Post: #26

@zelcorpion
@foo1sgold
@ samseau.

You mentioned as an example: rome, library of alexandria, the dark ages, the jews during nazi regime, regressive islamic republics, soviets and chinese scientists, etc. Examples, illustrating how war can be destructive to the progress of science.

Let me see if i get the gist of your argument:

The thrust of your argument is that since the dark ages happened before, it can happen again in the West. And you think this will be triggered by financial collapse. and that the idea of scientific progression will be untenable under such a condition, because scientific progress requires the right political climate (which will not exist in a dark age). And any notion of other races carrying on scientific progress is unlikely because only the white men has been able to create this kind of civilization. So, you think it stands to reason, to therefore assume that only the white men can carry on the torch. Therefore, with the white men handicapped in a dark age precipitated by financial collapse. science will come to a halt.

I take it that is the gist of your post?


#1. I dont know if the "dark ages" was actually a dark age. I will have to read more about the issue to competently reply to you. Different scholars speculate on the nature of the "darkness" of it.

#2. the Chinese and soviets killed dissident scientists which is unfortunate; but they also provide incredible amount of financial support to the research conducted by non-dissident scientists. That is why the soviets were able to go from mainly agrarian society to launching the sputnik(of course, they build upon the work of the captured german scientist like the americans did.)

The Arabs destroyed the library of alexandria, but the arabs innovated in terms of weapons and military techniques in order to conquer north africa and spain. The same with the Gauls in the sacking of Rome.

One person loss is another person gain, unfortunately. You cannot rigorously give an example of life and death struggle that doesnt involve innovation. Unfortunately, sometimes the innovation of the winning party maybe less than the innovation of the losing side. The best dynamic is when both fighting party are almost evenly matched e.g. europe during ww2. Of course, i would rather take the library of alexandria over whatever the fuck the islamic arabs innovated.

But i fear this is turning into reductio ad absurdum argument and detracting from the issue: is such a return to stone age possible in this modern world?

The only thing i can imagine reducing civilization to stone age is global atomic wars. I doubt this will even do it. why? Too much redundancy. Random people will gather the info that is present and settle in different parts of the world, and civilization will continue there. In various pockets where people settle there will sprout different political climate; some of it will support scientific innovation, others wont. France contigently supports somatic genetic engineering; america outright banned it.

Which leads to your next point of only white men can truly innovate. i will say this in reply:

#3. I know plenty of asians in graduate level studies that are creative and publish innovative scientific studies in research publications. This is easy to verify. Just look through any random issues of Nature or Science. So, i am not sure that creativity is purely the domain of white(men).

Even if we were to grant you the position that only whitemen can innovate, what makes you think in a potential global financial collapse, whitemen will be completely handicapped? the reason why i said this is because of:

#4. The ease of transportation and communication that we have today, makes a return to stone age unlikely. Yes, there are civilizations that were destroyed in the past, but that is the past where their mobility and communication is highly limited. If mexico is burning to the ground, in the past most likely they will all be fucked. In modern times, they will simply immigrate their arses across the border on cars, planes, boats, etc. Volcanic destruction of pompeii comes to mind versus the modern efforts in hurricane katrina new orleans. If this was the past, majority of people in new orleans or fukushima Japan or Tsunami asia will be dead. Modern mobility and communication prevents this catastrophic death.

So, if some form of stone age-causing event miraculously fell on the western world for whatever reason; and if only the whitemen can carry on civilization as you claim; why wont the whitemen simply move to another continent to continue his innovation? Unlike the past where whites stayed in europe during the bubonic plague, westerners will simply immigrate away to other continents. again, too many redundancies.

Today, if the library of alexandria gets burned down, it doesnt matter because copies of the information would have been made and distributed. Redundancies.

Current human civilization has developed enough to be anti-fragile. Not even a meterorite can wipe us out, unless it is large enough to split the entire planet earth into 100 pieces in space.

Post: #27

(07-27-2014 09:14 PM)Nemencine Wrote:  @zelcorpion
@foo1sgold
@ samseau.

You mentioned as an example: rome, library of alexandria, the dark ages, the jews during nazi regime, regressive islamic republics, soviets and chinese scientists, etc. Examples, illustrating how war can be destructive to the progress of science.

Let me see if i get the gist of your argument:

The thrust of your argument is that since the dark ages happened before, it can happen again in the West. And you think this will be triggered by financial collapse. and that the idea of scientific progression will be untenable under such a condition, because scientific progress requires the right political climate (which will not exist in a dark age). And any notion of other races carrying on scientific progress is unlikely because only the white men has been able to create this kind of civilization. So, you think it stands to reason, to therefore assume that only the white men can carry on the torch. Therefore, with the white men handicapped in a dark age precipitated by financial collapse. science will come to a halt.

I take it that is the gist of your post?


#1. I dont know if the "dark ages" was actually a dark age. I will have to read more about the issue to competently reply to you. Different scholars speculate on the nature of the "darkness" of it.

#2. the Chinese and soviets killed dissident scientists which is unfortunate; but they also provide incredible amount of financial support to the research conducted by non-dissident scientists. That is why the soviets were able to go from mainly agrarian society to launching the sputnik(of course, they build upon the work of the captured german scientist like the americans did.)

The Arabs destroyed the library of alexandria, but the arabs innovated in terms of weapons and military techniques in order to conquer north africa and spain. The same with the Gauls in the sacking of Rome.

One person loss is another person gain, unfortunately. You cannot rigorously give an example of life and death struggle that doesnt involve innovation. Unfortunately, sometimes the innovation of the winning party maybe less than the innovation of the losing side. The best dynamic is when both fighting party are almost evenly matched e.g. europe during ww2. Of course, i would rather take the library of alexandria over whatever the fuck the islamic arabs that burned it down innovated.

But i fear this is turning into reductio ad absurdum argument and detracting from the issue: is such a return to stone age possible in this modern world?

The only thing i can imagine reducing civilization to stone age is global atomic wars. I doubt this will even do it. why? Too much redundancy. Random people will gather the info that is present and settle in different parts of the world, and civilization will continue there. In various pockets where people settle there will sprout different political climate; some of it will support scientific innovation, others wont. France contigently supports somatic genetic engineering; america outright banned it.

Which leads to your next point of only white men can truly innovate. i will say this in reply:

#3. I know plenty of asians in graduate level studies that are creative and publish innovative scientific studies in research publications. This is easy to verify. Just look through any random issues of Nature or Science. So, i am not sure that creativity is purely the domain of white(men).

Even if we were to grant you the position that only whitemen can innovate, what makes you think in a potential global financial collapse, whitemen will be completely handicapped? the reason why i said this is because of:

#4. The ease of transportation and communication that we have today, makes a return to stone age unlikely. Yes, there are civilizations that were destroyed in the past, but that is the past where their mobility and communication is highly limited. If mexico is burning to the ground, in the past most likely they will all be fucked. In modern times, they will simply immigrate their arses across the border on cars, planes, boats, etc. Volcanic destruction of pompeii comes to mind versus the modern efforts in hurricane katrina new orleans. If this was the past, majority of people in new orleans or fukushima Japan or Tsunami asia will be dead. Modern mobility and communication prevents this catastrophic. So, if some form of stone age miraculously fell on the western world like the bubonic plague of the past; and only the whitemen can carry on civilization as you think, Why wont the whitemen simply move to another continent? Unlike the past where whites stayed in europe, westerners will simply immigrate away to other continents. again, too many redundancies.

Today, if the library of alexandria gets burned down, it doesnt matter because copies of the information will be made and distributed. Redundancies.

Current human civilization has developed enough to be anti-fragile. Not even a meterorite can wipe us out. Unless, it split the entire planet earth into 100 pieces in space.

You greatly overestimate the effectiveness of Disaster Recovery and Data Loss Prevention procedures within organizations.

You remind me of the CIO that whispers to the IT director when the other executives are not looking. "We are backing all of this shit up right?" "Did you fucking verify the copies yet?"

The internet is more fragile than most realize. Datacenters are not foolproof, maybe small bomb and flood proof, but never war proof. If the Muslims destroyed knowledge before it can happen again.

Recently the US Visa office lost thousands of applications. People received notices that they would have to start all over again or get delayed. One year before that, the USICS office did the same thing, except the records were on paper and a leaking pipe ruined them.

I have more thoughts as well. I need more time to finish reading through some of the information. I would like to ask questions about the genetic process. I understand that the rats can benefit from these but I do not understand science well enough to fully understand how a human body can absorb and benefit in the exact same way.

Post: #28

You could be right. My knowledge in this specific area of disaster contagion is limited to classes on epidemiology and public health i took back at the uni. I maybe extrapolating too much from solid protocols that epidemiologists use in dealing with disaster.

Nonetheless, why wont data center be war proof? You can simply create time-capsule, buried it deep in different parts of the world and ocean, and stored the data there. with a future retrieval protocol in place.

Even better, you can put the data on multiple nuclear powered orbital satellites and launched it into space, moon, and mars. They can keep transmitting on a repeating loop from there. voyager 1 and 2 satelites were launched into deep space 37 years ago, and they are still transmitting data.

On top of that, Data can be recorded in many different forms apart from electronic records. you can use tiny, microscopic dots on surfaces to store a loads of data. There are some novel works being done where they are trying to store information in a dna format; and a single dna from a single cell in your body is 3million base pairs. that is insane amount of information storage capacity.

Also, losing thousands of files at the IRS or CIA is not the same as complete human knowledge wipe out.

(07-27-2014 10:01 PM)TravelerKai Wrote:  You greatly overestimate the effectiveness of Disaster Recovery and Data Loss Prevention procedures within organizations.

You remind me of the CIO that whispers to the IT director when the other executives are not looking. "We are backing all of this shit up right?" "Did you fucking verify the copies yet?"

The internet is more fragile than most realize. Datacenters are not foolproof, maybe small bomb and flood proof, but never war proof. If the Muslims destroyed knowledge before it can happen again.

Recently the US Visa office lost thousands of applications. People received notices that they would have to start all over again or get delayed. One year before that, the USICS office did the same thing, except the records were on paper and a leaking pipe ruined them.

I have more thoughts as well. I need more time to finish reading through some of the information. I would like to ask questions about the genetic process. I understand that the rats can benefit from these but I do not understand science well enough to fully understand how a human body can absorb and benefit in the exact same way.

Post: #29

(07-27-2014 07:45 PM)Zelcorpion Wrote:  Who says that mankind has not had one or 2 previous relatively high civilizations and simply degenerated and the continents were mostly destroyed?

There are many books written by high-level scientists among those extremely well-connected ones like Charles Galton Darwin (who worked on the Manhattan project among others) who stated in his book THE NEXT MILLION YEARS (http://75.72.244.165/Sundark/cgdarwin.pdf) that mankind is by far older and had previous extremely advanced civilizations. Within 200.000 years there is plenty of time for civilizations to rise even to interstellar technology-level and to even disappear again. There are plenty of sources on the topics of the pyramids which are scattered around the world and can be found in the number of hundreds even in China - meaning that they were likely built by older human civilizations. Frankly even our civilization - were it not for the extremely high population number and spread - could lose our technological advancement within 2000 years or faster quite easily.

All the points mentioned in the article are valid to a degree. But the conclusions are frankly off to a great level.

The plans are spelled out by the monetary and scientific elite quite clearly - the goal is a Brave New World basically with the attempt to change most men into meat-robots without much free will.

http://www.amazon.com/Brief-History-Futu...1611450136 Jacques Attali - high level EU official above all politicians, CFR, Bilderberg etc.

http://www.cfr.org/defense-strategy/dcdc...036/p13101
DCDC Global Strategic Trends Programme, 2007-2036 - high level military doc on predicted future trends - link on gov-website no longer active, but document can be found here: http://cuttingthroughthematrix.com/artic...3jan07.pdf

I made sure to include:

Quote:The singularity event will dwarf the agricultural, industrial, and digital revolution in significance, as the world ushers in the first super-human intelligence that we are aware of.

I'm in absolute agreement. I used to be a bit of an archaeology nerd, it runs in the family. One of the first things that you learn is really how rare fossils are. The most common fossils are of plants, shellfish, trilobites, etc, because these things flourished like cockroaches, they lived under ideal circumstances to produce fossils, and they lived for over 250 MILLION years. You really can't fathom just how long that is. For a sense of scale, the divergence of upright primates from lower primates happened around 6 million years ago. From 6 million years ago until now, we have not found one single complete humanoid fossil. Not one. Archaeologists flip the fuck out when they find something like "Lucy", which is only 40% complete. That's how rare fossils are. So over the course of Earth's history (forget about human history), we have very little to go on. It's similar to looking at a single family photo album and expecting to know what the entire city was like. There are hundreds of millions of years of history that we'll never know anything about, and all we have are clues here and there that tell us something about plant and animal species that existed then, but who knows what insane stories are held in the Earth's past.

Post: #30

I still don't buy that official DNA data sheets will inspire women one way or the other much or men for that matter. Both are slaves to their emotions when it comes to attraction.

We have our own intuitive data sheets on people's genes already.

Face and body symmetry, height, skin glow and tone, academic, business, athletic, creative achievements, pheremones etc...

Post: #31

Nemencine: You have written an interesting set of posts, and are to be commended on that. I can't/won't disagree with you on the science, as that is not my background. I do have some questions and points for you though.

To what extent do you account for the possibility/likelihood of unintended consequences? For instance, do Yao Ming, Liam Hoekstra, Eero Mantyranta, or even that whippet, suffer from any problems?

Now, not on scientific matters, I have a few points to raise. As others have mentioned, there have been dark ages before (not just in the post-Roman world). I don't think we're likely at all to go back to the stone age, but I wouldn't rule out another dark age by any stretch of the imagination.

Civilisation actually tends to be fairly fragile in that a lot of the talent, ideas, etc. are very centralised. If/when the centre of an empire falls apart for any number of reasons, including war, plague, etc. (not to mention degeneration), there is rarely anyone in the provinces left to pick up the pieces. Some people may flee to somewhere else, but this assumes that somewhere else actually exists for them to flee to. In a globalised world, that's not guaranteed.

It is here that there are two subpoints I would like to raise, both to do with dysgenic demographics. The first is the behaviour of the non-elite classes. As we are moving more and more to a winner takes all system, I think it's quite obvious that there is growing unrest lower down in society. The degree to which this can be tempered by bread and circuses, I don't know. It is a phenomenon that seems to exist in disparate societies from North America to Europe to China. I'm not sure that the unwashed masses, especially young men, would simply accept being shut out of the future, so to speak. I really don't think there's going to be a 98/2 split on sexual matters without a massive male revolt of some sort. China really is staring down the barrel of this gun right now. They have something like 30 million more young men than women. That is going to end badly. Such people don't have the financial means to use science to overcome these problems. IVF, currently, is often beyond the reach of many in the middle class.

In the meantime, of course, in places where things are not so dramatic, the under class and lower class are still pumping out kids at a greater rate than the upper middle class and middle class. Unless babies grown in vats become widespread within the next decade or two at most, we're looking at something of a dysgenic tidal wave in many countries. Add in dysgenic immigration and it's even worse. These people literally are going to be the barbarians at the gates, whether they're locals or foreigners. This is a race against time for science.

At the other end of the scale, middle and upper middle class people simply aren't breeding at all, and saying that they will go somewhere else is -- in a somewhat counter-intuitive way -- even worse than them remaining in one place to face the music. Why? Because of the difference in prevailing social mores in the two places. If a smart person remains in a backwater and sees everyone else around her having kids, she will probably also have kids in order to fit in. On the other hand, if she goes to one of the leading cities in the world, where everyone else is trying to "accomplish something", she's simply not going to have kids. In this respect, a place like Singapore is a magnet for smart people, but it's also an IQ shredder. It basically sucks the smart people out of other places, and then those smart people just don't have kids in Singapore for a variety of reasons (including cost of living, social mores, technological distractions, etc.). Again, this is a race against time for science that is happening right now, and I'll get into some anecdotes to illustrate this.

Firstly, let's have a look at the females in my extended family.

My father only has one brother, and my uncle and his wife have no kids. Not off to a great start.

My mother has two sisters and a brother (who married), and also one sister who died younger.

So, in total, there were four women, plus two who married in. Let's call them A, B C, D, E, F, according to age.

A -- no kids
B (my mother) -- 1 male, 1 female (B1)
C -- 3 females (C1, C2, C3), 1 male
D -- 1 male, 1 female (D1)
E -- 2 females (E1, E2)
F -- no kids

So, for the Baby Boomers, six women produced 10 kids, which isn't replacement level of 2.1 (but it gets worse below).

Now let's look at the Gen X and Gen Y women.

B1 -- upper middle class, no kids, married, almost 37, probably not going to have any
C1 -- middle class, no kids, unmarried, almost 36, won't have any
C2 -- middle class, 3 kids, married, almost 35, probably won't have any more
C3 -- lower class, no kids, unmarried, almost 33, won't have any
D1 -- under class, 2 kids, divorced, 38, won't have any more
E1 -- unsure, at least one kid, don't know anything else
E2 -- lower class, at least one kid, don't know anything else

From seven Gen X and Gen Y women, there are seven, possibly more, kids.

Look at the total fertility rate there. For my generation, it's basically 1 per woman. In particular, we should look at educational and financial levels. My sister is by far the smartest and best educated of all of my cousins and her husband is certainly the best educated, and perhaps the smartest (unless it's me) male of our generation. They both have advanced degrees and probably have a household income north of one third of a million dollars each year. Yet my sister won't have kids. The only one who is in reasonable shape is C2, but both she and her husband have profoundly lower class/anti-intellectual values, despite their wealth (he is a self-employed tradesman). They're almost certainly not going to produce scientists or engineers. I will probably have kids, which might balance things out, and one of my male cousins (I don't know the other), might also (but he also has a much lower level of education and different values). There's the problem exemplified by one extended family. Even the average women in my family aren't having kids, and the smartest certainly isn't/aren't.

Now, another example. I live in a rural part of Taiwan. You can see all of this on an even larger scale here. Previously, I worked at a number of local government schools. The junior high school I worked at had 250+ students a couple of decades ago. It now has 150. There are whole wings of empty classrooms at that school. None of the local primary schools had more than 100 students, again, around half what they had before. One school had a first grade class with three students in it. I nearly fell over when I saw that. Three kids! There are several primary schools that have been closed within the past few years. About a dozen schools in our county are slated for closure within the next decade. One other junior high school has 41 students, and talk is that it's going to close within the next two years so those kids will go to my previous school. There's a local museum that shows population, etc. of the region. Two decades ago, the town there had double the population, and I think that's probably pretty indicative.

In my classes, the better/Han students were often only children. Some had siblings. On the other hand, the worse/aboriginal students often came from families with four or five children. That in itself is something, but then it's what happens after school that's really interesting. Those smarter kids leave here and all move to Taipei simply because there are no jobs where we live. There's a little tourism and some other stuff, but it's basically agricultural, so there's no future in it. Many don't even have full-time employment. They eek out an existence. How, I don't know, since there isn't much welfare here. Pretty much the only decent jobs are teachers/nurses/bureaucrats (i.e. public sector), and as you can imagine, they're cutting those due to falling population. There is a tiny fraction of the population with bigger businesses and serious land holdings who are okay (and interestingly, they do often come from families with three or more kids, a phenomenon I noticed amongst the upper class in the West also, but the absolute numbers are still tiny).

This place is being hollowed out. The smart/capable people move to Taipei, which is an IQ shredder. If Taiwan's TFR is ~1 and the dumb people who remain in the provinces are pumping out 4 or 5 kids in many cases, that surely means that Taipei's TFR is less than 1. I suspect that if you compared San Francisco to central California, or to Oklahoma, you'd see the same thing. Likewise with every other place in the world. The provinces are being hollowed out of their smart people, who then hit the big city and don't breed. Even if there isn't a nuclear holocaust or deadly super virus, this is a time bomb, and it's going to hit within the next decade or two. The science isn't going to be enough.

The really mad thing is that they're actually building schools in and around Taipei because they have an increasing number of students (because of the absolute numbers flooding into the city), yet there's going to be a little hump, and then in twenty years, all of those schools will be empty too. Everyone is predicting that at least half of the private universities in Taiwan are going to close/go bankrupt within a decade or so.

This is what you're facing. In many places, you'd need millions of lab-grown kids to counteract this. The science isn't quite there yet, society most certainly isn't even remotely ready for kids grown in vats, and the cost of all of that would be staggering on the scale needed anyway.

All of this may be hard for you to imagine unless you live amongst it. I live amongst it. People pick tea on the sides of beautiful mountains, and a month ago, they harvested a sea of golden rice. It was gorgeous to look at. Between the rice and the tea, there are banana groves and pineapple fields. It's like the archetypal image I have in my head from childhood of a tropical paradise. Yet civilisation is steadily receding from this place, one abandoned house being reclaimed by the tropical flora at a time. I live in a dystopian future -- a beautiful one -- but a dystopian one all the same. I'm okay, but even if I had ten kids, there simply wouldn't be anything here for them, and so they would likely move to Taipei, Singapore or Sydney to be shredded by the great machine also.



I just hope people like you can figure this stuff out before we all drown in the dysgenic demographics, but I'm not holding my breath.

One last thing: For anyone who has not read it, I'd recommend checking out Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon.

Post: #32

Ok, I did a more thorough reading of Nemencine's post, and I find even more to disagree with. But again I commend Nemencine for putting the effort into a thought (and discussion) provoking post, even though I don't agree with his conclusions.

The fundamental problem I have with his post is the underlying idea that techno-scientific advances are going to create wondrously positive benefits for mankind in the near future. Nemencine earlier disagreed with my labeling this idea as a form of scientific/techno utopianism, but I don't see how the honest reader could use any other term, especially since the argument is being presented directly in opposition to "manosphere dystopianism". Clearly the post is making the argument that science has miraculous things in store for humanity, and Nemencine presents these advances as running counter to any dystopian trends. Ergo, they are by definition utopian in nature, since they work in direct opposition to dystopian aspects of present day society.

I reject techno-utopianism for several reasons. First of all, zoom out from our current point in time and consider the possibility that we are currently, in fact, living in a techno-utopia. By the standards of the vast majority of humans who ever walked the Earth, our current science and technology are literally unimaginably advanced. We must remember that airplanes are little more than a century old. Antibiotics, less than a century. Computers, less than half a century. The internet, a quarter century. And less than a hundred years ago many people didn't even have electricity in their homes.

The point is, who's to say we aren't already in the scientific/techno utopia? In comparison to most of history we definitely are, at least. Modern science and technology have made mankind more powerful than ever before. But has that created a perfect society? No. In fact, in many regards we are much worse off than we were before. This is because science and technology are double-edged swords that can inflict as much harm as good (i.e. the long range bomber and the passenger jet, the nuclear missile and the nuclear power plant, the internet and the surveillance state, etc...). Technological progress is NOT an unmitigated good. There are always prices to pay, but these prices are not always obvious at first glance. Usually we don't understand the implications that follow technology until after the fact.

For a modern example everyone here will understand, look at smartphones. What if I told you in 1994 that in twenty years everyone would be carrying around a device that had access to all the world's information and which was also a telephone, camera, video recorder, music player, television and text messaging device? You'd be amazed, right? You'd think that was simply incredible. But would you immediately realize that the ubiquity of such devices would completely transform the social dynamics between young men and women? Of course not. That would not become clear until later, after the devices had permeated the culture. The impact would only be felt after it was too late to change or prevent it. So we can see how a device which would have been considered utopian a generation ago carried with it negative aspects which harm society. These negative aspects were unknown and unconsidered when the device was merely imagined. Once it went from the abstract to the concrete, however, those negative aspects manifested themselves. The point being, we can't know the drawbacks of any new science or technology until it becomes a reality, at which point it is too late to turn back the clock.

The examples of new science Nemencine presented in his post are quite worrisome, in my view, because even prior to their implementation it is clear they would have deep and profound impacts on society (note: I am ignoring any skepticism that these advances are not actually close and granting the possibility that they could occur within the next fifty years). Smartphones and airplanes are one thing, and nuclear weapons another, but Nemencine's main examples are another level entirely: he is talking about the genetic engineering of mankind. This would be by far the most profound technological change in human history, simply because by virtue of adopting it we would cease to be human as we know it. There is literally nothing that introduces more possible harm to humanity than this idea.

This is essentially the idea of transhumanism. It is mankind making himself into a god through his control and mastery of the physical world. It is as alluring and intoxicating an idea as can be conceived. It is also the absolute height of hubris and human arrogance. It would, unquestionably in my mind, bring about the ruination if not total extinction of humanity before long. It is simply the story of Icarus writ large.

The reality is that utopia is impossible in this world regardless of how much science or technology we have. Our human nature is a fallen one, we are imperfect creatures, and no amount of genetic engineering or technology can change that. The problem is intrinsic. It is spiritual. No amount of material prosperity or mastery over the material world can remedy spiritual defects. Paradoxically, we are much more likely to understand this fact in the absence of material abundance. Our ancestors, who had much less knowledge and understanding of science and technology, had a much greater understanding of the primacy of the spiritual over the material. It is our subsequent mastery of the material realm that has blinded us to the spiritual aspects of man which are so important. This is the major reason that modern man is so generally miserable and spiritually dead despite his material prosperity (and why generally the most materially abundant among us are also the most spiritually impoverished, i.e. drug/suicide problems with celebrities).

I could write a book on this very topic but I should stop here because I'm getting tired and my thoughts are getting disorganized. My main point is that I believe the idea that scientific progress is an unmitigated good that will save humanity is totally wrong. I think the opposite is a much more likely scenario: humanity's arrogance and hubris over its mastery of science will ultimately contribute to its extinction through the disastrous unintended consequences of utopian visions gone wrong.

Post: #33

All this talk of genetic engineering and cloning is actually far more disturbing than it is optimistic for the future. Think for a moment about how the wealthy already monopolize land and resources in the world. Now imagine a world where only the very elite can pay millions to extend their own lifespans or their descendants. Now consider the additional concerns of these same people paying top dollar to engineer various traits which would give their descendants a permanent competitive edge in IQ or physical ability.

The idea that any kind of positive gene enhancements will be made available to regular people is wishful thinking. This is the sort of thing that will be kept secret or exclusive to a selected few.

This future is actually far more dystopian and nightmarish than any nuclear war.

Post: #34

(07-28-2014 02:08 AM)scorpion Wrote:  ...
I could write a book on this very topic but I should stop here because I'm getting tired and my thoughts are getting disorganized. My main point is that I believe the idea that scientific progress is an unmitigated good that will save humanity is totally wrong. I think the opposite is a much more likely scenario: humanity's arrogance and hubris over its mastery of science will ultimately contribute to its extinction through the disastrous unintended consequences of utopian visions gone wrong.

I agree with Scorpion's view that Nemencine's conclusions are just wrong. Partly even his perception of current or even near-future technologies regarding genetic adjustment after-birth are faulty in my opinion. That is centuries off at least - otherwise you would likely already see immortal, super-intelligent and physically super-strong families strutting around on this planet.

I would also like to differ on Scorpion's view regarding human nature. Most humans - 80% or even 90%+ - when set in a positive disciplined prosperous system that gives them the chance for a peaceful and fulfilled life - most will live positive and more or less decent lives.
However the psychopaths - and especially the highly intelligent psychopaths always desire power. They are the ones who rule our system and the only way to offset is to have non-psychopathic competent leaders in place or have an extremely emancipated and aware populace. I don't see that happening anytime soon.

So our ruling psychopaths will use technology to enslave us all. Good examples are advances in energy creation (goe-magnet energy generators etc.), money creation or medicine which have been shelved or even combated vehemently because they would impact the power-level of the current rulers. Why should they offer any of the advances of the technologies to the general populace if it does not benefit them ultimately?

Post: #35

I just hope the genetically tampered asians trying to be white don't mess with the asian small pussy gene.

Post: #36

I enjoyed reading all this however I have a couple of questions for the author.

I do subscribe to the theory of cause and effect, for every plus there will be a negative, thus like a lot of the technology that has delayed the causes of effects. Such as the pill, IVF, technology making women's child labour a very safe procedure, better technology to ensure the workplace is safe for women to go into. Even to go as far as internet pornography to deal with men's sexual urges, all seem to have a insidious detrimental effect in the long term. This technology can very well be exposed to the mass public, but it makes me think that there will always be a serious long term effect, when dealing with something so unnatural.

I can understand if it is the case of genuinely improving ones life, the individual question is on the path for self improvement will go through the inevitable hardships and will be prepared for this. However this technology will be used for angry sluts to deal with their deteriorating reproductive capabilities, hence forth not having the same power in the sexual market place that they used to.

To sum it up, what I'm trying to say is that the misuse of technology without ideals has led to a lot of social problems although this may be delayed, they haven't been gotten rid of. Would you say that this next stage of technology will fall to the same fate, or may we be reaching new stages of advancement that will render this threat obsolete.

Post: #37

@ SWITCH

I think the future is what we make it. (easier said than done! yeah i know.)

Like i replied to samseau, France and UK successfully cured little children born with SCID through the use of somatic genetic engineering. This is already done. The idea that these things are 100 to 200 years in the future is not exactly true. It is closer than we like to think.

@ RENZY

Saw that movie. love it. However, i think women will still shite test you + scan your dna. Double whammy. It wont be easy.

@ ZELCORPION

This post of yours strikes me as been too hypothetical...extinction level event can happen, who knows-- the planet could be struck by a giant meteorite and blasted into space.

@TRAVESTY 444

This was my exact quote :

(07-27-2014 03:27 PM)Nemencine Wrote:  To stand a chance with 7.5s, 8s, and 9s; you will need: Game, Looks, Accomplishment, Lifestyle and "Straight As" genetics makeup.

It is not an either/or. You will need them all. However, for breeding purposes, my thought is that your genetic profile will trump your game. I did specify that

Also, a girl wanting to shag you is not necessarily equivalent to her wanting to have your babies; i believe i made that distinction:

(07-27-2014 03:27 PM)Nemencine Wrote:  The silver lining is that there is a difference between shagging and impregnating.

On top of that, without getting into too much nature vs nurture argument or Blank statist versus Genetic determinism. There is a good likelihood, although not 100% guaranteed, that a person with "straight As" genetics will be a natural alpha in lot of ways. How much of social dominance behaviour is genetical? yes, dominance behaviour can be learned(otherwise, there wont be a RVF). Then, there is the role of epigenetics.

@El Chinito loco

I am strongly inclined to agree with you about the increasing stratification of society in a genetically engineered society. However, the history of science is that the technology ended up being available to the masses. Until i see a different situation from this, i will have to take side with historical pattern.

Besides, a couple of genetically engineered elite could an idealist, like a philanthropist of some sort, and decide to use his wealth to spread the technology. Bill Gate of the future?

One thing that is worrisome is this historical precedence: when europeans came to latin america/asian/africa with their advance technology, it was disruptive to latin americans/asians/africans society. Will the introduction of the intellectual *fruits* of genetically engineered elite-- the technology results of their superior intellect-- be disruptive to the natural humans? The same way that european's technology introduction to asia and africa was disruptive. Perhaps, it is best for each to develop their own culture separately? to keep to their own kind, so to speak.

@ZELCORPION.

(07-28-2014 03:53 AM)Zelcorpion Wrote:  I agree with Scorpion's view that Nemencine's conclusions are just wrong. Partly even his perception of current or even near-future technologies regarding genetic adjustment after-birth are faulty in my opinion. That is centuries off at least - otherwise you would likely already see immortal, super-intelligent and physically super-strong families strutting around on this planet.

Respectfully, can you provide supporting facts that shows i am wrong? Like i stated to Samseau, France and UK have already conducted successful genetic engineering on young children, altering their DNA. So, the technology is already here, the only limitation on perfecting it are the bioethics law against genetic engineering.

And yes, there are super strong families. the parents and families of Liam Hoekstra is one such families. There families have gene mutations that makes them super strong. You can read the story here.

@FISTO

HAHAHAHAHAHA. I am sure every white bitch will want an asian vagina. while the asians will want the white skin, blue eyes, blonde hair, but asian eye features.

Speaking of Vagina, you may want to know this: LAB GROWN VAGINAS.

they grow the vaginas in a lab dish... a real flesh vagina... and then successfully implanted it in women with vagina aplasia(that lacks a natural vaginas at birth).. the women can now have vigorous sex using the implanted vagina to the point of experiencing normal levels of arousal and orgasm, vaginal secretions/lubrications, etc. The women with the lab grown vagina can also potentially give birth with it(they connect it the lab vagina to the uterus).... the research was done at Wake Forest University.

Since this is a game/culture forum... i can imagine in 15to 20 years, getting a new, tighter form of vagina after popping out multiple children as a form of plastic surgery for women.... so, yeah, FISTO, they can make the vaginas as tight as you want it. or... for the MGTOW crowd, robotic dolls of pornstars that have a lab grown vaginas/tits and skin created from the pornstars body tissue....covering a plastic endoskeleton..... the Japanese are probably thinking of this. So much for feminism "the end of men" nonsense.

On a more serious note, this will do greatly for organ transplantation... people with cancers... spinal cords injuries, ... veterans with missing limbs...etc.







.
.

Post: #38

(07-27-2014 07:56 PM)Nemencine Wrote:  Absolutely, you need the right political environment. In france you can do somative genetic engineering, in america you cannot. Different political climate. But my point is this: if you have complete chaos as conservative dystopians are predicting, what is preventing a bunch of millionaires and billionaires from moving and guarding a bunch of islands. Then performing genetic engineering there? nothing. They can create there own political climate to pursue their own science.

Rich people forming scientific communities may happen, or what is more likely is that rich people will be hunted down when money-hungry governments start to go broke.

Quote:

(07-27-2014 05:08 PM)Samseau Wrote:  5. The idea that the Chinese or some other Asian society will carry on Western research (read: White-men research) is also dubious. Currently over 90% of technology comes from Western civilizations. Asians seem to lack the creative gene. So there's no guarantee that other civilizations will take things forward.

I am not well versed on this kind of racial topics, so i cannot properly address it. I will say this though, from my own anecdotal experience, my graduate science classes are filled to the brim with asian students. They dominated completely. I have performed scientific research with asian students, and they are creative and innovative. Besides, if you do a search in scientific journals, you will see a lot of asian names doing ground breaking, creative scientific research.

Let me be clear on the topic of race.

I do not mean that only whites can do science. Obviously not true. I'm talking about societies that give life to science, and innovation in general.

This includes:

- Education system
- Laws that allow freedom of research
- Research facilities and prior commitments to science

All of these things take a long time to build. And so far, it has been majority white societies that have done so. So of course any race of persons may be intelligent and contribute to science, but they still need the right environment to do so. That is why many brilliant Black and Asian researchers come to America or Europe, where the conditions are ripe for science.

So although on an individual level race does not matter too much (I'm sure it matters some), on a nationwide level race appears to matter quite a great deal. Or at least it has up until the present moment. Perhaps someday China will be the next bastion of science, but so far it sure doesn't look like it.

Post: #39

(07-27-2014 06:21 PM)thedude3737 Wrote:  Major props to Nemencine for putting this together. I don't feel qualified to refute many of the points he brings up, and I'm in agreement with many of his points anyway.

Futurology is endlessly fascinating to me, because the possibilities seem endless. We are in the midst a dramatic exponential curve and it's only going to get exponentially more intense during our lifetime.

Humans came about roughly 200,000 years ago. Our first major development was agriculture about 12,000 years ago.

For roughly 188,000 years, which you can't even comprehend, we lived as hunter gatherers. It took tens of thousands of years to develop metal tools. Innovation happened over hundreds and thousands of years. In only a few thousand years, we arrived at the Industrial Revolution, which accelerated innovation to progress in the span of centuries and decades, rather than millenia.

Fast forward to today, where innovation takes place in the digital realm, and every 20 MONTHS the previous computing power is obsolete. This has led many to start consider the "technology singularity" event, where we eventually create an entity on Earth that is more intelligent than a human.

People tend to think about this new intelligence as some sort of "Terminator" esque entity, but I think the reality is it will be something more along the lines of what Nemencine is discussing; through genetic engineering and the implementation of nanotechnology. The superhuman intelligence will exist in a digital media first; something without form, but eventually it will take shape.

What it will look like, noone knows. But it could be absolutely terrifying. The singularity event will dwarf the agricultural, industrial, and digital revolution in significance, as the world ushers in the first super-human intelligence that we are aware of.

From what I know, the physics make it impossible for a computer to be more powerful than a human brain. They are two different types of machines.
This guy has some interesting things to say on these topics:

Post: #40

(07-27-2014 10:53 PM)Nemencine Wrote:  You could be right. My knowledge in this specific area of disaster contagion is limited to classes on epidemiology and public health i took back at the uni. I maybe extrapolating too much from solid protocols that epidemiologists use in dealing with disaster.

Nonetheless, why wont data center be war proof? You can simply create time-capsule, buried it deep in different parts of the world and ocean, and stored the data there. with a future retrieval protocol in place.

Even better, you can put the data on multiple nuclear powered orbital satellites and launched it into space, moon, and mars. They can keep transmitting on a repeating loop from there. voyager 1 and 2 satelites were launched into deep space 37 years ago, and they are still transmitting data.

On top of that, Data can be recorded in many different forms apart from electronic records. you can use tiny, microscopic dots on surfaces to store a loads of data. There are some novel works being done where they are trying to store information in a dna format; and a single dna from a single cell in your body is 3million base pairs. that is insane amount of information storage capacity.

Also, losing thousands of files at the IRS or CIA is not the same as complete human knowledge wipe out.

(07-27-2014 10:01 PM)TravelerKai Wrote:  You greatly overestimate the effectiveness of Disaster Recovery and Data Loss Prevention procedures within organizations.

You remind me of the CIO that whispers to the IT director when the other executives are not looking. "We are backing all of this shit up right?" "Did you fucking verify the copies yet?"

The internet is more fragile than most realize. Datacenters are not foolproof, maybe small bomb and flood proof, but never war proof. If the Muslims destroyed knowledge before it can happen again.

Recently the US Visa office lost thousands of applications. People received notices that they would have to start all over again or get delayed. One year before that, the USICS office did the same thing, except the records were on paper and a leaking pipe ruined them.

I have more thoughts as well. I need more time to finish reading through some of the information. I would like to ask questions about the genetic process. I understand that the rats can benefit from these but I do not understand science well enough to fully understand how a human body can absorb and benefit in the exact same way.

Datacenters are not war proof because they are not designed to withstand the bombs of today's modern military. I have worked in several that are underground, old WW2 bunkers, new style bunkers, etc. I guarantee you even the weakest western militaries would destroy them, if they chose to hit them. Russians? No doubt. None of them are nuclear bomb proof either. Remember EMPs from nukes instantly ruin data and electronics.

You gotta understand what the internet is and why it was created. The old DARPAnet it was called. The CIA and US govt. created the internet as a means to provide communication in the event of a nuclear war trade with the Soviet Union/Russia. Key word there is COMMUNICATION. Not DATA LOSS PREVENTION. They do not care if a records archive site get's hit in a nuke attack, they just want to be able to send SMS or SMTP messages from DC to the Naval bases like in San Diego. Also they need it to have alternate ways for the president to send launch codes and instructions to all the Air Force Bases across the US to launch the ICBMs.

Satellites do not host data. Not in the quantities you are thinking about. They are not hosting pedabytes worth of data of anything and that would make that satellite huge and super expensive to do so. Transmitting is not storage. All that data from up there quickly comes back down here for storage.

Storing information in a future media is something I have brought up before like in the IT thread in the Lifestyle subforum. Storing terabytes on crystals instead of SSDs and spinning disk storage may revolutionize the IT industry if it can get cheap enough.

That said. In the event of a full scale war, would Walmart, Microsoft, Raytheon, 3M, General Electric, GM and Ford, etc. all send their intellectual property to someone else for safe keeping for the benefit of mankind? Hell No. Do all of them host all of their data in super fortresses with armed guards? Some of them do, but one decent bunker buster or precision nuke would wipe all that shit out. Would Wikipedia *cough* Jimmy *ahem* ever bother to let people download their entire library, if you have the space that is, for the sake of mankind to be able to have this knowledge if we are all forced back into living in the stone age in the aftermath of a war? Can you imagine trying to figure out how to grow vegetables and build an irrigation system from scratch somewhere in the center of the country all because of a WW3? No longer can you just "Google how to build an irrigation system to feed my small family in Kansas" anymore.

Post: #41

(07-27-2014 07:45 PM)Zelcorpion Wrote:  DCDC Global Strategic Trends Programme, 2007-2036 - high level military doc on predicted future trends - link on gov-website no longer active, but document can be found here: http://cuttingthroughthematrix.com/artic...3jan07.pdf

The updated one (I think the one you posted was first published in 2001 I think) was written in 2010, and I've found it on the UK Gov's website here. Probably warrants its own thread really. Maybe you could do one

Very interesting reading, as was the one you put up. Oh, and great thread Nemencine. I hope that DNA/genetics dating thing doesn't come true!

Post: #42

(07-28-2014 10:37 AM)Nemencine Wrote:  Respectfully, can you provide supporting facts that shows i am wrong? Like i stated to Samseau, France and UK have already conducted successful genetic engineering on young children, altering their DNA. So, the technology is already here, the only limitation on perfecting it are the bioethics law against genetic engineering.

And yes, there are super strong families. the parents and families of Liam Hoekstra is one such families. There families have gene mutations that makes them super strong. You can read the story here.

It is a minor point - genetic engineering after birth is highly limited and will likely remain that way.

Bubble boy was cured via bone marrow transplant and subsequent changes resulting from that operation. The modifications were miniscule. That healing procedure is being used currently for a wide variety of diseases without getting the stamp of genetherapy.

Besides - immune deficiency diseases of children have been successfully treated via extreme diet changes (to organic raw vegan) + orthomolecular supplementation by the alternative crowds. Many reports available on that.

I just don't think that you can alter the genetic structure of IQ, race, longevity or the entire complex immune system after birth that easily. Those currently available "gene"-therapies, which hardly merit the name are no proof. Genes are activated and deactivated non-stop as proven by new studies through factors of lifestyle and diet.

In vitro - yes pretty much everything you mentioned will be possible and a lot more. I believe that it is already possible, since I found books which mentioned genes around 1900 hinting to the fact that there are indeed several layers of research. Those who do the search in the top-tier and then the rest, which are supposedly cutting edge, are just doing the re-search via rehashing of results established decades ago.

And as far as availability of operations go you mentioned - veterans being provided with new arms and legs. Those things have already been done with success. They are just extremely expensive due to the fact that you need huge teams of medical staff. Strangely enough extremities have lower rejection rates than internal organs so far.

There is plenty of money for birth control or transgender operations, but no money for veterans to get new limbs. That is the system we live in - it won't change. Technologies will continue to be abused and hidden.


@Teedub - thanks for the link. That's a new document ranging to 2040.

Here a nice little doc-chart of the interconnected Network at just one of the major meetings happening around the world (Bilderberg this one - but there are plenty of others). Remember - according to media, politics and academia - things "just happen". And now go and watch some more TV and read the New York Beta Times.

http://wolnemedia.net/obrazki/bilderberg-wykaz.jpg - nice mix of foundations, NGOs, academia, corporations and political organisations. Bah - it takes only the control of the money creation to rule the world. Science is just it's bitch just as well as politics.

Post: #43

(07-27-2014 05:08 PM)Samseau Wrote:  no other culture can replicate what Western Civ (Let's be real: White Civ) has accomplished.

How do you know what others cultures will be able replicate in the future?

In terms of math, science, and technology, aren't American students are already being surpassed by some other cultures.

Also, Western Civilization is often criticized for making women act like men and men act like women.

Why would other cultures want to replicate that?

In the past, I've heard you say that Western Civilization is "broken" and doomed to fail.

Again, why would any culture want to replicate what we've done with our gender roles, political correctness, etc.

Some parts of our culture should be preserved and replicated, others parts should never be replicated.

*****

As far as you describing Western Civilization as "White" Civilization.

It's not entirely accurate as many cultures have contributed to Western Civilization, but, I can't say I have a major problem with that verbage.

However, lets not forget that Whites have also been known to be uncivilized:

-Joesph Stalin murdered 50 million of his fellow Russians.

-World War I and World War II featured many Whites killing each other.

-The Serbians killed millions (Edit: thousands) of Croatians.

- Europe has rarely known peace.

Whites are capable of barbarianism just like everyone else.

The biggest underclass of poor people in America is poor, white, trash.

Many of them are in my family.

Post: #44

(07-28-2014 01:13 PM)Giovonny Wrote:  -The Serbians killed millions of Croatians.

Just a correction: as much as we like bashing Serbs for war crimes, the number is more like 15 000. There are only 7 million Croatian people in the entire world, after all.

Post: #45

Glad the vaginas are safe. This is all fascinating stuff.

Not to derail but I saw a few years ago you can buy old military missile bases that are designed to withstand nuclear blasts.

Rvf should poole out money and get one. They're only like 300k or something.

Post: #46

While I'm not sure of the feasibility of some of the technology listed (animal tests have a history of not translating directly into human results) I agree with the basic premise that technology will not be the West's salvation from the Pandora's box of feminism.

This is one of the biggest mistakes I see people in the manosphere making: thinking that at some undetermined point in the future in the West it will get so bad that women will have no choice but to mea culpa and let men take the reigns again. For some reason, the idea of 10/10 sexbots is often thought of as the turning point in the battle of the sexes. I think this is a gross underestimation of what a man needs to feel complete and successful, and for a civilization to be healthy and survive. If anything, it reflects the omega nerd origins of a lot of manosphere thought: the idea that if you just secure sexual intercourse from a hot enough female it validates your entire existence with no need for further work and struggle.

I think it was Samseau that made a excellent thread saying there will be no comeuppance for women. I agree with this. There is no technology that will fix the underlying cultural and ethical issues, there will be no turning point where the pendulum will start to swing the other way. We have become so far disconnected from human nature that we actively try to suppress and control it into some utopian vision. This disconnect is so great that in large part our institutions are anti-human.

The idea that in order for us to reach our future potential as a species we need to remove the distinctions between the sexes and become "more than human" is fully propagandized in the media. In every single sci-fi movie I can think of, the "advanced civilizations" are depicted as having technology so great that they no longer have differentiation between the sexes. They reproduce by cloning or similar technology. Their roles are handed down through a hive mind or through 100% mutual agreeance. There is no competition, no struggle between individuals, just tools and cogs in a machine. And this is supposed to be the model for us to reach the next level of humanity.

Human beings have advanced a lot since the birth of our species. But at no point in our history (until recently) was there a push for everyone to become androgynous blobs as a consequence of those advances. The difference between the sexes is a very important part of our sense of humanness. For a civilization to go against these innate human characteristics is disastrous. If men cannot be men, and women cannot be women, the cognitive dissonance is enough for that civilization to be utterly doomed.

Just like communism cannot work because it goes against human nature, feminism (and its sister androgynism) cannot work because they go against human nature. And no technology, no matter how advanced, can change that.

Post: #47

(07-28-2014 01:50 PM)Fisto Wrote:  Glad the vaginas are safe. This is all fascinating stuff.

Not to derail but I saw a few years ago you can buy old military missile bases that are designed to withstand nuclear blasts.

Rvf should poole out money and get one. They're only like 300k or something.

As much as I like RVF, this wouldn't be a sausage-fest, it would be like a sausage-hell.

I'll get an underground base and populate it with Americas top virgin girls, and then I'll raise a civilization of soups.

Post: #48

(07-28-2014 02:04 PM)soup Wrote:  

(07-28-2014 01:50 PM)Fisto Wrote:  Glad the vaginas are safe. This is all fascinating stuff.

Not to derail but I saw a few years ago you can buy old military missile bases that are designed to withstand nuclear blasts.

Rvf should poole out money and get one. They're only like 300k or something.

As much as I like RVF, this wouldn't be a sausage-fest, it would be like a sausage-hell.

I'll get an underground base and populate it with Americas top virgin girls, and then I'll raise a civilization of soups.

No reason for a Manosphere bunker.

Manosphere Island in the Pacific is sufficient. There are plenty of those 500-800 miles away from the nearest major islands.

Besides - I think that the only chances for a total catastrophy are in the form of a major meteorite wiping out most lifeforms. I don't think that any intrinsic catastrophe can threaten humanity at it's current stage - no superfloods, no mega-volcano which can create a new global ice-age, no earthquakes and no major continental shifts. Humanity is too widespread and it takes only a few million to rebuild civilization to the current stage as long as knowledge is not lost.
As far as WWIII or loss of science is concerned - I don't see it as an option either. The current ruling elite already controls most countries - they are just concerned with smoothing the transition to their One World Government Utopia in a way that the peasants don't find out what is going on and rebel (until it is too late already).

So there won't be any T-virus, no zombie apocalypse, no global infertility crisis and no globally destructive Nuclear War.

Poverty - yes, destruction of family - yes, unification of countries into regions and then world government - yes, destruction of the last vestiges of democracy - yes (the EU is already led by bureaucrats and the US by lobbyists and NGOs), eternal war on terror and elimination of all freedom in it's name - yes (that is the final war) - but loss of science and technology - no. The reason is simple - the current ruling class understood that you first need to control the money creation and then immediately generate an advantage in science and technology - they love it and give out small droplets to the populace. They are actually quite logical and if world domination by subterfuge is your goal, then their plan is excellent.

So - no - under the current system we will not revert to the stone age. The lower classes might live like in Brave New World or THX 1138, but that is about the extent it will go.





Whether they manage it or whether future generations of their class change the plan, who knows?

But please do not expect any miracles from the odd tidbits of science that we are given. Our current official scientific system is a scam just like economics and medicine.

Post: #49

@ constitution 45 and @ feisbook control

Are there consequences? Indeed. Abso-fucking-lutely. That is why UK and France are conducting longitudinal health studies on those SCID children that were genetically engineered.

To what extent do i expect unintended consequences? HUGE. Potentially catastrophic. To guide against this, i can imagine the first generation of genetically modified people to be designed sterile. So, that they wont pass on their genes into the human wild population. This will also allow for solid longitudinal studies.

I mean for fucks sake, evolution took eons to fashion us through countless mistakes and miscarriages. Genes are fiendishly complex stuff in their interactions. some are easy to understand, others not so much. Here is a previous post of mine on the subject:

(07-08-2013 05:30 PM)Nemencine Wrote:  ....

there are over 10 million SNPs(single nucleotide polymorphism). the number of permutations and cross interactions is immense..how about the "introns"....

Let us not forget about the jumping genes...yes, you are reading that correctly, some genes will simply JUMP from one location to another. This is like removing the whole of city or a town(NYC) from the groundup, and implanting in another country(japan) or within another city in another country(barcelona spain) and then returning it back.

Or sometimes, taking half of LA and meshing it with half of moscow and not miss a beat.

Then there is the genetic fat tails...random, errant behaviours...when genes suddenly start behaving differently from the way they've been acting for god-knows-what.....to me this the beauty of evolution. It creates diversity and makes things sooo interesting.

Who knows? maybe it is a good thing jimi hendrix wasnt aborted?

Scientists should never fall for the arrogance of thinking we've solved everything and therefore we can start creating perfect babies... Every single time in scientific history that has always proven false. We know soo little.

That is why i suspect the real truth is between blank-statists and gene-is-destiny crowd. It is not one or the other.

We are simply too marvelous a creation of biology.

Somethings are ALMOST relatively straightforward, e.g. upregulation of a gene(even that sometimes have consequences); full scale genetic engineering from head to toe is just asking for hell on earth.

Can it be misused? yes. I believe it will be misused. for the simple fact that humanity has abused everything. why wouldn't they abuse this one too? Also, i can see how the elite will use the "fear of abuse" as a plausible rationale to concentrate the technology in their own hands. Claiming to be keeping it safe.


ON THE DYSGENIC DEMOGRAPHICS:

I dont see a bright future. Not at all. I expect more unrest and more stratification of society. I dont think the unrest is enough to precipitate a "dark ages" though. I guess this is where i diverge from you and Samseau.

" the race is against time for science". You are absolutely bloody right.

I look at the personal examples you gave, and see your point. I am curious, what plays a stronger role in the number of children a couple will have? a education levels or cultural factors?

From what i know about Indian cultures, regardless of how educated they are, they tends to have children. The dysgenic tide could be more of a cultural problem.




ON THE ISSUE OF THE DARK AGES.

I have a hard time imagining a scenario where "dark age" will befall us. When fukushima/earthquake hit suddenly, people mobilize using technology and flee to safety and rebuild. They didnt wait around and let some "dark age" fall on them. Why would the elite stay around in a global collapse? If there were some catastrophic event, what is preventing the elite from simply relocating to some carribean island and taking it over with armed forces? And they can continue their civilization there.... or an island in the middle of the atlantic or pacific. This whole free for fall "dark ages" is extremely implausible to me given modern communication and transportation.

There idea that technological innovation will grind to a halt because of financial collapse is the reason i wrote "innovation and the great depression". The rates of patents granted during the Great Depression shows that didnt happen, so, why would it happen in another upcoming financial collapse? If something like the great depression happened in the year BC(Cactuscat589 had a good post on the decline of roman empire. ) the world would have descended into the "dark ages"; but because it happened in 1929, civilization was robust enough to survive it.

I beleive the elite will find a place to flee to.The earth is huge and there are plenty of virgin territories on this earth.The person most positioned to find and take over and protect such a place, are the elite. The common rable wont even know where to start. The earth is globalized, but also quite fucking big. There is more than enough room.


Here is the population density of the world:


Here is the population density of the united states:

Post: #50

Def some food for thought. Thanks nemecine.