Altering humanity - what's the mental block about?

[stripes4]

It depends if they're 'fit' or not.

[Clinton Huxley]

Transhumanism is a load of shite. Imagine an eternal, battery powered Nick Clegg. No thanks.

[GreyICE]

Biotech for baseline survival- free, but similar upgrades for every generation that follows.

Retrofits can, assuming we continue to advance surgically, be treated as supplemental. Like clothing.

I stand by my assessment that positioning following generations for survival in a different environment for free exceeds the potential benefits of incrementally improved survival capabilities at a cost. Especially as cutting-edge technology tends to be quite costly, indeed. It also precludes the extent to which lower social strata risk indenture in the event of an emergent technocracy and enhanced stratification.

Consider that we've managed to improve our standards of living on this world almost exponentially while using the same basic wetware as our benighted predecessors.

I agree that if it's feasible to splice the upgrades into the genetic code that they be spliced in, and the survival package certainly needs to be available at no cost, but I've just never been convinced that some things are doable. Hardening the eyes to prevent fluid boiling is something that we could do today with a cheap surgery, or spend a zillion years trying to splice together something that half works because we have no model for it on earth. If it's survival related and we can engineer it into our offspring, we should, but if we can't, there's no flaw in having special infant care facilities where they can adapt to these upgrades.

Transhumanism is a load of shite. Imagine an eternal, battery powered Nick Clegg. No thanks.

Yes, because nothing like that is happening today.

Well, except genetically engineered infants.And artificial limbs. And artificial eyes that use machine-brain interface. Computer controlled by the mind (if sloppily).

Yeah, this is definitely a load of shit that we don't have to fucking think about. What the fuck? This was science fiction in the 1980s. Do you see a Disco bar? Listening to hair metal? Wearing spandex? No? Not the 80s. Glad that's settled.

[Clinton Huxley]

Ah, you are confusing "it's happening" with "it's a good thing". There's a zealous Utopianism to transhumanists that's sets my alarm bells ringing.

[JimC]

Ah, the human body is too complex for us to really understand what is happening, so we should hold off on sending people to Mars? Probably a good idea. I'd suggest undersea or other harsh environments as good testing spots for adaptions to be tested.

As for biology being irreproducibly complex, no it's not. It's just a system of components, you can alter them and not have horrible ramifications. We stick fake hips in people, make the deaf hear, we're giving people fake eyes and fake limbs, we give them fake heart valves and fake organs that keep the heart running steadily, we are already changing human biology.

Gratuitous? I'd rather like to be able to live for an hour after my heart fails, would give me some serious time to restart it. I'd love for most of these upgrades. Biology got us to a decent template, we can take it farther. We don't use horses for transportation anymore, and this is the same.

I agree with you about bionic upgrades to repair failing systems, or even for some very specific needs, like deep-sea diving, but I think you are underestimating the changes needed for long-term survival in alien environments (as opposed to a temporary fix)

I'm not saying never, but I still think it's a long way off...

[Meekychuppet]

I suspect there is a little more to Marsifying a human than a few spoonfuls of super blood and a coating of bacowrap.

Sure. We need a rebreather to reduce the CO2 to oxygen, we need something to harden our eyeballs to remove the dangers related to the delicate eye membranes, we'd probably have to do something about the sinus system. Sweating would be a terrible thing, we'd just have to honestly limit that one a lot. Then Vitamin D, we're proposing to reduce the amount of sunlight humans absorb AND stick them further from the sun, that's just terrible. We'd need a better way to make that, or suppliments.

Really, what's so devastating about the challenge that we have an edict from God that we must terraform Mars rather than alter his perfect creation?

This sounds dangerously close to creating a labour caste.

Besides that, Mars has no magnetic field. There isn't anything you can do about that. Think about the other issues. We would quickly lose control of any colonists that we could not cohabit with, thus defeating the point of going to mars. The feat of putting people on Mars is in preserving our way of life to move elsewhere and enrich it. If it's purely about putting life there then you could send bacteria pretty easily.

[GreyICE]

Ah, you are confusing "it's happening" with "it's a good thing". There's a zealous Utopianism to transhumanists that's sets my alarm bells ringing.

Ah, you are confusing "it can be a good thing" with "it is a good thing." There's a pervasive pessimism in the Luddites that sets my alarm bells ringing.

This sounds dangerously close to creating a labour caste.

Besides that, Mars has no magnetic field. There isn't anything you can do about that. Think about the other issues. We would quickly lose control of any colonists that we could not cohabit with, thus defeating the point of going to mars. The feat of putting people on Mars is in preserving our way of life to move elsewhere and enrich it. If it's purely about putting life there then you could send bacteria pretty easily.

Uh oh, we can't control them. Better make sure that the people there are our equals and coexist with us economically and socially, rather than making them a labor caste.

P.S. Magnetic fields. Really. Guess we can't make one of THOSE local to someone. Or just use rock.

[Meekychuppet]

Besides that, Mars has no magnetic field. There isn't anything you can do about that. Think about the other issues. We would quickly lose control of any colonists that we could not cohabit with, thus defeating the point of going to mars. The feat of putting people on Mars is in preserving our way of life to move elsewhere and enrich it. If it's purely about putting life there then you could send bacteria pretty easily.

Uh oh, we can't control them. Better make sure that the people there are our equals and coexist with us economically and socially, rather than making them a labor caste.

P.S. Magnetic fields. Really. Guess we can't make one of THOSE local to someone. Or just use rock.[/quote]

If you're going to spend all that money generating an artificial magnetic field why not just terraform?

And WTF does 'use rock' mean?

[GreyICE]

If you're going to spend all that money generating an artificial magnetic field why not just terraform?

And WTF does 'use rock' mean?

Lets see. Because I can create a magnetic field with a coil of wire and a hand generator, and can terraform a planet with, oh, lets say two coils of wire? So I can save a whole coil of wire if I focus on just the magnetic field? I mean why do I drive to the store? I could invent a sentient humanoid robot that could navigate to the store, and pick up all the groceries that I want, and then buy them for me. And then I could put a saddle on its back and RIDE IT TO THE STORE! Maybe it could move as fast as a horse!

Moving past the insane question, what do magnetic fields do? Block radiation. Alpha, beta, and protons. There's a fair few ways to block radiation. As I said, rock. Tunnels are a fine transition solution to full life on the surface. And a damn sight easier than terraforming, seeing as how they're, y'know, tunnels.

In the longer term, radiation is damaging because it destroys DNA and inhibits cellular reproduction, leading to long term errors. Identifying damaged cells and repairing the DNA or destroying the cell if it was too damaged would fix most of the long-term radiation damage. It would probably be a natural product of most life-extension therapies.

[Meekychuppet]

If you're going to spend all that money generating an artificial magnetic field why not just terraform?

And WTF does 'use rock' mean?

Lets see. Because I can create a magnetic field with a coil of wire and a hand generator, and can terraform a planet with, oh, lets say two coils of wire? So I can save a whole coil of wire if I focus on just the magnetic field? I mean why do I drive to the store? I could invent a sentient humanoid robot that could navigate to the store, and pick up all the groceries that I want, and then buy them for me. And then I could put a saddle on its back and RIDE IT TO THE STORE! Maybe it could move as fast as a horse!

Moving past the insane question, what do magnetic fields do? Block radiation. Alpha, beta, and protons. There's a fair few ways to block radiation. As I said, rock. Tunnels are a fine transition solution to full life on the surface. And a damn sight easier than terraforming, seeing as how they're, y'know, tunnels.

In the longer term, radiation is damaging because it destroys DNA and inhibits cellular reproduction, leading to long term errors. Identifying damaged cells and repairing the DNA or destroying the cell if it was too damaged would fix most of the long-term radiation damage. It would probably be a natural product of most life-extension therapies.

I didn't realise that you have no idea what you're talking about. Good day.

[GreyICE]

I didn't realise that you have no idea what you're talking about. Good day.

Epic. Can I quote you on that?

[Tigger]

I didn't realise that you have no idea what you're talking about. Good day.

Epic. Can I quote you on that?

And so he did.