Oh, crap, sorry, no. I missed your posts. This is what comes of jumping around threads too much. If its any comfort, I would have reviewed it at some point tomorrow. Sue me.
No problem...got your responses now
I've rarely seen this variant of transhumanism. Trying to genetically program 'obedience' as a concept seems to me doomed to failure.
In any case, you are merely stating the objections that Huxley raised in Brave New World. They're neither especially new, or especially dangerous to the entire concept.
I beg your pardon...giving a government the tools to control its population, or genetically program people for specific roles, is not "especially dangerous to the entire concept"?
Let us grant, for the sake of argument, that China did somehow create a race of super-intelligent unimaginative people who were very obedient. These super-soldiers attack other nations, specially born and bred to be the perfect soldiers... and?
How?
That's right, how? It takes a good 16 years at a bare minimum to raise a soldier. 14, assuming accelerated growth. Assume another 5-10 for planning. You now have a 25 year project involving millions of babies. Yeah, details of that would totally never leak. By the time their super-soldiers came storming in, they'd be old news. Actually, we'd probably have a limited-generation genetically tailored virus just for them. Color me unafraid.
I'm afraid you've got a terribly naive view of the world. Numerous governments all over the world already practice this on one level or another. Communist governments choose athletic children almost from birth, and train them exclusively as athletes and gymnasts. Or choose children who will be trained up as soldiers. I do not see
any serious efforts to stop or prevent such behavior. North Korea would be a particularly appropriate illustration of this principle.
Yeah, it would take time. But there are numerous autocratic nations in this world who would be
more than willing to take the time, and make the necessary sacrifices, if they believed it would make their country stronger.
The problem is that these nightmare senarios just assume leaps of logic. Somehow the program goes undetected. Somehow they manage to breed and train an army of loyal super-soldiers. Somehow we can't find a way to counter this threat. Somehow...
I'm not assuming it goes undetected. I'm assuming that, even if detected, there would be little that other countries could do to stop it.
India
already practices a caste system. I don't see the world making massive efforts to try to stop them. So if the government there implemented programs to do different kinds of "tailored physical enhancements" for people according to their caste, why on earth do you think the rest of the world would suddenly do something to stop this?
Transhumanism does imply a certain level of societal responsibility. So do nuclear weapons. At some point we have to accept the fact that for better or for worse our society can do things that were just impossible before, and learn to live with the responsibility, instead of putting the genie back in the bottle.
The problem here is that you are confusing "philosophy" with "technology". Technology has no implicit moral or ethical values, it can be used however you want to. Saying, "Transhumanists don't support that or believe in that" means less than nothing; since many of the people using this technology won't be transhumanists.
I find a philosophical consideration of that, which transhumanism provides, to be a far better ethical framework than 'lets cross that bridge when we get to it.' The better laid out the path is and the faster we get there the less misteps we'll have along the way.
"The faster we get there the less missteps we'll have along the way"?!?!?!
If there is any statement you've made here that I'd disagree with most adamantly, it is that one. Human history has
more than adequately demonstrated the dangers of rushing into things without considering the consequences, setting adequate controls, etc.
Besides the above arguments, you've also failed to address the questions of the "haves" vs. the "have-nots". Even assuming that you could somehow, miraculously, prevent the abuses I've listed above, you'd still have a situation that would only exacerbate inequalities. North Americans would have much more ready access to such technology, and such changes could be implemented relatively quickly. On the other hand, many nations in Africa or Asia would have little or no ability to implement these changes. So, once again, you'd have the rich nations getting richer -- but now they'd be able to
also claim that "
NO WE REALLY ARE SUPERIOR TO YOU...WE'VE MADE OURSELVES THAT WAY!" And if you don't think this would happen, I suggest that you study human history.
Or, once again, what about countries that have brutal dictatorships. Again,
even if we can prevent the abuses I've mentioned, we still have the much more obvious problem that leaders in those countries would give all these 'benefits' to their own families and friends (ie. to those in power), but not to the regular populace. The result would be to create, again, a two-tiered society in which not only are they divided into "those in control" vs. "those who are controlled", but also "those who are physically superior" vs. "those who are physically inferior".
It is people like you who really scare me. Its not the technology that scares me...it is the blatant willingness to ignore or discard the massive potential abuses that could result from it, the way that human suffering could be
increased as a result. To say, "Well, we'll just do what we want, then sort it out later" is an incredibly irresponsible attitude.
IMNSHO
