Genetics

This article is likely to be all over the place
...you have been warned. 

Not owning a television has done wonders for my mind, body and soul. It has also, however, brought something to my attention: if the news does not come to me, I do not go to it. Ergo, I am grotesquely under-informed. And so, when someone comes up to me and tells me about something that has grown stale and even crumbled off the "current events" page, there is nothing left for me to do but process it via a blog entry. Because if I have not been watching the news/current events actively, that also means that I have not been afforded the luxury of hearing the story bit by bit, "as it develops". I hear it by way of a big chunk, and right in the damn middle of it. No warning. No hint. No sequence of mornings in the comfort of my own kitchen where I quietly shake my head and scoff over my cup of Joe.

As I understand, there are (and have been) parties that have created (and will, doubtlessly continue to create) their very own DNA.

Okay, wait, by that I don't mean like... hair. They are not growing their own hair on their heads, as we all do. Well, most of us. Well, they probably are growing their own hair on their head. What I mean to say is that there are actual scientists and science-smart individuals who are creating original gene sequences. And then what?? Well it's America, so... naturally the aforementioned decided it was their duty/right to patent these creations.

Genes! Their patenting genes!

What world am I living in (at the risk of sounding like the first grandmother to hear about something really fantastic, like condoms)?? When will we ever stop. Will we ever stop. Which, I mean, I shouldn't even ask at this point. Because "NO", obviously. It's all in the pattern. The pattern is the same, the land we explore is new, and so; are the results. So we get to be shallowly comforted by recognizing the same dots and dashes while absolutely shitting our pants at the impending unknown. Has nobody watched REPO! The Genetic Opera? ...Again, I already know the answer to that is mostly "no". Shame. A real gem, that.

These science-types claim that this exercise is for the good of us; discovery, control of one's destiny and - my personal favorite - "cancer research". Good god. It's all cancer research, isn't it? Because the moment we hear that, we are pigeon-holed into supporting it. (Don't support the research? Don't support the cure.) And at the risk of sounding like additional people I would rather not sound like; it's a conspiracy! Okay, maybe not that extreme, but it certainly doesn't seem like the truth. After all, when was the last time someone with money did something really good for a group of strangers for no reason? Did you say "never"? Here's your gold star.

And I'm not expecting people to cure cancer, even, out of the good of their hearts. I expect them to do it for the money. And I'm sort of fine with that. But when it comes at the price of mass-hysteria, mass-mutilation or mass-destruction, I take issue with it. Try and imagine a life where the government literally owns you. Down to your genes. You didn't even like living under your parents' reign. This would be a nightmare. Or is it, perhaps, that eventually the owned individual will not even think twice about being owned. Because they have been designed that way. Some trillionaire's idea of a utopian society. And what will he design it for? Well, for money, what else?