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1996

So you mean you can hire cheap?

Couple that with the recent fast technological advances (ex: rejuvenating stem cells), the many possible applications, cheap capital, and I see all the ingredients for a boom.

Just like the 2000s were about internet and the 2010s were about fintech and cryptos, the 2020s may be about biohacking

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The problem is that the aforementioned advances tend to often be 1) Patent encumbered, 2) Difficult to scale and put into production i.e. works only under very specific conditions in the lab with very exact set of dependencies required. 3) FDA the ultimate gatekeeper. There are multiple ways to improve upon (2) but the first and last can only be changed through legislation and the biotechnology establishment is perfectly happy with the status quo (yay for regulatory capture and rentseeking). Credentialism is also a major problem, good luck raising funding without a graduate degree (or several).

I (do not) look forward to seeing the results of "failing fast" here. The conspiracy theorists are convinced that this is how we got to COVID19 in the first place, and while I'm not really convinced there, I really do not enjoy thinking about the potential of such technology to create bioweapons of a scale never seen before.

Definitely don't look up 'gene drive' then :)

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