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[Aqizzar]

It's like drugs, and cheating, and so many other things: People are for what they claim to be against. A guy talking about how horrible abortion is usually changes his tune really fast once his daughter gets knocked up. (Or he never changes his tune, kind of like the anti-gay activists going out with rentboys.)

Using human stupidity against, well, human stupidity? Sure, why not.

But see, this is the difference.  Genetic "fixes" for Alzheimer's and scoliosis is different from experimentally modifying the neocortex.  Fixing inherent problems is a step below and far more understandable and easier to explain that trying to intentionally stretch out a mental system that's already functioning.  That's where you lose people, since you're effectively equating non-genius intelligence with a problematic disease.  I'm sure that's not your intention; I'm saying that's how it comes across, and it's a much, much harder sell.

[nbonaparte]

In the current topic, the only law of the universe involved is entropy. Aquizzar mentioned it, and I think it's necessary. He said

it's about living "forever" (per any reasonable person's definition of forever)

Living indefinitely is the goal, not necessarily living forever. Some people will want to live to and beyond the heat death of the universe, and who knows what technology will be able to do then? Escape into an alternate universe? If there is even the slightest crack in the door of a law of physics, it's engineering's job to push that door wide open. We shouldn't be thinking about what we can do, but about what a vast intelligence could do (this argument is similar to the one for FTL communication). I want do die because I don't want to live anymore, not because my body degenerates.


On another note, I dislike how medical technology only ever progresses to restoring normal functioning. Take blood substitutes. We have blood substitutes efficient enough to let you sit under your pool for an hour. But nobody ever thinks of replacing some of their blood with the substitute.

[Aqizzar]

Yeah, the entropy/sun-death thing and so forth has been back-and-forth'ed already.  That was my point - living a billion years may be piddly in astronomical terms, but it's a lot closer to "forever" than I'd care to contemplate anyway, so that's as good as anything for me.

[Criptfeind]

Thing about the laws of physics is, there is no crack.

[Realmfighter]

This has very little to do with the discussion at hand, but this thread has filled me with a great desire to become a unbeatable cyborg and travel through space exacting genocides on morally ambiguous aliens.

[Criptfeind]

Oh yes.

Can I be your wacky sidekick?

[KaguroDraven]

Cyborgs are so last week Realfighter, Bio-engineered super soldiers are all the rage now.

[Realmfighter]

I will kill all the Bio-Engineered soldiers, leaving only the last to be my wacky side kick.

[nbonaparte]

Thing about the laws of physics is, there is no crack.

I recommend Asimov's The Last Question, by the way. In entropy, sure, there are no loopholes. But at least theoretically, it may be possible to escape this universe into one in an earlier stage of its evolution.

Gah, funny ninjas. Pirates, rather. I'd prefer a nanobot swarm, myself.

[Realmfighter]

Gah, funny ninjas. Pirates, rather. I'd prefer a nanobot swarm, myself.

You could have a cyborg with a nanobot swarm, but I guess thats not the same.

I will kill all the Bio-Engineered soldiers, leaving only the last to be my wacky side kick.

Ever notice that in games where you kill bioengineered soldiers by the truckload, you're almost always heavily modified or otherwise superhuman yourself?

Cyborg.

[Criptfeind]

Thing about the laws of physics is, there is no crack.

I recommend Asimov's The Last Question, by the way. In entropy, sure, there are no loopholes. But at least theoretically, it may be possible to escape this universe into one in an earlier stage of its evolution.

Gah, funny ninjas. Pirates, rather. I'd prefer a nanobot swarm, myself.

And theoretically unicorns will fly out my butt.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

How about your kid's eyes, which will end up 20/400 just like yours did unless you alter your germ line?

As someone with 20/50 20/400 eyes, I can say that that isn't very bad. Annoying, but hardly a burden.

[Aqizzar]

Thing about the laws of physics is, there is no crack.

I recommend Asimov's The Last Question, by the way. In entropy, sure, there are no loopholes. But at least theoretically, it may be possible to escape this universe into one in an earlier stage of its evolution.

That's your master plan?  A hack short story by a chemistry teacher, whose master computer couldn't for grammatically correct error statements?  The moral of the story was mankind never finding an answer, melding into a singular supermind before merging into the Multivac collective, then sitting around in hyperspace for centuries until pulling the literal definition of a Deus Ex Machina?  And you wonder why people don't take this stuff seriously.

_{That was jesting by the way.  This is a touchy topic, I know.}

[USEC_OFFICER]

Ever notice that in games where you kill bioengineered soldiers by the truckload, you're almost always heavily modified or otherwise superhuman yourself?

Name some.

[G-Flex]

The only hurdle is the ooh-scary genetics business caused by lack of knowledge and too much crappy fiction

Are you serious? Are you disregarding the other, more serious reasons? Trying to support genetic modification by ignoring the real issues involved is just as bad as trying to oppose it by making issues up/exaggerating the ones that exist.

You're right about "lack of knowledge", but in more ways than you think. It's not just the general public being misinformed, it's the fact that genetics is still a very young science. It's not nearly as ideal as you'd think it is from learning about it in high school biology class, a lot of things simply aren't understood about it, and it would be flat-out irresponsible to start widespread human experimentation on the genetic level at this stage.

This isn't even considering the social and ethical problems. Genetic engineering technology is not well-regulated like more established technologies are, and people (yourself included, apparently) seem to disregard the social/economic questions involved when considering the possibility of genetic modification being available on the free market (Do you actually want to see the upper classes, or indeed entire nations, become genetically superior to others? Do we really need that?). There are a lot of legitimate concerns regarding genetic modification to human beings, or even genetic screening, for that matter. It's nothing to dismiss out of hand simply because the technology has potential. People have done that with new science/tech in the past, and it has caused problems.

Some people will want to live to and beyond the heat death of the universe, and who knows what technology will be able to do then? Escape into an alternate universe? If there is even the slightest crack in the door of a law of physics, it's engineering's job to push that door wide open. We shouldn't be thinking about what we can do, but about what a vast intelligence could do (this argument is similar to the one for FTL communication). I want do die because I don't want to live anymore, not because my body degenerates.

If you're going to bring breaking the laws of physics into the argument, then there's no more argument, because you're engaging in totally hypothetical and baseless speculation by providing absolutely no limits to what you think might happen. Sure, maybe we're wrong about the laws of the universe, and maybe entropy doesn't work the way we think it does. Or maybe there's a God and an afterlife. Or unicorns. Or a giant disembodied head that swallows us up and reincarnates us as unicorns. When you start essentially pulling stuff out of your ass like this, it doesn't make for good debate, and it's fruitless to talk about.

We have blood substitutes efficient enough to let you sit under your pool for an hour. But nobody ever thinks of replacing some of their blood with the substitute.

• Definitely going to need a source on that.
• Even if that's true, is it as good as human blood as other things? Hell, it doesn't even make sense to "replace" human blood; blood does many more things than carry oxygen. Even if it only replaces that function, what side effects does it have? What would its long-term effects be? And so on.

Thing about the laws of physics is, there is no crack.

I recommend Asimov's The Last Question, by the way. In entropy, sure, there are no loopholes. But at least theoretically, it may be possible to escape this universe into one in an earlier stage of its evolution.

No, it's not. That's not theoretically possible. In fact, it's pretty explicitly impossible.