I'm stoked! We're -so- close! The technology is almost there!
What I -really- want to see is the whole bioethical Pandora's Box opened up. I crave the sort of world-wide debate and advancement of opinion you never see these days, Internet nonewithstanding. Religions will topple, new philosophies will emerge, and all modernized cultures will have to adapt their concepts of humanity and life.
We live in such interesting times.
What so many people seem to (conveniently) forget or ignore is that genes evolved for a ruthless and deadly purpose: to outlive all other genes. The most kick-ass gene, the toughest, hardiest, most ruthless son-of-a-gun is the one that lives on. The weak, the defective, the inflexible, perish.
So it's quite logical that to properly use genes(as opposed to being used -by- them) requires a healthy dose of mental, spiritual, and social ruthlessness.
Now, there's a lot of buzz about clones being "people"... they don't have to be. You can easily induce an embryo into not developing a cerebral cortex. You don't have to have "people" as bags of spare parts, because a human body without brain activity is essentially a slab of meat. If we eat and wear animals bred for the purpose, what's wrong with getting a liver or a kidney off of a clone? And if you someone comes crying about the 'sanctity' of human life, just remind them how much easier it is to repair Grampa Olie's '52 Chevy than it is to repair Grampa Olie.
And longevity is not the half of it. The genetic "blueprinting" of children has -got- to be to the most profoundly significant technology in human history. No more will we be at the mercy of the luck of the chromosome shuffle! No more birth defects, no more genetically-transmitted weaknesses! As a species, we can look as good as we want, be as strong as we want, as smart as we want. Blueprinting will allow us to advance our evolution at a rate faster than fruit flies, so we'll adapt to new environments (like Mars!) easier and in less time.
Certainly, to take full advantage of the tools genetics provides requires a large dose of ruthlessness. It requires a strength of opinions and a belief in humanity that most people find either obscene or threatening, or both.
The future of our species will belong to those among us ruthless enough and fearless enough to pick up the gauntlet and build us a brave new world.
1) The act of rape requires a very sick and malfunctioning mind. 2) A person driven to seek courtship in a virtual environment can be considered, in most cases, to have at least a slight malfunction. Perfectly normal people don't mate on the Net. 3) The particular nature of the Net allows for people with these tendencies to function socially in an environment with vastly different and less threatening rules. Since there are no checks or balances on expression, and there is the possibility of perfect anonymity, it may be assumed that the path of least resistance for the socially unskilled is to use the Net to interact.
Then it can be successfuly argued that the very same tool that permits so many people to communicate and enrich their lives in ways that their various neurosis would otherwise disqualify them for... is the very same tool that permits latent deviants to take the first determining steps along the path of psychopathic behaviour.
The tool, or crutch, is not at fault. It would be like arguing that the monkey wrench is evil because it can be used by sick people to kill other people. Even when 99% of the time, it's just a damn useful tool.
I think the reason the Net and its denizens are so easily mischaracterized is because of the incomprehensible technicisms of its innards, the unregulated and self-policing nature of the encompassed society, and the almost mystical way it allows the fat, the ugly, the shy, and the terminally nerdy (hitherto largely ignored by the meatcultureworship of the Impossibly Beautiful, the Unimaginably Rich, and the Irresistably Powerful) to do what only 'normal' people were supposed to. To work, play, politic, fight wars, gain power, fall in love, and live happily ever after.
Incomprehensible to us longtime virtual citizens, I'm sure. But you'd be suprised how most of the unwired unwashed think of Net social interaction in the same brainband they think of telepathy: too wierd, too unpredictable, and the province of a mutant understrain of society only.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm stoked! We're -so- close! The technology is almost there!
What I -really- want to see is the whole bioethical Pandora's Box opened up. I crave the sort of world-wide debate and advancement of opinion you never see these days, Internet nonewithstanding. Religions will topple, new philosophies will emerge, and all modernized cultures will have to adapt their concepts of humanity and life.
We live in such interesting times.
What so many people seem to (conveniently) forget or ignore is that genes evolved for a ruthless and deadly purpose: to outlive all other genes. The most kick-ass gene, the toughest, hardiest, most ruthless son-of-a-gun is the one that lives on. The weak, the defective, the inflexible, perish.
So it's quite logical that to properly use genes(as opposed to being used -by- them) requires a healthy dose of mental, spiritual, and social ruthlessness.
Now, there's a lot of buzz about clones being "people"... they don't have to be. You can easily induce an embryo into not developing a cerebral cortex. You don't have to have "people" as bags of spare parts, because a human body without brain activity is essentially a slab of meat. If we eat and wear animals bred for the purpose, what's wrong with getting a liver or a kidney off of a clone? And if you someone comes crying about the 'sanctity' of human life, just remind them how much easier it is to repair Grampa Olie's '52 Chevy than it is to repair Grampa Olie.
And longevity is not the half of it. The genetic "blueprinting" of children has -got- to be to the most profoundly significant technology in human history. No more will we be at the mercy of the luck of the chromosome shuffle! No more birth defects, no more genetically-transmitted weaknesses! As a species, we can look as good as we want, be as strong as we want, as smart as we want. Blueprinting will allow us to advance our evolution at a rate faster than fruit flies, so we'll adapt to new environments (like Mars!) easier and in less time.
Certainly, to take full advantage of the tools genetics provides requires a large dose of ruthlessness. It requires a strength of opinions and a belief in humanity that most people find either obscene or threatening, or both.
The future of our species will belong to those among us ruthless enough and fearless enough to pick up the gauntlet and build us a brave new world.
Let's agree on a few premises:
1) The act of rape requires a very sick and malfunctioning mind.
2) A person driven to seek courtship in a virtual environment can be considered, in most cases, to have at least a slight malfunction. Perfectly normal people don't mate on the Net.
3) The particular nature of the Net allows for people with these tendencies to function socially in an environment with vastly different and less threatening rules. Since there are no checks or balances on expression, and there is the possibility of perfect anonymity, it may be assumed that the path of least resistance for the socially unskilled is to use the Net to interact.
Then it can be successfuly argued that the very same tool that permits so many people to communicate and enrich their lives in ways that their various neurosis would otherwise disqualify them for... is the very same tool that permits latent deviants to take the first determining steps along the path of psychopathic behaviour.
The tool, or crutch, is not at fault. It would be like arguing that the monkey wrench is evil because it can be used by sick people to kill other people. Even when 99% of the time, it's just a damn useful tool.
I think the reason the Net and its denizens are so easily mischaracterized is because of the incomprehensible technicisms of its innards, the unregulated and self-policing nature of the encompassed society, and the almost mystical way it allows the fat, the ugly, the shy, and the terminally nerdy (hitherto largely ignored by the meatcultureworship of the Impossibly Beautiful, the Unimaginably Rich, and the Irresistably Powerful) to do what only 'normal' people were supposed to. To work, play, politic, fight wars, gain power, fall in love, and live happily ever after.
Incomprehensible to us longtime virtual citizens, I'm sure. But you'd be suprised how most of the unwired unwashed think of Net social interaction in the same brainband they think of telepathy: too wierd, too unpredictable, and the province of a mutant understrain of society only.