# Don't stress, utopia is one gene treatment away...



## All Who Wander (Jan 16, 2018)

So doctors found a "sociability gene", and then there's the the gene that controls social conformity and individuality. So we can create a wonderful gene treatment that will make you want to be social, want to be friends with everyone, and then get rid of your desire for individuality, and have you going through bouts of anxiety and depression should you be seen as non-conformist. poof instant utopia, nothing but happy little cogs with tons of friends. 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...alism-free-thinking-genes-British-people.html

I read all these postings on here about possibly better political or economic systems than representational democracy and capitalism, but I think regardless of the system put in place, your still dealing with a bunch of crazed primates who keep pooping where they eat regardless of how long you try to explain to the apes why they should stop doing that. I think you need to change the genetics/instinctual drives first, once you do that it's just about making sustainability and low birth rate popular and financially important. 

So who's first in line for the gene treatments? Would you support this? How about if it was non-voluntary?


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## wizehop (Jan 16, 2018)

The next step in our evolution will be us deciding what direction our genes take....that being said I think with the rate of technology what it is, we will most likely be uploading ourselves onto computers soon enough...Ill just wait for that.

Hopefully soon cause I want to be around long enough to figure out all the secrets to the universe, and NASA is slow as fuuuck.


but to answer your question, I think shit like that would work, but there is no way people will ever go for it.


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## Odin (Jan 16, 2018)

Holy Shit.


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## Drengor (Jan 16, 2018)

Messing around with genetics is dangerous. We'd have to do a lot of planning and think about what we were changing. Taking out our individuality? Our drive to be different? That sounds a lot like the driving force of evolution, and by extension surviving natural selection. What happens if we all conform down a path that doesn't survive some future apocalypse? We wouldn't have all the individuals to try again.

Through what mechanism does this social gene make us more social? Does it increase the positive feedback we receive when being social? Does it increase our impulses to be social? Would either of those encourage us all to work less and just 'hang out' more? Would that lead to a critical decline in productivity?

Lots to think through, and plenty of ways this could go awry if done hastily.


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## All Who Wander (Jan 16, 2018)

Firstly, evolution is generally a negitive force uphon us. Followed to it's natural end there would be a single species filling ALL niches for survival, on earth that species would likely be a bacteria as they not us are on the top of the food chain. 

Further, in our zeal to stamp out disease and cease violent conflict as the primary means of tribal and individual negotiations, we've essentiallty ended or severely crippled natural selection already. 

Add in our primarily monoculture farming practices and the ease and frequency international travel and were already set for extinction by crop death/starvation or pandemic. 

So with all this and the bees dying off I'd say we're already living on borrowed time and when the Titanic is partially submerged maybe it's a little late to start a committee on how best to consider the possibility of icebergs. I'd be willing to ignore a lot of safety concerns and potential existential risk if we even had a marginally predictable outcome. 

As to the Moravec uploading procedure, im fascinated by it, he estimated AI by around 2040 based on the rate of technological evolution. AI would make uploading and a lot of other fantastical developments possible, but he wasn't considering the end of Moore's law. Will likely be way way out of any of our life spans, better sign an Alcore contract n get your head frozen. 

There are some promising experiments with slicing and dicing human brains in near single molecule thin slices and then reproducing the brain digitally, (you don't need to completely understand a thing to copy it) but the cost for a single brain would be hundreds of millions and then of course you've allready died, so? ::borg:: sry ya off topic. ::woot::


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## DrewSTNY (Jan 16, 2018)

I prefer my genes scrambled by boose and exposure to the sun. 

"We, the machines, made your Utopia and numerous crops were lost. It seems humans prefer misery." (Paraphrase is my own)


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## dumpster harpy (Jan 17, 2018)

Should anything be non-voluntary?

Seems to me that using coercion (violence) to achieve a non-violent Utopia is not only inherently wrong, but also very very stupid.


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## mumblz (Jan 17, 2018)

With that funky (not-so) new CRISPR technique flourishing, this could actually be a thing


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## All Who Wander (Jan 18, 2018)

yup that's the one Mumblz, on the nose, genome editing via viral/phage delivery system. Not all that new but the patents and applications are just starting to take root now. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRISPR#Use_by_phages

Not only that but with gene editing becoming so cheap and easy (about as difficult as editing a microsoft word doc if you know how to do it) its freaking people out... 

Until recently, editing DNA required sophisticated labs, years of experience, and many thousands of dollars. The use of CRISPRs has changed all that. CRISPRs work by using an enzyme — Cas9 — that homes in on a specific location in a strand of DNA. The process then edits the DNA to either remove unwanted sequences or insert payload sequences. CRISPRs use an RNA molecule as a guide to the DNA target. To set up a CRISPR editing capability, a lab only needs to order an RNA fragment (costing about $10) and purchase off-the-shelf chemicals and enzymes for $30 or less.

so like 40 bucks to create anthrax-leprosy-pi, captain trips here we come!

as to the question of violence... 

hey guys, you keep knocking holes in the boat, if you keep doing that we're all gonna sink and die... can you not do that? 

Don't tell me how to live man! You can take my life but you'll never take my freedom! 

uh hey guys... we're up to our armpits in water now, can you start bailing and stop knocking holes for a bit? 

Shut up fascist!

(shells out 40 bucks...) 

who's really responsible for the violence here? 

if people refuse to live sustainable lifestyles, and we can't get authorities to pass laws where people pay the actual environmental correction cost of living unsustainably (that double whopper combo would be a few thousand bucks) and nobody will voluntarily go through the treatment that would drive them towards sustainability. What option is there other than "force" if you don't want this to be the outcome? (says it all by the way)


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## Blue (Jan 18, 2018)

How about a gene treatment that makes people uncompromisingly intellectualy honest? That way we get everyone to think things out for themselves and stop participating in what they see to be detrimental to their future AND we take out the opportunity for the existence of would-be exploiters and dominators, making it actually in the interest of individuals to have such "treatment" done.

Perfect anarchy.


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## mumblz (Jan 18, 2018)

I just want a bigger dick
edit: and eagle vision


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## dumpster harpy (Jan 19, 2018)

Forcing people to live a "sustainable" lifestyle is laughably unrealistic, and again, morally unsound.

Using violence outside of self-defense makes you a bad person, whether you pass the buck to the police or not.

The problem with your chicken little bullshit is that you cannot prove the sky is falling, nor can you prove that forced Gene therapy and "sustainability" will do any good. It certainly won't do me or anyone else like me any good, because I will not consent, and therefore you will have to kill me.


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## dumpster harpy (Jan 19, 2018)

As for your silly boat analogy...

You are responsible for the violence. I have no desire to associate with you, and you desire to violate my consent. You are the aggressor, and only through galaxy-brain mental gymnastics can you convince yourself otherwise.

But whatever. Immanentize the Eschaton in the way you see fit...


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## dumpster harpy (Jan 19, 2018)

Shit, while I'm here...

Prove that climate change is real and that I am in some way effecting it.


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## hexx (Jan 20, 2018)

Real quick, from a research-oriented perspective..

1. The article is from 2012, in the Daily Mail (lol), and they don't cite a source. 
2. If the Northwestern psych department _were_ able to show a statistically significant correlation (& I couldn't find a paper) between geographic ethnicity and some measurement of conformity, it would almost certainly not be a single gene, or even several. 
3. Even with CRISPR coming out big, that doesn't make anything like what's described in this article possible. 

I realize that this is an interesting question from a philosophical perspective, and personally, I'm majorly opposed to the control of our personalities, drives, ethics, etc. That said, there's nothing like the described tech in existence or on the horizon. Plus, it makes it really easy to fall into eugenicist traps in discussion. E.g.: "Further, in our zeal to stamp out disease and cease violent conflict as the primary means of tribal and individual negotiations, we've essentiallty ended or severely crippled natural selection already."
...which is sick! I'm way down for helping out friends in wheelchairs, or friends that were born with disabilities that make it harder for them to survive 'natural selection'. Fuck smallpox, I'm glad that's gone, and if we can keep beating back AIDS, that's rad.


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## dumpster harpy (Jan 21, 2018)

Protecting the environment is important. Pollution is bad. Deforestation is bad. Garbage-filled oceans are bad. But I'm not sure exactly what those actual ecological catastrophes are supposed to do with "climate change."

Also, Bill Nye is a TV host, not a scientist, and, to me, he and NatGeo might as well any other talking head on any other infotainment channel.

What Bill Nye will not be explaining is how global temperature datasets are calculated.


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## creature (Jan 21, 2018)

well..
you know...

we're all so mutated already around here that i dun think we need to worry too much...


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## All Who Wander (Jan 23, 2018)

blue- ya that would work. just be careful that you still have ditch diggers (in brave new world there was a colony where everyone was born a genius, nobody wanted to dig ditches so they died.)

malcalypse- I don't agree. If you are doing something that directly threatens my life, or my children's lives, I have the right to defend myself without your consent. The only question being is my reasoning sound, are you actually doing something that threatens my existence? Also- I think climate change is a thing but I think the sun has a lot more to do with it than anything the humans do. my bigger issue is overpopulation and resource depletion leading to societal collapse. Pretty much proven and guaranteed if there isn't radical change, consensual or otherwise, within 350 years. 

hexx- disease and war have been the only two major factors controlling human population growth. I don't care much about losing natural selection... 



but regardless of this we don't seem capable of stopping ourselves from breeding or don't wish to see the problem. 

We are currently at 7.6 billion people, by 2050 we will be around 9.7 and by 2100... 11.8 billion, most speculators feel the earth cannot feed more than 10 billion. The bottom line being... 30-80 years is not a lot of time to completely refocus and restructure society towards sustainability and 0 population growth, I really cant see that happening with 100% consent regardless of what the cure is.

As to eugenics... I think that will happen naturally once we have the technology and the acceptance of being able to pick your children's genetic traits. Much like the movie Gattica speculated, if two people had 1000 children, the child that has been genetically selected would have been the smartest, most healthy, most emotionally stable one of them... eugenics won't be forced, it will be chosen.


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## dumpster harpy (Jan 23, 2018)

I'm not so sure that societal collapse due to overpopulation is proven or guaranteed.

https://overpopulationisamyth.com


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## All Who Wander (Jan 23, 2018)

NASA mathematicians disagree...

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...sation-irreversible-collapse-study-scientists

"Collapse can be avoided and population can reach equilibrium if the per capita rate of depletion of nature is reduced to a sustainable level, and if resources are distributed in a reasonably equitable fashion."

In other words if all the rich people give up their money, and people everywhere stop breeding so much. Sounds pretty inevitable to me, especially if you are planning to wait on consent.


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## dumpster harpy (Jan 23, 2018)

Why should I believe them?

They are the a part of the federal government of the United States, and organization that has repeatedly proven it's willingness to bomb, shoot, and brainwash the world into submission.

What keeps me from assuming that their manipulated data and illogical conclusions are just an attempt to manipulate people into trading their rights for the benefit of the powerful?


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## All Who Wander (Jan 23, 2018)

And ya see thats the great thing about math and facts in general, they are right there in front of you and give exactly 0 fuks about your feelings. 

You dont need to assume anything, if you think the data is faulty or or the conclusions are illogical its right there for you to disprove it.

The debated history of the United States, and the desires of the ruling class who funded the study have absolutely nothing to do with the reality of the calculations or it's logucal summation no matter how much you wish they did. 

The more interesting result of the study is to watch your reaction to it. You'd rather believe any far fetched conspiracy, than to actually face the facts and change the way you live. 

Dont worry, your reaction is predictable and your far from alone. Since 2014 the study has made no real impact on anyone's behavior. 

It's as if somebody showed us proof a giant planet killing asteroid was due to hit earth and everyone just said "my, thats very distressing...let's watch cat videos!"


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## dumpster harpy (Jan 23, 2018)

The data is faulty. The conclusions are illogical. The video I linked to above laid out how better than I can here.

If you think that the ruling class is incapable of influencing or manipulating data for the purpose of controlling people, then I have a bridge I'd like to sell you.

Again you imply that I am of inferior understanding, that I would believe "any far-fetched conspiracy". As Robert Anton Wilson would say, "I don't believe anything. But I have many suspicions."

If we're going to talk about each other like specimens, I find it very interesting that your reaction to dissention is to try your best to act intelligent while implying I'm stupid, instead of formulating an actual argument.

At the very beginning of this thread, you asked if we would support radical population control measures, even if nonconsensual. You have since revealed your support and desire to commit (or have committed on your behalf) nonconsensual violence on other individuals based on your doomsday beliefs supplied to you by the federal government.

Therefore, I conclude that you are a bad (or just severely misguided) person, with whom I have no desire to associate.

You have not proved the sky is falling, only that you believe it to be.


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## All Who Wander (Jan 24, 2018)

so Malcalypse, just to frame your augment...

Space X wants to refurbish the Kennedy space center and before spending hundreds of millions of dollars, contracts an independent study to be done to consider any potential threats to the center for the next 100+ years.

'The independent research project is based on a new cross-disciplinary 'Human And Nature DYnamical' (HANDY) model, led by applied mathematician Safa Motesharrei of the US National Science Foundation-supported National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center, in association with a team of natural and social scientists. The HANDY model was created using a minor Nasa grant, but the study based on it was conducted independently. The study based on the HANDY model has been accepted for publication in the peer-reviewed Elsevier journal, Ecological Economics."

SO this study comes out and says the greatest danger facing the project (and mankind in general) is not global warming, nuclear war, a robot/AI uprising, asteroids, or terrorism... the greatest danger is the near inevitable collapse of all western nations caused primarily by the rising scarcity of resources and the stratification of society into elites who horde resources, and non-elites who have reduced access to them.

The study spits in the face of global consumerism, it says that the capitalist path of unsustainable continuous growth that we have been on for the last century is statistically proven to end in our destruction, and if we do not change how we live and distribute resources radically it will.

You think, because this independent study received a partial grant from NASA, even though it directly challenges the consumerism that the government, the super-rich, and american corporations depend on, it must be some nefarious plot aimed at stealing your rights and reducing your freedom for their overall benefit...

Your reasoning leaves me slack faced and in complete awe. ::wideeyed:: if there is a government dupe in our conversation... it... is... not... me.

further telling everyone your not listening anymore neener neener isn't a great way to deal with people you disagree with.

PS. your video is about urban overcrowding, it says almost nothing about overpopulation other than to claim the study of overpopulation is not based on facts but observations of traffic jams and other urban issues (untrue.) 

Spider- First... what nazi eugenics project? Mike Pence just came out and said this... "I truly believe, with all of my heart, this is the pro-life generation in America," Pence said. "And I truly believe, in this generation, we will restore the sanctity of life to the center of American law once again."

Planned parenthood started as a eugenics program aimed at making abortions available in black and low income neighborhoods (with the hope that later they might be required by law). The right is doing everything they can to get rid of planned parenthood. How do you equate that with supporting a nazi eugenics program?

PS. I'm not alt. anything. I'm a fatalistic nihilist/absurdist. I hate all humans equally and I'm so pro-abortion I wish men could have them.


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## dumpster harpy (Jan 24, 2018)

First it was about eugenics, then climate change, and now it's just about scarcity?

You keep moving the goalposts. You accuse me of fearing some shadowy plot to violate my rights, yet in this very thread you have expressed your support of nonconsensual population control measures. Who needs a conspiracy when people like you exist openly?


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## All Who Wander (Jan 24, 2018)

I never supported eugenics, people accused me of supporting eugenics because I consider gene modification as a possible way to deal with looming collapse brought on by scarcity, I never mentioned climate change other people added that on because I shared a disturbed video. maybe you need to go back and re-read all this to figure out who your debating. 

by the way... that website you shared was debunked... 

https://www.metabunk.org/debunked-o...s-a-myth-population-research-institute.t1144/


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## DrewSTNY (Jan 24, 2018)

So, is the HANDY model basing food production on industrial farming scale? If resource scarcity is boiled down to food and shelter, then I think that their math is flawed. I believe that arrable land is highly available or can be created (ie. Goeff Lawton); therefore, the food production capability of the planet is unrealized by these models. The drive to push everyone into the cities has done more to push societal collapse than anything else, in my opinion. This rise of the city/urban populations has disassociated humanity from the Earth their ancestors depended on for their survival. Modern society still depends on the fruits of the planet to survive; however, most people have no concept of what that really looks like. As far as population control, this has been something that eugenecists and power elite have been hyping for years. There was an article in Mother Earth News years ago with the illustration of a city being choked out by its own pollution contrast against an idyllic greenspace filled with happy poeple riding bicycles and playing catch. I think the author's name was Brown, and he was/is a full on population control advocate citing his appreciation of the Chinese methods of population control with forced abortion and permission to procreate. The whole thing sounded strangely barbaric to me and, at the time, I tended to believe that over population was a problem. I am not convinced at this point that we really understand anything about the carrying capacity of the planet or technology that can increase food production on a per acre annual basis.
But this is just my opinion which matters little since I have no voice, no influence over the direction of the world's governments.


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## Blue (Jan 24, 2018)

All Who Wander said:


> blue- ya that would work. just be careful that you still have ditch diggers (in brave new world there was a colony where everyone was born a genius, nobody wanted to dig ditches so they died.)
> 
> ...



Automated mechanic labor.


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## Dagonshucks (Apr 1, 2018)

It's all about self-sustaining ecologies. I think if there are genetically engineered crops, marketing agencies will stop advertising the original strain and capitalism will be responsible for the extinction of the pure crop in the name of commerce, if the major power.

I've always thought that drinking coffee caffeinated and without additives meant you were against genetic engineering, but is that true?


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## DrewSTNY (Apr 3, 2018)

Dagonshucks said:


> It's all about self-sustaining ecologies. I think if there are genetically engineered crops, marketing agencies will stop advertising the original strain and capitalism will be responsible for the extinction of the pure crop in the name of commerce, if the major power.
> 
> I've always thought that drinking coffee caffeinated and without additives meant you were against genetic engineering, but is that true?


You mean without cream and sugar? Well then, yes it must be true. Straight, black, strong coffee all the way. Just the way God made it. But since coffee roasters can't prove that everything in coffee is harmless, if you live in CA, you will die of coffee induced cancer.

I think the rush to engineered crops is a disaster waiting to happen. Careful cultivation over generations has proven more stable gene pools in the varieties of vegetables. Gene splicing to resist herbicides just doesn't sit well with me.


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