Human species 'may split in two'

[blakeatwork]

Originally posted by: torpid
I read that article this morning and find it to be 100% rubbish. This reminds me of "philosophers" in ancient days who would come up with wacky ideas about the universe, like the universe is actually a giant lint ball composed of fennel and bark. That sort of thing.

Don't argue with Linty, the God of Dryers!

He will smote you with his mighty Fabric Sheet of DOOOOOM...



Funny article, but with no basis, and some absurd assumptions, becomes nothing more then tabloid fodder

 

[AAjax]

Originally posted by: crystal
Really doubtful that human race will peaked out in 1000 year.

Yeah, everyone knows the human race peaked in high school.

Poor bastards

 

[jds2006]

innnterresting

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: BD2003
That sounds like one giant contradiction to me: "If we werent so petty and greedy, then we could all be petty and greedy. We're so bent on accumlating insane amounts of personal wealth, rather than obtaining "genetic wealth", because that is somehow different. We should stop trying to screw over our fellow man, that way we can enhance ourselves, which is important for the welfare of our species, because otherwise, we won't be able to compete with....other humans? Hmm..So we are good enough now, and could use a little fixing, even a little enhancement, because...we're not good enough already?"

Genetic wealth might not really be called "wealth" if it were given to everyone. I think of wealth as something that a single person accumulates. If everyone has it, well then is everyone wealthy, or has the "standard" simply been raised?

And while none of what you're saying is *wrong*, I just dont understand the angle at which its coming. You said it yourself - anything else other than breeding is a bonus. So how then is doing anything but surviving and breeding, essentially being greedy and petty?

That's looking at it from the standpoint of nature, in the wild. As far as nature is concerned, once we've lived long enough to give our offspring a decent chance of surviving, that's our primary goal in life. If you're alive long enough to assist your grandchildren through life, well hey, that's good too, now they've got an even better chance of surviving.

Now we have a choice, and we know it. We can choose to follow our instincts to whatever, sometimes uncivilized ends, they may lead. Or we can acknowledge that what nature has provided us with may not be entirely well-suited to our current lifestyle, and that we may need to take our own genetic destiny into our own hands.
However, this presents an unfortunate paradox - the very reasons that we may wish to change our basic makeup and ingrained behaviors can in fact hinder those efforts. Who would be qualified to decide what modifications to make? What would be done with those who would choose to remain as nature made them?

Regarding what you are saying more directly - it is and will remain very expensive for some time to come. Like it or not, we're not even close to being able to achieve engineering of embryos, let alone those already living. We havent even cloned a human yet, or fully understood the genome, and there is *massive* political and religious opposition to this. The consequences of such treatment are not even beginning to be considered. Before everyone lives forever, we have to figure out where to put everyone!

I feel that part of the reason there is such opposition to cloning is because of misinformation. People have the idea that if you'd clone Adolf Hitler, the clone would behave exactly as the original did. Hardly the case. Raise him in a normal, peaceful environment, and he would likely grow up to be a useful member of society, nothing out of the ordinary. It's not much different from when nature "clones" someone by itself, producing identical twins. It's not like each twin is an exact duplicate of the other in every respect. They think differently, and are unique individuals, who just happen to have identical genes. No one is trying to kill off twins because of this natural cloning.

The super duper rich are the ones who are going to fund this research and development. They will be the first ones to benefit. Government is going to stay out of this picture for a very long time. It will slowly filter down through the population, as economies of scale begin to have an effect. If the government is going to give it out, everyone has to benefit equally, and it cannot be deleterious. Our gov can not handle that kind of responsibility, and most people would not stand for it. Playing with our genomes needs to be a personal choice. Hell, is it even fair to modify a child's genes, when he clearly never could have been consulted in the process?

Which is the unfortunate part I alluded to. Who would be the ones to decide what modifications are made? Ideally, everyone would receive the modifications, thus bringing the net genetic health of the world up to a new level. Otherwise, we risk a scenario as presented in the movie Gattaca, where a lower class of people is formed, those who cannot afford the treatment.

Because like you said, everything but breeding is a bonus. I think it would be fantastic to have better lungs, and see a larger part of the spectrum, and take a trip to the moon. Does that mean everyone has to fund my aspirations to walk on the moon, because I think it'd be great, and maybe a lot of people agree with me? Something as radical as genetic engineering is exactly the kind of thing that we need people with large amounts of money, burning a hole in their pocket, to fund.

I guess genetic engineering would be one eventual goal I'd have for the world. Other goals to come ahead: more automation, better power sources, namely fusion, and desalinization plants in regions that cannot find enough clean water. Automation can free up human minds to do more challenging tasks. Leave the mindless, tedious work to the machines. Human minds are so much more capable, they should be creating or designing things to improve humanity. Train them, use them for that, to the end of solving the other problems facing us.

In the way of these goals though is human corruption, those in power who wish nothing more than to keep that power, even if it means causing suffering of millions. How are they dealt with? Use violence to simply kill them off? Then we risk becoming the very thing which we oppose.

I just feel like I'm having a tough time explaining this. I just see it as "possible" for people to live at a much higher standard of living. The world has the resources. So many countries are wasting so many of those resources on their own ability to destroy other countries. Put that same effort into just helping other people, and think of what it could do. It's like friction working on an otherwise perfect machine. Corruption and greed slow it down, to the point that the fuel - human mental and physical capacity - is exhausted just trying to fight the friction, to the point that too little genuine work gets done.

 

[Ryan]

It's already happening - We have the advanced Democrats, and the regressed Republicans

I keeed, I keeed!

 

[Jeff7]

And then there's the Geico commercials.