Anti-Unabomber Manifesto

From: telical@htp.net (Robert Pearson)
Date: Thu, 2 Nov 1995 20:10:09 -0500
Organization: ParaMind Brainstorming Software

Anti-Unabomber Manifesto

Preface

This work isn't the result of reading the Unabomber's Manifesto, but
was started in back in late 1985 when I came up with the phrase "let's
grow animal vegetables instead of vegetable animals."  Sometime in July
I saw that it might have a renewed interest due to the press-coverage
of the Unabomber.  I'm busy with my ParaMind project
(http://www.eskimo.com/~telical/para.html), but at E. Stephen Mack's
request I'm submitting this manifesto.

Only some areas of the U.M. are covered, but it shows some faults in
his thinking when discussing some aspects of what future technology may
be like.  I'm also responsible for the Virtuist Manifesto listed in the
archives.


Copyright R.S. Pearson


INTRODUCTION

    When many are discussing the negative effects of our factories on
the environment, they must realize the answer does not lie in
eliminating our factories but in modifying them. It appears that it is
possible for a technology to be invented that could co-exist with the
environment.  We must envision our future to have even more
technological devices than today.  These devices, however, will be
constructed on a different platform of technology for a different
system of electronics, utilizing different systems of manufacturing.
    This work concerns itself not with "new" energy sources, such as
solar, wind and aquatic.  It examines new types of machinery and their
industrial production that could use these and other new types of
energy.  We can also aim at sources of energy that do not exist or are
being ignored today.  Energy, limited throughout our history mainly to
the burning of wood and fossil fuels, can come from more abundant
sources and less damaging processes, such as: gravity, fermentation and
other organic chemical reactions, and the mechanisms of photosynthesis
in plant tissues.  These new sources would require machinery
appropriate to them, machineries that we have not conceived of.
    My premise is if applied scientists have an ethical and creative
connection to their craft, they will be able to take the Earth out of
its first stages of ecological decay by developing a use of plant
genetics that would mimic some present technologies.

One

    Today's industrial products damage the physical environment in
three distinct ways:  by the method in which they are manufactured, by
the way they operate when functioning, and by their disposal and
eventual decay when obsolete.
    This technology combines organic chemistry, botany, plant genetics,
electronics and mechanics to manufacture new products to perform the
tasks of our current technologies.
    Plants are a dynamo of power in themselves.  They are very
effective machines, as we see when we weed our lawns. The harnessing of
this power, the refining of these machines is all that is needed.  One
possible goal is to make a plant's biological processes work with
different chemicals, producing electronic-like components which are
manufactured in a way that will produce no pollution (or a small
fraction of today's factory pollution).
    These electronics though comparable in function with the
electronics of today, would be different in both theory and
application.  Much theory, such as the concepts of modular components,
may remain similar to the electronic theory of today, for instance, the
concepts of modular components. Due to being built on the foundation of
plant tissues and not dry elements, new concepts will be introduced.
    The initial technologies developed in this new area of
biodegradable technologies need not be a full synthesis of genetics and
electronics, but primarily the engineering of botanic mutations.  Some
items developed may be like a paper pulp "banana-pod" --  a deciduous
unit that requires no manufacturing after a harvest except the refining
of the pulp.  Also "banana-pod" trees for other resins may be grown to
erase the need for certain petrochemicals.
    Petrochemicals form such a large percentage of our products that it
is had to forsee if we could ever live without them.  Yet since we do
use so much of them it also seems imperative that we abolish the way
they are being produced and re-invent their chemical concepts so that
the production of these substances do not harm men nor the
environment.  This general area is one that science has already
conquered in many ways, but the manufacturing establishments is
reluctant on changing.
    The first resin we could develop would be the resin that a
rubber-tree produces.  Then with genetic engineering we could produce
better strains of that resin, and more productive means for the plant
to create it.  With experimentation, such as feeding the plant's soil
with different chemicals we could begin to get a plant that would
tolerate stronger types of rubber.
    To bring this technology into reality requires the input of the
very foremost scientists working today.  In fact, the level of
scientific expertise in genetics is such that it is impossible for its
knowledge to handle the more advanced types of systems I will be
describing. But some simple devices, such as putting together a
banana-pod that encases paper pulp or rubber resin, seems almost
possible if it became a point of focus for today's geneticists.
    These ideas do not point to any one specific type of technology
alone, but instead at many related technologies.  I am pointing toward
at a spectrum of technologies and methods to handle the wide range of
needs that we currently have and will continue to have.
    In the catalogue for the earth's plant life there are several
oddities: buds, pods, knobs, hard flowers; oddities whose genes
could be analyzed to reveal methods for utilizing these compositional
devices for a pragmatic purpose.  Other items grown may be wooden-like
objects, genetically crafted by a machine that could program specific
sizes and shapes into plant genetics.  The product would be a plant
that gives off as fruit or acorns or specific designs.  The need to cut
down trees to get wood to make these items nor use the
petrochemical-based polymers currently used so often today to make
these items would be eliminated. Even today it seems that one could
make a good composition board out of acorns and pine cones, and not
cause any loss of trees.
    As mentioned above, one direction we want to have available to us
is work based on exploiting the nature of the chemical composition of
plants.  As we master this the chemical transformations produced by
plants from food and sunlight can be altered.
    This is the method by which our work becomes involved with
electronics.  The plant's food is the soil and the liquid that is
watered into the soil. We know that if we add fertilizer we can grow
better, stronger plants.  But will certain chemicals affect the nature
of the photosynthetic processes? If they could, it might begin the
change from natural plants into biodegradable technology.  Combining
this with manufacturing processes derived from botany, such as changes
in the environment, grafting, and new manufacturing techniques we have
the potential to utilize the plant kingdom to divert our present use of
the environment.
    What one can acquire are various devices that are parallel to our
current merchandise, yet which are made out of organic and more readily
recyclable materials than current plastics, which are not based on
organic chemistry like our products are.  Nor must they be derived from
the lumber of trees.
    (Maybe one day soon we will only need to cut a tree down to get
lumber.  The jobs that loggers once had could be replaced with jobs in
this new industry).

Two

    How would this change from business owners of pollution emitting
factories toward a new society of business people whose products are
based on utilizing the environmentally sound technology occur?
    Visually, it may be a technology that at once appears at once
primitive and modern).
    What would be the first complete electronic device grown?  A simple
solar oscillator might be the first complete unit, but before that it
seems possible to develop electronic components like the resistor and
capacitor.
    The first primitive schematic might have on it a photosynthetic
energy source for a battery and a hard cellulose-back support similar
in form to a circuit board. Complex reproductive organ structure in
embryo form shows a level of diversity that is most complex in flora.
So therefore, since we are trying to find such complex structures in
the present plant architecture, we would look at these designs first in
the DNA. By designing this as we see fit, it may be possible, with post
harvesting manipulations to not get products that exist after
harvesting as a single, stand-alone device, such as a solar-powered
l.e.d. clock, but to treat it in various ways to acquire a organic
components for a biodegradable electronic device.
    The main problem is the high charge of electricity voltage
required in electronics in general.  Yet, presently this is not as
strong as it was in old electronics.  There is a key however.
Chlorophyll is chemically similar to hemoglobin;  hemoglobin has iron
in it.  Iron is a metal, and we have the promise that plants resemble
electronic technology in this roundabout way.  After a system gets to a
certain stage, the grafting in of other devices, and a mimicry of the
component system of current electronics.
    One idea is to manipulate genetic techniques in a seed system; a
seed sac with fertilization. The fertilization can be modified to be
more than just simple soil, since there are hundreds of elements and
compounds that don't constitute pollutants and can be considered
biodegradable and non-toxic to plant, animal and human life.  Once a
plant is mutated in a certain way for increased durability then it
could absorb more of a certain element into its structure for that
quality.  Likewise when working with increasing the amount of energy
substances in photosynthesis, a corresponding element would be needed
from the soil.
    One problem is size.  It seems just as in non-biodegradable
technologies primitive devices were large that the first successful
experiments will be quite large.  Yet, as things progress, the size of
the items will shrink, just like we are witnessing today!
    The types of objects that will be built from these bio-degrad-
able technologies can be looked at as modular electronic components.
    If purposivefully mututaed plant DNA can be worked into molecular
electronics, all problems might in this new type of electronics might
be solved.  And since these new devices are hooked up with their own
solar power adaptor, these new devices won't require external energy,
they will create it with sunlight and soil.
    What will the first schematics look like?  Its not a good idea to
predicate what we will be able to do in the future.  The ideas in
this treatise have to be expanded by the mind of the reader.  For
instance, will a complete television set one day be able to be
grown?
    Flower bearing plants can be seen as the most complex plant
genetics, pods on trees have complex structures.
    Many of these units may still involve manufacturing, or post
harvesting manipulation.  The genes do not have to always simply grow
completed units; rather groups of units that fit and work together.
    The first question to answer is what types of restructuring=7F can
be done with plant DNA?  The second question is how can it be
restructured?
    The connection of circuits of different cell types for different
chemical processes may produce the differentiation we require for this
technology to take on the roles of electronic devices.
    Let's also work to substitute non-noxious elements into
electronics.  Electronics has not been geared into ecological
parameters; ecology has not guided electronics thus far.  The chemicals
needed to produce the technology we have now takes place in vast
pollution producing factories, the molding of plastic cases throws out
tons of carcinogens into the air and directly into the presence of the
factory workers when manufacturing them.


Three

    Methods of manufacturing this technology are obviously different,
but so would be business and distribution of the technology.  In a lawn
or one's backyard, one could grow exotic fruitbearing technologies and
market them in a type of Mom-and-Pop type operation. They could be
powered from the sun, and could draw all the nutrients needed for the
"factory" from the soil. So a person could support an income from
having these different biodegradable machineries based on plant
genetics in their backyard.
    If one had five different modular fruitbearing technologies in
their backyard one might be able to adjust them together each year for
different technologies.  Perhaps it would have great value for
producing new hobbies.
    (Imagine if the machines could reproduce and bear seeds, if
possible, in the distant future.  A very big issue: would plants
naturally carry the mutation in their genes, and give off offspring
that would be exactly like them?)
  To further help the imagination towards the end of recognizing the
possibilities of these ideas, I've thought up some future biodegradable
technology publications:

Popular Flower Technology
Fruitbearing Industries
Fruitbearing Technologies
International Catalogue of Component Fruitbearing Technologies
Catalogue of ElectroFruiting Technologies

Here is one examined in closer detail:
Popular Flower Technology: From murals on the side of buildings to
postcard size flower paintings, flower technology is the art of
utilizing flower genes to make living works of art.  In my
imagination I see a type of typesetting machine that programs the
flower genetics in a mosaic setting to be whatever the programmer
intends.
    The work could be frozen by spraying fixative on it.  Painting
could shift in color by different genes controlling the images, by
the different climatic controls inside the plant genes.
    Flower genetics could be grafted into tree genetics and then
electromagnetically shifted by remote control like impulses, thus
one could have a strong body of a tree and have an exquisite flower
technological painting surface for exhibition.
    Several applications of this possible technology are immediately
evident.
    The technology that will be first fruitful are these
applications:  pulp machines producing pods for paper pulp,
composition boards, polymers produced for rubber and plastic-like
materials, aesthetic control of genetics for objects of beauty and
hobbies, production of household goods like soap dishes, combs, napkin
holders, letter openers, tableware, children's modular toys -- like
Legos, blocks, etc.) cotton articles and organic technology for the
increase of production of hemp, cotton, and foods; also genetic devices
for the increased production of every type of plant products.
    For instance, parsley trees, in which it will be able to produce
many pounds of parsley a year out of a ten square-foot plot of ground.
Assorted new inventions could be produced, such as a solar
365-day-a-year calendar which produces images on a background that was
similar to a l.e.d. display, and a microcomputer screen based on the
same principle.  Nothing has to be grown in one simple stage but
instead could be built of modular components which are grown
seperately.  The screen could grown, and then added to the keyboard and
the CPU.
    When the exploitation of genetic code was developed and we were
able to program it like we program on magnetic tapes or electronic
fields. The main apparatus of electronic progress such as the tape
recorder player which can be seen as early as the phonograph and as
late as the CD-ROM.  We have to invent a biodegradable version, one
that writes and reads in plant DNA.  We need to make an I/O device for
plant genetic code and once that device is invented, it will have a
millions uses, just as the tape player recorder (or disk drive, etc.)
has now. And in electronics there are other powerful inventions such as
the amplifier.  We need some type of amplifier.  We need some type of
amplifier in plant genetics.  Perhaps some inventions will work in a
different, slower way, controlled by a photosynthetic-like process, but
which would still fulfill completely the need of the outdated device.

Four

    The mass production mentality involved in pollution emitting,
resource depleting means, is continuing fairly unobstructed in many
areas.  We can contribute to the "radicals" who are attempting to
curb this mentality by first realizing that it is only a "radical"
that is not concerned with the problem or who believes there
isn't much of a problem.
    For me, I am affected on the level of beauty as well.  I
don't like it when I am surrounded for dozens of square miles with
only a few patches of grass here and there or a token ten-foot high
tree.  It can change! For one, hopefully the reader is now able to
come up with his own ideas by using the technology that I've
described.  You may be thinking of great murals on building sides
built out of vegetation paneling that would make the air of any
city smell fresh.  And that wouldn't mean taking up valuable city
real estate for a park.   Our next parks would be vertical!
    There are numbers of concerned scientists working towards
waste maintenance and recycling, alternate energies and the like,
but even their work is incomplete.
    When they realize the full solution, outlined here, and when
they gear genetic engineering towards the ideas in this work, we
will have a platform for a much fresher earth, with the vibrant
presence of plants comforting us as it was in the beginning.  But
these will be much different plants! Ecological awareness means
wanting to preserve vast amounts of species, instead of just a few,
to protect our total biosphere.  It means having a deep love for
nature the way God created it.
    We need to build a new ecologically friendly technology. Each
step that is not extraneous, but pragmatic, will be a point for the
score of life over that of death.
    It is an incomplete science that has caused so many carcinogen
and other harmful pollutants to be produced. Some believe the
present manufacturing sciences have even put all life on the earth
in jeopardy.
    It will only by be a more advanced science that the Earth can
be permanently removed from this jeopardy.  Our technology is not
going to be taken away from us, like the Ecological radicals would
believe our technology is simply going to transform itself.  I
want to use the word "clumsy" to describe our technological
innovations when they tend to have pollutive effects on the
environment or on our bodies.
    It is not a spooky thing that this change must occur.  The change
should not be seem in some type of New Age totalitarian nightmare.  It
should be viewed as a gradual yet eventful scientific revolution,
with the mechanisms of common sense and desire motivating those who
have seen the pain and damage the side effects our technologies can
cause.  Perhaps by this new direction in science we'll have products
that will not only supply our present needs but discover technological
concepts beyond what we now expect.  Perhaps by working with plants and
other aspects of our environment which we, in the clumsy excitements of
our first major years of technological discovery were too primitive to
take into account, our science will take off in new ways and we will
ultimately begin to exhaust the well of scientific progress.
    If industrial civilization ends, it ends, and we don't have to
concern ourselves with ecology.  But if it does not end, we will have
to supply ourselves with the ongoing consumer demand. This consumer
demand can cause our natural environment to be greatly damaged, but it
doesn't have to.  If these ideas are correct, the more product we
manufacture the more of a positive effect we will have on the
environment because of the carbon dioxide/oxygen exchange.
    It can be argued that the consumer drive does not depend only upon
the type of goods sold, or its purpse in our lives, but on an inherent
human need; the conquest of the item desired, and the need to occupy
one's time. This means that a new technology can replace our past
technology partially without having to replace its exact function. If
the five-billion people on earth continue to expand at the same rate
and the same manner, then most of these people will need televisions,
stereos, computers, watches, etc.
    Instead of an overwhelming concern regarding ecological parameters
we have continued our depletion of the increasingly limited resources
of the planet, and we continue to use many sciences without focusing on
developing new sciences that would operate in a way corresponding to
ecological parameters.  There are scientists that work in areas and
create these negative impacts without themselves searching for the more
complex alternative.  Surely they are far from brilliant if they are
not operating in directions that sustain the health of the biosphere
and humanity.
    I might not be able to direct a manufacturer to produce a
profitable change in his factory today, but I believe through this
writing I can open up a definite horizon of what some future technology
will actually be like, a technology that is more advanced than present
technology in the way it is beneficent to earth.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
"If we exhaust the interactions of words in a logical way
with computer means, we can come up with every beneficial idea=20
in any area, from medicine to business. ParaMind is the program
that is built on this philosophy."
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Robert Pearson, Owner
ParaMind Brainstorming Software
http://www.eskimo.com/~telical/para.html