
Darpa Is Making Insects That Can Deliver Bioweapons, Scientists Claim - prostoalex
https://www.newsweek.com/darpa-biological-weapons-insects-scientists-warn-1152834
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philipkglass
The same capabilities that are necessary to test defenses against chemical and
biological attacks also prepare the way for offensive applications. If party A
doesn't trust B, they are naturally wary of B's calls for A to halt defensive
research. If B doesn't trust A, they are naturally wary that said "defensive"
research is merely a precursor to or cover for weaponization. Party Z may
later come along and use the research of parties A-Y to their own ends (e.g.
Aum Shinrikyo cribbing the chemistry of nerve agents from open chemistry
literature, poisoning people for their own weird reasons.)

I personally don't think that DARPA actually wants famine-causing bioweapons.
The US has a large nuclear arsenal should it ever want to inflict mass
destruction on the world, and its incentives align against making mass
destruction cheaper or more accessible. But I can also understand why
countries the US is hostile to may be less assured than I am. I can also
understand the point of critics who worry that if this sort of research
becomes normal and openly published, results may be later weaponized by _some_
group, maybe a group that's not even a nation state.

If you're interested in issues like this, I can recommend the book "A Higher
Form of Killing: The Secret History of Chemical and Biological Warfare" by
Robert Harris and Jeremy Paxman. Caveats: I found some technical errors in
areas where I have knowledge (chemistry). It goes beyond documented history
into speculation in places. But it's what first introduced me to the
complicated issues around trust and Janus-like defensive-offensive R&D in this
area; those have remained useful insights.

~~~
bigmonads
Significant difference is that nuclear weapons are not deniable, bioweapons
are.

The United States (and allies) have already used rain seeding, river damns,
and a number of other techniques for damaging adversary nation's economic and
agricultural abilities. It's even a relatively common practice in geopolitics
(India uses the Indus river as a carrot/stick against Pakistan).

~~~
forapurpose
> The United States (and allies) have already used rain seeding, river damns,
> and a number of other techniques for damaging adversary nation's economic
> and agricultural abilities.

Would you provide more information in the form of a reliable source?

~~~
zorkw4rg
"Operation Popeye (Project Controlled Weather Popeye / Motorpool /
Intermediary-Compatriot) was a highly classified weather modification program
in Southeast Asia during 1967–1972. The cloud seeding operation during the
Vietnam War ran from March 20, 1967 until July 5, 1972 in an attempt to extend
the monsoon season." [1]

"After World War II, the U.S. military bombed dams in North Korea and North
Vietnam to destroy the communist governments’ electricity and irrigation
infrastructure. This was, until the Iran-Iraq War, the final occurrence of
such soggy tactics. In 1977 the Geneva Conventions specifically outlawed the
targeting of water infrastructure in wartime." [2]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Popeye](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Popeye)
[2] [https://medium.com/war-is-boring/dam-
warfare-3da6ee24518a](https://medium.com/war-is-boring/dam-
warfare-3da6ee24518a)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Vietnam%27s_dikes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Vietnam%27s_dikes)

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pjmorris
Who spends more? DARPA on weaponized insects, or The Gates Foundation on
eradicating malaria by controlling mosquitos?

~~~
partycoder
Malaria is the reason settler colonialism failed in Africa. If you remove
malaria, Africa will be inevitably invaded by colonial settlers.

~~~
dmichulke
To substantiate your point - that's also what I read (specifically regarding
sub-saharan Africa). South Africa is the only exception due to it being much
more elevated.

Source: [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Prisoners-Geography-Everything-
Glob...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Prisoners-Geography-Everything-Global-
Politics/dp/1783961414)

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MichaelMoser123
Does this funding contradict the biological weapons treaty?
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_Weapons_Conventio...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_Weapons_Convention)

I got it - the system could be used in multiple ways so that the weapons
aspect is deniable.

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emernic
Trying to stop any synthetic biology research that might have military
applications is like trying to stop fission research in the late 1930s.

Rather than attempting to stifle research, we need to start thinking about how
we regulate, detect, and defend against potential threats. DARPA's synbio
research is at least mostly carried out in academic labs (which have a strong
incentive to publicize their work).

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kleopullin
Really? How many insects to genetically modify the Ukraine's wheat? I, too,
wonder what they're doing.

This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a buzz.

~~~
ryanhuff
With so many crops engineered to withstand a particular herbicide like
glyphosate, how likely is it that this standardization also creates a single
bio profile that can be targeted?

~~~
killjoywashere
If a bacteria gains antibiotic resistance, we declare the bug stronger and
ourselves vulnerable. If we make wheat resistant to an herbicide, we declare
it weaker and ourselves vulnerable.

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devoply
If you can make insects that can deliver viruses to save plants you can use
insects to destroy food supplies of "enemies" and cause famine.

~~~
hourislate
About 18-20 years ago I remember reading a thread where a poster basically
said (as a counter to China) that the US has developed a blight that could
basically wipe out all the rice in the world. It would be deployed via
Mosquito and according to the poster had the ability to spread quickly and
leave over 3 billion people without their main staple of food. Not a single
shot would need to be fired. Within 6 months half the worlds population would
be gone.

I figure a day where this will be a reality is completely possible if not
already.

Quite disturbing....

~~~
clear_dg
> Within 6 months half the worlds population would be gone.

Within 6 months, a country with nuclear weapons is forced in a desperate
situation. What could go wrong?

Is there really a point to such a scenario between nuclear powers? It doesn't
make much sense to me. The US might as well launch all its warheads from the
start.

~~~
fapjacks
Of course, it's about plausible deniability and logistics: You can't launch
your nuclear arsenal and then look deadpan at the camera and shrug your
shoulders. But killing a third of the world's population with insects sounds
so unbelievable that there would be skepticism even if the President held a
news conference and claimed responsibility right into the microphone.

~~~
clear_dg
Who cares about deniability or skepticism in an apocalyptic scenario as
described? Do you really think cool heads would prevail if China was put in a
such a situation? Chaos, and desperate people would be the result, with a
nuclear arsenal in the mix. And they would, most likely, blame whoever they
want, proofs and rationality be damned.

Keep in mind, I don't deny that the military can find uses for what the
article describes. But, to go from this, to deliberately provoking WW3 by
massively launching such a weapon on China is suicide. It would provoke a
counter-attack, guaranteed, no matter the political arguments.

Plausible deniability is fine when the targeted countries can't counter-
attack, or the matter is relatively minor. But, directly against China and
with world-ending repercussions? No way.

~~~
fapjacks
Maybe. But maybe not. Stranger things have happened in history, and they
really have. I'm going to go out on a limb here with some wildly uninformed
speculation, but the people running the show in the PRC aren't normies. They
are people that have clawed their way to the top of a ruthless pyramid of
power. Or were raised from birth by people who clawed their way to the top.
Either way, they're at the top for a reason. Look at China's communist
history, and you'll see a fairly consistent, running theme of systemic
paranoia -- sometimes thinly-veiled, sometimes outright -- that occasionally
spirals into non-trivial political purges. History is full of examples of plot
twists even more bizarre-sounding than this, and I am far less certain than
you are that the perceived perpetrator(s) of such a targeted depopulation
event would be so clear cut to the Politburo.

All that aside and more importantly, after one _really bad_ crop failure, the
PRC will have more existential problems on its plate than who gets the blame.

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noobermin
How is this a good idea? How do you know the insects you make won't get out
and kill you and your whole army?

~~~
fucking_tragedy
I mean, imagine Dr. Strangelove, but with bugs instead of bombs.

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vfclists
"Worst Movies of All Time: These Films Got 0 Percent on Rotten Tomatoes"

"The 100 Best Films of All Time, According to Critics"

"The 25 Most Powerful Passports in the World"

"50 Surprising Facts About Queen Elizabeth II"

Is this news? Newsweek seems to have gone totally down the bog.

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YeGoblynQueenne
Link to the Science editorial:

[http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/10/crop-protecting-
insec...](http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/10/crop-protecting-insects-
could-be-turned-bioweapons-critics-warn)

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Ritsuko_akagi
this is the beginning of the end

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2918273756663
Before I saw the article, I was thinking they were going to talk about
SHRIMP[0] (SHort-Range Independent Microrobotic Platforms)

It's the upcoming DARPA Challenge for design improvements in insect-scale
robotics. This includes miniature actuators, efficient and extremely compact
high voltage DC-to-DC power converters to drive those small actuators with
large forces, denser batteries, then putting everything together in autonomous
systems.

[0]
[https://www.darpa.mil/attachments/SHRIMP_Proposers_Day_DIST_...](https://www.darpa.mil/attachments/SHRIMP_Proposers_Day_DIST_A_FINAL_v2_PostingtoBAA.pdf)

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compelledToken
I kind of developed a hunch that maybe the Zika outbreak might've been cooked
up in some lab in Siberia or Mongolia, and got dumped into South America as a
warning shot. But honestly, who knows?

Everything feels like the rumblings of full-spectrum warfare these days.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full-
spectrum_dominance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full-spectrum_dominance)

~~~
ispiansclsda
Humans literally are not good enough at biochemistry to have created Zika.

