Miscellaneous Terran question-and-answer thread

Discussion regarding the Outsider webcomic, science, technology and science fiction.

Moderator: Outsider Moderators

Sweforce
Posts: 546
Joined: Fri Mar 13, 2015 12:00 am

Re: Miscellaneous Terran question-and-answer thread

Post by Sweforce »

Zorg56 wrote:Why genetic enginering was prohibited?
I doubt that some "ethical" reasons can stop corporations from making insane amount of money on parents who wants perfect child.
Genetic engineering of humans are inevitable. Attempts to ban the practice will only slow down the process somewhat and THEN someone that didn't hesitate to do it (China perhaps) will utterly curbstomp those that was stupid enough not to design their own IQ 200+ designer babies en masse.

Imagine how late medieval Europe would have fared if there had been a ban on the use of gunpowder. Those that ignored the ban would eventually just roll over their opposition but THAT wouldn't have happened because the first firearms where junk and by the time they got better the ban would rapidly have been lifted/ignored by anyone with an any sense of self preservation. I predict that this is exactly what will happen with genetic engineering of humans. Sadly by then, if the leaders in the field are unwilling to share their knowledge others may go for shortcuts and we may end up with an Eugenics War anyway. Actually that is exactly how I would place this iconic event in an updated Star Trek Canon. I would then have a second war several centuries later where the Federation are utterly crushed as a direct result of having abandoned genetic engineering. Gimping yourself isn't really a smart thing to do.

User avatar
dragoongfa
Posts: 1920
Joined: Mon Jan 26, 2015 9:26 pm
Location: Athens, Greece

Re: Miscellaneous Terran question-and-answer thread

Post by dragoongfa »

It would be far more complicated than: The one who genetically engineers humans will end up above the others.

Studies have shown that people withe comparable IQs tend to socialize within a range of 10 to 15 points above and below them. Furthermore social norms and interactions tend to diverge between groups with different IQs. In short a whole can of worms opens if a sizeable chunk of the youth suddenly gets far smarter than the previous generation. Remember that movie with the kids that were inseminated by a supernatural force/aliens and were 'different'? Pretty much that but without the otherwordly stuff.

Now add different improvements like enhanced fertility, longevity and etc. Mass societal friction just from the hard biological differences would ensue, things that would require an in depth revision of societal norms and legislation.

Never mind the fact that it takes time for the effects of widespread genetic engineering to show. For all we know the modification to enhance one's IQ could end up causing severe dementia problems on a large chunk of the population.

The one who takes the chance to be the first to genetically engineer their population would face a lot more problems than international backlash and sanctions.

User avatar
Arioch
Site Admin
Posts: 4486
Joined: Sat Mar 05, 2011 4:19 am
Location: San Jose, CA
Contact:

Re: Miscellaneous Terran question-and-answer thread

Post by Arioch »

Sweforce wrote:Attempts to ban the practice will only slow down the process somewhat and THEN someone that didn't hesitate to do it (China perhaps) will utterly curbstomp those that was stupid enough not to design their own IQ 200+ designer babies en masse.
Well, the first problem is that it's probably not that simple. There's no simple set of genes for intelligence (as far as we know, and you can bet they've been looking), so I think it would take a formidable understanding of an incredibly complex system to successfully breed super-smart babies in the first place. We're nowhere near that currently, so there's no guarantee that even in the best circumstance such a program will produce any more than past programs to breed super smart people by selection (which, as I understand it, weren't very successful). Larger brains don't equate to higher IQ's, and breeding two geniuses rarely gets you another genius, so there's some evidence that genius is as much about how the brain develops as it is about genetics.

Second, even if you understand the genome well enough to get your target trait, genetics is fraught with unintended consequences. Genetic code is spaghetti code; a change in one place can have ripple effects in systems that seem totally unrelated. In Russia in the 50's, there was an attempt to domesticate foxes for the fur trade by breeding them for docility (foxes being particularly uncooperative animals); the result produced more friendly foxes, but which barked like dogs and had floppy ears and curly tails and black and white spotted coats that were useless for the intended purpose. Clearly the genes for docility were also linked to other traits which, perhaps not surprisingly, had produced similar changes in domesticated dogs. It's difficult to know ahead of time what will go wrong with test babies when you start flipping gene switches, and experimenting like this on humans is morally problematic as well as extremely dangerous.

The potential benefit might be worth the risk and effort, but I don't think it's by any means a no-brainer. With advanced enough super-AI technology you can work out these problems, but if you have such super-smart AI, what do you need with super-smart kids anyway?

Finally, the wisdom of creating a new species to replace your current one has always escaped me. There is a powerful biological drive to perpetuate one's own species; why would people be eager to commit species suicide by artificially creating a "better" new one?
Sweforce wrote:Imagine how late medieval Europe would have fared if there had been a ban on the use of gunpowder. Those that ignored the ban would eventually just roll over their opposition but THAT wouldn't have happened because the first firearms where junk and by the time they got better the ban would rapidly have been lifted/ignored by anyone with an any sense of self preservation. I predict that this is exactly what will happen with genetic engineering of humans. Sadly by then, if the leaders in the field are unwilling to share their knowledge others may go for shortcuts and we may end up with an Eugenics War anyway. Actually that is exactly how I would place this iconic event in an updated Star Trek Canon. I would then have a second war several centuries later where the Federation are utterly crushed as a direct result of having abandoned genetic engineering. Gimping yourself isn't really a smart thing to do.
I'm not convinced that having a few extra super-smart people is really that much of a decisive advantage. Unless you plan on forcing ALL of your people to have gene-enhanced babies... but I don't think any government on Earth has that much control over its population. And I shudder to imagine the dystopian society that would try.

User avatar
Mr.Tucker
Posts: 303
Joined: Tue Oct 29, 2013 4:45 pm

Re: Miscellaneous Terran question-and-answer thread

Post by Mr.Tucker »

Mostly agree, except on one point:
Arioch wrote:I'm not convinced that having a few extra super-smart people is really that much of a decisive advantage. Unless you plan on forcing ALL of your people to have gene-enhanced babies...
Breed 100-1000, and all a country needs is a single one of them to become a Von Braun or Oppenheimer to obtain a substantial edge over it's rivals.

User avatar
Arioch
Site Admin
Posts: 4486
Joined: Sat Mar 05, 2011 4:19 am
Location: San Jose, CA
Contact:

Re: Miscellaneous Terran question-and-answer thread

Post by Arioch »

Mr.Tucker wrote:Breed 100-1000, and all a country needs is a single one of them to become a Von Braun or Oppenheimer to obtain a substantial edge over it's rivals.
Except that historically, the side with the cleverest boffins often seems to be the one that loses the war.

User avatar
Werra
Posts: 840
Joined: Wed Jun 06, 2018 8:27 pm

Re: Miscellaneous Terran question-and-answer thread

Post by Werra »

Arioch wrote:
Mr.Tucker wrote:Breed 100-1000, and all a country needs is a single one of them to become a Von Braun or Oppenheimer to obtain a substantial edge over it's rivals.
Except that historically, the side with the cleverest boffins often seems to be the one that loses the war.
Apart from WW1+2 I can't think of any example of this. And there it's still arguable.

But it's not even about Oppenheimers or somesuch. It's about the average. A high average IQ in a nation coincides with low crime rates, clean streets, healthy populace, well educated children, low number of smokers, etc. Simply put, intelligence makes everything more efficient. Even just increasing average from 100 to 105 can be huge. That this also moves the bellcurve of IQ as a whole to the right and therefore creates the next big genius, is just a bonus, really.
Strictly speaking, we don't need to know a single gene to achieve this. Simple genealogy over several generations is enough, since according to twin studies, 80% of IQ variance is due to genes.

An actual question regarding Loroi:
How accepted are such breeding programs of gene-tech free eugenics in Loroi society?

User avatar
Zorg56
Posts: 196
Joined: Thu Aug 30, 2018 10:59 am

Re: Miscellaneous Terran question-and-answer thread

Post by Zorg56 »

Arioch wrote:
Mr.Tucker wrote:Breed 100-1000, and all a country needs is a single one of them to become a Von Braun or Oppenheimer to obtain a substantial edge over it's rivals.
Except that historically, the side with the cleverest boffins often seems to be the one that loses the war.
Really?
For example?

User avatar
Arioch
Site Admin
Posts: 4486
Joined: Sat Mar 05, 2011 4:19 am
Location: San Jose, CA
Contact:

Re: Miscellaneous Terran question-and-answer thread

Post by Arioch »

Zorg56 wrote:
Arioch wrote:
Mr.Tucker wrote:Breed 100-1000, and all a country needs is a single one of them to become a Von Braun or Oppenheimer to obtain a substantial edge over it's rivals.
Except that historically, the side with the cleverest boffins often seems to be the one that loses the war.
Really?
For example?
Von Braun's side lost. Germany had arguably the best scientific and engineering community in the world (ex-Nazis were still at the top of jet and rocket development for both the US and Soviets well into the 60's), but they still lost the war.

The development of the atomic bomb was a dramatic event that changed world history, but it was not decisive in the war.

Name a list of the most brilliant commanders in history (Napoleon, Caesar, Rommel, Lee), and I'll show you a list of losing sides.

User avatar
Zorg56
Posts: 196
Joined: Thu Aug 30, 2018 10:59 am

Re: Miscellaneous Terran question-and-answer thread

Post by Zorg56 »

Arioch wrote:
Zorg56 wrote:
Arioch wrote: Except that historically, the side with the cleverest boffins often seems to be the one that loses the war.
Really?
For example?
Von Braun's side lost. Germany had arguably the best scientific and engineering community in the world (ex-Nazis were still at the top of jet and rocket development for both the US and Soviets well into the 60's), but they still lost the war.

The development of the atomic bomb was a dramatic event that changed world history, but it was not decisive in the war.

Name a list of the most brilliant commanders in history (Napoleon, Caesar, Rommel, Lee), and I'll show you a list of losing sides.
Being obsessed with stupid superweapons none of which actually works dosent means that you are smarter.
Even Fritz X, the most adequate of this type of weapons had more then questionable efficency.

Napoleon sucessfully installed France hegemony and was stopped only by all world powers united (And all of that with almost no economy), Caesar was killed, not defeated in battle, Rommel was crushed because higher officers was completly mad etc.

User avatar
Arioch
Site Admin
Posts: 4486
Joined: Sat Mar 05, 2011 4:19 am
Location: San Jose, CA
Contact:

Re: Miscellaneous Terran question-and-answer thread

Post by Arioch »

Zorg56 wrote:Being obsessed with stupid superweapons none of which actually works dosent means that you are smarter.
Even Fritz X, the most adequate of this type of weapons had more then questionable efficency.

Napoleon sucessfully installed France hegemony and was stopped only by all world powers united (And all of that with almost no economy), Caesar was killed, not defeated in battle, Rommel was crushed because higher officers was completly mad etc.
Yes, wars are won and lost due to a variety of factors. Having more smart people is a good thing, but I'm just challenging the assertion that having more Von Brauns or Rommels on your side is a decisive factor akin to the development of gunpowder.

User avatar
dragoongfa
Posts: 1920
Joined: Mon Jan 26, 2015 9:26 pm
Location: Athens, Greece

Re: Miscellaneous Terran question-and-answer thread

Post by dragoongfa »

Arioch wrote: I'm not convinced that having a few extra super-smart people is really that much of a decisive advantage. Unless you plan on forcing ALL of your people to have gene-enhanced babies... but I don't think any government on Earth has that much control over its population. And I shudder to imagine the dystopian society that would try.
Had a semi-drunken debate about this one day. The only acceptable solution was to skip the baby thing entirely and apply the genetic enhancement directly to the adult populace. The three ways we came up to do that would be
a) To invent teleportation tech and apply the improvements to the teleported copy (Seriously, someone must make a game with this premise)
b) Stem cell modification and implantation throughout the body while also inducing rapid cell growth and replenishment (good luck doing that without fucking up spectacularly with cancer).
c) Simply grow the modified parts in a vat and transplant them cyborg style.

folti
Posts: 66
Joined: Fri May 18, 2018 10:24 am

Re: Miscellaneous Terran question-and-answer thread

Post by folti »

Arioch wrote: Von Braun's side lost. Germany had arguably the best scientific and engineering community in the world (ex-Nazis were still at the top of jet and rocket development for both the US and Soviets well into the 60's), but they still lost the war.
Umm, that's at best debatable, more of a bit of a myth created around them after the war.

Plus it ignores that while Germany had quite a few good engineers and scientists (and a quite few bad too, with the majority who just made the grades), their biggest issues were management, and administration of both their R&D programs, and the way their R&D and manufacturing people cooperated, or the lack of said cooperation, which lead to designs whose manufacturing processes were more resource intensive than the allies' similar programs (something the resources needed for one Tiger have been nearly enough to make 3 T-34s, which, while weren't a direct match, have been able to make up for it by the sheer numbers, and the post-1943 variants could be dangerous to the Tiger from close). It wasn't until Speer became the Minister of Armaments and War Production in 1942, and started to cut down on the waste as much as he could, that they started to rationalize R&D and production, but by that time, it was too little, too late, as they faced a coalition of two industrial juggernauts (the Soviets and the US) who did logistics and war production much better and more thoroughly than they, with the US having the most efficient manufacturing and project management principles of the time.

Having the brightest minds doesn't help you, if you mismanage their capabilities, while doing the boring stuff (management/administration and logistics) right will make your less brightest people outperform them.

User avatar
Werra
Posts: 840
Joined: Wed Jun 06, 2018 8:27 pm

Re: Miscellaneous Terran question-and-answer thread

Post by Werra »

dragoongfa wrote: Had a semi-drunken debate about this one day. The only acceptable solution was to skip the baby thing entirely and apply the genetic enhancement directly to the adult populace.
Wouldn't that just delay the issue by however long it takes the modified adults to procreate?

User avatar
dragoongfa
Posts: 1920
Joined: Mon Jan 26, 2015 9:26 pm
Location: Athens, Greece

Re: Miscellaneous Terran question-and-answer thread

Post by dragoongfa »

Werra wrote:
dragoongfa wrote: Had a semi-drunken debate about this one day. The only acceptable solution was to skip the baby thing entirely and apply the genetic enhancement directly to the adult populace.
Wouldn't that just delay the issue by however long it takes the modified adults to procreate?
Provided that you don't modify the gametes then there should be no issue on the matter.

User avatar
HedAurabesh
Posts: 13
Joined: Sun Jan 06, 2019 12:44 am

Re: Miscellaneous Terran question-and-answer thread

Post by HedAurabesh »

Arioch wrote:Finally, the wisdom of creating a new species to replace your current one has always escaped me. There is a powerful biological drive to perpetuate one's own species; why would people be eager to commit species suicide by artificially creating a "better" new one?
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche would disagree with you there. :D

He basically pointed out the following:
  1. Each generation replaces the next, inevitably, since the parent generation eventually dies.
  2. Since each generation consists of a new set of individuals, it can't be the same as its parent generation.
  3. As such, each new generation is already on the way to be the next species. Maybe only in a miniscule, hardly visible manner with no clearly apparent direction, but it is.
  4. Negating this movement towards a changing humanity is therefore fruitless.
Starting from this realization, he asked himself: If the eventual result is the no-longer-human anyway, why not aim for the super-human?
That is, instead of leaving the result to chance and seek an adaptation merely to our environment, why not give it a clear direction?

Hence: Embrace the super-human and do not mind its destruction of humanity, because even the alternative, the merely no-longer-human, will see humanity destroyed anyway.


Or, in simpler terms:
Nobody asked the dinosaurs if they wanted to turn into birds, but they did.
They lost the land, and gained the sky.
But, given the choice and chance, wouldn't they have preferred to still also control the land, too?

User avatar
icekatze
Posts: 1399
Joined: Sat Mar 05, 2011 8:35 pm
Location: Middle of Nowhere
Contact:

Re: Miscellaneous Terran question-and-answer thread

Post by icekatze »

hi hi
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche would disagree with you there.
He might, if he was alive, but he was also kind of crazy. But if people want to get really existential about it, there's plenty of reasons why one would not want to design the next generation from scratch.

Here are some rebuttals:
1. Each generation must coexist withe the previous for a period of time.
2. People like continuity, and don't generally consider themselves an entirely different person when they go to sleep and wake up again, even though they inevitably change over time.
3. But even if they did, each new generation/person benefits from the accumulated wealth of knowledge as pertains to the previous. Whereas starting from scratch would provide a deficit of applicable experience.
4. While it would be technically possible through science to negate the change in human evolution, no one is actually trying to do this. Evolution, as compared to revolution, is generally less violent.
5. No one chooses to create themselves. They are necessarily created by someone else who will inevitably have a different viewpoint on something.
6. There is no Objective, perfect, ideal form. The value of any changes will be judged not only be the people experiencing the changes, but also be based on the environment they are living in.
7. Nobody asked the dinosaurs if they wanted a giant rock to fall on them.

User avatar
Arioch
Site Admin
Posts: 4486
Joined: Sat Mar 05, 2011 4:19 am
Location: San Jose, CA
Contact:

Re: Miscellaneous Terran question-and-answer thread

Post by Arioch »

HedAurabesh wrote:Starting from this realization, he asked himself: If the eventual result is the no-longer-human anyway, why not aim for the super-human?
This is kind of like saying, "You're going to die someday anyway, so why not just blow your own brains out now and get it over with?"

boldilocks
Posts: 669
Joined: Fri Jun 02, 2017 3:27 pm

Re: Miscellaneous Terran question-and-answer thread

Post by boldilocks »

Arioch wrote:
HedAurabesh wrote:Starting from this realization, he asked himself: If the eventual result is the no-longer-human anyway, why not aim for the super-human?
This is kind of like saying, "You're going to die someday anyway, so why not just blow your own brains out now and get it over with?"
Also, alligators and sharks are pretty similar today as to what they were 1 million years ago.

User avatar
GeoModder
Posts: 1038
Joined: Mon Mar 21, 2011 6:31 pm

Re: Miscellaneous Terran question-and-answer thread

Post by GeoModder »

boldilocks wrote:Also, alligators and sharks are pretty similar today as to what they were 1 million years ago.
The devil's always in the details.
Looking alike is a far cry from acting alike. Note the behavioural differences between wolves and dogs, including those species of dogs that still have a wolvish appearance.
Image

User avatar
Zorg56
Posts: 196
Joined: Thu Aug 30, 2018 10:59 am

Re: Miscellaneous Terran question-and-answer thread

Post by Zorg56 »

GeoModder wrote:
boldilocks wrote:Also, alligators and sharks are pretty similar today as to what they were 1 million years ago.
The devil's always in the details.
Looking alike is a far cry from acting alike. Note the behavioural differences between wolves and dogs, including those species of dogs that still have a wolvish appearance.
Nope, sharks and alligators just the same.

And not 1 million year, 37 million years for alligator and 150 millions of years for sharks.

Post Reply