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Viable offspring derived from single unfertilized mammalian oocytes

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Re: Viable offspring derived from single unfertilized mammalian oocytes

#21

Post by midoridensha »

082349872349872 wrote: post #11
Bang2Bay wrote: post #8

f*k... Oh. we dont have to any more. :)

In Brave New World , they don't have to fuck, yet find plenty of opportunity to do so anyway. (and we are told this is somehow a dystopia?) Lagniappe: "cloning can be worthwhile" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMkjoQ6S7oQ

Yeah, Brave New World is a really interesting work of dystopian fiction IMO, because many people disagree that it's "dystopian", unlike 1984 which it's often compared with. No one thinks living in the world of 1984 sounds appealing, but BNW sounds like a pretty nice place actually, but the anti-BNW crowd tries to tell us it's horrible because it's "unnatural" or "against family values" or something like that. Meanwhile, in the real world today, many families are completely broken (and many were in Huxley's time too, except they didn't get divorced, they just suffered), the marriage rate has gone down, the birthrate is unsustainably low, and young people frequently aren't even having sex any more, leading many to be isolated and depressed. Personally, I fail to see how adopting a BNW-style society could possibly be any worse than what we have now; indeed, it seems like a huge improvement in most ways.

Re: Viable offspring derived from single unfertilized mammalian oocytes

#22

Post by Spivak »

midoridensha wrote: post #21
082349872349872 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Brave New World , they don't have to fuck, yet find plenty of opportunity to do so anyway. (and we are told this is somehow a dystopia?) Lagniappe: "cloning can be worthwhile" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMkjoQ6S7oQ

Yeah, Brave New World is a really interesting work of dystopian fiction IMO, because many people disagree that it's "dystopian", unlike 1984 which it's often compared with. No one thinks living in the world of 1984 sounds appealing, but BNW sounds like a pretty nice place actually, but the anti-BNW crowd tries to tell us it's horrible because it's "unnatural" or "against family values" or something like that. Meanwhi…

Well the "we have the ability to alter humans so we're all strong, healthy, and intelligent but we not only choose not to do that but choose to stunt development of some humans to produce a docile compliant workforce for menial labor" is pretty darn dystopian no matter how you swing it.

And if you say "oh that wouldn't be so bad" you can even put your money where you mouth is -- would you be fine with being deprived of oxygen long enough to cause minor brain damage but otherwise not harm you? Done right you wouldn't feel a thing too. You can volunteer to be permanently dumber.

Huxley describes very eloquently how one end by two means are not the same. Human variation that arises naturally but at all times people are trying their best is a fact of life. But humans taking the reins and making that same variation by choice for their own desires is dystopian.

Re: Viable offspring derived from single unfertilized mammalian oocytes

#23

Post by midoridensha »

Spivak wrote: post #22
midoridensha wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, Brave New World is a really interesting work of dystopian fiction IMO, because many people disagree that it's "dystopian", unlike 1984 which it's often compared with. No one thinks living in the world of 1984 sounds appealing, but BNW sounds like a pretty nice place actually, but the anti-BNW crowd tries to tell us it's horrible because it's "unnatural" or "against family values" or something like that. Meanwhi…

Well the "we have the ability to alter humans so we're all strong, healthy, and intelligent but we not only choose not to do that but choose to stunt development of some humans to produce a docile compliant workforce for menial labor" is pretty darn dystopian no matter how you swing it. And if you say "oh that wouldn't be so bad" you can even put your money where you mouth is -- would you be fine with being deprived…

>Well the "we have the ability to alter humans so we're all strong, healthy, and intelligent but we not only choose not to do that but choose to stunt development of some humans to produce a docile compliant workforce for menial labor" is pretty darn dystopian no matter how you swing it.

That's not the thing the anti-BNW crowd complains about at all. It's not really even relevant: BNW was written a century ago before computers, automation, and robotics were invented. In a real BNW-type future scenario, you wouldn't need to artificially stunt peoples' intelligence to make menial workers: you'd just make robots to do that stuff, like we're already doing today.

The relevant part of BNW that would actually apply in the future is the idea of eliminating families, and having the state control reproduction and child-rearing. That's the part people find dystopian. No one seriously considering the issue thinks about the stuff you're talking about, because they realize that robots and automation have made that whole point moot.

Re: Viable offspring derived from single unfertilized mammalian oocytes

#24

Post by Ygg2 »

082349872349872 wrote: post #11
Bang2Bay wrote: post #8

f*k... Oh. we dont have to any more. :)

In Brave New World , they don't have to fuck, yet find plenty of opportunity to do so anyway. (and we are told this is somehow a dystopia?) Lagniappe: "cloning can be worthwhile" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMkjoQ6S7oQ

> and we're told it's somehow a dystopia

They also have an eugenics based caste society.

Re: Viable offspring derived from single unfertilized mammalian oocytes

#25

Post by amateurCoder5 »

TLDR: transfer of 155 parthenogenetic embryos generated two live offspring. Both had body weight similar to that of controls at birth and survived to adulthood.

Seems like there are still a lot of unknowns in this process, so caution is warranted.

Re: Viable offspring derived from single unfertilized mammalian oocytes

#26

Post by auxfil »

midoridensha wrote: post #21
082349872349872 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Brave New World , they don't have to fuck, yet find plenty of opportunity to do so anyway. (and we are told this is somehow a dystopia?) Lagniappe: "cloning can be worthwhile" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMkjoQ6S7oQ

Yeah, Brave New World is a really interesting work of dystopian fiction IMO, because many people disagree that it's "dystopian", unlike 1984 which it's often compared with. No one thinks living in the world of 1984 sounds appealing, but BNW sounds like a pretty nice place actually, but the anti-BNW crowd tries to tell us it's horrible because it's "unnatural" or "against family values" or something like that. Meanwhi…

[dead]

Re: Viable offspring derived from single unfertilized mammalian oocytes

#28

Post by 082349872349872 »

Ygg2 wrote: post #24
082349872349872 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Brave New World , they don't have to fuck, yet find plenty of opportunity to do so anyway. (and we are told this is somehow a dystopia?) Lagniappe: "cloning can be worthwhile" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMkjoQ6S7oQ

> and we're told it's somehow a dystopia They also have an eugenics based caste society.

which, oddly enough, looks amazingly like our caste society, turned to 11?

Re: Viable offspring derived from single unfertilized mammalian oocytes

#30

Post by amanaplanacanal »

Idiot_in_Vain wrote: post #12
RobotToaster wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Next, dinosaurs.

Dinos are a few orders of magnitude harder. No DNA or RNA fragment can even remotely survive over 65M years. To make something similar to a dino researchers will have to produce a working mix of bird and reptilian DNA - which is enormously complicated.

Plenty of avian dinosaurs around. Just not the ones you're thinking about.
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