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Next Step in Human Evolution

PrivateDonut writes "Where is evolution taking our species? MSNBC has up an article that examines where evolution could take the human race. The gist of it is that no further evolution will occur unless humans can be separated into isolated groups." From the article: "Such ideas may sound like little more than science-fiction plot lines. But trend-watchers point out that we're already wrestling with real-world aspects of future human development, ranging from stem-cell research to the implantation of biocompatible computer chips. The debates are likely to become increasingly divisive once all the scientific implications sink in." Class, please read Transmetropolitan for homework.

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  1. scientists make terrible .. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    .. fascists.

    whatever the human species 'evolves into', who cares? its not going to feed anyone, today, thinking about it .. is it?

  2. 10 reasons why the US is hated all over the world. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    10 reasons why the US are is hated.

    1. The US has started (and "encouraged") more wars and murdered more
    humans in a 50 year period than anyone else before in recorded
    history.

    2.The world constantly watches images of starving children whilst in
    the US people are dying of over eating.

    3. The US boasts that it has spent billions on being able to bomb
    anyone, anywhere on the planet. Meanwhile starvation, and premature
    death continue to affect millions of people worldwide whose only crime
    was being born where they were.

    4 The US makes virtuous speeches about fairness, liberty and justice
    then continues to enact policies designed to keep a third of the world
    in a state of constant starvation. For example, The US purposely
    stopped the supply of cheap non-brand Aids drugs to Africa just to
    placate the drugs industry. As a result millions will die who could
    have been saved.

    5. The continual support by the US of regimes that oppress their
    people so that other US parties can gain an economic foothold.

    6 The American belief that profit is all. People don't count.

    7. American hypocrisy. ( I feel most of us in this NG could write a
    book on this one but I'll keep it short)
    Virtue, honesty, truth. None of these mean anything when US economic
    advantage is at stake. We have watched the US invade and murder
    thousands all in the name of "regime change" or "protecting US
    economic interests" in various countries. If they haven't been there
    pulling the triggers you can be sure they paid for one sides (or both)
    weapons.

    There isn't a continent on this planet that the US aren't killing
    people directly or indirectly. Even their own yet the US tells the
    rest of the world that they cannot have weapons that kill
    indiscriminately. ( the US has once again refused to stop using
    cluster bombs and uranium tipped shells) and is the only country to
    have used nuclear weapons and poison gases to kill thousands of
    people.

    8. The continual military support of Israel and it's attempted
    genocide of the Palestinian people. Once again, humans die to protect
    US economic advantage.

    9 The insane belief that most Americans in this NG espouse that we
    (the rest of the world) are jealous. That somehow we are not affected
    by the murder and slaughter committed by US troops all over the globe.
    That somehow, other humans , i.e us, should not criticise the US govt
    for the same reasons Americans don't. WRONG. We are not blinded by
    your flag If anything the US has taught us a lot about the dangers of
    blind loyalty backed only by a flag. Your govt kills innocents then
    hides behind the flag and you idiots buy it all.

    10. The worst criminals in all this are the US electorate because they
    are the only ones who can stop this slaughter but they refuse to
    acknowledge their govt has done any wrong. Even with 90% of the world
    screaming for the US to stop killing , the electorate do nothing. You
    just sit there, hiding behind the flag or using any excuse your govt
    has given you to justify the continual slaughter of innocents.

    So don't ask me why America is so hated. I find it more interesting
    to know how the world will respond eventually to a country that is
    nothing but evil. And respond we will.

  3. The Danger of Race-denial by Baldrson · · Score: -1, Offtopic
    May 01, 2005

    If Race Research Is Banned Now, How Will We Cope With A "Brave New World"?

    By Steve Sailer

    Through genetic selection and modification, we will be soon be able to transform human nature, for better . . . or worse.

    Some find this exciting. I find it mostly alarming.

    The good news: we still have time to figure out what the physical, psychological, and social impacts of these gene-altering technologies might be - by studying naturally-occurring human genetic diversity.

    The bad news: we won't fund research into existing human biodiversity - because it's politically incorrect.

    Genetic engineering, and associated technologies such as neural implants, is explored in two new books.

    Microsoft programmer Ramez Naam, author of More Than Human: Embracing the Promise of Biological Enhancement , never seems to have met an idea for fiddling around with our genes that he didn't like. I find his optimism likable even though I don't share it. Unfortunately, the numerous small errors of fact in his book saps confidence in his overall reliability.

    In contrast, Washington Post reporter Joel Garreau - known to VDARE.COM readers as author of the provocative The Nine Nations Of North America - can't seem to make up his mind in his upcoming Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies--and What It Means to Be Human.

    Garreau evenhandedly interviews futurist cheerleaders, like inventor Ray Kurzweil, who takes hundreds of nutritional supplements daily as part of his plan for living forever, and doomsayers, like Sun Microsystems co-founder Bill Joy, who fears that genetically manipulated germs could wipe out all of humanity.

    (The inaptly named Joy strikes me as a Gloomy Gus. But, just in case some apocalyptic catastrophe does transpire, it would make sense to pay a couple of dozen military families to live for two year stretches at the bottom of a Kansas salt mine, from which, if the worst were to happen, they could eventually re-emerge like Noah's family to repopulate the planet.)

    What Naam and Garreau can agree upon is that the post-human age will be here Real Soon Now.

    I'm not so certain. Medicine progresses slowly these days. But I am sure that that it's time to start getting serious about whether we want it or not.

    The situation oddly resembles the political impact of immigration. When I first started writing about immigration, it was widely assumed that the Hispanic share of the vote had become so huge that it was political suicide to try to cut back on immigration. Yet closer study showed this was far from true.

    For example, in the overall

  4. My shadow's shedding skin ... by thedbp · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    My shadow's
    Shedding skin and
    I've been picking
    Scabs again.
    I'm down
    Digging through
    My old muscles
    Looking for a clue.

    I've been crawling on my belly
    Clearing out what could've been.
    I've been wallowing in my own confused
    And insecure delusions
    For a piece to cross me over
    Or a word to guide me in.
    I wanna feel the changes coming down.
    I wanna know what I've been hiding in

    My shadow.
    Change is coming through my shadow.
    My shadow's shedding skin
    I've been picking
    My scabs again.

    I've been crawling on my belly
    Clearing out what could've been.
    I've been wallowing in my own chaotic
    And insecure delusions.

    I wanna feel the change consume me,
    Feel the outside turning in.
    I wanna feel the metamorphosis and
    Cleansing I've endured within

    My shadow
    Change is coming.
    Now is my time.
    Listen to my muscle memory.
    Contemplate what I've been clinging to.
    Forty-six and two ahead of me.

    I choose to live and to
    Grow, take and give and to
    Move, learn and love and to
    Cry, kill and die and to
    Be paranoid and to
    Lie, hate and fear and to
    Do what it takes to move through.
    I choose to live and to
    Lie, kill and give and to
    Die, learn and love and to
    Do what it takes to step through.

    See my shadow changing,
    Stretching up and over me.
    Soften this old armor.
    Hoping I can clear the way
    By stepping through my shadow,
    Coming out the other side.
    Step into the shadow.
    Forty six and two are just ahead of me.

    - Tool, Forty-Six and Two