Discussion on liberal democracy, U.S. hegemony, and synthetic biology risks

32 But the idea of liberal democracy — the U.S. is not the only exemplar of liberal democracy — [remains]. It’s a powerful idea that would exist independently of whether the U.S. is hegemonic or not. I’m not as scared of a world without American hegemony as some people are. We went through the whole Cold War period in which the U.S. was one of two superpowers. A return to a more multi-polar world in certain ways induces a fair amount of moderation among big players in the system, because people know they can’t get their way unilaterally. And in the more multi-polar world we’d probably think twice about doing things like Iraq. The more important question is: In the global marketplace of ideas, how dominant will American ideas about freedom and rule of law and democracy and our economic model be? Our ideas will obviously be challenged; and it’s important for the U.S. to put its own house in order, both politically and economically, because that’s the most important way we exercise influence around the world: The model we set. SHAFFER: To revisit Our Posthuman Future, are there any developments in bio-technologies in the past nine years that you find particularly disturbing? FUKUYAMA: Yes. The whole rise of synthetic biology, where we ve had new forms of life, and the ability to do new forms of life is proceeding extremely rapidly. The creation of an artificial bacteria itself is not immediately threatening, but it’s part of a long-term process by which we’ll uncover the technologies for manufacturing life, in ways that could have very serious security and moral implications. HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_031907