Mash Karas wrote...
Asata wrote...
Mash Karas wrote...
Asata wrote...
Read this: http://sensf.com/files/pdf/WILT.pdf
That would have the side-effect of preventing further evolution of mankind in terms of genetics. That's not a logical trade-off.
Nonsense. We could already engineer super humans, we're just too obligated to some antiquated sense of moral foolishness and superstition that's keeping us from it.
And honestly, we could make something far superior to humans. Evolution may find what works but it's very clear there wasn't any kind of intelligent design. Not only that but things beneficial according to evolution may not necessarily be beneficial to us.
For instance, animals whose young have a very high rate of mortality tend to have more young and animals who have shorter lifespans tend to reproduce more quickly.
The entire point of reproduction is the survival of your genome. If you have an incredibly long life, or didn't die, you wouldn't need to reproduce for the survival of your genome. That would certainly be beneficial to us as individuals but it's unimportant as far as evolution is concerned since the individual doesn't matter to it since it can just pass it on via reproduction. Of course, as a direct result we end up suffering from aging.
We have no claws or fangs or even any kind of natural armor like scales or even thick skin. We don't even have fur or layers of fat to keep us warm. We're very fragile creatures compared to practically any other on the planet. We forge our claws and armor from steel because we evolved without them. Do you really think in our lazy dullard lives that we're going to evolve in a way that actually improves our species? These things are selected when they're needed... When was the last time you needed armored plating for survival, or claws to defend yourself or kill prey, fangs to rip flesh? Venom? Wings?
Our muscles will deteriorate and grow smaller. Our heads will grow larger, our eyes larger as well. In the end, we'll likely end up a lot like the "grey" aliens made popular in science fiction, the tiny weak little ones with big heads and saucer eyes. There's already been a few projections showing that it's where we're headed. To be honest, I'm not even sure our brains will continue growing. As I recall they've actually been shrinking since as lazily as we live our lives our brains have become less important. It's been shrinking for the past 30,000 years. It's shrunk the equivalent of about the size of a tennis ball.
We could engineer something so much better. Natural evolution will evolve our species into drooling helpless dullards. We could make something strong and vicious, armored, brilliant, immortal, with insane regenerative abilities, and more...
Here's what I have surmised from your statement here alone (please do feel free to correct me if I have made any misjudgments here; I am purely basing these judgments on your above statement alone. As such, I have limited information about you to base them off of, and thus am prone to be mistaken.):
1. That you are starkly anti-theistic; possibly to the point where you actively refuse to allow others their right to believe what they choose to believe; belittling them to death and treating them with hatred, instead of leaving them to their own devices like any non-maliciously minded individual would (mayhap by cause of some unfortunate personal experience with some rude, belittling and uneducated individuals who also happened to be theists; judging those individuals' stupidness as being characteristic of theism and theists as a whole? Or perhaps you just think you are infinitely superior because you have somehow come upon what you believe to be "definitive evidence" that supports your stance, and thus simply scoff at those who are either sceptical to your evidence or are convinced otherwise that what they believe is true, as far as they are concerned?)
2. That you hold that the homo sapiens sapiens species is somehow ever-bound, and will never falter in its existance at any point in the future (or "shouldn't falter at any point in the future, but due to those blasted moralists, we will never achieve our deserved immortality.")
3. That we somehow have the right to control everything that goes on everywhere (whether we do that already or not is irrelevant to this discussion; these are merely observations that I have made based on your statement).
If my observations are on the mark (or at least very close), you would no doubt be an "idealistic dreamer".
Well, am I correct (or close to it?) If I'm not, please tell me what I said that was incorrect, and tell me the correct information.
You're making some pretty massive leaps with some pretty wild assumptions.
1. My religious beliefs are irrelevant. What is relevant however is the holding back of science over superstitious fear of someone genetically engineered not having a soul and similar non-observable concerns which are unfounded scientifically. There are other similar ethical connections to this as well which also hold us back. One's personal theological beliefs should not be forced on everyone by affecting scientific policies and outright banning entire subsets of tools and sciences out of such beliefs. Genetic modifications are banned outright in the United States by the Food and Drug Administration.
Genetic engineering could be used on human zygotes to alter the genes of a fetus affected by genetic diseases and yet we're held back by ridiculousness, "ethical dilemmas." People fear that parents could change their child's genes for aesthetic reasons or to endow their child with atheletic prowess or intelligence. Personally I have to ask what the hell is wrong with more beautiful, intelligent, atheletic children? People fear that if some people have it done it would create a new elite class of humans and everyone would be forced to undergo engineering just to stay competitive. It's this fear that is holding back our entire species. Just imagine how far we would move forward as a species if an entire generation of children were born with the intellect of Albert Einstein, the atheletic prowess of Olympic gold metalists, and beauty even surpassing today's supermodels.
In regards to religion: I am not worried about religion as the problem will sort itself out in time. The problem with religion is that it’s often given a god of the gaps argument. If both you and a team of physicists agree that something cannot be explained so then they go ahead and agree “Well okay, you’re right. It must be god.” then what happens is in 10 years when it can be proved then they have they have to go back and say that it wasn’t. And in this way, god is simply an ever receding pocket of scientific ignorance.
I generally don't like discussing religion (no good can come of it) but I'll just come right out and admit that religious fundamentalists are stupid.
Low IQ & Conservative Beliefs Linked to Prejudice
IQ vs. Religiosity
Study: Again, Christian Conservatives Linked To Lower IQ
Another study links intelligence to lack of religiosity…
Inoculations Against Religiosity: Intelligence and Education
Religiosity and Intelligence
One of those above studies essentially states that lower intelligence correlates with religiosity because the blind acceptance required by fundamentalism is a result of a lack of critical analysis:
These analyses indicated that intelligence was significantly and negatively associated with five of the six religion measures,with the largest coefficient on fundamentalism (ß=-.13). Only spirituality did not relate to intelligence. This pattern of relationships did not change when education was omitted: For each of the religion variables, except fundamentalism,the association with intelligence was practically unchanged (all ?ß=.01). For fundamentalism, however, removing education from the model increased the association with intelligence to ß=-.25 (up from ß=-.13). Openness had mixed relationships with the religion measures: For mindfulness, spirituality, and religious support, openness was a significant and positive predictor; however, this relationship was reversed for fundamentalism. Religious identification and private religious practice were not significantly associated with openness. Demographic variables were also significantly associated with the religion measures. Both sex (male = 1, female = 2) and age were positively associated with each of the religion measures with the exception of age on spirituality, and fundamentalism, where a null effect was observed for both age and sex.
2. I'm going to give you a quote: "Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same."-Ronald Reagan
The concept given here is freedom but it can be applied to humanity itself. We are never more than one generation away from extinction. Through war or plague or some horrible disaster we could easily destroy ourselves. Our world and our species must be fought for, protected, and handed down to future generations for them to do the same.
3. "We?" Who is "we?" Our current political systems are absurd jokes. Elections by popularity contests, and we wonder why our representatives are a bunch of incompetent lazy dullards... We don't have systems of Democracy, we have systems of Mediocracy. Majoritarian consensus is unable to provide a reasonable platform for intelligent decision making for the purpose of solving problems permanently. Institutions of democracy become more concerned with appealing to popular consensus through emotive issues than they are in making long-term critical decisions, especially those that may involve issues not immediately relevant to the electorate. Political mandate is something far too important to simply leave to popularity. Critical decision making required for government cannot be based on criteria of emotive or popular decision making. We should use a system designed to select for intelligence and compassion as the primary factors for governance. While having a democratic electoral apparatus it should differ from liberal democracy in that candidates for office and the body electorate should meet certain minimal criterion of problem-solving or creative intelligence. Figures such as 50% above the mean for an electoral candidate and 10% above the mean for an elector should suffice.
The biggest problem with our entire social ideology is the ridiculous notion of equality. All men are not created equal. Some are born swifter afoot, some with greater beauty, some are born into poverty, others are born sick and feeble. Both in birth and upbringing, in sheer scope of ability, every human is inherently different. Yes, that is why people discriminate against one another which is why there is struggle, competition, and the unfaltering march of progress. Inequality is not wrong - equality is. Evolution must be continuous. We mustn't stagnate so that the lowest common denominator doesn't feel left behind.
You might think to call me a bit of a Social Darwinist in that I believe the biological concepts of natural selection and survival of the fittest should be applied to social policy but that would be wrong. I strongly believe in eugenics and genetic engineering to improve our species. Having said that, I also don't think the rich should grow richer and more powerful while the poor grow poorer and weaker. From an economic standpoint I'm more of a Communist or Socialist.
Personally I've always found it a bit odd that the two terms are used in such a negative light in Western countries, no doubt stemming from the Cold War where they likely meant something akin to traitor. Even a Capitalist state needs some form of socialism though: Medicare, universal healthcare, and welfare are all socialism and they're some of the most important facets of our society.
One of the biggest confusions is that people often forget that Democracy is a system of government while Communism & Socialism are economic policies. It's just unfortunate coincidence that most Communist states end up ran by crazy Dictators.
A working system of course would need globalization to actually function as you couldn't exactly use some concept like from the "we are the 99%" movement for the redistribution of wealth of those with the top 1% of wealth that made a surplus of $506,000 annually if they can just move to another country and avoid it.
We have executives making $XXm+ a year, atheletes making $XXXm+ a year, celebrities and music artists making $Xm+ a year… these are clearly not the most important members of society, but rather just the top end of consumption. But the problem with a pure capitalistic state, in my opinion, is that without caps on wealth then the wealth of a nation just stagnates in the coffers of a small percentage of the wealthy while the rest of the nation state suffers.
I'd say if your income is more than x% than the average annual income then any excess wealth will then be redistributed back into the population, in large part going to fund socialist programs (healthcare, welfare, education), but the remainder redistributed. It could be done through taxes, where the wealthy get a very severe tax beyond a certain income, and the redistribution is done for others via a tax credit in a proportional equal amount depending on their reported income after the socialist programs. It would be, basically, a more extreme version of our current system… just with caps and limiting of economic loopholes. I mean if you made $500,000 annually, I don’t think anyone would be able to say you were bad off… but you wouldn’t be so far above the rest of the population that you controlled a majority stake in the entire economy.