As you said body cloning especially body transplantation as performed by
neurosurgeon Robert White, MD, Ph.D. (CWRU) [See
http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/9356/Webbio1.htm] is *VERY* likely
to be banned. As proposed by Paul Segall, Ph.D., one could generate
anencephalic clones that are "brain dead" due to telencephalon removal at 6
weeks gestation. (If abortion is legal, why shouldn't this be as well?) The
benefit of the Atlantis Project (See http://oceania.org/)
and maybe the Millennial Project (See http://www.millennial.org/ ) is a
separate nation-state or - city state like Singapore - is the libertarian
foundation that would be built into the Constitution of such a venture. Of
course, it is more practical to just go to a tropical/Carribean island that
wants American dollars and doesn't care where they come from for now but in
the long term a floating artificial city would be a great testament to human
ingenuity and achievement, a showcase of transhumanist ability to create and
posthumanist culture as well.
Damien R. Sullivan wrote:
> Thanks for using NetForward!
> http://www.netforward.com
> v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v
>
> On Feb 21, 9:38pm, Michael Lee Bowling wrote:
>
> > What we probably will need is a safe haven where we can perform
> > physical/mental enhancements etc. without state interference. How about
> > just a large biomedical facility dedicated to transhuman augmentations?
>
> What's the evidence that enhancements are likely to be suppressed? Many
> people seem to assume that anything useful but weird will be attacked
> and banned. They're probably right on the attack, but banned?
> Possibly, but can it be said to be certain.
>
> What enhancements are banned now? A problem seems to be that there
> aren't all that many genuine enhancements. There are a bunch of drugs
> which make the user happy; while I don't agree with the war on drugs,
> and want to see legalization, most of them are in fact addictive, AFAIK.
> The most useful seem to be caffeine, which is legal, and marijuana,
> which causes frothing insanity in prohibitionists. I posit that if MJ
> was legal now it would remain so, and that the pressure on it comes from
> it having become illegal in the past and a perception that if it is
> rescured other drugs might be as well. "No surrender, no retreat." How
> practically useful MJ is to people not suffering certain types of severe
> pain is scientifically unclear at the moment.
>
> The usefulness and dangers of LSD and peyote I'm not sure about.
> Certainly they don't seem useful in a normal economic sense. Even if
> they're safe, possibly the war on drugs is, as above, as much about
> protecting a current fief as about a generic desire to ban odd things.
>
> In vitro fertilization and surrogate pregnancy caused great horror and
> religious outcry, but are useful and legal. I suspect genetic testing
> will not be touched. Gene research has trouble in Germany but they live
> under the Nazi shadow. (An argument against Euro-unification, similar to
> Diamond's thesis of why Europe eventually surpassed China: multiple
> countries make it harder to stupidly ban something.) Genetic engineering
> may go under the ban, but at the moment I think any attempts to modify a
> human embryo would involve a good deal of risk to the resulting human;
> our knowledge is not that great. Whether parents should have the right
> to take such risks with their children is debatable. The growth of full
> clones seems likely to be made illegal, which I can't justify with any
> sophisty I take seriously; on the other hand, I can't get that excited
> over it either. The technical cloning of growing cell lines or new
> organs from an adult, which would be very useful, seems to have a fair
> chance of surviving, if it ever actually happens.
>
> Steroids are clearly useful and clearly risky, AFAIK. Their prohibition
> in sports is just part of the rules of the game. Their general
> prohibition is part of state maternalism; again, I don't like it, but
> they do have a point, and I'm not dying to take the things. My point,
> if it isn't clear by now, is that I see no reason to assume that
> economically useful and fairly safe enhancements will be banned.
> It violates sense, and has little precedent. New but useful
> technologies have survived; banned things are in the large genuinely
> dangerous, for all that I feel individuals should be allowed to take
> their own risks.
>
> Refutation?
>
> [AFAIK: As far as I know]
>
> -xx- ROU Bibliovore X-)
>
> "Undoutedly there is meanness in all the arts which ladies condescend to
> employ for captivation..."
> Miss Bingley was not so satisfied with this reply as to continue the
> subject.
> -- Jane Austen, _Pride and Prejudice_, Mr. Darcy
--------------F5780A23D5AD768970F9E2EF
Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
As you said body cloning especially body transplantation as performed
by neurosurgeon Robert White, MD, Ph.D. (CWRU) [See http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/9356/Webbio1.htm]
is *VERY* likely to be banned. As proposed by Paul Segall, Ph.D.,
one could generate anencephalic clones that are "brain dead" due to telencephalon
removal at 6 weeks gestation. (If abortion is legal, why shouldn't
this be as well?) The benefit of the Atlantis Project (See http://oceania.org/)
and maybe the Millennial Project (See http://www.millennial.org/ )
is a separate nation-state or - city state like Singapore - is the libertarian
foundation that would be built into the Constitution of such a venture.
Of course, it is more practical to just go to a tropical/Carribean
island that wants American dollars and doesn't care where they come
from for now but in the long term a floating artificial city would be a
great testament to human ingenuity and achievement, a showcase of transhumanist
ability to create and posthumanist culture as well.
Damien R. Sullivan wrote:
Thanks for using NetForward!--------------F5780A23D5AD768970F9E2EF--
http://www.netforward.com
v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^vOn Feb 21, 9:38pm, Michael Lee Bowling wrote:
> What we probably will need is a safe haven where we can perform
> physical/mental enhancements etc. without state interference. How about
> just a large biomedical facility dedicated to transhuman augmentations?What's the evidence that enhancements are likely to be suppressed? Many
people seem to assume that anything useful but weird will be attacked
and banned. They're probably right on the attack, but banned?
Possibly, but can it be said to be certain.What enhancements are banned now? A problem seems to be that there
aren't all that many genuine enhancements. There are a bunch of drugs
which make the user happy; while I don't agree with the war on drugs,
and want to see legalization, most of them are in fact addictive, AFAIK.
The most useful seem to be caffeine, which is legal, and marijuana,
which causes frothing insanity in prohibitionists. I posit that if MJ
was legal now it would remain so, and that the pressure on it comes from
it having become illegal in the past and a perception that if it is
rescured other drugs might be as well. "No surrender, no retreat." How
practically useful MJ is to people not suffering certain types of severe
pain is scientifically unclear at the moment.The usefulness and dangers of LSD and peyote I'm not sure about.
Certainly they don't seem useful in a normal economic sense. Even if
they're safe, possibly the war on drugs is, as above, as much about
protecting a current fief as about a generic desire to ban odd things.In vitro fertilization and surrogate pregnancy caused great horror and
religious outcry, but are useful and legal. I suspect genetic testing
will not be touched. Gene research has trouble in Germany but they live
under the Nazi shadow. (An argument against Euro-unification, similar to
Diamond's thesis of why Europe eventually surpassed China: multiple
countries make it harder to stupidly ban something.) Genetic engineering
may go under the ban, but at the moment I think any attempts to modify a
human embryo would involve a good deal of risk to the resulting human;
our knowledge is not that great. Whether parents should have the right
to take such risks with their children is debatable. The growth of full
clones seems likely to be made illegal, which I can't justify with any
sophisty I take seriously; on the other hand, I can't get that excited
over it either. The technical cloning of growing cell lines or new
organs from an adult, which would be very useful, seems to have a fair
chance of surviving, if it ever actually happens.Steroids are clearly useful and clearly risky, AFAIK. Their prohibition
in sports is just part of the rules of the game. Their general
prohibition is part of state maternalism; again, I don't like it, but
they do have a point, and I'm not dying to take the things. My point,
if it isn't clear by now, is that I see no reason to assume that
economically useful and fairly safe enhancements will be banned.
It violates sense, and has little precedent. New but useful
technologies have survived; banned things are in the large genuinely
dangerous, for all that I feel individuals should be allowed to take
their own risks.Refutation?
[AFAIK: As far as I know]
-xx- ROU Bibliovore X-)
"Undoutedly there is meanness in all the arts which ladies condescend to
employ for captivation..."
Miss Bingley was not so satisfied with this reply as to continue the
subject.
-- Jane Austen, _Pride and Prejudice_, Mr. Darcy