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Thread: 'Designer babies' debate should start, scientists say

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    Redrose's Avatar Senior Member
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    Quote Originally Posted by peter1469 View Post
    more likely, this sort of thing would be for the wealthy and the rest would do the dirty work for a new super class of humans.

    bingo!

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    I would like a hump and a lazy eye to serve as a badge of lifelong servitude. Terrible gas would be nice too.
    My beliefs are a distillation of what I was taught as a child and what I observe as an adult.

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    southwest88's Avatar Senior Member
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    Living in the World of Tomorrow!

    Quote Originally Posted by Peter1469 View Post
    More likely, this sort of thing would be for the wealthy and the rest would do the dirty work for a new super class of humans.
    Sure, like the wealthy are going to dedicate the years to understand how the technology works & what its limits are. & cultivate the skill sets & practice slicing eggshells off eggs without rupturing the membrane underneath, & on & on. No, I don't think it works that way. Like the Islamics in Spain from 700 - 1492CE (or even now in the World) wanting to learn how things work, math, science, philosophy - no humanities @ all - other than some scraps of classical Greek & Latin literature.

    The wealthy in the US tend to want to hire people to do things for them - human enough. But the gene engineering technology we're talking about would become the keys to the kingdom in that scenario. Who could you trust it to? To the very people you plan to subjugate with that technology? It hardly seems likely - unless you can uplift chimps or other primates to simply take & execute orders. & even then, Would you trust them not to become self-aware? I wouldn't.

    This is indeed the stuff of SF - I would suggest reading a lot of Larry Niven's Gil Hamilton of ARM series - he wrote about organ legging, the Mother Wars, longevity treatments, corpsicles, artificial organs, drouds, cloning, a lot of this ground has already been covered before, @ length, & with a lot of thought. & doesn't everyone want to live forever?

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    Right. I mean the technology will be expensive so only the rich will be able to afford it.

    Quote Originally Posted by southwest88 View Post
    Sure, like the wealthy are going to dedicate the years to understand how the technology works & what its limits are. & cultivate the skill sets & practice slicing eggshells off eggs without rupturing the membrane underneath, & on & on. No, I don't think it works that way. Like the Islamics in Spain from 700 - 1492CE (or even now in the World) wanting to learn how things work, math, science, philosophy - no humanities @ all - other than some scraps of classical Greek & Latin literature.

    The wealthy in the US tend to want to hire people to do things for them - human enough. But the gene engineering technology we're talking about would become the keys to the kingdom in that scenario. Who could you trust it to? To the very people you plan to subjugate with that technology? It hardly seems likely - unless you can uplift chimps or other primates to simply take & execute orders. & even then, Would you trust them not to become self-aware? I wouldn't.

    This is indeed the stuff of SF - I would suggest reading a lot of Larry Niven's Gil Hamilton of ARM series - he wrote about organ legging, the Mother Wars, longevity treatments, corpsicles, artificial organs, drouds, cloning, a lot of this ground has already been covered before, @ length, & with a lot of thought. & doesn't everyone want to live forever?
    ΜOΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ


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    Redrose's Avatar Senior Member
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    If we don't blow ourselves into Kingdom come, socially engineered societies may be a reality in the next century and I agree with Peter, only the upper eschelon, the wealthy will be able to avail themselves of the technology.

    We almost have that today. Some of the wealthy and celebrities of the world create a new look for themselves, entire bodies too. The only thing different with those body sculpting today is they can't correct genetic health issues and improve their intelligence.

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    Quo vadis?

    Quote Originally Posted by Peter1469 View Post
    Right. I mean the technology will be expensive so only the rich will be able to afford it.
    Yah. But the real question is: What is wealth in a post-human society? By the scenario you're laying out, only the people who control gene engineering would be powerful. If they're not careful, they might accidentally - or purposely - delete all unimproved h. sap. & then what? Who would haul & cook & scrape & labor then?

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    Quote Originally Posted by southwest88 View Post
    Yah. But the real question is: What is wealth in a post-human society? By the scenario you're laying out, only the people who control gene engineering would be powerful. If they're not careful, they might accidentally - or purposely - delete all unimproved h. sap. & then what? Who would haul & cook & scrape & labor then?
    Humans have never lacked for an ability to divide into classes. Maybe the new beauty standards will decide that black hair or blue eyes are not wanted....ah ha! the new serving class.

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    del's Avatar Banned
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    Quote Originally Posted by Polecat View Post
    Old episode of the Twilight Zone covered this concept in half an hour. Given an ability to do good or evil mankind always selects evil.

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    Quote Originally Posted by del View Post

    One of my favorite episodes.
    Last edited by Redrose; 01-19-2015 at 08:09 PM.

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