Bio Technology

When attending DeVry, I had to take an economics class. This class let me play the day trader game. I invested in two things: Blue chip companies, or companies that slowly gained value (low risk, low reward), and bio tech, a relatively new industry. My bio tech stock grew, and my stock values served to indicate my phallic dimensions to my classmates.

But is bio technology really that new? I suppose that depends on how you look at it. If technology is described as the application of science, and science is described as beakers, pocket protectors, and the pursuit of grant money, then I suppose it is pretty new. If science is described as knowledge, then it's been around long before us or anyone we've known. They're just not fancy and glowing like we see in sci-fi.

I'm not sure what this does, but it's very scientific

One of our mundane yet extremely useful forms of bio-technology is the dog. We've had dogs around for a really long time. What's the 'science' form of a dog? Robots! Dogs can be bred for very specific tasks. They are born with the basic behaviors they are bred for right from the start, and can be trained to refine said behaviors, like herding sheep. You don't need a manufacturing plant to make more dogs, just a male and a female. The 'scientific' alternative looks way cool, but is pretty clumsy compared to a dumb dog. I doubt that thing has a lot of loyalty to the owner, and can run on water and kibble! I also doubt it's capable of self repair (:

Let's not forget yeast, with the magic powers of transmutation, reconfigures flour into dough that can be baked into bread. Bread is an incredibly cheap food. Try to think of how many restaurants you go to that use bread in some form or another.

A source of almost completely free food is deer. Deer just live out in the wild (there's lots of wild, just drive a few hours out of a metropolis and see how much nothing is out there). They eat and grow and make pretty lean meat. You don't need the middlemen that are farmers, distributors, butchers, and Burger King in your way. You're a tag, rifle, and bullet away from a lot of food. Is this humane? It's definitely more humane than cows in captivity. It's also pretty humane when you consider how many people deer kill via car accidents.

All of this is pretty much farmer/hunter stuff. I'm not giving up my trade as a software developer. Although hunting isn't a full-time job, so my work and hunting could be compatible. I just think it's pretty amazing that we've done a great job on harnessing nature itself.

Earth is a machine that produces energy and work in more forms that just fossil fuels, sunlight gathering, and atom splitting. Earth keeps a temperature, water, and air that allow for life. Biological things can accomplish quite a bit of work in an economic and physical sense. Just because we've found out really neat things to do with semi-conductors, metal, and plastic doesn't mean we can't appreciate the more mundane technological accomplishments of humanity.