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There is no stop button in the race for human re-engineering
World Transhumanist Association ^ | 1/30/06 | Margaret Bunting

Posted on 02/17/2006 10:59:39 AM PST by Aquinasfan

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To: Aquinasfan
Or, if you don't like Japanese animation, read or reread C.S. Lewis's The Abolition of Man. (That book and his perceptive picture of the Narnian antiChrist as supported by secularists and cynics among his thinly disguised Muslims, the Calormenes, are proof prophecy hadn't died out among the Anglicans until at least 1963.)
41 posted on 02/17/2006 6:50:27 PM PST by The_Reader_David (And when they behead your own people in the wars which are to come, then you will know. . .)
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To: metmom
The book sounds intriguing. If I have a chance I'll have to look it up.
42 posted on 02/17/2006 7:55:58 PM PST by TAdams8591
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To: TAdams8591

I have it at home *somewhere* I tried looking for it but couldn't find it right away. I'll try again. It's about 10 years old. The author also made some comments on the way warfare would be changing, to that more like terrorism. I don;t agree with everything he said but it was interesting reading. When/if I find it, I'll let you know.


43 posted on 02/17/2006 8:01:31 PM PST by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: metmom

How thoughtful. Thank you! : )


44 posted on 02/17/2006 8:05:08 PM PST by TAdams8591
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To: TAdams8591

I googled it and was surprised to see that is still apparently available. Here's one link and there were others:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0671885286/103-8038882-7843007?v=glance&n=283155

It looks like the same book cover I have.


45 posted on 02/17/2006 8:17:00 PM PST by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: TAdams8591

The only observation I have of the book, is that he reckons without God. I don't know where you stand on Bible prophecy and the end times but my belief is that God would never let some of the things he predicts come to pass. The first part of the book deals with where he thinks technology will take us and the rest is on preparing for economic upheaval and investments for that time. It is somewhat dated since it was written in the 90's. You might want to see if you can find it somewhere, like a library, which I think is unlikely, so you can borrow it instead of buying it.


46 posted on 02/17/2006 8:27:41 PM PST by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: metmom
" I don't know where you stand on Bible prophecy and the end times but my belief is that God would never let some of the things he predicts come to pass."

Agreed. Themes like his are common in current science fiction, and I have had the same thought you have. God is not going to let many of those things come to pass. Which has made me wonder if we aren't far away from some of those "advancements" perhaps we aren't far away from the end times, or the beginning of the end times either.

47 posted on 02/17/2006 8:55:32 PM PST by TAdams8591
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To: metmom
" I don't know where you stand on Bible prophecy and the end times but my belief is that God would never let some of the things he predicts come to pass."

Agreed. Themes like his are common in current science fiction, and I have had the same thought you have. God is not going to let many of those things come to pass. Which has made me wonder if we aren't far away from some of those "advancements" perhaps we aren't far away from the end times, or the beginning of the end times either.

48 posted on 02/17/2006 8:56:40 PM PST by TAdams8591
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To: metmom

Sorry about the double post.


49 posted on 02/17/2006 8:57:57 PM PST by TAdams8591
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To: metmom

I checked the link. I would not have realized the book entailed as much as it did if you hadn't of told me.


50 posted on 02/17/2006 9:01:18 PM PST by TAdams8591
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To: TAdams8591

Actually, what is going on in the world today is what makes me think the end times is near; not just because of fulfilled prophecy, but there is only so much that can continue without God putting a stop to it. Much as I like science fiction, I begin to see that all those old stories about the future just aren't going to work. The technology we have with the moral decay we are experiencing pretty much insures self-destruction without intervention of some kind, IMO. I wonder what genetic engineering might have to do with some of the things described in Revelation.


51 posted on 02/17/2006 9:17:44 PM PST by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: metmom
"Actually, what is going on in the world today is what makes me think the end times is near; not just because of fulfilled prophecy, but there is only so much that can continue without God putting a stop to it."

I agree with the above too. Some have suggested there have been many times in history where people were terribly immoral, and this is just another one of those times.

Mankind is at a point where simultaneously there exists a GREAT moral decline AND a technological apex where altering so much in nature will soon be possible (possibilities which didn't exist in times of previous moral decline). For me this strengthens the theory we are probably nearing the end times.

52 posted on 02/17/2006 9:34:12 PM PST by TAdams8591
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To: Aquinasfan
And why not mix humans with animals? The sky's the limit. Or maybe it's hell.

They already are in the medical field...to create rats/mice that will more closely resemble humans which can then be used for drug tests. Mixing human DNA with pigs to help with transplant issues. I even read an article which had a picture of a rat with a human ear growing out of it's back. There was also an article recently discussing the possiblility of creating Chimeras.

53 posted on 02/18/2006 6:33:02 AM PST by zakbrow (I'm running out of places to bury the bodies.)
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To: Aquinasfan
The best hope lies in the strength and quality of public debate and democratic institutions to regulate and direct the use of these powerful technologies.

Actually, the best hope is for the free market, not political hacks, to direct the use of technology.

54 posted on 02/19/2006 9:44:15 PM PST by steve-b (A desire not to butt into other people's business is eighty percent of all human wisdom)
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To: Aquinasfan
My age expectancy is now 110, so the plan is that I can help out a bit with the great grandchildren too.

As a matter of simple arithmetic, anyone who opposes such a development and marshals enough influence to delay it by a decade would accumulate enough blood on his hands to make Hitler and Stalin look like a couple of the naughty little boys from the Our Gang serials.

55 posted on 02/19/2006 9:46:51 PM PST by steve-b (A desire not to butt into other people's business is eighty percent of all human wisdom)
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To: Aquinasfan
Hmmmm, seems like I've heard something about a "super race" of people before.

Let me think.

Something about a "Seig.......!

I'll think of it here pretty soon.

56 posted on 02/19/2006 9:57:08 PM PST by nightdriver
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To: metmom
I don't know where you stand on Bible prophecy and the end times but my belief is that God would never let some of the things he predicts come to pass.

Once upon a time, some people were equally sure that God would not allow people to forge rods of iron that would ward off divine thunderbolts or generate whiffs of gas that would void the curse of Eve. I see no reason why this development should be any different.

57 posted on 02/19/2006 10:04:38 PM PST by steve-b (A desire not to butt into other people's business is eighty percent of all human wisdom)
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To: nightdriver
Hmmmm, seems like I've heard something about a "super race" of people before.

Nazi-style Eugenics was a brutal attempt to accelerate Natural Selection by removing "undesirable traits" and enforcing "desireable traits." Of course, the idiots wanted to enhance many recessive traits, which was a dead-end course.

But now that we understand the genome (somewhat) and have it mapped (but not the implications of messing with it), we have a whole new set of problems. We know we can select for sex today. The next steps are before us. But don't toss this aside as the idiocy and simplicity of the Nazis.

58 posted on 02/19/2006 10:14:10 PM PST by freedumb2003 (American troops cannot be defeated. American Politicians can.)
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To: freedumb2003

What we have before us is the ability to edit out undesirable traits without harming the individuals bearing them (on the contrary, we would be making those individuals healthier). This obviously bears no moral resemblance to Nazi criminality.


59 posted on 02/20/2006 3:55:28 PM PST by steve-b (A desire not to butt into other people's business is eighty percent of all human wisdom)
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To: steve-b
What we have before us is the ability to edit out undesirable traits without harming the individuals bearing them (on the contrary, we would be making those individuals healthier). This obviously bears no moral resemblance to Nazi criminality.

I should have just called Godwin's Law ;)

60 posted on 02/20/2006 4:35:32 PM PST by freedumb2003 (American troops cannot be defeated. American Politicians can.)
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