[extropy-chat] The Catalog Of Correctable Omnipresent Human Flaws

Adrian Tymes wingcat at pacbell.net
Mon Jul 4 23:21:21 UTC 2005


--- Edward Smith <weg9mq at centralmail.zzn.com> wrote:
> As of now, mid 2005, transhumanist work has consisted of
> nothing except discussions, news-sharing, political debating, and
> some political work on behalf of issues that are related to
> transhumanism.

Ha ha ha wrong.  Although I can see how one would come to such an
erroneous conclusion.

> There have apparently been no attempts at
> actually IMPLEMENTING transhumanism, that is, modifying
> human zygotes (probably produced in test tubes), most likely
> via a retroviral gene-delivery vector.

One step at a time, yo.  The human genome ain't the easiest learning
tool out there.  There's been tons of ongoing work just trying to
understand what all the various bits are.  See any number of mainstream
biomedical research publications focussing on genetic anything.

In the mean time, there's been work on modifying the genomes of
plants (look up Genetically Modified Organisms - which work has been so
widespread as to have provoked debate in many nations, and
unfortunately legal restrictions in some) and some animals.  A few
people have tried basic gene therapy on humans; unfortunately, we know
so little that the attempts killed people.  The regulating bodies have
been discussing safeguards to make sure deaths don't happen again;
they've put a halt to actual gene therapy for now, but they definitely
do not want that halt to last forever - just until there's a good
chance they won't kill anyone else.  (Of course, they're ignoring all
the deaths their delay is causing in the mean time, but they tend to do
that a lot.)  See
http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/medicine/genetherapy.shtml#status

I'll leave commenting on the proposal for a new list and archive to
others.  But the fact that it is so easy to believe transhumanism is
all talk and no action says something.



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