Simon from the Nucleic Acid Observatory here. Thanks for writing this up, exciting to have more people thinking about this.

For your proposal, can you say more about:

 i) how would you envision getting access to these samples? Airport wastewater is great, but getting permits can be tricky.

ii) what would a pilot project of your proposal look like? I.e., what kind of sequencing would you do, where would you do the sequencing, who would do processing?

For your NovaSeq X numbers, one thing worth noting: You can normally only buy a full 25B flow cell, not just a ~1.5B lane. The Broad offers this, but I'm unsure how common that offer is. I assume it's reate. Now, you might be fine with a smaller sequencer anyway, as airplane wastewater has higher relative abundance. But this kind of stuff is pretty important for unit economics: to fill a full Novaseq X flow cell you'd need several samples, which can be tricky, especially when just starting a new program.

One crux here might be what improved lives the most over the last three hundred years.

If you think economic growth has been the main driver of (human) well-being, then the mindset of people driving that growth is what the original post might have been hinting at. And I do agree with Richard that many of those people had something closer to master morality in their mind.

Thanks for flagging, fixed!

What’s the lore behind that update? This was before I followed EA community stuff

Thanks for writing this up, I was skeptical about Scott‘s strong take but didn’t take the time to check the links he provided as proof.

That's a good pointer, thanks! I'll drop the reference to Diggans and Leproust for now.

Thanks for the write-up. Just adding a note on how this distinction has practical implications for how to design databases containing hazardous sequences that are required for gene synthesis screening systems.

With gene synthesis screening, companies want to stop bad actors from getting access to the physical DNA or RNA of potential pandemic pathogens. Now, let's say researchers find the sequence of a novel pathogen that would likely spark a pandemic if released. Most would want this sequence to be added to synthesis screening databases. But some also want this database to be public. The information hazards involved in making such information publicly available could be large, especially if there is attached discussion of how exactly these sequences are dangerous.

I skimmed it, and it looks good to me. Thanks for the work! A separate post on this would be cool.

I set a reminder! Also, let me know if you do end up updating it.