17 replies to this topic

[duke_Qa]

Wow, I'm having luck in finding soul-nourishing things these days. This article and video talks about both the American economic crisis in a sensible way, and the wave of technology that is about to roll over us the next generation or two. Here's some quick quotes:

Do we want the Olympics to become a showcase for very hardworking, hard-training, mutants? Or do we want to create handicaps for the rest of us, as they do in sailing or golf, providing those who did not pick the right parents the chance to compete on equal footing? Or should we allow gene therapy, introducing naturally occurring genes into the bodies of those who lack a particular variant?

[...]

We do not have a moral, ethical, legal framework to begin to deal with the challenges of rapidly increasing genetic and other physical differences among individuals and between groups. This deficit is especially serious now that an avalanche of technologies is coming together that accentuates the speed of change, like gene therapy, organ regeneration, transplantation, robotics, brain mapping, combinatorial chemistry, nutrigenomics, microbiomes, and various fertility treatments and options.

The world is apparently growing closer and closer to a "Ghost in the shell" future, to put it very, very blunt. And I'm all for it .

However, I am a bit worried about these people and their talks of moral and ethical framework to build on, as most morals and ethic people are firmly in the hands of theistic people. Most people will be incredible selfish and deconstructive when it comes to such world-changing events as those mentioned here, and then they just go hypocritical and start creating dogmas that will delay the inevitable. But who knows, there will probably be a compromise between the mad scientist and the religious luddite, if we are lucky.

[Vortigern]

I'm fully in favour of having one Olympics for athletes who don't use drugs or enhancers or anything and are pretty impressive, and another Olympics for people who are 'roided to the gills, which some of them will actually have. Also permissible are giant robot limbs, flamethrower hands, landmines and animal body parts. "And Dave Smith, half-man, half-cheetah and half-robot has just run 100m in 0.6 seconds. Blink and you missed him!" Who wouldn't watch that?

Anyway, we have been taking evolution into our own hands for centuries, millennia even. That's what sentience is all about, fucking with the natural order. Nature would have had Stephen Hawking down for cot death, but then we come in and he's fine and theoretically able to procreate. Blind people, or just folks with poor sight, have no problem gettin' it on. Nor do asthmatics, or dudes with really bad teeth (assuming they can afford some serious dental cosmetics or have really low standards), and people with cancer, instead of dying and being all 'Crap, I forgot to have kids and now I'm dead' are now all 'La la la chemo and ten more years and lots of children with cancer genes, huzzah!'. That, my friends, is us taking evolution into our own hands. It's nothing new. I bet even the ancient Sumerians occasionally used their chariots as wheelchairs for rich dudes who'd lost their legs in battle or by being a twat. Just bey existing, and continuing to try to exist, we humans are destroying all nature's hard work. So let's accept that fact and take it the max: a 'roid-raging robot-cheetah-man furiously copulating with/on/in/near a blind asthmatic crack-whore with early-onset Alzheimers. At least it wouldn't be boring.

[duke_Qa]

My philosophy is more that Nature wants us to violate it in a quest to conquer the universe with sentient life .

We can't just think that nature is some old hag sitting out in the woods with branches in her hair, saying "you better stop doing this or you all will die with me!". We are doing that just fine today and we would complete the task if we get complacent

'La la la chemo and ten more years and lots of children with cancer genes, huzzah!'. That, my friends, is us taking evolution into our own hands.

Indeed, so I don't see the problem in actively creating genetic cures to such things that we ourselves have brought upon us. Our genetic flaws are directly related to our ability to ignore Evolution's core mantra of "survival for the fittest" with medical aid. The day they invented antibiotics and started using it on a global scale was the day we embraced genetic manipulation of this sort.

[partyzanPaulZy]

Yes, we (humans) have already taken evolution into our own hands. We have made most of giant beings (we met) extinct (mammoths, moa, giant eagle dependend on moas, Madagascar "Elephant Bird", etc.) or close to it (Sharks - thx Chinese, Whales - thx Japanese, Sea Eagles - thx poisoner morons)... we have influenced global weather with our agriculture and later industrial exhalations, 2000 nuclear blasts and various accidents in chemical plants or oil platforms/tankers. There is also the fact nature prospers most in military zones and contaminated areas (Chernobyl), if I don't include national parks. Vast areas of world oceans are contaminated with various waste including radioactive materials to the level they are downright wastelands.

We are letting morons rule the world, letting them continue erradication of tropical rain forrests for ores (coltan), biofuels, rare woods or plain agricultural soil, letting them continue further contamination of the global environment and fogyism (GMO, clonning, nuclear energy, new highly efficient technologies...).
With this attitude we should prepare one day there will be just 8% of the oxygen in the air and temperatures above 40°C in the Mild Climatic Zone (instead of the snow ball Earth would have become without the human kind).

The fogyism is slowing the progress for millenias, the worst moments were during the Roman Empire (they have chosen slaves instead of the steam engine), 15th century China (they have chosen isolationism instead of the world domination they are goint to achieve in this century) or the last 150 years (poor Tesla, damned consumeristic, idiocratistic society, radical christians and radical moslims)... That's the reason nobody's mining He3 from the Moon surface, nobody's flying to Mars with nuclear engine in the crewed rocket, it took over one century for 3D TV to develop into usable state (yet directors aren't capable of doing it right in 3D), larger part of African countries aren't really independent, half the world is corrupted like hell, 1 billion people are starving, etc.
So I can only hope the progress won't be stomped by armored boots of fundamentalists, cowards or eco-terrorists.

Edited by partyzanPaulZy, 07 February 2011 - 02:40 PM.

[Námo]

Brave New World version 2.0

[OmegaBolt]

It makes me sad, but I can't stop anyone from doing it. I will just not take part.

And you know I like cyberpunk worlds but the point is it's imagination, I mean already when I go to bigger cities it feels dystopian. So I just hope there's a way to escape, parts of the world where enhancements are banned and cities cannot be built. Why the hell would you wanna live in the Ghost in the Shell world? It's f*cking miserable.

I mean think of it this way: limitations allow us to appreciate what we do have. If we conquer death there's absolutely no point living.

There may be a lot of mad, delusional theists out there but there's also an equal amount of zealous crackpot atheists, and your sounding pretty insane to me.

[duke_Qa]

We're all insane I'd say. Ghost in the shell is one of the better examples of a post-cyberpunk setting, where the titular punk is no longer a rebel but is a part of society trying to help it develop in a positive direction.

As far as I'm concerned, we got too many limitations to reach further than we have reached before. Go back a thousand years and living until you were 40 was considered good fortune. If you could live for 200 years in good health and of a good mind, wouldn't you think that you could have achieved more with the knowledge you've gained? I think many people surrender to death and retirement way too early, partially because we grow old and worn out, partially because our culture tells us to relax when we get old. The former can be improved, and the latter is an attitude that will change with it.

So I can only hope the progress won't be stomped by armored boots of fundamentalists, cowards or eco-terrorists.

Pretty much, religious people cling to their shrinking flock, fundamentalists of any sort fight just because it makes them feel important, cowards usually just nod and let evil happen, eco-terrorists might be a strange definition, but I'd say eco-naivists would try to stop us because we would be meddling with nature. I'd like to see these eco-people try to argue with medieval lords about the evil of irrigation.

Edited by duke_Qa, 07 February 2011 - 08:40 PM.

[Mathijs]

Stop pretending these developments are somehow allowing us to transcend nature. We are a part of nature, what we do is a part of nature. This has nothing to do with taking evolution into our own hands, it is all a natural result of it.

[duke_Qa]

We are Nature's most successful creation(sentience-wise at least, quality/quantity philosophy does not apply here ), and as long as we continue to spread we are doing nature's bidding. What we have to be careful about is claiming nature does not want us to transcend, that we are meant to be here because we are "created in the shape of God" or whatever.

Edited by duke_Qa, 07 February 2011 - 09:53 PM.

[partyzanPaulZy]

Well, eco-terrorist was meant as that sort of people who are blindly urging their idea of something what should be ecological (say build more wind powerplants...), without realizing this idea might fail utterly (...but the winds aren't stable and strong enough), becoming an antithesis of the "ecological".

I've heard nowadays solar panels don't produce more energy than needed for their built in the mild zone (same applies for wind power plants in areas without sufficiently strong winds).

[duke_Qa]

Well if Solar power is usually more effective because you don't need a large power-grid to get power. Considering the amount of energy it would take to build infrastructure like that in a lot of nations the energy cost is usually worth it. And on top of that, the profits made off solar power helps create better cells. I read in the news yesterday that some American firm has found a way to make solar panels with plastics instead of silicon, which was much sturdier and could be rolled up in rolls and nailed to walls.

But yeah, Solar panels are expensive compared to the effect, and many other technologies aren't much better. I'm more against those that work themselves into a rage over industries that spread too much CO2 or are somewhat inefficient in energy consumption. What would you want us to do, choke ourselves until the oil runs out? Do pragmatic environmental protection and let people develop new technologies. Iphones and that kinda stuff can burn though

[Vortigern]

My brother and I were talking the other day, and we thought of something. Why does no major energy conglomerate simply lay a giant cable from Iceland to America and pump in geothermal energy? Granted, you'd lose a load of energy en route but it doesn't matter, the centre of the earth isn't running out so who cares? Turn Iceland into a giant power station.

[duke_Qa]

They are planning/talking about turning Norway into Europe's green battery, because we have all of these reservoirs that we fill up during the summer and spend over the winter, and with a big power-cable over to the Netherlands to transfer it in, it would be possible. Problem is bureaucracy and business politics. power-companies in Norway also prefer to not fill up our reservoirs enough so that we have to pay high prices when its looking like we might run out during winter.

All in all I believe there is not enough effective thermal power-conversion systems on Iceland to create enough energy worthy of being transported across the Atlantic. Norway-Netherlands is one thing, Iceland America is a completely different one.

[Námo]

... Solar panels are expensive compared to the effect, and many other technologies aren't much better ...

For some reason technologies utilizing Solar energy almost exclusively refers to 'Active Solar Energy Systems', i.e. technologies that uses 'active' components for circulation, storage and control of the energy-flow. In short: industrial development, production and distribution.

Passive Solar Energy Systems are inexpensive, very simple and works quite well ... they always have.

No 'technological fix' needed, no specific industrial products required in implementation ... just a little sunshine, glass in the windows, and some common sense, i.e. some very basic knowledge on what happens when the sun is shining through the windows.

Huge amounts of energy resources, in relation to heating/cooling of houses, could be saved with a wider adaptation of this simple 'technology'. The only drawback (in terms of implementation) is that people would have to adapt their lives a little to the cyclical variations of summer/winter and day/night ... but given the trend toward a rather artificial lifestyle in modern societies, I would definitely not regard that as a drawback with respect to quality of life.

This technology is also well suited for poor countries without an advanced industrial production.

[duke_Qa]

Figured this was worthy of a little bump when it comes to the topic. Bit of an WTF-kinda news but I found it relevant.

Cancer Rise and Sperm Quality fall 'due to chemicals'

The University of Turku research suggests environmental reasons, particularly exposure to industrial chemicals, may be behind both trends. A UK expert said chemicals may affect the development of male babies.

Finnish men were studied as they have previously been shown to have some of the highest sperm counts in the world.

But scientists were never sure if this was because of their genetics or because they were exposed to fewer harmful chemicals.

[...]


Total sperm counts were 227m for men born in 1979-81, 202m for those born in 1982-83 and 165m for men born in 1987, respectively.

In addition, the researchers observed that there was a higher incidence of testicular cancer in men born around 1980 compared with men born around 1950.

Also handy to know,1986 was the year of the Chernobyl accident.
This you could say is a direct connection between human civilization and our genetic health. It's a pity we don't have statistics on these numbers from before the industrial revolution, because I suspect they've been dropping for a few centuries. I suspect that even if we did make some basic gene-scrubber fixes, it would be a drop in the sea compared to the flaws that we've given to ourselves over the last few centuries.

[Vortigern]

I am in no way surprised that Finland produces the best men.

[Ash]

Such a shame that we as a species do not take natural selection into our own hands. There are plenty of people who would benefit the gene pool by removing themselves from it. And not in an entertaining Darwin Awards way.

Shit breeds shit.

[duke_Qa]

Luckily our cultural and scientific memetics are evolving in a positive direction, which helps quite a bit in keeping the average afloat. After all, the biggest difference on us and Romans, Huns, cannibals or whatnot is our "developed" culture.