What I'm Watching: Unnatural Selection-Netflix

Unnatural Selection is a 2019 TV documentary series that presents an overview of genetic engineering, focusing primarily on the DNA-editing technology of CRISPR. The documentary is from the perspective of scientists, corporations, and biohackers working from their homes.

I found the series inspiring and terrifying at the same time. The audacity of the biohackers was particularly disturbing and brought to mind one of my favorite Wired articles of all time: Why the Future Doesn't Need Us by Bill Joy. Joy's essay withstands the test of time. His cautionary words are just as relevant as they were 20 years ago.

"The 21st-century technologies—genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics (GNR)—are so powerful that they can spawn whole new classes of accidents and abuses. Most dangerously, for the first time, these accidents and abuses are widely within the reach of individuals or small groups. They will not require large facilities or rare raw materials. Knowledge alone will enable the use of them.

Thus, we have the possibility not just of weapons of mass destruction but of knowledge-enabled mass destruction (KMD), this destructiveness hugely amplified by the power of self-replication."

Joy's article should be mandatory reading for would-be CRISPR biohackers and others working with emerging technology.