1250 words
Project Coast was a secret biological/chemical weapons program developed by the apartheid government in South Africa started by a cardiologist named Wouter Basson. One of the many things they attempted was to develop a bio-chemical weapon that targets blacks and only blacks.
I used to listen to the Alex Jones show in the beginning of the decade and in one of his rants, he brought up Project Coast and how they attempted to develop a weapon to only target blacks. So I looked into it, and there is some truth to it.
For instance, The Washington Times writes in their article Biotoxins Fall Into Private Hands:
More sinister were the attempts — ordered by Basson — to use science against the country’s black majority population. Daan Goosen, former director of Project Coast’s biological research division, said he was ordered by Basson to develop ways to suppress population growth among blacks, perhaps by secretly applying contraceptives to drinking water. Basson also urged scientists to search for a “black bomb,” a biological weapon that would select targets based on skin color, he said.
“Basson was very interested. He said ‘If you can do this, it would be very good,'” Goosen recalled. “But nothing came of it.”
They created novel ways to disperse the toxins: using letters and cigarettes to transmit anthrax to black communities (something those old enough to be alive during 911 know of), lacing sugar cubes with salmonella, lacing beer and peppermint candy with poison.
Project Coast was, at its heart, a eugenics program (Singh, 2008). Singh (2008: 9) writes, for example that “Project Coast also speaks for the need for those involved in scientific research and practice to be sensitized to appreciate the social circumstances and particular factors that precipitate a loss of moral perspective on one’s actions.”
Jackson (2015) states that another objective of the Project was to develop anti-fertility drugs and attempt to distribute them into the black population in South Africa to decrease birth rates. They also attempted to create vaccines to make black women sterile to decrease the black population in South Africa in a few generations—along with attempting to create weapons to only target blacks.
The head of the weapons program, Wouter Basson, is even thought to have developed HIV with help from the CIA to cull the black population (Nattrass, 2012). There are many conspiracy theories that involve HIV and its creation to cull black populations, though they are pretty farfetched. In any case, though, since they were attempting to develop new kinds of bioweapons to target certain populations, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that there is a kernel of truth to the story.
So now we come to today. So Kyle Bass said that the Chinese already have access to all of our genomes, through companies like Steve Hsu’s BGI, stating that “there’s a Chinese company called BGI that does the overwhelming majority of all the sequencing of U.S. genes. … China had the genomic sequence of every single person that’s been gene types in the U.S., and they’re developing bio weapons that only affect Caucasians.”
I have no way to verify these claims (they’re probably bullshit), but with what went on in the 80s and 90s in South Africa with Project Coast, I don’t believe it’s outside of the realm of plausibility. Though Caucasians are a broad grouping.
It’d be like if someone attempted to develop a bioweapon that only targets Ashkenazi Jews. They could let’s say, attempt to make a bioweapon to target those with Tay Sach’s disease. It’s, majorly, a Jewish disease, though it’s also prevalent in other populations, like French Canadians. It’d be like if someone attempted to develop a bioweapon that only targets those with the sickle cell trait (SCT). Certain African ethnies are more like to carry the trait, but it’s also prevalent in southern Europe and Northern Africa since the trait is prevalent in areas with many mosquitoes.
With Chinese scientists like He Jiankui CRISPR-ing two Chinese twins back in 2018 to attempt to edit their genome to make them less susceptible to HIV, I can see a scientist in China attempt to do something like this. In our increasingly technological world with all of these new tools we develop, I would be surprised if there was nothing strange like this going on.
Some claim that “China will always be bad at bioethics“:
Even when ethics boards exist, conflicts of interest are rife. While the Ministry of Health’s ethics guidelines state that ethical reviews are “based upon the principles of ethics accepted by the international community,” they lack enforcement mechanisms and provide few instructions for investigators. As a result, the ethics review process is often reduced to a formality, “a rubber stamp” in Hu’s words. The lax ethical environment has led many to consider China the “Wild East” in biomedical research. Widely criticized and rejected by Western institutions, the Italian surgeon Sergio Canavero found a home for his radical quest to perform the first human head transplant in the northern Chinese city of Harbin. Canavero’s Chinese partner, Ren Xiaoping, although specifying that human trials were a long way off, justified the controversial experiment on technological grounds, “I am a scientist, not an ethical expert.” As the Chinese government props up the pseudoscience of traditional Chinese medicine as a valid “Eastern” alternative to anatomy-based “Western” medicine, the utterly unscientific approach makes the establishment of biomedical regulations and their enforcement even more difficult.
Chinese ethicists, though, did respond to the charge of a ‘Wild East’, writing:
Some commentators consider Dr. He’s wrongdoings as evidence of a “Wild East” in scientific ethics or bioethics. This conclusion is not based on facts but on stereotypes and is not the whole story. In the era of globalization, rule-breaking is not limited to the East. Several cases of rule-breaking in research involved both the East and the West.
Henning (2006) notes that “bioethical issues in China are well covered by various national guidelines and regulations, which are clearly defined and adhere to internationally recognized standards. However, the implementation of these rules remains difficult, because they provide only limited detailed instructions for investigators.” With a large country like China, of course, it will be hard to implement guidelines on a wide-scale.
Gene-edited humans were going to come sooner or later, but the way that Jiankui went about it was all wrong. Jiankjui raised funds, dodged supervision and organized researchers in order to carry out the gene-editing on the Chinese twins. “Mad scientists” are, no doubt, in many places in many countries. “… the Chinese state is not fundamentally interested in fostering a culture of respect for human dignity. Thus, observing bioethical norms run second.”
Countries attempting to develop bioweapons to target specific groups of people have already been attempted recently, so I wouldn’t doubt that someone, somewhere, is attempting something along these lines. Maybe it is happening in China, a ‘Wild East’ of low regulations and oversight. There is a bioethical divide when it comes to East and West, which I would chalk up to differences in collectivism vs individualism (which some have claimed to be ‘genetic’ in nature; Kiaris, 2012). Since the West is more individualistic, they would care about individual embryos which eventually become a person; since the East is more collectivist, whatever is better for the group (that is, whatever can eventually make the group ‘better’) will override the individual and so, tinkering with individual genomes would be seen as less of an ethical charge to them.
NotPoliticallyCorrect 
Guess I’m a “mad scientist”.
RR you never answered my inquires on your ethical views regarding subjects such as this.
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By “mad scientist” I mean someone who does things like this without any oversight.
I think it’s morally wrong; I think eugenics will get in through the backdoor using technology like this.
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But wouldn’t you say that mentality is a slippery slope to the slippery slope fallacy?
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Why would it lead to that?
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I’m saying your guilty of the slippery slope fallacy. The idea that using this technology will eventually lead to eugenics is like saying the legalization of gay marriage will lead to more people fucking or trying to marry animals
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What type of logic are you using, meLo. That obviously made no sense.
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It makes perfect sense, id suggest actually figuring out what “good logic” is before you try to critique mine. I’m just pointing out the fear that RR has regarding eugenics is the same that Philo has regarding bestiality. RR says if we use this technology eugenics will get in the back door. Cuckservatives like Philosophy think the legalization of gay marriage will allow the legalization of bestiality. Both are fallacious lines of reasoning.
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I don’t doubt you didn’t make a logical conclusion except for the understanding behind the fact that that technology is directly feeding into eugenics thus determining the ultimate fate of the technology itself.
You obviously stated the conclusion correctly but it doesn’t mean that the entirety of your proposition would be correct because you unintentionally misinterpreted the meaning of something.
That’s what I meant when I said it didn’t make logical sense. If you can prove otherwise that the technology would be used for anything except for directly feeding into eugenics, which it is deliberately used for, then I will apologize to you and you can admonish me if you wish.
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Sorry I’m used to the dumb shit you spam on Pumpkin’s blog. So forgive me if I seemed condescending.
Anyway, RR and I are using the term “eugenics” distinctly from the actual act of gene editing itself. At least I assume so because I’d find it very strange if RR thought that gene editing in general was “immoral”. I took his comment to mean that if we allowed the technology of gene editing to persist it would lead to the “immoral” use of it that he quotes in the beginning of his post. I don’t think his comment would make much sense if was deciphered as “the technology that allows for gene editing will lead to gene editing.”.
Also, we were continuing a discussion from a different post on Pumpkin’s blog. So you’d have to take that context into consideration as well.
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Yeah, I understand what you mean, but don’t call my shit dumb, man. I’m much smarter than you would expect and probably a lot smarter than anyone you personally know, tbh. I could run logical circles around most people but I’m not detail-oriented so my comments don’t come out as clean as others, I guess.
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Btw, you always seem condescending so I try not to take it personally like any man should.
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(Take case (A) to be individual CRISPR modifications, take case (U) to be positive and negative eugenics, enhancement, and germline modification.)
I’m more privy to call it “slippery slope argument” rather than “slippery slope fallacy.” Slippery slope arguments where good reasons exist that, for example, case (A) will lead to case (U), where (A) is acceptable and (U) is unacceptable.
Slippery slope fallacies only occur when there are no good reasons (see Lewish Vaughn’s The Power of Critical Thinking, pg 191-92) to argue that, in this case, (A) will lead to (U).
One can assert that something is a slippery slope, and whether or not it is fallacious rests on there being any good reason(s) for believing the causal chain of events.
I have a few arguments, personally, in mind against such processes “regarding ethical subjects such as this”. Take the psychological slippery slope argument—different from a logical slippery slope argument, where once a first step is taken, one is logically committed to taking subsequent steps unless there are logical reasons to avoid taking such steps—which is based on probability—that is, they are inductive. A psychological slippery slope argument is where once one practice is accepted, similar practices, too, will be accepted as they see no significant difference between them. So accepting one practice, psychologically prepares one to accept another, so we are looking at what may happen, not what the rules and logic of the assertion entails logically.
Let me present one of them:
(1) Case (A) is acceptable.
(2) But case (U) is unacceptable.
(3) Cases (A) and (U) are assimilable, so they are differences in degree, which fall along a continuum of the same type.
(4) If case (A) is permitted, then it will lead to a precedent to allow case (U).
(5) Permitting case (A) may cause case (U).
(6) Thus, case (A) should be impermissible.
This is not fallacious, as there are good reasons, sequentially, to accept the conclusion (6). An argument commits the slippery slope fallacy if and only if there is no good reason, for example, for case (A) to lead to case (U). But I have provided sound justification that case (A) may well lead to case (U). I have established a probable causal connection between allowing case (A) with case (U) then following.
Or let us assume, for the sake of argument, that there is the possibility of nothing being wrong with modifying human embryos to correct certain gene mutations. But if parents are allowed to do so, then they may want to correct ‘associated’ genes with socially undesirable traits (i.e., obesity). They may attempt to introduce ‘desireable’ genes for certain traits. Picking and choosing certain traits—along with PGD—will lead to designer babies and a GATTACA-style scenario. So the way to avoid this is to disallow heritable human genome editing (and germline modification), even to correct certain gene mutations (see Baylis, 2019; Altered Inheritance: CRISPR and the Ethics of Human Genome Editing). Heritable gene modification is the end result—the new eugenics—and more supposedly “innocuous methods”, such as CRISPR are just psychologically priming people to accept a conclusion that is, currently, unthinkable.
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I believe that it is important to contextualize this argument.
“So accepting one practice, psychologically prepares one to accept another, so we are looking at what may happen, not what the rules and logic of the assertion entails logically.”
I’m not going to lie, I don’t really grasp the distinction that you’re making here. To be prepared psychologically for an outcome seems eerily close to following the logic an assertion entails. Assuming someone is thinking rationally.
Similarly “what may happen” is the fallacious part of the fallacy. It’s a lot of presumptions that don’t actually mean anything. I’m actually interested in your protest of designer babies. How re you justifying this as morally wrong? This is why I dislike discussion such as this. I’m an ethical subjectivist.
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“”What may happen” is the fallacious part of the fallacy.”
The argument provided is an empirical—inductive—one. So it’s necessarily probabilistic, in contrast with the logical (conceptual)—deductive—argument I could have provided where the conclusion necessarily follows from the premises.
I believe the Open Future Argument (OFA) is sufficient to protest designer babies.
Your ethics are subjective. If mine are too, then my ethics are grounded in a cogent argument and I have an logical basis for my ethical beliefs.
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“The argument provided is an empirical—inductive—one. So it’s necessarily probabilistic, in contrast with the logical (conceptual)—deductive—argument I could have provided where the conclusion necessarily follows from the premises.”
Thanks for the clarification. Your usage of the term “psychologically” was tripping me up.
“I believe the Open Future Argument (OFA) is sufficient to protest designer babies.”
What’s the argument?
“Your ethics are subjective. If mine are too, then my ethics are grounded in a cogent argument and I have an logical basis for my ethical beliefs.”
If your ethics are subjective then there is no objective logical basis for them
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nothing rr says can be taken seriously because the arteries in his brain are clogged because steroids and feed lot beef.
rr thinks carrots cause heart attacks
not to mention rr thinks neil degrasse tyson and john cena are influential people.
sad!
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it’s also pointless arguing with rr because he is extremely gay.
arnold eats beef therefore rr eats beef because rr is sexually attracted to arnold.
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The China Project and The Game Changers…
the comments of robert gabriel mugabe’s ghost:
the issue of “the meat eating ape” was not explored in sufficient depth or subtlety…even though there were no lies about this i could recognize.
man’s closest relative, the chimp, does eat animals and eggs, just not very much. and contemporary savages get more of their calories from animals on average over all such peoples than the average american.
the animals humans eat are domesticated with the exception of wild caught seafood. domesticated animals are significantly different from wild animals especially when they are fed farmed plants vs what they would eat if they were wild.
the question “are some whole plant foods better than others?” wasn’t asked.
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A garbage book and a garbage film.
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when you die from CVD in your 50s will that be garbage?
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The reaction in China to those twin girls being GM’d hasn’t been universally positive to be fair, in fact quite negative in some respects. But that begs the question “does the CCP care what the public thinks?” They call the shots after all.
Ethnic bioweapons are probably too unreliable anyway, odds are you’d either not kill enough of the enemy ethnic group or too many of your own for it too matter. People should just stick to nuclear bombs if they have genocide fantasies (and if such a bioweapon was developed, releasing it would result in a nuclear-retaliation for sure).
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peepee isn’t anonymous. this a picture of her.
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hitler was obviously italian. no medigan or jadrool could “talk” this way!
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interesting fact:
chimps and gorillas do die from heart disease, BUT not the kind that kills humans. AND the kind that kills humans’ nearest relatives does not kill humans.
so why do whole food vegan diets reverse atherosclerosis?
this is like the question duesberg couldn’t answer, namely, if HIV isn’t the cause of AIDS why do the anti-retroviral drugs work so spectacularly? so spectacularly that deaths from AIDS peaked in 1995-1996, the exact same time the drugs were introduced.
denial isn’t just a masturbation machine in egypt rr!
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of course if you’re a strength athlete and practice IF then you may be immune to the atherogenic effects of terrestrial animals.
AND your paisan, valter longo, agrees that the China Study people esselstyn and campell are almost entirely correct for fully grown people under the age of 65. the balance of the evidence epidemiological and mechanistic is now overwhelming.
how many professional wrestlers have died from CVD before 60? how many bodybuilders? how many weightlifters?
take your head out of your butt.
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btw, i am not a vegan and i think a lot of vegans are crazy, but i agree with longo…
the evidence converges on…
paleo vegan + once a week seafood is the best diet for most people TODAY.
but if you’re an athlete and a hunter, then terrestrial wild animals will do you no harm.
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here’s your calabrian paisan:
https://valterlongo.com/daily-longevity-diet-for-adults/
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(((michael pollan))) correctly identified “nutritionism” as an ideology, the idea that a diet is good or bad only for its known nutrients.
paleo is right, but how paleo do you go?
most humans followed a chimp diet they’d be a lot healthier than if they followed a TRADITIONAL inuit diet.
the evolutionary algorithm can’t reach a new peak with the inuit or the hunting ape even in 1 m years.
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