The present is always providing a stream of historical metaphors for the future. For instance, in the Exxon controlled algae fuel future, government heavies break down the doors of poor people at the company’s behest. People that can’t license Exxon’s patented algae, but provide their neighbors and villages with illicit energy, run the risk of violent arrest, property destruction, and having everything they own covered in bleach in the course of IP enforcement.
ain’t gonna prevent those of us with the know-how from setting up bioreactors for our neighbors.
the amusing lede to watch for will be the smarty-pants bio-students who figure out how to make recreational chemicals in yeastie-beasties. and the generation after *them* who are smart enough to do the same thing but with unregulated chemicals.
I am most interested in how the general American attitude towards recreational chemicals will change as they become more easily fabricated by successively less sophisticated market players.