Genetic augmentation not funded

[HughMungusCynicalAnarch]

Given the vast benefits of such technology why are governments not writing a blank check? 

Eidetic memory, genius iq, no more disease, better senses, physical strength Improvements, endurance no hunger(make cellulose digestible by humans), Immortality and possibly many other things such as infra red vission (first organic pigment created that detects infra red light) telepathy(organic radio transmitters) and a lot more.

However it barely gets any funding and badely anyone talks about it.a

[captain_to_fire]

Check this out. This might be the future for the next two centuries. We might as well cure the incurable like cancer, HIV/AIDS, or Parkinson's and further research might lead to real life Captain Americas.

 

 

The first video is a must watch. 

 

[LAwLz]

OP you forgot the most important benefit.

Genetically engineered catgirls for domestic use.

[dalekphalm]

Eugenics. There are a lot of ethical problems with genetic modification/augmentation, etc. Creating clearly and obviously superior humans can lead to discrimination (in both directions).

 

Not to mention, it's expensive research, and it's hard enough getting Government to fund research that already has clear and defined economic benefits, such as space exploration technology.

[Dash Lambda]

To say genetic augmentation is in its infancy is an incredible understatement.

Some of the things you said, like no disease and telepathy, basically imply that genetic engineering is magic. Unfortunately, it's not.

As for immortality -While we're growing closer to stopping and reversing aging with genetic engineering, we've had a few centuries to reflect on massive government-funded expeditions to discover a 'fountain of youth'. It's just too out-there for governments to put a lot of money behind it.

 

Sure, the medical benefits would be immense and we'd be able to handle an incredible number of diseases almost effortlessly, but that assumes mastery over the field. In the interim, all we'll get is minor ability enhancement and novelty, which is rather trivial.

 

Also, as @dalekphalm said, eugenics is something we really try to avoid as a society. Genetic engineering on humans is a bit taboo.

I actually think Star Trek did a good job showing what would happen if we rushed genetic engineering.

[HughMungusCynicalAnarch]

4 hours ago, Dash Lambda said:

To say genetic augmentation is in its infancy is an incredible understatement.

Some of the things you said, like no disease and telepathy, basically imply that genetic engineering is magic. Unfortunately, it's not.

As for immortality -While we're growing closer to stopping and reversing aging with genetic engineering, we've had a few centuries to reflect on massive government-funded expeditions to discover a 'fountain of youth'. It's just too out-there for governments to put a lot of money behind it.

 

Sure, the medical benefits would be immense and we'd be able to handle an incredible number of diseases almost effortlessly, but that assumes mastery over the field. In the interim, all we'll get is minor ability enhancement and novelty, which is rather trivial.

 

Also, as @dalekphalm said, eugenics is something we really try to avoid as a society. Genetic engineering on humans is a bit taboo.

I actually think Star Trek did a good job showing what would happen if we rushed genetic engineering.

Telepathy isn't magic and neither is disease.

For disease or suppress any genes that cause disease or make you more likely to get it in combination with a better immune system and better cellular repairs.

With telepathy organic radio transmitters would need to be invented and incorporated into the human brain.

[HughMungusCynicalAnarch]

5 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

Eugenics. There are a lot of ethical problems with genetic modification/augmentation, etc. Creating clearly and obviously superior humans can lead to discrimination (in both directions).

 

Not to mention, it's expensive research, and it's hard enough getting Government to fund research that already has clear and defined economic benefits, such as space exploration technology.

Ethics are arbitrary and this would be done to every new person being born and genethedapies would be offered to the ones born before.

Also I'd think extreme inftelligence and memory and superior physical ability would offer clear and defined economic benefits.the

[dalekphalm]

37 minutes ago, HughMungusCynicalAnarch said:

Ethics are arbitrary and this would be done to every new person being born and genethedapies would be offered to the ones born before.

Also I'd think extreme inftelligence and memory and superior physical ability would offer clear and defined economic benefits.the

But who decides when and how it gets applied? How much does it cost? Is it free to everyone, or do you need to pay for it? Will there be insurance to cover the cost?

 

How do you prevent genetic alterations from being accessible to wealthy people only? It could, quite literally, create a stupid poor subrace.

 

Ethics are indeed arbitrary, but we as a society deem certain things good and certain things bad. I say murder is bad. Most people agree with me. What if people don't agree on what is ethical and what isn't?

 

It seems like you either haven't thought through the ethical ramifications, or you've dismissed them because you personally don't see any issues.

[Dash Lambda]

5 minutes ago, HughMungusCynicalAnarch said:

For disease or suppress any genes that cause disease or make you more likely to get it in combination with a better immune system and better cellular repairs.

And you would also need the ability to immediately adapt to and fight any disease of any form and nature perfectly, recover from extreme shock and stress without any lasting effects, and regenerate any tissue damage with no error. Otherwise, there's still disease.

So... Magic.

 

8 minutes ago, HughMungusCynicalAnarch said:

With telepathy organic radio transmitters would need to be invented and incorporated into the human brain.

Then invent an organic radio.

 

14 minutes ago, HughMungusCynicalAnarch said:

Ethics are arbitrary, and this would be done to every new person being born in addition to gene therapies being offered to the ones born before.

Ethics are absolutely arbitrary. There's no objective fact of the universe, no concept in physics or math, not in anything that can be viewed independent of human social interaction that establishes it.

Fun fact: Same goes for law. So I dare you to shoot a guy in the knee then argue that the law is arbitrary when you're arrested.

 

As for applying genetic augmentation: Do you have any idea how much more difficult it would be to overhaul the genetic code of a live adult human than it would be to to the same to an egg?

In fact, even negating the difficulty in developing the scientific framework, genetically augmenting every single new child even just in the US alone would require a level of organization or unanimous support that we haven't seen in any group of people in the entirety of human history, let alone doing it worldwide, LET ALONE for this controversial an effort. And when we don't suddenly become a likeminded collective of nearly 10,000,000,000 people all working towards the same goal, there will be people who are augmented and people who are not. For what most likely happens then, see Star Trek's Eugenics Wars.

 

20 minutes ago, HughMungusCynicalAnarch said:

I'd also think extreme intelligence, memory, and superior physical ability would offer clear and defined economic benefits.

Nope.

Social benefits? Maybe. Labor efficiency benefits? Absolutely. 

The problem with labor efficiency is that it means the same job can be done with less people. More efficiency is great for the employers, but it reduces the availability of jobs. A superhuman workforce means naturally higher unemployment, which is one of the biggest economic problems governments are and have been actively trying to fight for a long time (with varying success).

So, basically, a genetically enhanced population wouldn't just not be economically beneficial, it would be economically disastrous.

[RocketFarmer]

Gene manipulation is part of natural evolution, just takes a lot longer.

 

Have to also realize that with intentional modifications for improvements come unintended consequences.  What do you do with the mistakes?  And if you are successful, what do these "improved" humans do with you?

 

As a side note, with these super-humans come super-diseases.  Don't be too sure that we'd have the upper hand on disease.  You could end up engineering the disease that kills everyone off.

[techswede]

Genetic manipulation in humans is something that seems too distant. Even if a reliable process was invented it would have to go through so much red tape that we'll all be dead before half of it is done. I still hold on to a tiny sliver of hope that one day humanity will hold the reins of evolution in order to do with it what they will. (Even though some moron will most likely fuck it up)

But i'll probably not get to see it in my lifetime. Since a population unaffected by aging, disease etc would be unsustainable on this prison of a planet we inhabit.. This insignificant speck of dust in the cosmos i'll most likely die on.. *erm* Humanity would need to be at least a type 2 civilization (Colonization of our solar system.) And even then the population would grow and grow until we're essentially space locusts. Just stripping all the resources we can out of anything in our way to sustain an immortal population.  

 

[AshleyAshes]

Personally, I feel that arguing against eugenics with someone who also believes that telepathy is real, might be a futile waste of one's time, but that's just my opinion.  You guys have fun in this thread.

[LAwLz]

3 hours ago, AshleyAshes said:

Personally, I feel that arguing against eugenics with someone who also believes that telepathy is real, might be a futile waste of one's time, but that's just my opinion.  You guys have fun in this thread.

What's wrong with thinking telepathy is possible in the future (using organic radios)? Next you'll tell me WiFi isn't real either... 

[Dash Lambda]

2 hours ago, LAwLz said:

What's wrong with thinking telepathy is possible in the future (using organic radios)? Next you'll tell me WiFi isn't real either... 

-WiFi (or more generally 'wireless communication') is a modern technology that we understand very well and use on a very large scale.

-Telepathy, via organic radios, is about as realistic as warp drive. It's theoretically possible, but we're a long way from even having a basic idea of how the technology itself would actually work in the first place.

[dalekphalm]

2 hours ago, Dash Lambda said:

-WiFi (or more generally 'wireless communication') is a modern technology that we understand very well and use on a very large scale.

-Telepathy, via organic radios, is about as realistic as warp drive. It's theoretically possible, but we're a long way from even having a basic idea of how the technology itself would actually work in the first place.

I would go so far as to say that a random natural mutation has a greater chance of creating a "telepath" in the next 100 years, then humans artificially creating an organic radio. I'm thinking Babylon 5 style telepaths, personally, but it could manifest itself in so very many different ways.

 

With that in mind, neither are likely to happen in our lifetime. Hell, even in Babylon 5, they cheated, and the Vorlons introduced the telepath gene into humanity artificially

[Thaldor]

The biggest hindurance in eugenics are the ethics and morals of today. In matter, they are in the way of many medical advances like already quite well researched stem cells which have a huge amount of possibilities and quite many of them are already possible, too bad we cannot try them out because "abortion is murder" and everybody is fighting wether cluster of stem cells is a living human or not.

 

So far what we can presume in eugenics if someone was bold enough to throw morals and ethics to the trashbin and start doing research and advancing the field in more than just injecting/altering mice and rabbits. One huge possibility lies within the human genome project which completed would give us the map with which we can start coding, that's probably the first step to get done. Second one is to find a right virus for humans to inject the modified genome and after that only the sky is a limit. There's no ethics against the human genome project but the injection part is totally halted because there's so many ethics in it's way. If no one didn't know there's very little successful trials into changing the genome of a soon to be living creature, almost all successful trials have used specialiced viruses to carry and inject the modified genome into the cells of the embryo and in theory, with these viruses it's possible to inject the modified genome into a fully grown creature, but that's quite a big no-no in the ethical standpoint to research. If we could throw the ethics away, it would take time but not as long as poeple would imagine to start doing some real genetic augmentations and more importantly genetic treatments.

 

Also there's one very huge thing in genetic augmentation that not many come to think about. At this moment one big problem in transplants and also in cybernetics is the genetic rejection. If it was possible to alter the genome of the person who receives a transplant to be more or even perfectly similar to the transplant there wouldn't be any kind of rejection. If ethics weren't in the way the problem with huge queues to receive a new kidney or liver or heart would be a thing in the past, just one injection of gene manipulating virus week or few to let the virus do it's thing and here's your new organ and you wouldn't even be required to eat immunosuppressive drugs the rest of your life.

 

The problem isn't funding, the problem is that if you're funding your little supersoldier program you better keep it very secret from everybody because if the morally sensitive part of the people would know about it you would get more hate against yourself than publicly saying that in western coutries women already have the same rights as men.

[dalekphalm]

16 minutes ago, Thaldor said:

-snip-

Also there's one very huge thing in genetic augmentation that not many come to think about. At this moment one big problem in transplants and also in cybernetics is the genetic rejection. If it was possible to alter the genome of the person who receives a transplant to be more or even perfectly similar to the transplant there wouldn't be any kind of rejection. If ethics weren't in the way the problem with huge queues to receive a new kidney or liver or heart would be a thing in the past, just one injection of gene manipulating virus week or few to let the virus do it's thing and here's your new organ and you wouldn't even be required to eat immunosuppressive drugs the rest of your life.

 

-snip-

At that point, frankly, cloning the organ using the genetic material of the transplant recipient is likely easier, and far better then manipulating the DNA of the recipient to make them compatible with the donor organ.

[AshleyAshes]

1 hour ago, Thaldor said:

if someone was bold enough to throw morals and ethics to the trashbin

[HughMungusCynicalAnarch]

On 1/13/2017 at 4:05 PM, dalekphalm said:

But who decides when and how it gets applied? How much does it cost? Is it free to everyone, or do you need to pay for it? Will there be insurance to cover the cost?

 

How do you prevent genetic alterations from being accessible to wealthy people only? It could, quite literally, create a stupid poor subrace.

 

Ethics are indeed arbitrary, but we as a society deem certain things good and certain things bad. I say murder is bad. Most people agree with me. What if people don't agree on what is ethical and what isn't?

 

It seems like you either haven't thought through the ethical ramifications, or you've dismissed them because you personally don't see any issues.

People like me.

does it matter? do you really think the resources for such things would cost that much? were not building an 8 million ton space war ship here that requires the works of tens of thousands, were changing the genetic code of individuals or eggs, currently it is only artificially expensive.

yes it is free and mandatory for any new children conceived. Id say that there should be parenting licenses even though with this that wouldnt be needed since any bad genetic lines could be purged and then enhanced.

 

Government would provide it.

id say a future multi billionaire could provide it a low cost to poor families or make it free. bill gates already gives plenty to charity and this would be much better for civilization.

 

Murder kills someone, this enhances.

you know what i think is wrong? the government telling me what i can do to my body and telling me how i can enhance my future children.

if there are severe restrictions on this in the future, even more than now, you can bet there will be trans humanist terrorist groups surging.

china is already on their way to implementing such a system for their population and the idiots in the western world, both the religious right and the sjw leftist will only make us fall behind china.

 

there are none.

[HughMungusCynicalAnarch]

On 1/13/2017 at 4:05 PM, Dash Lambda said:

And you would also need the ability to immediately adapt to and fight any disease of any form and nature perfectly, recover from extreme shock and stress without any lasting effects, and regenerate any tissue damage with no error. Otherwise, there's still disease.

So... Magic.

 

Then invent an organic radio.

 

Ethics are absolutely arbitrary. There's no objective fact of the universe, no concept in physics or math, not in anything that can be viewed independent of human social interaction that establishes it.

Fun fact: Same goes for law. So I dare you to shoot a guy in the knee then argue that the law is arbitrary when you're arrested.

 

As for applying genetic augmentation: Do you have any idea how much more difficult it would be to overhaul the genetic code of a live adult human than it would be to to the same to an egg?

In fact, even negating the difficulty in developing the scientific framework, genetically augmenting every single new child even just in the US alone would require a level of organization or unanimous support that we haven't seen in any group of people in the entirety of human history, let alone doing it worldwide, LET ALONE for this controversial an effort. And when we don't suddenly become a likeminded collective of nearly 10,000,000,000 people all working towards the same goal, there will be people who are augmented and people who are not. For what most likely happens then, see Star Trek's Eugenics Wars.

 

Nope.

Social benefits? Maybe. Labor efficiency benefits? Absolutely. 

The problem with labor efficiency is that it means the same job can be done with less people. More efficiency is great for the employers, but it reduces the availability of jobs. A superhuman workforce means naturally higher unemployment, which is one of the biggest economic problems governments are and have been actively trying to fight for a long time (with varying success).

So, basically, a genetically enhanced population wouldn't just not be economically beneficial, it would be economically disastrous.

It isnt magic. we just need to understand how our cells work better and have a much greater under standing of genetics. there is absolutely no reason why we couldnt make it so that our bodies would repair themselves in a much quicker fashion or why we couldnt make it so that any harmful bacteria or viruses would be annihilated by the immune system.

same with organic radios. the only reason they dont exist already is earth doesnt get much radio and radio is extremely low energy.

it doesnt compare at all to warp drive which is completely hypothetical and requires the existence of exotic types of matter.

everything needed for this already exists.

 

Again with murder im killing someone.

what youre saying here is that the law on murder is equivalent to you and the government telling me what i cant or can research and what i cant or can do with my body.

it would be extremely difficult but that is why this job would be set aside for the superman created by enhancing an eggs genetics.

 

you do realize that were reaching our intellectual and creative peak, right?

if you want FTL travel then youll support this.

what reason would there even be to have an economy when everything is automated?

were already heading in this direction.

doctors will be obsolete in 20 years and engineers and mathematicians will also be obsolete in the future as well.

[HughMungusCynicalAnarch]

On 1/13/2017 at 7:30 PM, techswede said:

Genetic manipulation in humans is something that seems too distant. Even if a reliable process was invented it would have to go through so much red tape that we'll all be dead before half of it is done. I still hold on to a tiny sliver of hope that one day humanity will hold the reins of evolution in order to do with it what they will. (Even though some moron will most likely fuck it up)

But i'll probably not get to see it in my lifetime. Since a population unaffected by aging, disease etc would be unsustainable on this prison of a planet we inhabit.. This insignificant speck of dust in the cosmos i'll most likely die on.. *erm* Humanity would need to be at least a type 2 civilization (Colonization of our solar system.) And even then the population would grow and grow until we're essentially space locusts. Just stripping all the resources we can out of anything in our way to sustain an immortal population.  

 

stop thinking like that.

our computing technology was absolutely primitive 60 years ago

we didnt even have something such as laser pointers

i have a 1.2 watt blue laser which would have been worth tens of billion(todays dollars) back then.

i see no reason why i have to be a mortal.

 

i want to live forever.

nothing really matters other than that.

ill continue to believe that this will come about in the future.

[HughMungusCynicalAnarch]

15 hours ago, Dash Lambda said:

-WiFi (or more generally 'wireless communication') is a modern technology that we understand very well and use on a very large scale.

-Telepathy, via organic radios, is about as realistic as warp drive. It's theoretically possible, but we're a long way from even having a basic idea of how the technology itself would actually work in the first place.

again comparing warp, we dont have warp nor the hypothetical exotic matter needed to do it, to a radio which do exists.

this is an organic radio.

yes im sure it would be very difficult to create one but comparing it to warp is silly.

as a matter of fact is there anyone at any university eve looking into creating an organic radio?

i think not.