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[i2amroy]

The medical tech to actually replace and integrate artificial muscles into someone is way more than 10-20 years away though. We might live long enough for functional equivalents, but not even this generations children are going to see muscle replacement on even a medical prosthetic scale. Let alone improvements. Which may never happen if the health organizations shut it down before it gets off the ground.

As a person currently working on a college project that involves bionic prosthetics (and therefore has to do tons of research on the subject) I think I'll respectfully disagree. There's already a fair handful of projects with bionic prosthetics that involve using mechanical muscles equivalents that respond to brain control out there, and I'd hazard a guess at 30-40 years before they start to become fairly commonplace (which could be beyond your life I guess, but it certainly isn't beyond mine). Actual augmentation (as opposed to just replacing destroyed things) is probably still a fair bit farther than that though.

[Knit tie]

I personally can't support Transhumanism for the reasons Janet mentioned too. When we get to the point we can make a human better, people with the means to better themselves in this new way finally actually become the physical, and shortly after gaining acceptance, social betters of "normal" people. It's going to be a mess if it ever happens.

I would like to retort that our society has never been made of similarly physically and mentally capable people and that wealth has always been the defining factor of social disparity and that the difference between a rich man and a poor man has always been so great that making the rich man run faster will not incrrease it.

But yes, that's a very sensitive topic, which requires an entire separate thread to discuss.

As for upgrading humans, americans already have prothetics so advanced that the marines they fit them with compare them favourably with their organic limbs, so who knows what's next?


Descan, I love you.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

I wonder if any of us don't love Descan.

[Descan]

That is exactly why I want to be the guy who creates, first immortality, and then augmentation. (Immortality so that I live forever long enough to see the augmentation forever)

I want to at least have the chance of holding the patent on it so that I can make it as cheap and free to everyone as possible. Though I'm not interested in money, so that might be a barrier to my getting into a position of holding the rights...

Ah well. I'm also a socialist-capitalist (give people living-money* while letting the good of capitalism* survive), so I have a dream! I'm allowed to dream, right? D:

*woo negative tax income, it's seriously fucking cheap, 32 billion to give every Canadian under "Basic needs" poverty 20k a year. That's assuming that every canadian in that category makes 0 dollars and that no canadian above that category makes less than 20k, so the numbers might be divergent, but whatever, it's a proof-of-concept.

*Responding to the needs of people and markets and the ability for any person (with starting capital, hence the basic income) to try and help with an idea they had, or start a business of their own, instead of having to ask the government to take up the idea.




EDIT: I love you too, Knit-Tie. Let's unite our Russian and Canadian arctic powers and go invade the Nordics.


EDITEDIT: Awwww <3 Thanks Leo!

[Gunner-Chan]

As a person currently working on a college project that involves bionic prosthetics (and therefore has to do tons of research on the subject) I think I'll respectfully disagree.

Genuinely curious, do you mean muscle analogs on a prosthetic? Or like replacement of damaged or wounded muscles on an otherwise functioning human body? Since I was mostly referring to the latter. Since I know muscle like fibers and tissues are coming along nicely, just I have no idea if they've gone into the implanting stage and if there's any rejection or integration concerns yet.

Assuming it's okay to clarify of course. I can imagine it might not be in your best interests to.

[i2amroy]

More like muscle analogs on a prosthetic, though we've briefly touched on the artificial muscles stuff. From what I know about them they are still quite a bit behind muscle analogs, though I do believe they are starting to have the rejection part of the process pretty well neutralized (which is certainly a step forwards). From my limited information I would be willing to bet that it's going to end up with just replacing a missing/damaged part with a completely bionic one before we get to the "grow you a new biological one" stage, though I'd guess that it depends a lot on how the next decade or so goes (and whether or not we see any biological backlash things show up, like when STEM cells first came out).

[Gunner-Chan]

Ah okay, that's what I meant in our lifetimes. I know the total prosthetic ones were coming along really nicely and look pretty awesome.

Would you happen to know of any further reading or anything on the artificial/replacement ones? I never quite know where I can go look into this stuff and as I'm doing some sci-fi worldbuilding and some other related things, and I'd like to know what sort of mistakes I need to avoid making during this odd transitional period.

[Knit tie]

Janet, I love you. And i2amroy, I love you too. Hell, I love all of you!

Which brings me kinda offtopic. Sorry.

[scrdest]

STEM cells

Are those stem cells of a scientist or an engineer?

[i2amroy]

If you aren't adverse to wading through a bit of data I always have found peer reviewed journals to the be the best source for cutting edge stuff, though sadly many of them are not free (unless you are lucky enough to be a student, since many schools [and most colleges] maintain free access for students to the larger ones).

STEM cells

Are those stem cells of a scientist or an engineer?

Lol. Guess that's what I get for typing this up right after a discussion about STEM stuff.

[SealyStar]

STEM cells

Are those stem cells of a scientist or an engineer?

The eventually mature into left-brain neurons.

[werty892]

Spoiler: A sneak peak at the Facebook VR experience. (click to show/hide)

[GiglameshDespair]

My knock-off xbox controller is dying, and I need a wired one to use on my laptop. Dark Souls is significantly harder when you can't attack.

Those things are expensive, you know.

[Kedly]

Spoiler: A sneak peak at the Facebook VR experience. (click to show/hide)

This is the greatest gif in existance xD

[Frumple]

Yaaay, something like 1/8th the back yard on fire. Yaay, not being told by goddamn anyone they were about to set the back yard on fire. Yay for being woken up from a nap because half the fucking house is filled with smoke caused by some prick setting the back yard on fire without telling anyone that was aware of open windows (not that it would have helped entirely if they were closed, since self-same pricks have put holes in parts of the walls) of the incoming smoke generator.

Now having a harder time breathing, likely going to get saddled with a headache because of it, the entire bloody house smells terrible, and I can't even go back to sleep because there's a goddamn (probably illegal, definitely unsafe) fire in the back yard and someone has to check on it regularly to make sure the whole frakking neighborhood doesn't go up in flames.

Damn it, people.