> I no longer die from the flu and most of the common diseases have been all but wiped out. Hundreds of thousands of people die from seasonal flu every year, pandemic flu can kill 5% of population if let loose. SARS and the recent H7N1 flu all have pandemic potential, not realized only because of massive social response at patient isolation. Not only are we far from wiping out common diseases, a lot of them is making a comeback. Some scientists believe we are on the brink of post-antibiotics era. > People are using binary logic to program bacteria to kill disease. That is just not true. What synthetic biologists claim to be binary logic is basic common sense redefined. And the only reason they use bacteria is because they would be completely lost with an Eukaryotic cell. One should not mistake grant-hunting PR for reality. > If any organ in my body has a problem it can be replaced with a donor version. Many can be replaced with artificial versions, sometimes printed to my exact specifications. You are probably wording this wrong. No one is replacing brain for instance. And from my corner of world, considering how little we know about the inner working of the immune system, no way all organs can be replaced to individual specification. In fact I don't know any ORGAN can be fabricated to individual specs. There might be, but I would be staggered. > When was the last time in living memory that a person could read most works of science fiction and say "Yeah, with the right kind of funding, we can have that in 10 years"
> Stop lamenting the lack of progress and look around. The world is completely different than it was even five years ago. I don't think most science fictions are picturing a technical utopia nowdays. If anything, there is more than a little hand-wringing. Progress can look different to different people, and we are no longer so naive as to believe the unalloyed good of technology.
I share your belief progress is being made, but as always, haltingly, especially for their social impact. People here are generally technologists and want to believe in the intrinsic value of technology. But I bethink myself and remember Goethe's "Faust" and its caution against head-strong rush toward power and "progress."