So, we are trying to make Planet of the Apes happen IRL?
Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution
151–160 of 384 posts
Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution
#152So "Planet of the Apes" was not so far fetched after all. Now somewhere someone will think ... hmmm why can't we replace all our complaining factory workers and their wages/healthcare/retirement plans with these "creatures" and only pay them peanuts and banana's.
David Brin, Uplift Universe. Start with Startide rising. It covers this in a more interestingly ethical way I think.
Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution
#153So "Planet of the Apes" was not so far fetched after all. Now somewhere someone will think ... hmmm why can't we replace all our complaining factory workers and their wages/healthcare/retirement plans with these "creatures" and only pay them peanuts and banana's.
There have already been issues with some coconut harvesting operations using monkeys as laborers.
Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution
#154Planet of the Apes + Bladerunner.
Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution
#155So "Planet of the Apes" was not so far fetched after all. Now somewhere someone will think ... hmmm why can't we replace all our complaining factory workers and their wages/healthcare/retirement plans with these "creatures" and only pay them peanuts and banana's.
We've been replacing factory workers with machines for 250 years. It's made us, including the remaining factory workers, very very rich, compared to where we started.
Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's an easy qualitative decision to consider a variety of species with pleasant calls and plants which coexist in their own niches better than swarms of one single species of bird and an aggressively invasive plant species which chokes out all other growth. Knotweed in particular is an absolute pox on the landscape in North America.
Ok, I don't know of the specific case, it is just, that here in germany, the "invasive" species people complain about, I wittnes as a welcome variation. Brings in more color. The areas that do get dominated, will very likely balance it out with a different species, soon. edit: had to translate it, but: we also have knotweed and people complain, but I actually like it. And I do not see it dominating, just a spot here…
Not every weed moves as fast as a virus. It might take decades before we realize that some species have disappeared, and in their wake, others are going too, and we are left with a homogeneous ecosystem where a new virus will come and be even worse (like the wheat rust which decimated the single species of wheat growing in North America).
Obviously, Nature, being random, might cause destruction on its own (like when plants appeared and the high level of oxygen they produced killed earlier species), but this happens on millions of years. And sure, nothing prevents "Nature" from killing humans too. We are not more precious than any other species, from the Nature point of view.
Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution
#157So "Planet of the Apes" was not so far fetched after all. Now somewhere someone will think ... hmmm why can't we replace all our complaining factory workers and their wages/healthcare/retirement plans with these "creatures" and only pay them peanuts and banana's.
We've been replacing factory workers with machines for 250 years. It's made us, including the remaining factory workers, very very rich, compared to where we started.
Productivity has gone up but wages haven't kept up. The owners are rich, sure, but we should be honest about the working class getting the short end of the stick here.
Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution
#158I find it hard to describe how I feel about this. These scientists essentially created what may have been a new species, that perhaps would have had similar sentience to us and had them terminated after 100 days. The cat's out of the bag with this research so to speak now. Someone's bound to do this again The part about whether they should have been born or not, which was the ethical thing is what tears at me. Is it…
I don't. It makes me sick to my stomach. I am speaking as someone who is pro-choice, pro-GMO's and pro-stem cell research, etc. This research has crossed a line that none of the above do. It is creating a new kind of sentience, a new kind of soul. And, what's the point? To confirm a theory about a gene? So fricking what. That really doesn't matter, not in relation to the possible consequences: someone taking this res…
Have you ever stopped and thought about why you feel in such way towards these experiments? Why do you see sentience as the line not to cross and even go as far as to call it a "dark path"?
You use a lot of wording that are very religious sounding such as "soul", "excommunicated", "dark path", but have you considered that you cannot really excommunicate a scientist, that the mere concept of a soul might be wrong?
To be clear it makes me feel weird too, but we have to be able to discuss this instead of using inefficient red tape.
Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
Following this line of logic you can justify anything. If I kill your entire family, that’s natural. Would you be ok with that? I think if you accept at all that there is suffering and there is beauty, then you shouldn’t hide behind “everything’s natural” and instead try and have a backbone and stick up for something more.
Why should I be "ok" with natural? Screw natural. Nature does a lot of terrible things. People dying in hurricanes or at the hands of murderers isn't OK because its "natural" - its just not OK. We have the intelligence to influence our environment (and that intelligence is also a result of nature). Trying to categorize natural vs unnatural (whatever that means) is a fools errand and not a productive one in my view, s…
The problem with this line of thinking is that it might be a little short-sighted. Since we are intelligent, we should be careful. With great powers come great responsibility.
If someone doesn't like hurricanes, they can move where there is none.
When Earth will be 99% inhabitable (because of air pollution, soil degradation, lack of water), is the solution just to say "oh well", let's go to Mars?
Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution
#160I find it hard to describe how I feel about this. These scientists essentially created what may have been a new species, that perhaps would have had similar sentience to us and had them terminated after 100 days. The cat's out of the bag with this research so to speak now. Someone's bound to do this again The part about whether they should have been born or not, which was the ethical thing is what tears at me. Is it…
If it makes you feel any better, a brain that young, even if identical to that of a baby, is probably not sentient. AFAIK, current research pegs the early development of sentience around 150 days.
Despite that, I'm a bit unsettled by this too. I think we should understand the mind a bit more before we go down the path of creating one.