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Comment by davcro | Hacker News Reader

Ex-bio engineer here. I do not think the DIY bio community exists or will ever gain traction. For one, I don't understand how someone could do labwork in their garage. Two I don't understand how people could afford mandatory tools like PCR machines. Three, the results from your labor don't seem tangible or exciting. At least with the computer hacking movement in the 60s and 70s you could hold a computer in your hand, you could see improvements in speed and performance as you tinkered. When programming, the output of your code would be realized relatively quickly. Bio is too complicated, too tedious, and too expensive to ever be fun or support a hacker community.

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Ex-plugboard operator here. I do not think the DIY computer community exists or will ever gain traction. For one, I don't understand how one could build a computer in their garage. Two, I don't understand how people could afford mandatory tools like hard vacuum pumps and tungsten furnaces. Three, the results from your labor don't seem tangible or exciting. At least with the car hacking movement in the '20s and '30s you could go for a drive around the town, you could see improvements in speed and performance as your tinkered. When doing mechanical work, the change in the sound of the engine would be realized as soon as you released the choke. Computers are too complicated to wire, too tedious to replace dead tubes and too expensive to ever be fun or support a hacker community.

Ex-engine mechanic here. I do not think the DIY car community exists or will ever gain traction. For one, I don't understand how anyone could build a car in their garage. Two, I don't understand how people could afford mandatory tools like a boiler welder or a metal lathe of required tolerance. Three, the results from your labor don't seem useful or safe. At least the the electric light movement in the '90s and '00s you could replace a dangerous and unreliable flame with a modern Edison Lamp. Why, you realize the benefits as quickly as you can toggle the switch lever. Steam engines are too complicated to tool, too dangerous to operate and too expensive to ever be fun or support a hacker community.

The difference between BioE is scale. Both cars and computers were built from large objects you could hold in your hand. BioE is at the nano and micro scale. Bio work requires a sterile environment, expensive hard to obtain chemicals, and fancy machines like atomic microscopes. In my mind Biohacking is as far fetched as nano-engineering and time travel.

Full disclosure: I have an undergraduate degree in bioengineering from 2008. I did a lot of lab work, but never worked in industry. I've went straight into web apps after graduating.

Everything becomes more convenient and cheaper with time (barring cataclysm). And just because something is a "large object" does not mean there is a huge amount of precision work involved.

I'll give another example. A telescope is big. But good luck grinding the mirror. You can do this by hand, by the way. To within a tenth of a micron. The really good guys actually do the final "grinding" with their bare thumb.

At one point, being an amateur astronomer required building your own telescope, entirely by hand. I have books that go through everything from grinding your own 6" mirror to making an equatorial mount. Then in the mid 1950s, companies started making decent small astronomy scopes. Oddly enough, a 6" scope today has the same price as a 6" scope in 1955 ($450), but that inflates to $3600 today.

Not too long ago I picked up a shoddy 4" scope for $10 at a yard sale. This would have been the worlds largest telescope, if you went back in time to 1800. How is that for progress?

The paraphernalia required to do professional work is always getting cheaper and easier to operate. Bio seems to be in a similar state as astronomy in 1930. The pros are using their huge 100" scopes on mountaintops. The amateurs are using homebrew 6" scopes. You've used the real deal, but that does not mean there isn't a lot of virgin territory within the reach of an amateur.

Tediousness is subjective, technology can reduce expenses, and complicated isn't really a problem. Solving complicated problems is part of what makes hacking fun.

I'd be more concerned with safety and that sort of thing.

Ah, but you're forgetting: with the rise of cheap, portable atom assemblers and reality compilers you can just construct your virus or your three-legged banana from the ground up.

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