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[Scoops Novel]

When it sinks in we actually can:

• Extend human life
• Change bodies and minds
• Make everything a million gigajoules more awesome

can we expect people to be in anyway sane, or will it basically look like every military industrial complex in a comic book? Reckless greed? A million times the science funding, but no caution over what is already pretty dangerous to our future?

[martinuzz]

There is no limit to Life. Life is infinite.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kk2MH9O4pXY

[EuchreJack]

1) Life Extension is always going to be a thing.  It is the least controversial of the ideas.  Although it does bring up Right To Die issues, which are more relevant.
2) We're nowhere near the total change of bodies and minds that your cyberpunk brain is thinking.  But we've had the ability to change gender for a while.
3) The ability to make things "More Awesome" often makes them "More Crappy", like throwing Hot Sauce on Ice Cream.


I will add that Life Extension is one of those self-correcting problems.  Old people are not as open to new societal norms and technology, yet those who experience the fullest benefits of Life Extension are likely to be the exceptions to that rule.

Look, at some point you gotta realize that every human has the intrinsic right to spend their still short human lives in whatever way they see fit. 
Controlling people is EVIL and frankly impossible.  Guiding them, and occasionally restricting their ability to fuck with other human beings, is the most one can do.
Compared to the Age of the Universe, an extra 50 years means nothing.

[Scoops Novel]

2) We're nowhere near the total change of bodies and minds that your cyberpunk brain is thinking.  But we've had the ability to change gender for a while.

You underestimate my sci-fi. I'm thinking of genetic engineering making things whole-cloth or getting wild with CRISPR on dem human embryos.

[anewaname]

Is "people" a subset of "we"?
Is "we" a subset of "people"?
When you "push Life's limits", are you creating a new set outside of the "we" and "people" sets?

[Scoops Novel]

... Yes. Every new event digs out a new subgroup lurking within people. There will be noticeable unique responses. Several of them.

You could argue this is older then humanity. We're talking life getting into full bloom. And how does life respond when there's a sudden Cambrian explosion, for example? We're bound to respond the same.

[Travis Bickle]

can we expect people to be in anyway sane, or will it basically look like every military industrial complex in a comic book? Reckless greed? A million times the science funding, but no caution over what is already pretty dangerous to our future?

The answer is implicit in the that you felt the need to ask the question in the first place. Whatever the worst-case scenario you can imagine for emerging technologies is, the reality will probably be even worse.

[Scoops Novel]

Which could be enough to cancel itself out. People only tolerate so much, and then shit changes. "Too much too fast" is the read i'm getting, and that can force a powerful response. I don't know how people will try to create new circumstances, but they will.

[Robsoie]

As a couple of dutch philosophers said :
No limits, we'll reach for the sky, no valley too deep, no mountain too high.

[anewaname]

Well, I think the humans exposed to the idea and the actuality of a Cambrian explosion would be able to express anger and fear, but what can they actually do about it? It is not like they will nuke the planet while they are still on it.

The real danger is the politicians who will use the angry and afraid peoples, against their political rivals.

[McTraveller]

I'm just wishing for us to figure out how to prevent nasal mucous overload when having a head cold.  I've gone through an entire box of tissues today.  Rivers of clear mucous.

At least historically this means I'm in the end stages of the infection.

[Loud Whispers]

-People are accidentally going to get stuck as neon furries after their biohacked paws can no longer operate the 3D printing autosurgeons they used
-Neon coloured fur offers no tactical benefit in the wilderness

-People are going to give themselves glow in the dark irises and patterns in the skin
-Cyberpunk themed nightclubs will be very vogue with blacklight discos
-Revellers will be 2% more related to jellyfish than they are with unmodified homo sapiens

-The number of men insecure about their body height are going to trigger an arms race as they keep extending in length
-Men who are less than 11ft in height will be called manlets
-The only way to escape the height grindset will be to reject the heightrarchy and become Urist

-Body insecurities will be preyed upon by cosmetic biohackers who will pay influencers to convince teenage girls that they're ugly if they don't have a dorsal fin
-RETVRN TO ATLANTIS MY CHILDREN

-People will argue over whether it's against the spirit of the Olympics to allow Tank McIronfucker the bioengineered lifting machine to compete with career athletes
-Somehow Tank McIronfucker will lose to a North Korean technoluddite who rejects the corruption of the cursed machine

[EuchreJack]

-People will argue over whether it's against the spirit of the Olympics to allow Tank McIronfucker the bioengineered lifting machine to compete with career athletes
-Somehow Tank McIronfucker will lose to a North Korean technoluddite who rejects the corruption of the cursed machine

My favorite part of all that.  Zen beats Machine!

[martinuzz]

I thought Zen was crushed by the infinite army of Windows BSOD decades ago

[Loud Whispers]

My favorite part of all that.  Zen beats Machine!

It's always one of those pleasant things that our expectations are still often defeated by determination

I'm reminded of this one lady who raised a racehorse from a starved wreck to a champion. She said it was funny how much people were paying her for samples of his sperm for breeding purposes, because they assumed a champion horse must be a genetic uberhorse. She said in the interview she honestly thought the only reason her horse kept winning was because the horse seemed to understand that winning made her happy so he tried his best