#6: Selective Genes

[Medaforcer]

Honestly, I don't see what problems there are here. I don't understand how this could be any worse than the "natural" way, where your genes are determined more or less randomly, including the risk of life-degrading illnesses. It's not like parents could have what ever the heck they want anyway, as there will be teams of scientists and politicians deciding on what genes a kid is allowed to have. I would much prefer a fellow group of humans decide my genes than the random lottery of the sperm race.

For those of you who are quick to harp on about how we should do things naturally, well... medicine is not natural either, nor are many of the things that make society work. On the other hand, things such as cancer are natural. Just because it's from mother earth, that doesn't mean it's good.

Hitler is an unfair comparison because Hitler was evil no matter what he did. He was also an artist- does that mean we should claim art to be bad? No of course not (unless it's modern art! )

I agree. Not with the second paragraph though. We are animals, thus everything we do is "natural" in a since. It's all done by animals. We can't call a monkey's tool unnatural or a bird's house of grass unnatural.

If this is used to keep people from having mentally person children or other similar problems, then righto. This can be great stuff.

 

[omahanime]

Honestly, I don't see what problems there are here. I don't understand how this could be any worse than the "natural" way, where your genes are determined more or less randomly, including the risk of life-degrading illnesses. It's not like parents could have what ever the heck they want anyway, as there will be teams of scientists and politicians deciding on what genes a kid is allowed to have. I would much prefer a fellow group of humans decide my genes than the random lottery of the sperm race.

For those of you who are quick to harp on about how we should do things naturally, well... medicine is not natural either, nor are many of the things that make society work. On the other hand, things such as cancer are natural. Just because it's from mother earth, that doesn't mean it's good.

Hitler is an unfair comparison because Hitler was evil no matter what he did. He was also an artist- does that mean we should claim art to be bad? No of course not (unless it's modern art! )

I agree. Not with the second paragraph though. We are animals, thus everything we do is "natural" in a since. It's all done by animals. We can't call a monkey's tool unnatural or a bird's house of grass unnatural.

If this is used to keep people from having mentally person children or other similar problems, then righto. This can be great stuff.

I think what scampy is stating is if you are against tinkering with the body, don't take medicine. Are all of your loved ones perfectly healthy? No chronic pain? No high blood pressure? No heart disease? No diabetes?
At what age do you start treatment? They do surgeries for heart defects in the womb. Should those babies just die? Isn't that Hitler like?

 

[afstandopleren]

*Sigh* Hitler all over again. This is a bad, dumb idea.

dmaster out.

This is what Hitler did, yes. He bread humans. (=bad) Now, if they are doing this to get rid of diseases like cancer, I'm fine with it, but it's wrong if they're doing it to have "custom babies".

You are contradicting yourself.... -.-' Really, it looks stupid. You say custom babies are wrong, yet babies that are customized to have no cancer or whatever, are okay.

I don't have my mind made up about this yet. However, I do like the idea of people becoming smarter and being able to manipulate behavior because the way it is now, I am not happy with some people that inhabit this world.

No, no, my friend, no. I was not contradicting myself. I also do not appreciate you calling me stupid. (That's what it seems you were saying. Or at least you say I am acting foolish) Let me explain my thought further. Defeating cancer=good! Gene-altering to get a kid with blue eyes, brown hair, be 6"2 and have 20'20 vision=wrong.

I'm sorry you misunderstood.

Also, is this being planned? If so, links please!

You clearly said you are against custom babies, but babies are custom too if they have been altered to withstand 'horrible' deceases. >_>

---

Honestly, I don't see what problems there are here. I don't understand how this could be any worse than the "natural" way, where your genes are determined more or less randomly, including the risk of life-degrading illnesses. It's not like parents could have what ever the heck they want anyway, as there will be teams of scientists and politicians deciding on what genes a kid is allowed to have. I would much prefer a fellow group of humans decide my genes than the random lottery of the sperm race.

For those of you who are quick to harp on about how we should do things naturally, well... medicine is not natural either, nor are many of the things that make society work. On the other hand, things such as cancer are natural. Just because it's from mother earth, that doesn't mean it's good.

Hitler is an unfair comparison because Hitler was evil no matter what he did. He was also an artist- does that mean we should claim art to be bad? No of course not (unless it's modern art! )

I agree. Not with the second paragraph though. We are animals, thus everything we do is "natural" in a since. It's all done by animals. We can't call a monkey's tool unnatural or a bird's house of grass unnatural.

If this is used to keep people from having mentally person children or other similar problems, then righto. This can be great stuff.

I think what scampy is stating is if you are against tinkering with the body, don't take medicine. Are all of your loved ones perfectly healthy? No chronic pain? No high blood pressure? No heart disease? No diabetes?
At what age do you start treatment? They do surgeries for heart defects in the womb. Should those babies just die? Isn't that Hitler like?

There is (almost) always an alternative treatment to be found as opposed to that chemical crap that works so well and generally without side effects! Homeopathy is where it's at IMHO. Though the placebo effect tends to work in this case when you are a closed minded adult.

 

[Ka$h Money]

How will you see people suffer? Without death we would be way over populated thus giving everyone a poor quality of life due to scarcity of personal space

We are already waaay over populated.... >_> Even with death we are too numerous.

City people anyone? How they can survive in such a cramped space is beyond me. I guess people will adapt, healthy environment or not.

City people are not really cramped. I am talking about no space what so ever for anyone to live a normal life. This will happen rapidly and it will be to quick for us to adapt to such a poor lifestyle.

I understand it is good to help some from a chance of disease but sometimes we should leave nature as it is until we fix the basic problems (Africa, Developing countries)

 

[afstandopleren]

why are you pointing out Africa and developing countries? I am sure that we Western people are not superior when it comes to certain problems.

 

[Ka$h Money]

No I mean that we should cure/help developing countries before we even think about investing so much money and time in to super babies

 

[afstandopleren]

True, but do babies manipulated to be healthy mean that they are super?

 

[xanaseviper]

What the hell, why do humans have to try to control everything. We where much better off before plastic surgery and abortions and all that came along. What if our kids want to be smart instead of strong. Not only will kids be teased at school for coming from very rich families but that they were altered in some obscene way. I think we should leave our kids bodies alone. They might start thinking of themselves as freaks and kill themselves, now that wasnt very smart scientists.

 

[afstandopleren]

Are you out of your mind? I can think of thousands of reasons why what you are saying is incredibly wrong. The past is not for humans to dwell in!

 

[Heavenly Spoon]

Homeopathy is where it's at IMHO.

Seriously? Homeopathy is not even a form of medicine, it's one big rip-off. The claim of Homeopathy goes as follows: to cure a disease, what you need is a substance which has the same effects on the human bodies (like poison of some snake for the flu or whatever), then you dilute it so very much until there's virtually nothing of it left. And get this, then they claim the water adapts to the substance and now gives you immunity to the effects of that substance. WATER DOESN'T ADAPT. No scientific study has even shown this to work, all the double-blind tests have failed, and all the tests by the homeopathic community can be attributed to the placebo effect. Seriously, don't put your faith in one of these fake alternative medicines, you might as well go to a faith healer...
Actual medicine gets serious results, cures a lot of diseases, it's even able to cure and prevent a lot of cancers. Homeopathy does none of this. Please don't support organisations like this, you're not helping yourself and you're not helping anyone else, au contraire.

That being said, I was going to respond to this thread with pretty much bacon's post. I'd rather be the result of a genetic selection to look handsome, be smart and have virtually no genetic deficiencies than the result of one big lottery. Your personality doesn't even have to change per se, as most of it grows after you've been born, and is not at all genetic. I understand the fear of trying to create a league of ubermenschen, or maybe the fear of suddenly becoming a subdominant part of the human species, or the fear that once again the poor will be left out and the rich will be not only financially superior, but also genetically superior now. Which is why this has to be regulated as good as possible, and which is why this should be part of a national healthcare system.

But these are all worries for later, last thing I heard this is still pretty much impossible. iChips and cyborg are the way to go anyway :F

xanaseviper, we can also just, you know, live in a cave and hunt elephants to stay alive, living until we're 24 and everything. If we wouldn't be trying to control everything, there would be no more human race anymore. Not controlling pandemics alone would've wiped out most of the planet. Standing still means going backwards, even when it comes to "controlling everything".

Also "oh no, I'm smart, handsome and intelligent", I'M A FREAK!!!" ._.

 

[afstandopleren]

Homeopathy is where it's at IMHO.

Seriously? Homeopathy is not even a form of medicine, it's one big rip-off. The claim of Homeopathy goes as follows: to cure a disease, what you need is a substance which has the same effects on the human bodies (like poison of some snake for the flu or whatever), then you dilute it so very much until there's virtually nothing of it left. And get this, then they claim the water adapts to the substance and now gives you immunity to the effects of that substance. WATER DOESN'T ADAPT. No scientific study has even shown this to work, all the double-blind tests have failed, and all the tests by the homeopathic community can be attributed to the placebo effect. Seriously, don't put your faith in one of these fake alternative medicines, you might as well go to a faith healer...
Actual medicine gets serious results, cures a lot of diseases, it's even able to cure and prevent a lot of cancers. Homeopathy does none of this. Please don't support organisations like this, you're not helping yourself and you're not helping anyone else, au contraire.

That being said, I was going to respond to this thread with pretty much bacon's post. I'd rather be the result of a genetic selection to look handsome, be smart and have virtually no genetic deficiencies than the result of one big lottery. Your personality doesn't even have to change per se, as most of it grows after you've been born, and is not at all genetic. I understand the fear of trying to create a league of ubermenschen, or maybe the fear of suddenly becoming a subdominant part of the human species, or the fear that once again the poor will be left out and the rich will be not only financially superior, but also genetically superior now. Which is why this has to be regulated as good as possible, and which is why this should be part of a national healthcare system.

But these are all worries for later, last thing I heard this is still pretty much impossible. iChips and cyborg are the way to go anyway :F

OMG LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL. Now YOU will be having to check your sources because you are WRONG. Water can't be influanced???Check this out! http://video.google.nl/videosearch?hl=nl&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:nlfficial&hs=Kie&ei=HAI-SuTWCcLr-AbYlLnTDA&resnum=0&q=water+crystals+emoto&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=IAI-St2XCIOE-Qag6vW8DA&sa=X&oi=video_result_group&resnum=4&ct=title#

I happen to respond better to 'non scientific' things for headache and such then I would with Ibuprofen or Paracetamol. I also suffered from epilepsy and got Depakine Chrono for it from the doctor, but the epilepsy didn't go away after an alternative treatment. I don't know why that is, maybe I am just 'weird'. That is why I believe homeopathy can get good results, especially kids benefit more from homeopathy then those chemical drugs with side effects.

 

[Heavenly Spoon]

It's called the placebo effect.

Also, again, Emoto's claims are unsupported by any kind of science and not the experiments where not isolated enough. The experiments are way too silly to begin with anyway. And even if it would adapt, it wouldn't be curing diseases. Double-blind tests have FAILED, that honestly says enough.

 

[afstandopleren]

The placebo effect goes for most things in live. From what I know, lots of medication are placebo's as well, but they are hard to dig out...because well....they are scientifically incorrect and it would stop helping people if it would come out... XD

 

[Heavenly Spoon]

WAY off-topic here, but whatever. If anyone wants to continue discussing genetics, ignore us.

For something to become an approved medicine, it has to go through a bunch of double-blind tests and all the negative effects of it should be thoroughly examined and well documented. Of course, relying on placebo for small things is great, as medicine does have side-effects. But relying on it for bigger things is madness. Homeopathic "medicines" are also way too expensive if you just want placebo...

 

[afstandopleren]

Don't go there, I know much more about this then you do about this subject. You can go sciency all you want but it will just be to dead man's ears. If you want to know stuff about medication and about pharmacutical companies (that you don't want to know, trust me), I suggest you read Slikken from Joop Bouma. Don't trust your daily medication just because a doctor gives it to you.

 

[Ka$h Money]

I agree with heavenly on this placebo and homoeopathy thing. Surely medicines are better as there is undeniable evidence that it can and does work. I know what you mean that sometimes medicines don't help you but the majority of the time without you knowing it does.

 

[Mew the source of all]

(on topic)

I personally feel Selective genes would be great to further a society. However add in what humans would do with it past getting rid of genetic problems and suddenly we have a problem. This doesn't mean we should have a problem with ridding ourselves of genetic diseases or making animals better suited for what we want them to do (we already do it to a certain extent.)

 

[Pokequaza]

Why only looking at the bad side? What if there would come something like a law, rules etc. What if all babies get the same genes given, but those who do not have many effects on the life of a human itself. Like genes who prevent you from getting diseases, genes who help you to resist radiation (gamma rays) etc. We would be more adapted to life in space then.

And for the ''knowledge'' part, we don't have to put these genes in before birth. It can always later be decided. At the moment scientist are developing something (don't know exactly) which makes the brain to create neurons even at a high age, so people are still able to learn.

With all this I can see the average age of the human raising. So before we do, we have to make sure we can life in other planets. Like the Moon, Mars and maybe Europe. By inhabiting more planets/moons we can prevent over populating.

 

[Forum Shark]

*Sigh* Hitler all over again. This is a bad, dumb idea.

dmaster out.

This is what Hitler did, yes. He bread humans. (=bad) Now, if they are doing this to get rid of diseases like cancer, I'm fine with it, but it's wrong if they're doing it to have "custom babies".

You are contradicting yourself.... -.-' Really, it looks stupid. You say custom babies are wrong, yet babies that are customized to have no cancer or whatever, are okay.

I don't have my mind made up about this yet. However, I do like the idea of people becoming smarter and being able to manipulate behavior because the way it is now, I am not happy with some people that inhabit this world.

No, no, my friend, no. I was not contradicting myself. I also do not appreciate you calling me stupid. (That's what it seems you were saying. Or at least you say I am acting foolish) Let me explain my thought further. Defeating cancer=good! Gene-altering to get a kid with blue eyes, brown hair, be 6"2 and have 20'20 vision=wrong.

I'm sorry you misunderstood.

Also, is this being planned? If so, links please!

You clearly said you are against custom babies, but babies are custom too if they have been altered to withstand 'horrible' deceases. >_>

---

Honestly, I don't see what problems there are here. I don't understand how this could be any worse than the "natural" way, where your genes are determined more or less randomly, including the risk of life-degrading illnesses. It's not like parents could have what ever the heck they want anyway, as there will be teams of scientists and politicians deciding on what genes a kid is allowed to have. I would much prefer a fellow group of humans decide my genes than the random lottery of the sperm race.

For those of you who are quick to harp on about how we should do things naturally, well... medicine is not natural either, nor are many of the things that make society work. On the other hand, things such as cancer are natural. Just because it's from mother earth, that doesn't mean it's good.

Hitler is an unfair comparison because Hitler was evil no matter what he did. He was also an artist- does that mean we should claim art to be bad? No of course not (unless it's modern art! )

I agree. Not with the second paragraph though. We are animals, thus everything we do is "natural" in a since. It's all done by animals. We can't call a monkey's tool unnatural or a bird's house of grass unnatural.

If this is used to keep people from having mentally person children or other similar problems, then righto. This can be great stuff.

I think what scampy is stating is if you are against tinkering with the body, don't take medicine. Are all of your loved ones perfectly healthy? No chronic pain? No high blood pressure? No heart disease? No diabetes?
At what age do you start treatment? They do surgeries for heart defects in the womb. Should those babies just die? Isn't that Hitler like?

There is (almost) always an alternative treatment to be found as opposed to that chemical crud that works so well and generally without side effects! Homeopathy is where it's at IMHO. Though the placebo effect tends to work in this case when you are a closed minded adult.

---

Okay, now I see you're just trying to annoy me. I thought I made myself clear, but obviously not. I will explain it in another way, just incase.

I don't like cancer, and I'm sure all of you will agree. A close family friend died of it, and then his son was diagnosed.

Now, when I say "custom" I mean it like when you collect transformers, say, and you don't like the toys head, arms, and his chest-plates. So, you change them to make it look better. This isn't the way it should be with humans! We're all different, and if this happens, we'll all be x height, x weight, x colour eyes, etc. All based on the parent's PREFERENCE! That is wrong.

When you start, say, giving a female a shot so that her kids don't get ADD, cancer and the like, then I'm all for it, because these are flaws in someone's genes. Now, we all have flaws, I know, but do you really have to act so oblivious just to annoy me? I'm fine the way I am, and I don't think it would make a difference, or that anyone would care, if I had blue eyes and a little more muscular. If someone wants big muscles, then work out. If you want blue eyes that badly, wear contacts. I hope I got my point across.

 

[Ka$h Money]

Why only looking at the bad side? What if there would come something like a law, rules etc. What if all babies get the same genes given, but those who do not have many effects on the life of a human itself. Like genes who prevent you from getting diseases, genes who help you to resist radiation (gamma rays) etc. We would be more adapted to life in space then.

And for the ''knowledge'' part, we don't have to put these genes in before birth. It can always later be decided. At the moment scientist are developing something (don't know exactly) which makes the brain to create neurons even at a high age, so people are still able to learn.

With all this I can see the average age of the human raising. So before we do, we have to make sure we can life in other planets. Like the Moon, Mars and maybe Europe. By inhabiting more planets/moons we can prevent over populating.

I totally agree with Pokequaza. This s the ideal solution as I was trying to highlight. If we prioritise the right things at the right times then surely we can control certain aspects without destroying nations