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| Thread: Baby making project.... |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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ohforfsake
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Initiate
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posted April 03, 2011 01:12 PM |
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I think, maybe, a discussion forming, where it's all of us versus Yealiccc, is not the smartest way to introduce Yealiccc to OSM. Maybe we should save such a discussion for a time after she's seen the wonders the OSM actually have to offer? I mean all of us who're posting now are people I find very pleasent to write with, certainly we can do better than what might have made others find the OSM a horrible place? (Sorry if I'm out of line here).
I think Azagal has an important point in that looks are subjective.
I have always been seen as the ugly kid in school, and teased for it. My family originates from Israel, but we've moved to Denmark, as such I do not look like the common beauty ideals, which are typical here.
I have however met girls who're from around places in the world, where my looks are more common. Girls who, unless I've been completely fooled, have found me good looking and attractive to certain degrees.
Also, maybe it's worth to notice that being tall does not mean a certain height. It means being heigher than the next guy (or am I wrong?). As such there's no direct formula for when you're beautiful.
In my personal experience, which I say as a virgin, so it may not count for much, but if you threat your body well (move around, eat well, go to bed in regular hours... Selcy! ), it'll develop to one fine specimen! Certainly beautiful for a wide range of people!
So I have been wondering, what is actually the ethical problems of human genetic engineering? So I checked wiki and it lists the following:
Feelings
Parents right to decide
Animals testings
Divided society - (Adrius' point)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_genetic_engineering#Controversy
Edit: Forgot to include my own thoughts on this. Is it just me or are those concerns rather.. vague?
My own solutions for each of them:
1) Feelings is not an argument, in my opinion.
2) Parents right to decide, I've the same opinion as written earlier.
3) Animal testings, is a subject I find much difficulty with forming an opinion about, because to me it's the same as testing on humans (I know it's not the same for many of you guys). However, since it's done in many other cases, I think the point doesn't stand so strong here, it's of course still relevant, though!
4) To solve Adrius' dilemma ( ) I think a type of healthcare can take care of this. It'll of course only be aimed at preventing diseases and hopefully worke like the danish( ) one.
For other traits, such as beauty, etc. Like Azagal says (if I understood him correct), beauty is very subjective, I highly doubt there's an absolute list of traits that will make you more beautiful to everyone!
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but ok, im done, this is the second time his thread made me mad, third time i shall come back with a vengeance
 I suppose this already took an unfortunate turn of events. Please don't think the OSM is necessarily a waste of your time. The discussions we have in here can at times be really worthwhile!
Edit#2: I think we might have lost another one
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Living time backwards
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Jabanoss
Promising
Legendary Hero
Property of Nightterror™
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posted April 03, 2011 01:13 PM |
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Edited by Jabanoss at 13:15, 03 Apr 2011.
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I just think it's unfortunate that someone else have to make the choice.
As the great Forf once said, "It should be up to the child to decide".
Well it's so sad that cannot happen. (today at least... )
Man I wish we lived in Rapture...
By the way has someone here seen the movie Gattaca?
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"You turn me on Jaba"
- Meroe
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Adrius
Honorable
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Stand and fight!
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posted April 03, 2011 01:18 PM |
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By the way has someone here seen the movie Gattaca?
U-huh, been on my mind since I first saw this discussion.
Uma Thurman is hot.
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smithey
Promising
Supreme Hero
Yes im red, choke on it !!!
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posted April 03, 2011 01:29 PM |
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hehe awesome
@ohfor I have done the opposite, by moving to israel, and yes people give me "the look" because im 186 cm tall, but im probably going forward with my nomad-ness, you recommending Denmark ? LOL
What is gattaca about ? nice movie ? interesting movie ? has anything to do with gene topic ???
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted April 03, 2011 01:36 PM |
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Since I really like Azzie, I will try to clear out the confusion that my typing has provided.
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I'm not aiming at his right to be ugly but at the fact that you think you are the one to judge whether he/she is pretty.
Why do you think so?
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Not to mention that you push people into these categories of yours. All you've been saying in here is that "pretty" (again what you think is pretty) people are great because they're pretty and that "ugly" people are uninteresting and losers by default. That's not your reason speaking that's your bitterness.
You totally got my sentence wrong. I will explain below.
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Has it ever occured to you that someone you might consider "ugly" thinks he looks swell and is totally happy with his/her life?
Totally yes. I'm not the most handsome around and I'm pretty happy with my life. Again, you came to wrong conclusions, because of this sentence:
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how's being an ugly, uninteresting person any better alternative?
Which doesn't mean UGLY=UNINTERESTING. It means UGLY+UNINTERESTING. How is being ugly AND untinteresting a better alternative, where "ugly" does NOT effect in "uninteresting" and vice versa.
A further example to make this very clear:
Imagine a person who is ugly.
Can he/she be fun, smart and so on? YES.
Imagine now a person who is ugly, and also, boring and dumb.
Is his boringness/dumbness caused by looks? hell no.
Is he boring/dumb? hell yes.
In other words, in the worst scenario, you are born ugly, boring and not intelligent at all, which isn't your fault at all.
In that sentence, I was asking how's being such a misfortunate being any better from a world where we are equal.
I think it's pretty obvious now that I'm neither bitter, nor prejudiced. Cheers Azzie.
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smithey
Promising
Supreme Hero
Yes im red, choke on it !!!
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posted April 03, 2011 02:06 PM |
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Being boring is pretty much up to him 
He can be ugly, dumb and still a winner because of his other qualities... just look at some of the singers/painters/sport players/politicians/pick any topic that uses talent to which face and mind are irrelevant
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Elodin
Promising
Legendary Hero
Free Thinker
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posted April 03, 2011 02:34 PM |
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Edited by Elodin at 14:39, 03 Apr 2011.
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Killing an unborn baby for any reason other than to protect the life of the mother is simply immoral.
It is evil to kill an unborn baby because the baby may be born:
1) with the gender you don't want
2) with the skin color you don't want
3) with the eye color you don't want
4) and grow up short
5) and grow up with less intelligence than you want
6) and cramp your lifestyle for a time
7) sick or "handicapped"
8) ect.
It is evil to play around with a person's genetic code to try to program the person into being who you want him to be.
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smithey
Promising
Supreme Hero
Yes im red, choke on it !!!
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posted April 03, 2011 02:48 PM |
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Evil is a harsh word is it not ?
Is it evil to make your kid play basketball just because you want him to be a basketball player like yourself ? people tend to make kids do stuff for many egoistic reasons, sometimes even unaware of those reasons, to call all those people evil is a bit harsh IMO
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Raelag84
Famous Hero
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posted April 03, 2011 03:46 PM |
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All that I can say for sure is not yet.
When I worked at Mayo Clinic as a "Lab Flunki" I saw plenty of gentic experiments go wrong, very very wrong. We just don't know enouph about it yet. But for the future. I just don't know.
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blizzardboy
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posted April 03, 2011 04:03 PM |
bonus applied by angelito on 07 Apr 2011. |
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Well if the technology is ever perfected such that we can have defect free, highly attractive, highly intelligent babies all the time, every time, then I think it's pretty much inevitable that it will happen. Somebody, somewhere will start doing it, and others will be compelled to follow or get drug behind. It's akin to having one tribe adopting agriculture and domesticating animals, and another tribe sticking with hunting and gathering.
The motivations are obvious: better humans.
The indirect negative consequences can be various. One of them being that if the technology is limited to certain affluent people, you would quite literally end up having legitimate castes within humanity. The key word being legitimate because there truly would be a superior caste and an inferior caste, as opposed to it just being based on a silly non-merit reason. There could be innumerable abuses under such a situation.
I'm reminded of Huxley's book Brave New World, where there were different tiers of humans, ranging from the highly intelligent Alphas down to lowest tier that worked as janitors and streetsweepers. In the book, society at one point created all Alphas, and the result was a world of unbearable conflict and pressure, where everybody wanted to be leaders, engineers, and executives, and there was nobody to take up the more mundane roles in society. Eventually, society adopted instead engineering different tiers of humans. The logic was that having a variance of degree of talents was in fact superior to having all equally capable people. But then, who decides who gets to be an alpha and who gets to be a gamma?
Another issue is even more simple: envy. If you think there's envy in the world now, think about it with genetically enhanced humans. Imagine just from you own perspective being a guy in his 40s that missed the boat of being genetically modified, and all around you a young generation of people that are better than you in every way are growing up. They may even get something more precious that you won't get: immunity to death by aging. Of course, it's hard to say what technology may bring, but in general it would be volumes easier to engineer a human's genome and then incubate a baby. Engineering a human that is already out to the womb is a different story entirely.
Anyway, regardless of what may or may not happen, if at some point we are able to do this, I believe it will happen, and resistance to it will be futile. Apart from having better humans, which is all relative anyway, I think there is a grander motivation to the idea of being able to alter the human genome: to remove our aggressive nature. To make us through and through docile and altruistic. This will break us free of corruption and save us from potential self-annihilation.
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"Folks, I don't trust children. They're here to replace us."
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ohforfsake
Promising
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Initiate
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posted April 03, 2011 04:38 PM |
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To the Asimov society argument, which was also touched by Yealiccc (though at that time I didn't respond, as I was afraid she'd feel it's a witch hunt), I have one reason I think this will not be the case. Automatication.
Computers gets more powerful and we use them more and more. I would be very surprised if we do not at some point start to make automatic more and more stuff. A computer is like, what, a million people working on one task. The speed is incredible and if you instruct it right, give it access to the right tools, the computer can work a car factory on its own. Why should it not be the same with harvesting, etc.?
The only reason, I say, we should not make something automatic, is if we enjoy doing it.
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blizzardboy
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posted April 03, 2011 04:44 PM |
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Are you talking about how machines take over human jobs?
Robotics can take over certain mundane roles, but as long as humans are still working, there will always be harder, more prestigious jobs, and easier, less prestigious jobs. If A.I. takes over everything, then it doesn't really matter. The chapter of human empire is closed and a new one begins with a different creature. We would either be blissful parasites or extinct.
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"Folks, I don't trust children. They're here to replace us."
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Fauch
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted April 03, 2011 07:02 PM |
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All I'm saying that there will be plenty of people out there who will design their children to meet their own needs and that is just disgusting since any enhancement provided won't be for the better of the child but simply so the parents will have a better time with their child.
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For one thing, taste differs. All parents will not want their son/daughter to look exactly like the other.
but being different may mean being rejected by others. the way most people want to be different is by being better than the others, more beautiful, more intelligent. like in school : some students are more intelligent, but they are all conditionned the same way
I heard a story about genetic engineering with bees. there was a specy of bee, living in a cold region who was getting decimated by a predator. another specy of bees, living in a less harsh region was able to resist that predator quite well. they found in those bees the genes responsible for that behaviour and gave it to the 1st specy of bees.
result : those bees lost their resistance to the cold and all died.
another note : those bees were exploited to produce honey, they wouldn't have bothered otherwise.
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smithey
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Yes im red, choke on it !!!
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posted April 03, 2011 09:07 PM |
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Edited by smithey at 21:08, 03 Apr 2011.
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but being different may mean being rejected by others. the way most people want to be different is by being better than the others, more beautiful, more intelligent. like in school : some students are more intelligent, but they are all conditionned the same way
When 99% of the population is beautiful is it not possible that "the ugly ones" will turn out to be the "new beautiful look", being "ugly" will certainly be more unique than being pretty  sort of a "if everyone is worshiping the devil doesnt that make him the god, turning god into the new devil?"
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Fauch
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted April 03, 2011 09:15 PM |
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I don't know, it would be like the savage in "brave new world" indeed. everyone is excited about him because he is different. but in another hand, they are all horrified by his mother, because she is not only different but also ugly.
in the book, the only reason why a girl fell in love with the savage is because he is particurlarly good looking, not because of his differences.
in reality they don't like him, he is a freak, they just think it's funny to observe him.
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smithey
Promising
Supreme Hero
Yes im red, choke on it !!!
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posted April 03, 2011 09:19 PM |
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havent read the book, but yeah I'm pretty sure you're right, people by nature tend to dislike the odd ones, It's enough to observe any minority within any country... guess we will all have to settle on being hot and smart then
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wog_edn
Promising
The Nothingness
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posted April 03, 2011 09:24 PM |
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That is because people don't like what they cannot understand or relate to. I myself find most such things rather interesting, and I tend to get to know those people easier. Those who aren't your "typical person" but dare to be themselves and stuff.
And yeah Smithey, it's just like Marilyn Manson said: "If more people owned my album than the bible, wouldn't that make me a God as more people believed in me than him?" (something along those lines, doesn't remember the quote exactly)
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smithey
Promising
Supreme Hero
Yes im red, choke on it !!!
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posted April 03, 2011 09:30 PM |
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It's not that we dont like (LOL, im representing humans for a sec now) its that when we cant relate to people its harder for our brains to cope with it, its scary and unfamiliar, I'm by no means a racist person but whenever I'm the only white guy surrounded by non-whites I dont feel the most comfortable... and its not because of them or something, I just feel like the odd one, like everybody is looking at me weird, I'm certain I'm not the only one who feels this way....
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blizzardboy
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posted April 03, 2011 09:37 PM |
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It's all about exposure. I live in the middle of a Hispanic community so I don't think twice about all the people that have tans in the middle of January. Plus most of the Hispanics in my town are 2nd generation... so they eat mayonnaise and peanut butter and drive gray-colored cars. And they go to a Catholic church to repent for fornicating 20 times a week instead of going to a mosque to pray for the exodus of the infidels in their homeland, so it's overall less awkward.
I know a lot of people that wouldn't even want to go to Israel as a tourist. lulz
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"Folks, I don't trust children. They're here to replace us."
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wog_edn
Promising
The Nothingness
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posted April 03, 2011 09:37 PM |
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Well no, it's a very normal way to feel. It's how the majority would feel. I am just saying that most people dislike what they cannot understand or relate to, exactly because of that. And as a sidenote, I wouldn't care if I were the only white among black guys .. as I care only about personality when hanging out with people
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