I agree with you. I don't think you can learn anything without messing with it and it's in our best interest to learn and mess with it. On the other hand I most certainly would not want to see the SV mentality applied to a field that could bring about a global pandemic.

Oh hell no! I used to joke here that people will eat their hats for the "move fast and break things" ethos when somebody starts Uber for Biotech, complete with sociopathic management and utter disregard for law and safety.

I'm only saying that we absolutely do need to poke complex systems to understand them, but we should do so responsibly. As the reply to the "playing god" saying goes: "we are as gods, we might as well get good at it".

Like Theranos?

Theranos mostly fooled investors. I worry about companies that mess with the rest of society. "Uber for Biotech" is essentially a recipe for huge loss of life.

IIRC they also faked and sent out incorrect blood test results for many, many patients.

I stand corrected.

Ha, didn't think of that when I wrote it, that's a good point. I looked at it from a Talebian perspective, so to say, and forgot about that approach.

In any case, I stand with what I meant: that complex systems should be treated with the highest degree of care, and with a "not-do-anything-by-default" mindset. The ramifications of interacting with it can, and surely will, be unpredictable.

I think there is messing to find out how it works (works best with man-made technology), and there's applying/marketing stuff that we don't yet understand.

The latter would naturally be dishonest, i.e. malicious. Not (merely) stupid.

At which level of abstraction?

At any. To verify your models about a system, you need to prod it and see if it responds the way your model predicted. Passive observations alone usually aren't enough to even build a correct model. Whether you're interested in understanding low level mechanics or high-level system behavior, the procedure is the same.

This is where ethics come into play