Grinders

Grinders are people who apply the hacker ethic to improve their own biological bodies with do-it-yourself cybernetic devices and self-mutations. Many grinders identify with the biopunk movement (also rarely admitted with cyberculture/cyberpunk movement as well and sometimes with postcyberpunk or cypherpunk movements), open source transhumanism, and technoprogressivism.

Origins

In role-playing games, 'grinding' is the practice of engaging in repetitive tasks to improve a character. The 2007 comic series Doktor Sleepless by Warren Ellis compared this to the progression of DIY transhumanism.

Biohacking

A biohacker is a biopunk hobbyist who experiments with DNA and other aspects of genetics. A biohacker (or "wetware hacker") is similar to a computer hacker who creates and modifies software or computer hardware as a hobby, but should not be confused with a bioterrorist, whose sole intent is the deliberate release of viruses, bacteria, or other germs used to cause illness or death in people, animals, or plants (in the same way a computer hacker should not be confused with the more popular, yet erroneous, use of the term, describing someone who spreads computer viruses or breaks into computers systems for malicious purposes).

Pat Mooney, executive director of ETC Group, is a critic of biohacking who argues that—using a laptop computer, published gene sequence information, and mail-order synthetic DNA—just about anyone has the potential to construct genes or entire genomes from scratch (including those of the lethal pathogens) in the near-future. He warns that the danger of this development is not just bio-terror, but "bio-error".

See also

• Biohack.me
• Grindhouse Wetware
• Grinding.be
• Doktor Sleepless
• Warren Ellis
• Grinder (biohacking) on Wikipedia

External links

• Grinder (biohacking) on Wikipedia
• Do-it-yourself biology on Wikipedia