Space Discussion Thread

[Pi R Squared]

Slaves? Not sure where you got that from. While I do see the potential benefit of having semi sentient automatons, whether biological, mechanical, or some mix of the two, I meant humans, made with genetic changes, to better deal with the rigors of space. For example, in zero G, having feet that are more like hands, with toes able to grasp would be quite a bit more useful.

There is also a fair that in the not too distant future, genetic and physical augmentation will not be limited to those not yet born, and many would love the chance to explore space.

Yet, religion is where most opposition comes from whenever genetic engineering comes into play. Science would have advanced by at least 5-10 more, had basically christians, muslims, and jews not basically freaked out about stem cells.

Imagine the uproar if a researcher proposes experimenting with ways to fundamentally alter the human genome and shape the physical form.

It may become necessary one day. I said something about this once in another thread and it wasn't taken seriously but I'll say it again. One day we may have problems with overpopulation, food supply, and other resources, and of course it's not easy for people to travel in space. If we genetically altered people to be half the size they are now, then the earth could support twice as many people and it would also be easier to send them into space, they wouldn't require as large of a ship to travel in space, does that sound crazy? I am not so sure it does.

Alan

 

[InfinitusEquitas]

It may become necessary one day. I said something about this once in another thread and it wasn't taken seriously but I'll say it again. One day we may have problems with overpopulation, food supply, and other resources, and of course it's not easy for people to travel in space. If we genetically altered people to be half the size they are now, then the earth could support twice as many people and it would also be easier to send them into space, they wouldn't require as large of a ship to travel in space, does that sound crazy? I am not so sure it does.

I've gone a step further in the past and suggested we will eventually, in the very very far off future, will no longer need corporeal bodies at all, so that doesn't sound crazy to me at all.

Don't think people will want to change themselves to be smaller, but they will want to enhance themselves in other ways, for example, better vision, hearing, stamina, higher mental capacity, etc,.

We will also likely see somewhat of a separation of the species, starting with the enhanced vs normal (Gattaca comes to mind) and further differentiation to different purposes. Currently, we're kind of multipurpose, for the most past able to survive pretty much anywhere in the world on land. Given the option I'm sure some would want to enhance those abilities, to say need less water, and tolerate far greater heat, or conversely to live in the cold with little discomfort, or... underwater.

 

[Rivem]

Slaves? Not sure where you got that from. While I do see the potential benefit of having semi sentient automatons, whether biological, mechanical, or some mix of the two, I meant humans, made with genetic changes, to better deal with the rigors of space. For example, in zero G, having feet that are more like hands, with toes able to grasp would be quite a bit more useful.

There is also a fair that in the not too distant future, genetic and physical augmentation will not be limited to those not yet born, and many would love the chance to explore space.

Yet, religion is where most opposition comes from whenever genetic engineering comes into play. Science would have advanced by at least 5-10 more, had basically christians, muslims, and jews not basically freaked out about stem cells.

Imagine the uproar if a researcher proposes experimenting with ways to fundamentally alter the human genome and shape the physical form.

The process of genetically modifying people should totally be okay if we figure out how to do it to adults. It's a lot more reasonable to create more survivable future astronauts this way.

While "slaves" is a bit extreme, that is what they'd boil down to if we were to genetically engineer people from birth to better survive an environment that still isn't fully habitable and has yet to be developed or explored.

That said, if Earth was in a apocalyptic situation, I think it'd be reasonable to engineer people that can survive space to attempt to continue the human legacy on another planet.

I'd still disagree that religion is the major force behind holding this stuff back. While embryonic stem cells created a stigma for stem cell research as a whole, there isn't really any direct religious opposition towards other sources as long as they understand the differences. Once people understand other form of stem cell uses, they usually seem pretty accepting of it.

I think that embryonic stem cell research shouldn't be so opposed though. I'm of the belief that a tiny bundle of a few cells is not a person yet.

Genetic engineering from birth undoubtedly does have religious opposition, but a lot of that comes from common morals and huge uncertainty. Really, I think anybody with a respect for human life and a decent understanding of genetic modification would be very uncomfortable modifying a child. There's too much risk and uncertainty in the current time, and we still don't know how much better or farther that can get. GM is very risky with a high likeliness of perpetual consequences.

EDIT:

I've gone a step further in the past and suggested we will eventually, in the very very far off future, will no longer need corporeal bodies at all, so that doesn't sound crazy to me at all.

Yes. If we could even just come up with a way to passively store a human's consciousness on a computer for reinsertion into a physical body later, that would be amazing.

People could be stored on a small spacecraft that could gather up the necessary materials to reconstitute them later. Like donating your body to science when you died, you could donate your consciousness for space travel.

 

[NightExplorer96]

It may become necessary one day. I said something about this once in another thread and it wasn't taken seriously but I'll say it again. One day we may have problems with overpopulation, food supply, and other resources, and of course it's not easy for people to travel in space. If we genetically altered people to be half the size they are now, then the earth could support twice as many people and it would also be easier to send them into space, they wouldn't require as large of a ship to travel in space, does that sound crazy? I am not so sure it does.

Alan

I think the Earth's supporting capacity was estimated at around 10 billion people, after that many people will lack resources needed to survive(as if it isn't bad right now at 7.4 billion). Fortunately, it's been estimated that the world population is starting to level out so we may very well never reach that carrying threshold. :yh:

-Alex

 

[Rivem]

I think the Earth's supporting capacity was estimated at around 10 billion people, after that many people will lack resources needed to survive(as if it isn't bad right now at 7.4 billion). Fortunately, it's been estimated that the world population is starting to level out so we may very well never reach that carrying threshold. :yh:

-Alex

I've seen estimations of carrying capacity from 10 to 30 billion. Really can change a lot depending upon life-supporting technology. I'd say it's more of a balance of good, arable farmland vs population centers since tech will still improve to support more people. Check the cool graphic out.

 

[NightExplorer96]

I've seen estimations of carrying capacity from 10 to 30 billion. Really can change a lot depending upon life-supporting technology. I'd say it's more of a balance of good, arable farmland vs population centers since tech will still improve to support more people. Check the cool graphic out.

I've seen that before, very cool indeed! I believe Dhaka in Bangladesh is the most densely populated city in the world. I'm sure everyone could all fit in half the area of Texas, maybe a little more then half.

-Alex

 

[InfinitusEquitas]

Have seen many estimates, with 30 billion being the highest. All of the higher estimates rely on far more equatable resource consumption and sharing. Meaning quality of life would have to take a very steep dive for many.

 

[Rivem]

I've seen that before, very cool indeed! I believe Dhaka in Bangladesh is the most densely populated city in the world. I'm sure everyone could all fit in half the area of Texas, maybe a little more then half.

-Alex

Yep. If everybody all of the sudden decided we're all going to move into several massive futuristic cities in the middle of the world's deserts and turn all of the remaining land into farms, I think we'd have the resources for massive amounts more people. Maybe even in the hundreds of billions with better ag tech adoption.

Whether or not we could all get along in such a situation, I don't know about the future but not right now.

 

[NightExplorer96]

Yep. If everybody all of the sudden decided we're all going to move into several massive futuristic cities in the middle of the world's deserts and turn all of the remaining land into farms, I think we'd have the resources for massive amounts more people. Maybe even in the hundreds of billions with better ag tech adoption.

Whether or not we could all get along in such a situation, I don't know about the future but not right now.

Yeah. Sucks we all just can't get along

-Alex

 

[Shakenawake]

I was wondering about humans colonizing another planet. when christ comes back, would he return to the colonies as well, or do they escape god's judgement with the "different planet" loophole? I don't remember revelations saying anything about other planets

:crackup:

I don't want to make this a religious conversation, it was just a funny thought I had reading the last few pages

 

[Pi R Squared]

I was wondering about humans colonizing another planet. when christ comes back, would he return to the colonies as well, or do they escape god's judgement with the "different planet" loophole? I don't remember revelations saying anything about other planets

:crackup:

I don't want to make this a religious conversation, it was just a funny thought I had reading the last few pages

I think that is a valid question but I think any discussion of this has to move to the religion thread.

Alan

 

[Benm]

On the genetic engineering part: Acceptance would depend on application, and there will always be a sliding scale.

Say there was a way to alter a single gene in a newborn reliably and without damage to the rest of the genome, would doing so be acceptable? For example, if that newborn was fully healthy except from one bad gene that causes something horrible like Huntington's diesease or cystic fybrosis? I don't see the wrong in fixing that genetic error to give someone a full chance in life instead of a certain path of mysery and early death.

The scale from fixing a clearly defective gene to improving basically healthy people slides easily though. You could consider (partially) genetic traits like intelligence, height etc als problems that need fixing. If you have one single genetic defect that causes a person to be mentally retarded or a dwarf, fixing it is easy. But are you going to 'fix' someone that would develop an iq of say 90, or a height of 5 foot?

 

[Shakenawake]

On the genetic engineering part: Acceptance would depend on application, and there will always be a sliding scale.

Say there was a way to alter a single gene in a newborn reliably and without damage to the rest of the genome, would doing so be acceptable? For example, if that newborn was fully healthy except from one bad gene that causes something horrible like Huntington's diesease or cystic fybrosis? I don't see the wrong in fixing that genetic error to give someone a full chance in life instead of a certain path of mysery and early death.

The scale from fixing a clearly defective gene to improving basically healthy people slides easily though. You could consider (partially) genetic traits like intelligence, height etc als problems that need fixing. If you have one single genetic defect that causes a person to be mentally retarded or a dwarf, fixing it is easy. But are you going to 'fix' someone that would develop an iq of say 90, or a height of 5 foot?

I believe humans evolved. I think that we have reached a point where our technology and knowledge will have greater effect on our future evolution than the usual causes. if we understand it and can alter and control it, I think we should. I believe that part of being intelligent means being as adaptable as possibe. if we can better adapt ourselves, I think we should. that's not to say there are no ethical concerns

take for example GMOs. I'm not opposed to modifying food to make it better in some way, (you could argue that selective breeding over the past thousands of years of all the organisms we eat qualifies as such. virtually none of the things we grow or raise are found in nature anymore, we've changed them too much. evolution by artificial selection) but I do take offense to things like monsanto has done. things like making life patent-able. creating seeds which do not produce plantable seeds so that the farmer must come back for more instead of replanting a portion of the old. releasing roundup ready plants into the environment without testing effects. sueing farmers for intellectual property violation when wind blows pollen into another farmers field and his plants manage get fertilized by it. the plant's reproduce and their offspring are found with monsanto's copyrighted genes (despite the modification to make them sterile "life will find a way"-jurrasic park)

if you think the ethical concerns of raising someones IQ when it would otherwise just be 90 are bad just imagine if some people wanted to delibrately lower it to make people dumber. I bet such people exist

 

[NightExplorer96]

I was watching an interesting debate where Neil Degrasse Tyson talked about how we view worms in everyday life and how that would be similar to how aliens who traveled interspace would more then likely view us.

When you see a worm, you just walk by it & don't think about how it's feeling. Same for aliens. We are worms to them

-Alex

 

[Razako]

I believe humans evolved. I think that we have reached a point where our technology and knowledge will have greater effect on our future evolution than the usual causes. if we understand it and can alter and control it, I think we should. I believe that part of being intelligent means being as adaptable as possibe. if we can better adapt ourselves, I think we should. that's not to say there are no ethical concerns

take for example GMOs. I'm not opposed to modifying food to make it better in some way, (you could argue that selective breeding over the past thousands of years of all the organisms we eat qualifies as such. virtually none of the things we grow or raise are found in nature anymore, we've changed them too much. evolution by artificial selection) but I do take offense to things like monsanto has done. things like making life patent-able. creating seeds which do not produce plantable seeds so that the farmer must come back for more instead of replanting a portion of the old. releasing roundup ready plants into the environment without testing effects. sueing farmers for intellectual property violation when wind blows pollen into another farmers field and his plants manage get fertilized by it. the plant's reproduce and their offspring are found with monsanto's copyrighted genes (despite the modification to make them sterile "life will find a way"-jurrasic park)

if you think the ethical concerns of raising someones IQ when it would otherwise just be 90 are bad just imagine if some people wanted to delibrately lower it to make people dumber. I bet such people exist

Hell yeah they do. Just look at Trump. He loves them ignorant voters.

Seriously though, I could easily see some sociopathic leader engineering a low iq worker class. They'd work hard and not ask questions.

I also worry about a genetically superior over-class forming. Right now the only think separating us from them is their wealth. What happens when they've genetically modified their offspring to be superior to us in every way? Say goodbye to upwards mobility.

An even more terrifying thought is if we ever find out how to undo/stall out the process of aging. Imagine a world where despotic leaders, wealthy elites and politicians lived hundreds of years:cryyy:

 

[InfinitusEquitas]

An even more terrifying thought is if we ever find out how to undo/stall out the process of aging. Imagine a world where despotic leaders, wealthy elites and politicians lived hundreds of years:cryyy:

This is a very real, scary, and likely outcome. Ironically it could also lead to the stagnation of human development.

A genetic divide, and greater separation of society between essentially the have's and the have nots, is inevitable.

I don't really want to plug politics into this thread, but this is also why an eventual global government, and universal level of care is crucial. Yes some very elite, will of course be able to do more, but if genetic healthcare and modifications are generally available to everyone, the separation to the elite will be less pronounced.

Edit: On a related note... http://www.iflscience.com/brain/new...s-wheelchairbound-stroke-patient-walks-again/

Heart attack, stroke, cancer. Those are currently the three biggest killers, and for all three incredible process is being made, which will again boost the population.

Of course it may be offset by the loss of antibiotics.