Alright #biosecurity folks, let's talk about this article here. For reference: I was at the meeting the author mentions. I won't note other members because it was under Chatham House Rule. [THREAD] hindustantimes.com/analysis/the-w…
Let's start with the claims. First: Insect Allies does not violate the letter or spirit of the BTWC. Any more than, say, resistance into antimicrobial resistance does.
Also - the proposed research of Insect Allies does not work in nearly as sci-fi terms as the author describes.
Also - the proposed research of Insect Allies does not work in nearly as sci-fi terms as the author describes.
And the author, to be clear, should know that, since the Insect Allies PI who informed me, informed him *at the same time.*
That requires the author to engage in some next-level conspiratorial thinking to represent Insect Allies this way. Which is bad for #biosecurity
That requires the author to engage in some next-level conspiratorial thinking to represent Insect Allies this way. Which is bad for #biosecurity
Second: rather than encourage an arms race, the fact that @DARPA is interested in allied food supplies as well should indicate this project a) isn't a secret, b) isn't for unilateral defense.
Third: this project isn't going to destabilize the food security sector because Insect Allies DOESN'T WORK LIKE THAT. To quote a PI: "you'd need individual commandos attaching individual insects in tiny cages to individual plants. Not a very covert image."
What MIGHT destabilize relations is the author blowing up programs for no good reason, and creating panic in non-allied nations and undermining any hard-won trust that exists. We've seen that happened before: the Soviet BW program; the mind control experiments of the 60s, etc.
Fourth: there's no arms race because there is no weapon. We know that, because the PIs doing the research have acknowledged this. There's no weapon. There's not even a hint of a weapon. At best this enables grafts for crop protection to work better. For individual plants.
Fifth: this isn't a precision weapon. And if you wanted to use famine as a weapon, there are dozens of other options that are better suited.
There were some other questions the author asked me in Geneva. One is: why is DARPA keeping this secret? The answer is - they aren't. Blake, the PO, has been on podcasts and interviewed.
Is it less well known than DAROA SafeGenes ? Yes. But that's cos Kevin Esvelt never met a journalist he didn't want to talk to. DARPA doesn't control PI or PIO involvement with media. If, to paraphrase @rocza, we start judging program openness by PI media-savvy, we're in trouble
The author also asked me: why doesn't USDA do this research if it is really peaceful? That's because there are members of the US Congress who still believe USDA is a commie plot. The idea of non-DOD agencies getting DARPA-money is laughable. The politics doesn't work like that.
SHOULD US agencies outside DOD get that kind of research money? Absolutely. But they don't - and when Congress limits the use of DOD research funds they don't expand other agencies. See: the Mansfield amendment of 1973.
Should the US reckon with this? Absolutely. It's a shame, and bad for science that America is too small-minded to let other agencies have money, and require other agencies to walk on eggshells when the DOD can do whatever because something something support the troops.
It's also bad for confidence building. To claim that synbio (among others) is peaceful, and have the DOD be the most significant funder of synbio research in the US (see @DrToddOliver's work here wilsoncenter.org/publication/us… ) is a signalling nightmare. Something should be done.
But saying "the fetish for being 'apolitical' in the US policy community, and the continuing dominance of DOD in the life sciences, is a liability at an international level" is different from saying "DARPA is making secret magic insect bombs" or whatever the author is peddling.
The argument about Insect Allies, and about the dominance of military funding in the current US research climate are different arguments. The fact the author is willfully dissembling to make his point is a shame. Why do I know he's dissembling? Because I told him—I was there.
No-one in the #1972BWC community should be supporting this. Not a single one. It's a shame to even pretend this is an issue of this kind, when we could be focussing on other pressing problems (including signaling and confidence building, but far from limited to that.)
