Human Intelligence

i see no reason to slander cucumbers; i have personally had a number of enlightening conversations with them!
[maybe i should have kept that to myself? ]

Hell no Bogowo.

With the intellect of most people nowadays, at times one may feel (s)he's talking to a vegetable anyways.. .And cucumbers are very nice vegetables for that matter.

Naj

IQ tests are actually rather inaccurate and useless, as are all kinds of assessment psychology. I think it's nothing short of naive to believe in it, or value it as highly as many do, but a lot of people just love quantitative data no matter how irrelevant och untrue to reality it actually is.

I attended two sessions of the conference, Steve Mann's discussion on 'cyborg modification of the bodily senses', friday; and the "Stelarc" (performance artist) presentation on the relationship of the artist in testing the boundaries of the human being (literally, he has performed by being hung from hooks through his skin, in various venues around the world.

both were highly informative, and i shall be starting a thread on "Transhumanism" when i can gather a suitable series of provocative quotes, and ideas together for discussion.

In response to your 'Raelian" query, i do always find the 'we/they' mentality of any advocacy group rather 'cultish'; but i must admit to agreeing with the bulk of the ideas being aired, and found the milieux exhilarating.

[when i create the thread, i shall post a link here; thanks for the info Brom!]

I'm letting my inner brat come out here, and asking why isn't this thread in the 'Jokes' forum?

I look forward to your report, BoGoWo.

The reason I asked about Raelians is that they are into cloning and life-extension, and it seems that the transhumanist movement is 'into' those things as well. There are a lot of Raelians next door in Quebec, and I was wondering if the organization sponsoring the conference might be a kind of 'front' for Raelians. Probably not, if you didn't notice any literature being passed out or anything like that.

~~~

Cav, are you making fun of my thread?

Cloning of human beings is unethical, the only reason I could support it would be for the purpose of creating stem cells for medical purposes and then cancel the development of a fetus as soon as possible. All other uses strike me as extremely unethical.

I think as it now stands, human cloning is unethical simply because of the health risks for the clone. But in the future techniques may be improved to such an extent that healthy individuals with a normal life span will result. In that case, I don't know. Suppose I wanted to clone my daughter so that she could have a 'twin' little sister... what would be wrong with that?

Being totally honest, I think it's sick and demented.

Brave New World...

After stewing a few days in the refrigerator, Natalie added a garden cucumber to my salad. Ah, I exclaimed, my favorite vegetable pickled cucumbers. It replied, "So who are you to call me, pickled? I think I'll report you for violation of the TOS".

Now what I want to know is how did that darn cucumber know that I had earlier succumbed to temptation and snuck a shot of good scotch? Just a wee dram, and the vegie has to make smart-aleck remarks. As I muttered my disapproval, Natalie slid a pen and Power of Attorney document under my fist. She figured that I was so intent on arguing with the cucumber that I might not notice what I was signing. Have to watch that modern equivalent of Xantripe like a hawk.

If I should suddenly disappear, check the local asylums where Natalie has probably had me confined. She'll probably already be down in Rio, but who knows you might either spring me or join me.

What was this discussion about again, and who am I anyway?

Further, bromeliad, what you suggest is not just twisted, it's selfish too, extremely so.

As if the size of the human population wasn't already a problem, cloning could easily increase the danger. At best and most controlled, cloning might save countless lives. That would lower the mortality rate and increase the birth rate ... like throwing gasoline onto a fire in hopes of putting it out. Increasing the life-span of us senior citizens is relatively innocuous, because we are past our reproductive years, but even so we add to the overall size of the population and consume considerable resources.

There is also a danger of tinkering with the natural reproductive system. Cultures that value male children more than female have a bad habit of killing off the females either prior to birth, or shortly thereafter. Even so, imagine the problems that will occur in the PRC when several generations of young men begin looking for mates. All that testosterone and so means of reducing the reproductive urges. Putting them to work or into the military produces its own problems. I suspect that in societies where the sexual imbalance is extreme, homosexuality might become the norm. No moral/ethical problem necessarily with that, but imagine effect on traditional social structures and cultural values.

When we go further and try to "improve" the species by tinkering with the DNA we enter even riskier uncharted seas. We might, in a few years, be able to stipulate a whole host of characteristics for our yet unborn children. Some changes might at least on the surface appear very worthwhile. We might for instance, eliminate hemophilia, or Parkinsons, or a whole host of genetic problems that lead to lives filled with suffering. We might enhance athletic performance, or stipulate the height/weight/hair and eye color of the child. Already people have shown their willingness to surgically alter themselves for no better reason that fashion. What happens when fashion dictates that "beautiful" is narrowly defined as ........? Imagine a world where every female is a nearly exact copy of Jean Harlow, and every male might pass as Tom Cruise. Thousands of little Mao Tse-tungs, or endless copies of Bozo the Clown, now if that won't give you nightmares ...

One of our great defenses against disease is our natural variation. What will kill off one set of genetic characteristics may not affect a different set at all. Historically, epidemics tend to kill off perhaps as much as 40% of a population. In a world that has a very narrow range of variation, mortality might easily lead to mortality rates approaching 90%-95%. It has already been suggested that we design humans to operate in very hostile environments. Lets "build" a human better suited to live and colonize Mars, than what has developed on earth. Need four arms, one eye and no legs? Coming right up. Ah, the arrogance we will have to resist. Do we want to take the risks involved in tinkering with DNA for some small benefits and fashion?

cloning is just another means of our manipulating DNA. The promise is to produce exact replicas of organisms by duplicating DNA ad infinitum. So far, cloning hasn't been entirely successful, especially over multiple generations. Mutations, almost always negative, seem especially frequent in cloning efforts. Who owns cloned organisms? If the copy belongs to the Alpha, and is brought to its full potential development we would have reintroduced slavery. Fill the military ranks with specially designed clones that no one values much beyond their ability to storm the battlements. If the clone belongs to someone other than the Alpha, then the potential for commercial exploitation is great. If the clone is legally emancipated, where is the value of the expensive and risky operation in the first place.

Having 2 kids on purpose is not sick, twisted, or selfish.

Having identical twins is not sick, twisted, or selfish.

How is having identical twins on purpose, sick, twisted, selfish?

I don't see anything wrong with this *specific* example of using (perfected) cloning technology for creating a human life.

If you want to outlaw cloning because of its potential misuses (such as creating a cloned individual for the purpose of harvesting organs), then so be it. But as for the example I gave, there is no ethical issue whatsoever.

It is unethical because *your* desires go before the interests of the child, the child simply has no say in it.

Leave things to nature, don't meddle with the ways of nature unless you got a better reason than your own selfish interests.

No child has a say in whether or not they are born.

Is IVF wrong?

How 'bout artificial insemination?

A turkey baster?

On the opposite side:

Is contarception wrong?

Perhaps we should just leave things up to God/fate/nature in that case, too. That's certainly what some major religions advocate.

I find none of your arguments convincing and I can't see one good reason to have cloned children that isn't selfish unless there's a medical reason.

Contraception is the only way mankind is capable of reproduction, your arguments are just taken out of thin air.

Meddling with nature for nothing but our own shallow and selfish reasons is wrong, what you do unto the child is wrong, that's my point of view and I'm sure many share it.

And no, I'm not basing my views on faith, I'm an agnostic and skeptic as well as a very scientifically-oriented person.

please clarify

There was little unusual commentary on cloning, in fact their seeming preoccupation with cryogenic storage after death for the purpose of later regeneration, begs the question of why simply storing a genetic sample for future cloning would not make far more sense!

Cloning is, of course, inevitable, and the point is to concentrate on the creating of a safe reliable methodology, combined with an ethical code for its use, rather than banning it, and adding once again to the menu of profitable illegal activities for the always willing underworld!

The other facinating field of research which promises to be both hugely rich in potential, and horrendously volatile in 'contention', is genetically modified cloning. Here we replace the faults of cloning with the potential of both repair, and enhancement.

[that might just meet a little negative response :wink: ]

I'm still wondering how contraception is the only way mankind is capable of reproduction. That seems a bit backwards to me.