Word: rifkin
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...fashioned way: he has turned his college-dropout pad into a mini-casino, where he deals blackjack. It's a nice living, but not a lifestyle that offers much in the way of parental bragging rights. This is a matter of some moment to Seth's sour father (Ron Rifkin), a federal judge who has sentenced his son to life in the doghouse for his slacker ways...
Such lawlessness can get groups noticed, of course, but it can also leave them marginalized. Even Jeremy Rifkin, president of the antibiotech Foundation on Economic Trends and no stranger to street theater, agrees that when it comes to protesting, less can be more. "If you go too far," he says, "nobody pays attention." On the other hand, it's hard to argue with results. In December the biotech giant Novartis announced that it was washing its hands of agritech. And last week delegates at the Montreal conference agreed to require labeling of all genetically modified goods...
...some other personality trait changed as well? "Everything comes at a price," argues UCLA neurobiologist Alcino Silva. "Very often when there's a genetic change where we improve something, something else gets hit by it, so it's never a clean thing." The alarmists, like longtime biotech critic Jeremy Rifkin, go further. "How do you know you're not going to create a mental monster?" he asks. "We may be on the road to programming our own extinction...
...broader concern is one of fairness. Will such enhancement be available to everyone or only to those who can afford it? "Every parent in the world is going to want this," says Rifkin. "But who will have access to it? It will create a new form of discrimination. How will we look at those who are not enhanced, the child with the low IQ?" Who would have the right to know whether your smarts were natural or turbo-charged? How would it affect whom we choose to marry--those with altered genes or those without? If, as a parent...
...miss Lisa a lot," Rifkin said. "But it won't change our attitude...