How do you feel about Genetically Modified Humans??

[Silverhair]

The first wave of GM for people is in the testing stage with animals. Both Discover and Scientific American ran an article a few months ago about gene doping. The purpose of the current study is to be able to treat certain muscle wasting diseases. In the treatment a person's DNA would be altered causing them to put on muscle. In the healthy animals that were treated, they put on huge muscles without exercise. The GM change also gets rid of fat.

The effect is permanent.

The rat that was treated looked like he could go cat hunting. The picture of the bull looked like he should be named Arnold.

I don't know if the GM change would also take place in the reproductive cells or not, so I don't know if it would effect the linage or not.

The concern of both articles was with the potential demand by health people for a shot that will make them look like they have been working out for years.

So, project yourself about 20 years into the future,and suppose GM for humans is available. A young couple is planning a child. Assume they can afford it. Should they enhance their linage with extra IQ and physical fitness - or leave it to nature?

If they leave it to nature - what do they do about the chances of their linage in competing with the enhanced humans?

What about the real class division then, between the enhanced linages and the natural linages.

I won't have to deal with those questions, but many of you may actually face the question someday - in your own family.

Outlawing it in the USA is NOT a solution. The corps will set up shop in other countries. Take a vacation to XYZ country and come back PG with a super genius athlete.

[ken-in-seattle]

1. With or with out gravy? NT

[Old Mouse]

2. Not as tasty as genetically modified corn

but probably causes less allergic reactions.

[geomon666]

20. Well if they can make it a little bit beefier, I'm all for it.

Especially in the breast area. :dunce:

[RaleighNCDUer]

26. But watch out for kuru. n/t

[prodigal_green]

3. depends...

if they can cure hereditary diseases like sickle cell or cystic fibrosis, or a muscle-wasting disease, then why not?

[pnutchuck]

8. Yes, but how far can it be limited?

We have been witness to an age of manipulation of power, just like the generation before us and the generations before them. There is no limit to the corruption power can take. "Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely" and imagine this kind of absolute power in the hands of the pentagon. Let's genetically modify our soldiers to be the ultimate fighting machines! I think this could have serious consequences beyond the mere curing of diseases. This is "God" like power that no human should be in control of.

[prodigal_green]

23. these kind of fears arise all the time and are rarely, if ever, borne out

When in-vitro fertilization became a reality, there was a huge concern that legions of poor women would become incubators for wealthy women's babies. While there are occassional legal tussels in re: surrogates, and bizzarro stories about grandmothers giving birth, that has just not happened. Plastic surgery has been around for years and not everybody goes in for "work" just because they don't fit a specific ideal, many do, but not the majority.

I think it is inevitable and I think it will be too costly for most couples to mess around with their children's genetics for recreational purposes. As for producing super soldiers, you'd have to find a solution to the need for a human female to gestate such a child. However, if there were a choice between a debilitating or fatal disease and attempting genetic modification so my child could live without a disease, then I would be glad such technology exists.

[Silverhair]

32. It appears the super soldiers could be created by a shot given to adults.

See the link I posted.

[pnutchuck]

4. Like that movie with Ethan Hawk and Uma Thurman

and Jude Law, about 10 yrs ago. Ever since they started screwing around with DNA mapping, this has been a fear of "naturalists". That only the wealthy and elite will be able to afford the doping making those non-modified more or less relegated to typical immigrant status, slave labor, and pariahs.

[Nay]

24. See the movie "Gattica" for one take on how this scenario will

play out.

[pnutchuck]

31. That's the one! n/t

[Dookus]

5. Correct

outlawing it is not an option. It's inevitable, as is cloning. We need to respond to the realities instead of outlawing the potentials.

[amazona]

6. how old would you have to be for it to work?

Clearly it's too late for most of us here if it has to be given to children below a certain age.

Heck yeah if I thought it was reasonably safe I would be interested in being "enhanced." Being short, weak, and sickly sucks big time. Who wouldn't want to improve themselves physically if it were possible?

If a young couple was planning a child and could afford to make that child healthier, stronger, more beautiful, etc. how could they turn away from such a technology? What child would thank you for denying her a chance to be physically superior? And, let's face it, in a world where being a "super genius athlete" could be purchased, you would have to give your child the chance just to keep her even with the rest, wouldn't you?

The conservation movement is a breeding ground of communists
and other subversives. We intend to clean them out,
even if it means rounding up every birdwatcher in the country.
--John Mitchell, US Attorney General 1969-72

[Silverhair]

7. From the gist of the articles, there is no age limit.

However, I can't speak with any authority on it.

[amazona]

9. interesting

I would think that there could be no objection to those of us passed reproductive age or who can't reproduce for various reasons getting the genetic modifications even if there is some controversy about allowing younger people to get them. After all, if it doesn't work out for us older folk, we are not putting the mutation back into the common genetic heritage, we would just quietly die out as, in the normal course of time, we would do anyway.

It would be great to have an easy way to convert fat into muscle and also would be nice to be able to strengthen the bone in a permanent fashion for older people. The improvement in quality of life could be significant for some people, seems like.

The conservation movement is a breeding ground of communists
and other subversives. We intend to clean them out,
even if it means rounding up every birdwatcher in the country.
--John Mitchell, US Attorney General 1969-72

[pnutchuck]

11. Again this stratisfies the haves from the have nots.

As it is, the middle class is increasingly declining, and the separation of the line of poverty from the line of a relatively comfortable indebted life is disappearing. This is the type of thing that could create pariahs. The haves can afford to be beautiful and perfect, while the have nots have to clean their toilets.

[amazona]

14. the haves are already stratified from the have nots

The rich already live longer and can maintain their physical appearance longer into old age. The poor (at least in the U.S.) have a life expectancy in the 50s, as usual. So what else is new?

A one-time genetic modification from a shot would be a lot more affordable to the middle class than a series of cosmetic surgeries and ongoing drug therapies. I'm all for it if it really works as advertised, which is of course always open to question. If it is an ineffective treatment like mud bath or massage, meant only to separate the rich from some of their cash, who cares? But if it really increases bone and muscle mass, this could be HUGE for older folk.

The conservation movement is a breeding ground of communists
and other subversives. We intend to clean them out,
even if it means rounding up every birdwatcher in the country.
--John Mitchell, US Attorney General 1969-72

[pnutchuck]

17. How do you know how much these corporate science nuts are going to charge?

I've had plenty of facials in my life, but anything that comes close to changing my appearance is lazer and it costs the same as about 30 facials. And as far as being able to afford 30 facials at one time, well that's a have priviledge, not a have not. Because when I'm talking about have nots, I'm including the middle class. We have strayed so far on the creditometer, that finding our way back to have land is a fairy tale. At least for most of us anyway....

[Dookus]

29. I don't think

the life expectancy for poor americans is in the 50s. Do you have a link?

[Susang]

40. I believe he is referencing the highly publicized study

That lists a statistic regarding Native American men living on reservations having a life expectancy in the mid-fifties, vs an Asian-American woman living in the Northeast, who can expect to live well into her nineties.

The study found that income played a part, as did education and geography.

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/organizations/bdu/images/usbodi/

[Dookus]

42. ah thanks...

that's a far cry from what was stated.

[Susang]

44. Statistics can often show whatever you want them to

Depending on how you phrase your citation. Or so I've been told. ;-)

[RaleighNCDUer]

28. An interesting dillemma.

Since soldiers generally come from the under-class, would that rule out the development of super-soldiers? Would the haves be willing to give the have-nots such physical superiority?

[Silverhair]

10. Here is a good article on it:

http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20041030/bob9.asp

Sorry, I should have included the link in my first post.

[Old Mouse]

12. we can't even imagine the potential scope of genetic miscalculations

until several generations of modified complex organisms have been observed. We've identified genomes without understanding all that they do, how it all works together.

Once science became dependent on corporate profit, true oversight and ethics vanished. Helping mankind became helping those who can afford it.

Fish tomatoes and pig people.

[RaleighNCDUer]

37. You begin to sound like Ian Malcolm --

but of course, he was right, even if he was fictional.

[jdots]

13. clone drones are too expensive

Neotech Inc. knows that human slaves are cheaper to produce.
It's all a bad sci fi movie that could be a good sci fi movie if the neocons weren't finding profits in science.

[pnutchuck]

15. Anybody here recall Hitler's attempts at a perfect race?

He didn't have all this new fangled DNA doping, but he did have a bunch of scientists hell bent on breeding the "Perfect Race". How is genetically modifying a human beings DNA any different? What is wrong with a bit of imperfection? Matisse (or one of the other great impressionists) that there is now beauty in perfection.

Sure scientific research to help with diseases is benificial and should be expounded on, but when it comes to improving perfectly normal human beings, now we're regressing to some psycho nazi scientist experiment. Be happy with who you are, not with what the slut MSM tells us we have to look like.

[pnutchuck]

16. Anybody here recall Hitler's attempts at a perfect race?

He didn't have all this new fangled DNA doping, but he did have a bunch of scientists hell bent on breeding the "Perfect Race". How is genetically modifying a human beings DNA any different? What is wrong with a bit of imperfection? Matisse (or one of the other great impressionists) that there is now beauty in perfection.

Sure scientific research to help with diseases is benificial and should be expounded on, but when it comes to improving perfectly normal human beings, now we're regressing to some psycho nazi scientist experiment. Be happy with who you are, not with what the slut MSM tells us we have to look like.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

18. My cursory knowledge tells me we must be very, very careful

there is a lot that can go wrong. Probably not in our lifetimes or even our grandchildren's, but there are certainly many potentially catastrophic results from unintended consequences. Probably, mainly, the societal ones being referenced above, but there are even more ominous ones involving the actual physical mechanisms of evolution and genetics- things that keep SF writers like Michael Crichton busy.

[PATRICK]

25. My cursory knowledge

of who is in charge of this slide into the future shows that the wild side of evolution will dominate this intelligence fed planned evolution with many disastrous consequences, few "planned". As anyone might suspect the money and drive to "enhance" humanity will use disease eradication as a noble excuse with the big bucks going to muscle pumping, cosmetics and killer instincts. Worse, the people in charge I don't think would necessarily like to increase that liberal IQ unless it is a slave, controlled population.

In other words those in charge of making a better human race are our worst or most value skewed monsters worried more about the evolution of the stock portfolio than what is coming willy nilly no matter how badly the initiation is bungled or co-opted.

I think, and the instinct seems to have spread though it is very premature practically speaking, that the oxymoronic homo sapiens catalog entry will be superseded. Larger than that is the ability to refashion and make a new biosphere that paradoxically cannot be made or controlled by those who think they are adapting it to human design simply because the humans in the lab are the monkeys. The new race is still in the egg and only they are fit to know what to do or ethically and intellectually equipped to make it work - nicely.

Inbred evolution of the mind itself backfiring into the biosphere. A puzzle and a paradox. Already we are proving ourselves unfit to survive the world we have made so far. The logical(hah) solution is not stuffing the genie back in the bottle. Our mitt is stuck inside too far and we won't let go. Nor, logically is making a fit human race(physically, morally, intellectually) within easy grasp before the
"other stuff" gets played with. This must be a natural process in evolution once intelligence begins to take over random choice.

So is Earth a burnout, unfit example of something too unstable and suicidal to make it through the most dangerous bottleneck? Looks touch and go to me. The "evil" alternatives all lead to destruction- as one hopes they would in defying the laws of nature for fearful fantasies. The "good" is simply not trying hard enough to survive the crisis of fear and exploitation.

As with the very short(12,000 years) blip of human history it is going to be nasty and painful. This is something that people blindly tolerate as they sleep in the cocoon.

The guns, the glory, the stupidity. All will pass away one way or the other. What we should be doing is fighting tooth and nail for the common good and common intelligence empowered by civil government and the free exchange of ideas to hold the ship steady and take away the power tools from the misbehaving. Then see what happens as we bungle along.

[Vogon_Glory]

19. I'd Like To See Alcoholism Out of The Gene Pool

Coming from two family lines riddled with alcoholism, I'd like to see someone find a way for other people with the same genetic tendencies to reproduce without passing that trait on to their offspring. The only sure-fire way currently available for people with such tendencies in their blood lines is not to have children. Period.

I also come from a line with a tendency towards high serum cholesterol and a tendency towards strokes and heart disease. While I've been lucky to date (my blood pressure has been normal and I don't have artery blockage), I wouldn't mind seeing that problem nipped in the bud either.

[illflem]

21. Only if I can grow wings and fly

[Spinzonner]

22. Brave New World

Nature is conservative in changes, both in type and quantity, and when it isn't the results are usually disasterous for the individual. That may be a good thing for the species.

Man-made genetic changes are not likely to be so -constrained and mass quantities of the modifications may be produced and propogated before the full consequences are realized.

No Good Thing Goes Unregreted.

[KingoftheJungle]

27. Genetic Engineering is the evolution of evolution itself...

and as such we are destined to control and manipulate our own genome the same as we experiment with other organisms. What we are experiencing is the beginning of an age where the traditional form of evolutionary control (natural selection) is being replaced by a system controlled by the organism itself. The results are the same, only quicker and more focused on a goal. Genetic modification is the evolutionary by-product of our own evolution and it should be embraced as such, not fought against. There is no "should we do it" because we are going to do it somewhere down the line, whether you like it or not. What we SHOULD be discussing is HOW we can do it without harming ourselves or the environment in the long term. We need to discuss damage control and a focus for the goals we are setting for ourselves as a species. There is room for improvement in humans and improvement is the name of the game of life and evolution; modifying our genes in a lab or waiting millions of years for natural selection to do it accomplishes the same basic goal. Only now the goal is determined by us, not random circumstance and survivalability in a particular environment.

I personally believe that it will be through GM humans, and only GM humans, that our salvation as a species will be attained. Genetically engineer humans who are vastly more intelligent, live longer, and are not prone to human fallacies such as lust for power and/or self indulgence, and from them we will see great things manifested. The danger lies not in them but in us and how we manipulate them.

[Silverhair]

30. Yes!!!! Someone who sees the potential as well as the problems.

There is a profound lesson in his post. That poster is seeing the opportunities. That is also what we must do to win elections - see the opportunities instead of being a bunch of negative naysayers.

Edit: typo

[Old Mouse]

36. we don't even begin to understand what we play with

ours is a liquid environment. We interact and communicate through hormonal exchange through touch and through the air.

Modified crop has infected unrelated species with man altered genes by hormonal contamination just through proximity. Not even close proximity, it can be many miles of distance. The newly mutated plants mutate others, and so on. It's already happening.

Now what happens when the gene for infertility, the most important one they make, gets loose? What if it can cross kingdoms as well as species? They already crossed fish and tomatoes, so it can happen.

And without our lust for power and self indulgence, we have no survival instinct. we have barely begun to understand the mechanics of our emotional content and already we think we have solutions.

Only the final human you imagine is qualified to judge what human trait is in reality a plus or minus for the survival of our species.

[KingoftheJungle]

43. We're never going to understand anything until we play with it.

That's how science works, unfortunately.

[pnutchuck]

38. And how are these corporate funded scientists going to get money

if all of the GM humans oppose war? Because last I heard, western civilization is dependent upon creating wars in 3rd world countries so that we can rape their lands.

Or is the World Bank a generous and kind corporation that just hands out loans to these poor nations who have been torn apart by our black ops forces in order to gain control of their natural resources?

Aceh, Timor, Afghanistan... Any of these ring a bell?

Was Hitler just advancing our natural evolotunary process?

I think it is dangerous to say that we ARE capable of controling our own evolution. Mother Nature should not be tampered with lightly. It's one thing to help the sick, but to start believing that we can improve ourselves, when we can't even fix the voting process, is fool hearty at best.

[KingoftheJungle]

45. bizump

[DU GrovelBot]

33. ## PLEASE DONATE TO DEMOCRATIC UNDERGROUND! ##

==================
GROVELBOT.EXE v3.0
==================



This week is our first quarter 2005 fund drive. Democratic
Underground is a completely independent website. We depend almost entirely
on donations from our members to cover our costs. Thank you so much for
your support.

[Canuckistanian]

34. Depends on what's modified

What turns me on are HUGE.... brains.

[RPM]

35. Couldn't Be Any Worse than Real Humans

maybe they can get rid of those nasty human 'qualities' that make people like GWB so objectionable.

[Steven Flow]

39. Is there data on higher IQ?..

If a child has limited stimulus; the child will have a limited mind.

If muscle has limited stimulus; a human will have limited muscle - even if size is 'enhanced'.

Interaction is Life. Interaction is transversal energy and is absolute stimulus response.

This is reality.


http://www.createmaintain.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=14

[Silverhair]

46. Genetics plays a very high part in the abilities that you have.

The way a child is raised influences what they can do, but the raw material is genetic. And some kids ARE born smarter than others. Just as some grow taller, or stronger, etc. Much as PC orthodoxy would like to claim that everyone is born exactly equal in abilities and that only the raising makes a difference - it just isn't so.

Genetics matter.

[Steven Flow]

47. "Born" smarter?

Human babies are born dependent and will die if not nurtured.

How can a child be "born" smarter when not provided with stimulus for survival? Death is not "smarter"; and if a child receives stimulus, it 'learns' response. So, therefore; babies are "dependent" on quality stimulus in order to "learn ->more<-".

Life and learning are a process; and "smarter" is a result. Genetics is the map; and cause-and-effect is the equation.

The result is you.

[wadestock]

41. How do you feel about naturally genetically flawed people taking control..

of our planet?

Ever hear the expression....nice guys finish last?

Is this genetically programmed within our species...that the animalistic self-centered (freepers) have a natural genetic advantage over the rest of us?

Yes...only if you rig the game so that people can't self-govern and take control over their animalistic ways....

[RB TexLa]

48. I feel it is my DNA!

Or whoever's DNA it is and they can do whatever they want to do with it.