Transhumanism vs Bioconservatism.

[Krylo]

Originally Posted by TDK

Ah, but if the altercations advance at the same rate as the AI (I don't even know how we would go about determining if this would happen), there wouldn't be a separation between man and machine. As machines became more human and humans more machine, the line would blur until it ceased to exist. Isaac Asimov talked about this a lot in many of his novels*, and there's also a bit of this in Dresden Codak's 'Hob' arc.

That plus the fact that if it DOESN'T blur there's just a lot of terrible nastiness all around was kind of my point.

[Kim]

If we're still a capitalist society by the time we get human machines we are fucked.

[Amake]

Mei Ling put it best in Last Days of Fox-Hound: To think of things that humans make as something separate from the rest of nature is just arrogance. Being a purist about what you put in your body on that basis is not only impossible but pretty narrow-minded.

I know people who wear glasses to see better. Genetic plugins that makes the whole electromagnetic spectrum visible is really a very small step from there.

[Arhra]

You can't stop the transhumanists.

The future belongs to them.

[bluestarultor]

Originally Posted by Invisible Queen

Mei Ling put it best in Last Days of Fox-Hound: To think of things that humans make as something separate from the rest of nature is just arrogance. Being a purist about what you put in your body on that basis is not only impossible but pretty narrow-minded.

I know people who wear glasses to see better. Genetic plugins that makes the whole electromagnetic spectrum visible is really a very small step from there.

I'll disagree on both points. I've probably said this, but humans have been flipping off the whole natural order thing for a long time. There's not a single other species that's wiped out as many species as we have, or expanded their habitats as far as we have, or developed technology anywhere even laughably cute compared to what we have. We're physically weak, slow, small, lacking in at least four of the five senses, fragile, unsteady, have no natural weapons, degrading immune systems due to no longer dying from diseases that should be killing us, defects up the wazoo because we don't die from them anymore either, and nothing going for us but opposable thumbs, big brains, and endurance, yet we've taken two of those last three and commandeered the planet.

I seriously don't think we can really count all the crap we've done as just another thing animals do. Like it or not, we're special, and as a species, we unfortunately know it.



Also, I'm going to disagree on the concept of "improving" vision in those two ways being alike, because one is more specifically a correction, while the other is outright augmentation, and one that we've proven for several thousand years that we don't need to function. I personally wear glasses. I'm blind as a bat without them to the point I can't read my screen past less than a foot away from it. But wearing them to let myself sit at a comfortable distance has as much to do with seeing day-glow pee like hawks do as getting a taste receptor specifically for the enzymes in my own saliva has to with with my ability to enjoy food. It's going to be on all the time and not particularly useful to the average person and there's no guarantee I'll even like the taste it produces, but there would be no going back assuming we did it with gene therapy.

Granted, seeing UV actually has its own applications, like, say, cutting down on the equipment for a CSI looking for blood, or urine, or saliva, or other bodily fluids, but it comes at the price of that you will forever know just how filthy the whole world is in those things.

In some cases just because you can doesn't necessarily mean you want to for the sake of your own sanity.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

10 points if you guess what I'm going to say.

Advancements to human body are costly as fuck and while I'm down with the science (I work in related fields) it would be far more effective to spend the resources that you woulld use to enhance some rich people for a few percent increase in utility on improving the lot of the poor in convential ways for gigantic increases in utility.
When you have a super society where all people are at environmental limits then come bac k to me.

Somebody probably already said this but I'm taking my new found supercity to heart and going to be like fuck reading shit, it's all about me.

Human bodies are shit though. Fuck em.

[Archbio]

Originally Posted by A True Transhumanist

I don't want to be human! I want to see gamma rays! I want to hear X-rays! And I want to - I want to smell dark matter! Do you see the absurdity of what I am? I can't even express these things properly because I have to - I have to conceptualize complex ideas in this stupid limiting spoken language! But I know I want to reach out with something other than these prehensile paws! And feel the solar wind of a supernova flowing over me! And I can know much more! I can experience so much more. But I'm trapped in this absurd body! And why? Because my five creators thought that "God" wanted it that way!

With apologies to the original author.

[Amake]

Originally Posted by bluestarultor

we're special

Maybe, but we're still part of the natural world. In fact nothing can exist that is not part of the natural world. I don't see any point in limiting the definition of "nature" to exclude humanity, or parts of it.

As to how we have managed for several thousand years with a limited sense of vision, we also managed for several million years without glasses. You say it's a defect to not be able to see thirty feet in front of you, but it's okay to fix that. What makes it less okay to fix your ability to see the entire Internet at will? The fact that stone age man didn't need Internet at all?

[TDK]

Originally Posted by Arhra

You can't stop the transhumanists.

The future belongs to them.

High five!



Also, blues: Maybe its a bad thing in some senses, but I fuckin' LOVE flipping nature the bird and when other scientists do it.

[Magus]

All the Combine agents in here need to gtfo before I use my crowbar on their asses.

You aren't going to make a Stalker out of me!



BE A FREE MAN



To be serious for a mo', I'm not really against cool stuff like robot limbs, I just figure that prior to 2352 or whatever the real thing will probably be better than any kind of robot limb they can come up with. If you're missing a limb, though, then all the power to you to get a robot limb, but pointless "upgrades" I'm not really for. What your real human limb might lack in power it makes up for in its ability to heal itself, highly sensitive, highly flexible, etc. Until we see robot limbs that are virtually indistinguishable from human limbs except for being able to lift 3000 lbs., for example, they will remain a worse option, and frankly getting your arm purposefully chopped off just so you can get a robot arm seems kind of like getting needless plastic surgery--sure, you'll look better or younger (or in this case, be able to bench press a car), but you could have gotten along fine without that. Hell, people without enhancements can lift cars and crap, they are going to be way more impressive than somebody who just went and got a robot limb. You should have to work harder to be like Schwarzzenagger.

Also like Smarty said we could take some of the money we would put into giving ourselves night vision and upgrade Africa to 21st century levels.