That means I would mean that you actually have to build the requisite organisation to put the project into place. On the other hand writing petitions or even a referendum is easier.
Lastly I doubt that you can legally do this without special government permission in any country, so you need to engage the government anyway.
Right, but you could develop the capability. Asking the government for millions of dollars to do feasibility research is quite different from asking permission to push a button.
A more pragmatic approach might be to just do it and ask forgiveness instead. Mosquito-borne diseases kill millions each year. One child every 40 seconds*. Do you really fear a hostile response from eliminating the mosquito? You’d be irreproachable. Nobel prizes would be awarded.
(The more frightening risks are what would happen if this same technology were applied to, say, wheat, corn, or cows.)
A more pragmatic approach might be to just do it and ask forgiveness instead.
If you have a few million dollar yourself that might be true. On the other hand running a kickstarter campaign for this idea and then managing the whole thing is outside of my capabilities. On the other hand hosting a website and writing a petition isn’t.
I even have some media contacts from my time in Quantified Self.
I think that there are enough people who really hate mosquitos to produce enough political pressure if those people can be convinced that we can simply buy the result for 1€ of their tax money. They might even spent more money currently on anti-mosquito products.
Strategly organising such a project is also something very high leverage that a local effective altruism group can just do. A weekend of sitting together and writing the core texts. Then some time coordinating to get initialise the right way. You can answer a bunch of media queries with takes additional time but not that much. If the reporter wants to interact with you maybe 3-4 hours per news piece.
A bit more if you try cold call many reporter and most requests fail, but that time is optional and you can distribute it in a team.
It boggles my mind that running a kickstarter campaign in association with the bioengineers behind this is beyond your capabilities, but pushing legislation through the political process is not. Either you know more about the difficulties of running a science kickstarter than I do, or you greatly underestimate the difficulty of securing taxpayer financing.
you greatly underestimate the difficulty of securing taxpayer financing.
At a first step the goal isn’t directly securing funding but pushing the idea out to be public knowledge. Signing a petition has a lower barrier to entry then giving money for a kickstarter campaign.
It might very well be that after having invested month in the project no parliament shows any interest in funding it. I wouldn’t expect to get results that fast.
It might very well be that through the process enough capable individuals get interested in the project and the correct action is to run a kickstarter in a year.
Maybe it could be that it makes sense for the Swiss effective altruism folks to push the project as a Swiss referendum.
There no strong commitment on long term strategy by starting with petitions.
I’m pretty sure this amount could be raised on kickstarter.
That means I would mean that you actually have to build the requisite organisation to put the project into place. On the other hand writing petitions or even a referendum is easier.
Lastly I doubt that you can legally do this without special government permission in any country, so you need to engage the government anyway.
Right, but you could develop the capability. Asking the government for millions of dollars to do feasibility research is quite different from asking permission to push a button.
A more pragmatic approach might be to just do it and ask forgiveness instead. Mosquito-borne diseases kill millions each year. One child every 40 seconds*. Do you really fear a hostile response from eliminating the mosquito? You’d be irreproachable. Nobel prizes would be awarded.
(The more frightening risks are what would happen if this same technology were applied to, say, wheat, corn, or cows.)
http://www.mosquito.org/mosquito-borne-diseases
If you have a few million dollar yourself that might be true. On the other hand running a kickstarter campaign for this idea and then managing the whole thing is outside of my capabilities. On the other hand hosting a website and writing a petition isn’t.
I even have some media contacts from my time in Quantified Self.
I think that there are enough people who really hate mosquitos to produce enough political pressure if those people can be convinced that we can simply buy the result for 1€ of their tax money. They might even spent more money currently on anti-mosquito products.
Strategly organising such a project is also something very high leverage that a local effective altruism group can just do. A weekend of sitting together and writing the core texts. Then some time coordinating to get initialise the right way. You can answer a bunch of media queries with takes additional time but not that much. If the reporter wants to interact with you maybe 3-4 hours per news piece.
A bit more if you try cold call many reporter and most requests fail, but that time is optional and you can distribute it in a team.
It boggles my mind that running a kickstarter campaign in association with the bioengineers behind this is beyond your capabilities, but pushing legislation through the political process is not. Either you know more about the difficulties of running a science kickstarter than I do, or you greatly underestimate the difficulty of securing taxpayer financing.
At a first step the goal isn’t directly securing funding but pushing the idea out to be public knowledge. Signing a petition has a lower barrier to entry then giving money for a kickstarter campaign.
It might very well be that after having invested month in the project no parliament shows any interest in funding it. I wouldn’t expect to get results that fast.
It might very well be that through the process enough capable individuals get interested in the project and the correct action is to run a kickstarter in a year.
Maybe it could be that it makes sense for the Swiss effective altruism folks to push the project as a Swiss referendum.
There no strong commitment on long term strategy by starting with petitions.