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Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid
eglamkowski writes "Researchers Discover Gene That Controls Ability To Learn Fear.
The poor, misguided scientists say this will enable them to treat people who suffer from anxiety, panic disorders or depression(??). Of course, it also means an evil, despotic country that is cloning humans for its army can make its soldiers completely fearless, eliminating one source of possible defeat on the battlefield (breaking of morale).
(Why does there seem to be no cynical scientists? ;-)"
Why does there seem to be no cynical scientists?
Because, in general, scientists tend to have, as their goal, knowledge, regardless of any potential side effects.
Knowledge, in an of itself, is never a bad thing. Was Einstein's e=mc2 evil because it enabled the discovery of the atomic bomb? Or course not.
A Minesweeper clone that doesn't suck
I hope that description was in jest. First of all, it only stops learned fear. This would mean that you would somehow have to stop these soldiers from learning fear of combat situations. You would have to do that at a young age, then how the hell would you train them?
seriously there are some dangerous area you have to get into if you want to solve serious problems. I mean, would could probably create ppl with 4 arms, or 2 kidneys right now, but we don't.
The research will be done no matter what, I would prefer all the info be out in the open rather than behind closed doors in some "evil empire". Please be cautious of your cynicisms of science. It is this mass fear propaganda that got the whole world to be afraid of biotech (which is currently saving their lives).
Right now we could possibly have treatment for ppl who are paralized, but limitations on stem cell research slow this down. This is mainly due to misinformed ppl spouting off untrue facts and unlikey predictions to scare the ignorant general public.
Please think before you speak, for everyone's sake
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All the cynics are too busy editing Slashdot.
I understand the humorours cynicism but, fearless soldiers would be such a waste of money. Lack of fear means lack of caution. Imagine soldiers running out into battle with no reguard for themselves. Sounds like an easy target to me. It would be like our armies were made up of DooM baddies set on "I'm too young to die"
-- Insert wisdom here:
That editors were the sharpest tools in the box.
Fear serves a number of useful roles, not least the one of self-preservation. What's that old saw about discretion being the better part of valour?
I can think of two reasons why this is just BS on the part of the editors (well, many others too, but let's leave that for now). Let's take as a starting point that the leap is valid.
Possible follow-on points:
1. 'Emotional intelligence' seems to play a role in most people's rationality (no, I'm not going to dig up the reference to the EQ book; that's for a Google / Amazon search) and intelligence generally.
2. Removing fear could possibly remove a certain level of rational appreciation of things ie/ the need to keep oneself intact.
3. This would be tantamount to partially lobotomising one's own army. Would any country want to do this?
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Death will come, and will have your eyes
-- Pavese
Of course, it also means an evil, despotic country that is cloning humans for its army can make its soldiers completely fearless, eliminating one source of possible defeat on the battlefield (breaking of morale).
This just in: Scientists in an evil, despotic country have started a crash program to develop a way to "turn off" the gene that causes fear in their existing soldiers, and make them fearless in battle.
The code-name for this program is Alcohol.
Ed Wedig
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This is decent timing for the Daredevil movie, isn't it? Could actually have a 'man with no fear'....
Good judgment comes from experience.
Experience comes from bad judgment.
while you might be right at some levels, I don't feel that invalidates my argument. There will be very little funding while the public opinion (however wrong it may be) is against the techonology / research. What major company wants to be branded as "evil". For that matter, who is going to fund something that is fundamentally illegal, unless they want to challenge it's legality.
True, an overall lack of funding will hurt all efforts, but one cause of that lack of funding is public opinion.
I do feel tht your argument isn't entirely accurate, that MAJOR testing is necessary for ALL drugs in the US, it does cost a lot, but all companies in that area know that. That is why many of the them are in France or other countries that require less testing. It's a known cost, but trust me, some one with deep pockets knows there is a big ROI on a AIDs vaccine or a treatment for paralysis.
http://monkeyserver.com --- weeeeee
Besides, why would you go to all the trouble of creating a clone army? It's much easier just to "condition" your existing soldiers to be fearless. You'd still have to do lots of conditioning with the fearless clones - you have to get them to follow orders unquestioningly and be willing to kill on command.
It's also worth noting that an army of clones could easily be wiped out by a carefully engineered bioweapon (or an accidental illness, for that matter). Genetic diversity in your troops is an asset.
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
My fine colleagues at the hhmi (look to my e-amil address) have discovered a gene that REPRESSES the fear response.
In general, the thing you can do with that knowledge is to REMOVE the genes effect; it is far more difficult to enhance the gene. Overexpressing the gene (so that it was always on) would almost-certainly produce nasty brain defects.
"When we compared the mouse strains, we saw a powerful enhancement of learned fear in the knockout mice,"
Emphasis added.
Once they understand WHAT IT IS THAT THE GENE INHIBITS, then they may be able to make some fearless mice.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
Look, the studies have been done, and everyone knows that this is infeasable. As the fear level drops, the urge to eat brains increases at an alarming rate.
As Napoleon said, "An army marches on its stomach", and there is just not enough brains in the world to have a whole zombie army.
Keep your packets off my GNU/Girlfriend!
There is no magic bullet gene for "solving" large-scale phenotypical behavioral issues. Many genes control the behavioral phenotypes we observe.
You needn't worry about an army of fearless clones anytime soon.
Even if we discover enough about how genes relate to observed phenotypical behavioral patterns, that doesn't mean that it'll be useful in creating an army.
Fear is not some useless emotion which serves no purpose. It is something which has been evolutionarily selected for because it leads to better survivorship. The gazels that didn't fear the lions got eaten. Fear plays a useful and necessary role in any conflict.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
So, if Yoda had known about this, he could have treated Anakin and prevented him from becoming Darth Vader.
They are called violent criminals.
There are exceptions of course. A soccer mom driving in the mountains at night in the rain while feeding french fries to their kid in the back seat while talking on the cell phone probably counts too. Yes, that is a true story. I was scared sh1tless while it was happening, so I definitely have the fear gene.