurisdiction,
> the states? the feds? The technology can easily be perfected in third world
> sweatshops by multi-nationals. There are a million loopholes. At the same
> time, the capacity of the State's gulag continues to grow, while the courts
> clear away the annoying underbrush of due process, first in the name of
> protecting us from dangerous sex and serial offenders, and then what?
> 
>  The ability to "upgrade" certain sections of a subject's "code," in
> general, or in isolated organs, is also being perfected. This is preceding
> apace. It will not only be used to fight disease, but also to enhance
> various characteristics of those who can afford "genoplasty." There is
> already a flourishing world wide black market for growth hormone, a crude
> non-genetic answer to shortness. The newer much more specific enhancements
> to many other areas and systems, including the cognitive, will be
> irresistable to the wealthy. It is clear already that the more priviledged
> classes of the west are prepared to allow the profit motive to keep life
> sustaining therapies, for H.I.V. e.g., beyond the reach of those who cannot
> afford "the margin." This will be even more likely for genetic and other
> types of sophisticated performance enhancers.  As the number of performance
> enhancing and life prolonging interventions really begins to proliferate,
> speciation is a real possiblity. So much easier to dominate and control
> another species, isn't it?
> 
>  Not science fiction, this. The technologies of domination and control are
> way beyond what most foax realize. Some are here now. Given what everybody
> on the list seems to agree on: rationality, common sense and paranoia are
> all symptoms of the same human need, would it be stretching things too far
> to assume that there are "departments" concerned with the integration and
> use of (or the defense against) these techniques for the purposes of
> profit?
> 
> And you're worried about a little marijuana, 'twas truly the good old days.
> 
> jody


Say,... could the mapping and reduction of this new landscape, and the
emerging possibilities of extended forms of control, be a wee bit
analagous to the efforts of Mason & Dixon and their ilk?