uk_chris wrote:it would be perfrctly possible to program nanites to target a specific ethnic group as the dna of each ethnic group has certain markers that seperate them from the rest of the planet. the problem is that many people will carry markers for ethnic groups contrary to what the believe to be their own. i for example appear white european, but im actually part dutch, part anglo saxon, and part zulu though if i didn't know i was adopted i would never know i was mixed race. therefor i wouldn't know i carried those markers.
a truely scary application for this technology would be if it were programed to replicate itself. this would lead to the destruction of all life on earth, before the planet itself is turned into one big floating ball of nanites (grey goo theory).
the way in which this technology works is that it rearanges things at the sub atomic level. you could literaly thow some nanites into a bath tub full of wood, and if given the right commands they could turn that wood into gold, all by rearranging the molecules.
this technology is very real, and we're only a few decades away from it being more than just applied science in a lab. fucking scary.
I agree... I've always read the differences between DNA in men, women, and other races are the same as the differences between any two people.
Meaning, two white guys can have as much difference in DNA as a white guy and a Filipino woman.
What phenotypic trait is specifically "white"? Even "black" people can have very fair and white skin.
The devil is in the details... It seems feasible, but DNA isn't as neat and tidy as we might think... DNA doesn't correlate to the human conception of "race"... This is an abstraction that we as humans have imposed on ourselves...
I think it would be funny it "whitey" did invent such a weapon, and 20% of white people died, because they're not as white as they thought they were.
OK, I'm going to pierce my nipples and go drop some acid in Death Valley... Later!