Genetic engineering

[His Divine Shadow]

I've seen very interesting stuff, most interesting is regeneration, to be able to trigger that, it would be great, one could combat neural diseases possibly even stave off the effects of aging for a good time with that, or regrow limbs or organs.

Whats your opinion on Genetic engineering, good or bad?

Sorry if it's been done.

[neoolong]

It depends. If it's to help people and stuff I'm all for it. If it was to genetically engineer some disease to be used in war I'm not.

[Coyote]

Eliminate defects, disease, and other hinderences? Improving immunity? Extending actual life, not just old age...

hell yeah, load me up!

[data_link]

Good. Not only does it allow us to extend human lifespan and eliminate genetic diseases, but we can also create people with naturally blue hair

[The Dark]

Genetic engineering is good if used to improve standard of living and is not inheritable. Inheritable genetic manipulation is (IMHO) too risky, since what is perfectly healthy in an adult may be lethal to a child, we don't know enough to be certain. "Waste" genetic engineering (such as genetically modifying eye color or skin tone) is also pointless and somewhat frightening to think about, that someone would mess with their genetic code just to look different.

[His Divine Shadow]

All genetic engineering would be heritable AFAIK, and thats really up to the person itself

[The Dark]

All genetic engineering would be heritable AFAIK, and thats really up to the person itself

The head of our Bio department said (IIRC) some genetic manipulation doesn't appear in reproductive cells. I wasn't paying much attention to the terms he used, though, so I may E-mail him to ask for more details.

[Enlightenment]

Depending on how genetic modifications are done it's possible to make them inheritable or non-inheritable. Inheritable modifications have a lot of orwellian possibilities above and beyond the obvious potential for frankenstines.

Sooner or later DNA will become subject to copyright. People with inheritable genetic modifications could be legally required to pay royalties in order to have kids. Worse still, genetically modified offspring could be required to pay copyright licensing fees for the rest of their lives--even though they had no input in their parents' decision to endow them with genetic modifications.

[Batman]

I'm not sure increasing the human lifespan is such a hot idea. There are already countries (Germany, for example) where the overaging of the population is starting to cause trouble (increased number of people drawing retirement pay opposed to a reduced number of people paying to finance it, ad if somebody knows the actual english terms for 'Rente' and 'Rentenversicherungsbeitrag', I'd apreciate it).
Not to mention people occupying a job for three quarters of a century (or more)is going to play haywire with a nation's employment situation unless the rate of young people growing up and needing to get a job is slowed down as well.

That being said, gengeneering certainly has tremendous potential.
No more crippling birth defects, regeneration of lost limbs, victory over cancer, AIDS, Ebola...

On the other hand, there's the potential for abuse: genetic discrimination
(think Gattaca), biological warfare...

Nevertheless, considering that genetic engineering has been around for millenia, and, as it's THERE, the abuses will happen anyway, we may just as wll reap the benefits and try our level best to curb the atrocities.

And on the topic of Blue Hair, I officially demand the return of Andromeda to the first season Romy avatar (doesn't neccesarily apply to anyone outside Germany)

[Shinova]

Actually, living longer would allow one to work longer, so I don't think it affects retirement or anything.

And I don't think the human lifespan can be extended indefinetly unless they find some way to solve the problem of brain cells dying continuously. And there's also the debate on how much memory the brain can actually store.

As for genetic engineering, as long as the researchers are fully aware of what they're actually doing, I'm fine with it.

[Batman]

Actually, living longer would allow one to work longer, so I don't think it affects retirement or anything.

Assuming retirement age goes up along with life expectancy, you are of course correct.
But what if it doesn't?
And what if, while people give up a job after 50 (or 75, or 100...)years to retire, but young people seeking a job turn up every 20-25 years?

As for genetic engineering, as long as the researchers are fully aware of what they're actually doing, I'm fine with it.

I don't really disagree, I just think that, like everything else since the invention of fire, there's some potential down sides to it.

[aerius]

Actually, living longer would allow one to work longer, so I don't think it affects retirement or anything.

But then we have the question of whether the people will want to work longer, or will they retire at the same age. There's sort of a trend these days for people to actually retire earlier, and companies are making it possible for employees to retire way before the standard retirement age of 65. Assuming that we bump back the retirement age, we'll have yet another problem, at least during the transistion period where there's a mixed population of "standard age" and "long life" people. Would both have to retire at the same age, and if not, what's to stop a "long life" person from claiming to be a "standard" and retiring early? Genetic screening could solve this, but I'd imagine that there'd be some serious issues there too. I would love to get all these nice enhancements, but there's a whole bunch of issues to be sorted out before we can begin to think about doing it.

[Coyote]

Well, my thoughts were on extending "life rather than old age", there's a difference: we'd be able to slow down the decay process of genes and preserve ourselves in healthy, fit ways so that at 70 we'd still be as fit as a 30 or 40 year old, maybe even better.

In my own writing universe, "Empires", people lead fairly long an dhealth lives, keeping reasonably fit well into the age of 120 or so, then it kind of all catches up to them at once before they die. My stories don't focus on that, I just saw it as a natural outgrowth of the tech level (about comperable to Old Republic tech in SW).

But an unintended circumstance I encountered when contemplating this is that people could grow up and have normal lives, loves, relationships, and grow children to adulthood and then divorce, move across the galaxy, and repeat it again with a new partner-- essentially raising half-siblings that would be a generation younger. Also, the core worlds of the galaxy tend to stay conservative and experience social change slowly as powerbrokers don't age and die as we expect them to but hang on to power for two or three 'normal' generations. The aggressive expansion and colonialization of the galaxy is a result of this...

[Mr Bean]

I belive it was calcuated that by itself the Human body can last a maxium of 117 Years, with Transplants that can be extended to 160 assuming you where living a boy in a bubble style of life

[His Divine Shadow]

I belive it was calcuated that by itself the Human body can last a maxium of 117 Years, with Transplants that can be extended to 160 assuming you where living a boy in a bubble style of life

Well thats hardly likely since we've had people that lived longer than that naturally.

I've seen predictions of lifespans of 150 years.

[Sienthal]

All technology, will, inevitably, be used for war. The sientists on the atomic project had no idea that they would be forced to work on atomic weaponry at the time. And the lead scientist was quoted as saying, "I have become death, destroyer of worlds."
Genetic Engineering is good, but using it to extend lifespan is not. The baby-boom is over, and that generation has had much smaller families. Single children will now have to have the entire burden of taking care of their parents alone, and unless the effects of aging is decreased along with the increase of lifespan, it will become worse.

[neoolong]

All technology, will, inevitably, be used for war. The sientists on the atomic project had no idea that they would be forced to work on atomic weaponry at the time. And the lead scientist was quoted as saying, "I have become death, destroyer of worlds."

True, but the difference in some genetically engineered weapons will be the more unpredictable dangers. If a atomic bomb is detonated you can pretty much accurately gauge the effects. However, a genetically engineered disease is much more unpredictable. As such, I'm against some forms of genetic engineering which, in weapon form have much more of an unpredictability.

[Sienthal]

That is true...And being humans, I can easily see that happening. Until some way to keep governments from developing such weapons, I can't see this becoming a good field to delve further into.

[haas mark]

I seem to be the sole voter of No.....well, I am no environmentalist, but I dun like the idea of GMOs much.....they think this may be the cause of previously unknown allergies (auch as peanuts)....I'll have to look up sources.

[TrailerParkJawa]

As someone who has a bona fide genetic disorder Im fairly eager to see a cure someday. In my case its a very mild disorder and does not affect me, but it has a 50% chance of being passed down to a child and there is no guarentee they would not have problems.

[neoolong]

My in favor vote is pretty conditional on the premise that it is done responsibly as I think many of the yes voters agree.

[haas mark]

DAMMIT! You should have made a "special circumstances" option!!!

[kojikun]

Im all for it. Both in peacetime and war.

Changing the human species to better ourselves and make us capable of enduring extreme conditions would be good. Things like regenerative abilities, intensely strong immune systems, etc are all benefits.

Plus, it's use in war of sorts could be quite good.

A while ago I read/heard the idea of how to use a retrovirus to kill a single specific person and not kill anyone else.

The idea was this: The human immune system works by identifying a cells protein, and if its protein didnt match the body it was in, the cell would be attacked and destroyed. Now, if you had a protein sample, say from hair, from someone you wanted dead, you could modify an extremely common virus, like the flu or something, so that it too carried the protein. Then, infect the population of the city the person lived in. The people would get a bit sick, or not at all, would communicate the virus up through the population, and eventually it would get into the target. His immune system would ignore the virus because its recognize as his own cells, and so the virus could run amuck in his body. Soon after he'd die, of something which is normally a minor irritation.

The US would like this, they could take out Saddam and not have a problem. He just died of the cold. A freak incident. Kind of. LOL

[Mr Bean]

First things first we get the Japanise and teenages on it, Part 1, Addition of more Random and colorful natural Hair Colors(As suggested earierl )

Next we boost moraility and intellgence though not Morality way to much(We don't want Superman here )

Physical Strength of course along with Endurace and then we get Mike on board by "Ahem" turning his favorite gene on so everyone enjoys it as much as he does, Oh and don't forget to remove the Messaih and Crazy Hobo genes, those are just Annyoing

And definatly whatever gives fokes near perfect or perfect "photographic Memeroy" all the way up

[neoolong]

First things first we get the Japanise and teenages on it, Part 1, Addition of more Random and colorful natural Hair Colors(As suggested earierl )

Next we boost moraility and intellgence though not Morality way to much(We don't want Superman here )

Physical Strength of course along with Endurace and then we get Mike on board by "Ahem" turning his favorite gene on so everyone enjoys it as much as he does, Oh and don't forget to remove the Messaih and Crazy Hobo genes, those are just Annyoing

And definatly whatever gives fokes near perfect or perfect "photographic Memeroy" all the way up

Uh, how can you boost morality by genetic engineering? And what does it have to do with Superman? Unless you want some really moral people.