[frankinstien]

After reading about optogenetics and how modifying the genetics of an animal to allow for the monitoring and manipulation of its neurons and how it can even be region-specific has got me a little worried. Where the FDA did approve a gene therapy in 2017 that used a modified HIV virus to deliver a gene that replaced a defective gene in neurons for a brain disorder called Adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD). It works in a scary way, the virus isn't replacing a gene in the brain but a defective gene in the bone marrow. This then produces genetically cured immune cells that then end up in the brain and do their magic!

What better bioweapon can you devise where it doesn't cause any adverse symptoms and is design to spread no differently than influenza. Where the gene being modified works similarly to the opsin genes used in optogenetics only the stimulus isn't light but could be radio or maybe it could be triggered by a specific auditory or video sequence or pattern that causes the gene to express itself where people could then be manipulated or monitored! I mean what better spy could you have but one that doesn't even know they are a spy!? Imagine going to war with Russia or China and we think because we have the best kinetic weapons we'll win but they just flip a switch and we all just freeze.

What if some extraterrestrial civilization has already modified us genetically for monitoring and/or manipulating us just as if we were drones or robots?..

[silent one]

You need to post your own work instead of always posting other peoples.

[HS]

Here goes my usual crazy theory. If malicious, an extra-terrestrial attempt at such powerful control seems short sighted, they should know better than to give such a powerful tool to a rapidly developing species. It would be like strapping fusion bombs to people. Once we discovered them it would allow us to make our own fusion bombs, and then reverse engineer fusion reactors. Once we discovered such genetic manipulation mechanisms within ourselves, it’s a matter of time before we’d adapt them to our own purposes.

If some extra-terrestrial civilization did this, they would probably be trying to speed up our rate of technological progress for some reason. I would guess in the hopes of a symbiotic relationship in the future; the cosmos may present bigger problems and challenges to overcome than we are aware of, and other intelligent species may be trying to gather/create allies to prepare for such events.

[silent one]

I figure its already like that today with atomic bombs being able to be built by anyone.  (Pakistan is a nuclear power.)  So what difference will it make,  just more weapons of mass destruction to pick from.

[frankinstien]

You need to post your own work instead of always posting other peoples.

Well...To Quote Sir Issac Newton:

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants"

I'm just trying to climb those shoulders to get a better view...

[frankinstien]

Here goes my usual crazy theory. If malicious, an extra-terrestrial attempt at such powerful control seems short sighted, they should know better than to give such a powerful tool to a rapidly developing species. It would be like strapping fusion bombs to people. Once we discovered them it would allow us to make our own fusion bombs, and then reverse engineer fusion reactors. Once we discovered such genetic manipulation mechanisms within ourselves, it’s a matter of time before we’d adapt them to our own purposes.

If some extra-terrestrial civilization did this, they would probably be trying to speed up our rate of technological progress for some reason. I would guess in the hopes of a symbiotic relationship in the future; the cosmos may present bigger problems and challenges to overcome than we are aware of, and other intelligent species may be trying to gather/create allies to prepare for such events.

Well the idea is that we really wouldn't know we have been manipulated since we would conclude our genetic material hasn't been tampered with.  The aliens are just doing their standard approach to monitoring and experimenting on earthly specimens, it would be no different than how we tag animals to monitor them in the wild.

[frankinstien]

I figure its already like that today with atomic bombs being able to be built by anyone.  (Pakistan is a nuclear power.)  So what difference will it make,  just more weapons of mass destruction to pick from.

I agree with you and because of protections and regulations on non-human-primates (NHP) and the fact that currently, we don't know what human genes we can apply ospin genes to, prevents the US from developing such technology. But in Asia, where no such regulations or protections for NHPs they are developing such technology that could be used for human applications.

[WriterOfMinds]

Well the idea is that we really wouldn't know we have been manipulated since we would conclude our genetic material hasn't been tampered with.

This is starting to sound similar to the Simulation Hypothesis -- in the sense of being neither provable nor disprovable. At some point, you have to accept that you can't guarantee your mind is your own -- but also, if you have no evidence of tampering and couldn't possibly find any, there's zero point in worrying about it.

Does the possibility that aliens are manipulating you stand to affect your behavior at all? I can't see how it would affect mine. If my current behavior doesn't reflect the "real me," I still can't correct it, because I have no way of discovering what the "real me" is like.

[frankinstien]

Does the possibility that aliens are manipulating you stand to affect your behavior at all? I can't see how it would affect mine. If my current behavior doesn't reflect the "real me," I still can't correct it, because I have no way of discovering what the "real me" is like.

Precisely why such an approach would be used, you don't know you're being monitored or manipulated so you aren't adapting to the interference or monitoring, you just act out naturally.