How To Make A Human Offshoot Who Won't Wipe Out Humanity

[kerbiloid]

8 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Can we all agree that art direction for the Amazons should rely heavily on Frank Frazetta's work? 

Also Luis Royo and Lucio Parrillo.

(Refrains from listing other great artists)

P.S.
Though, I bet we can start counting posts till the amazon warrior race mutates into a furry with gills and tentacles, based on previous threads on similar topics and same origin.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

7 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

a furry with gills and tentacles

This, right here, is why you know civilization is doomed. 

[kerbiloid]

1 minute ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

This, right here, is why you know civilization is doomed. 

At least, with the gills and tentacles the civilisation can be calm about the sea level rising.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

<barks laughter >

... 

 

... 

 

 

(maybe they're the ones behind it?) 

[Scotius]

And now I wonder how big gills mer-folk would need, to successfully combine water-breathing with mammalian metabolism.

[Spacescifi]

2 hours ago, Scotius said:

And now I wonder how big gills mer-folk would need, to successfully combine water-breathing with mammalian metabolism.

 

I read the answer to this online once. The gill would go up and down the upper part of the body so it would be really obvious and weird looking.

You cannot go small with human energy expenditures, since humans are warm blooded and not cold blooded like fish.

The article even admitted that gills on a mammal are sub-optimal.

A mammal adapted for living underwater should instead take anatomical cues from successful underwater mammals such as dolphins and seals.

Edited December 24, 2021 by Spacescifi

[kerbiloid]

Under water they can extend a gill bag out of mouth, or the gill gaps can be placed between the ribs (as they actually are mutated ribs).

[Nuke]

8 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

At least, with the gills and tentacles the civilisation can be calm about the sea level rising.

just dot buy ocean front property without some plan as to how you are going to sell it to some climate change denier when you start having trouble with erosion. 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

1 hour ago, Nuke said:

just dot buy ocean front property without some plan as to how you are going to sell it to some climate change denier when you start having trouble with erosion. 

Well... low lying ocean front property.  Anything on a decent hill will be fine, and may go up in value after the plebs in the lowlands are washed away

[Nuke]

3 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Well... low lying ocean front property.  Anything on a decent hill will be fine, and may go up in value after the plebs in the lowlands are washed away

im a stones throw from the water where im at, but im up on a hill. if down town ever disappears under water, i know its time to move. 

[magnemoe]

On 12/24/2021 at 6:21 PM, Spacescifi said:

I read the answer to this online once. The gill would go up and down the upper part of the body so it would be really obvious and weird looking.

You cannot go small with human energy expenditures, since humans are warm blooded and not cold blooded like fish.

The article even admitted that gills on a mammal are sub-optimal.

A mammal adapted for living underwater should instead take anatomical cues from successful underwater mammals such as dolphins and seals.

Yes, as I understand you would so much oxygen from the water you would get very high drag from it. Note that people has looked into this for all from diving equipment to submarines. In addition to this the blood who captured oxygen from the water would be cold. Not worth it. 

[SingABrightSong]

So, devil's advocate. Why does it matter if the human offshoot wipes out baseline humanity? If we do create a species that is greater than ourselves, why *shouldn't* they take their rightful place as our inheritors? Even without a neanderthal-style war of eradication, they would simply have to outcompete us over time. 

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, SingABrightSong said:

So, devil's advocate. Why does it matter if the human offshoot wipes out baseline humanity? If we do create a species that is greater than ourselves, why *shouldn't* they take their rightful place as our inheritors? Even without a neanderthal-style war of eradication, they would simply have to outcompete us over time. 

Agree, I also see the issue as kind of weird, they would be heavy outnumbered and humans would also be improving. Cat people or amazons would not be the problem, it would be that humans might split into various species as say cat people or amazons but I say ideology would be just as dangerous and spread much faster than even GM and with less warning. 
AI also has the option to replicate fast but AI will also be an slow thing coming and we will have an very long time experience with AI morons before running into something smart, most AI including self driving cars don't be any smarter than any dull mammal paired with an expert system for traffic rules.

As for the neanderthals, no war of extinction was needed we simply outnumbered them a lot as we was more efficient. Yes it probably was fights but it was not anything organized at it would be impossible. 

Edited December 25, 2021 by magnemoe

[Spacescifi]

1 hour ago, SingABrightSong said:

So, devil's advocate. Why does it matter if the human offshoot wipes out baseline humanity? If we do create a species that is greater than ourselves, why *shouldn't* they take their rightful place as our inheritors? Even without a neanderthal-style war of eradication, they would simply have to outcompete us over time. 

 

You are not the first to say something like that.

Should I make a story based on this concept, I may well be sure to show both sides with regard to POV.

Despite the human desire to save our selves, one could argue that survival is not a right but something earned.

And what stays around deserves to, and what cannot, does not.

Such logic can be rather ruthless though, since using that same logic humans have made many lower species extinct who cannot keep up with human shenanigans. The ones who can thrive though.

 

So in the end what you have is a revloving wheel of rising superior species replacing inferior ones until infinity or a final level is reached.

 

Like one actor said. "When you're at the top there is only one way to go."

He meant down. Meaning once a civilization is as powerful as it can be with no more evolution, all it can do is try to stave off it's downfall.

Civilization progress is like aging. From youth, to the teens up to prime adulthood.

Unlike life though, a civilization CAN stay in it's prime indefinitely if they do not allow it to fall, but if they do the civilization becomes old and decrepit, just as we do when we age to die.

Edited December 25, 2021 by Spacescifi

[SOXBLOX]

Blech. More eugenics. By what standard can we judge whether one human is better than another? In this conversation, and in a lot of the cult of transhumanism, there's an implicit notion of "smarter" or "genetically edited" = "more fit/has more right to live". But is that right? Who gets to set the standards? Who judges? And by whose authority do the judges judge?

There's another thing. What about all the future generations descended from the mutated/mutilated people? Do they carry the same modifications/deformities? And if they do, then they had no choice in the modifications they now have to live with. What if they want to be "normal"? Unless you use handwave-y magic that completely dodges the question, the modifications can't be genetically un-done in adulthood. In essence, you are forcing future generations, through your own active choice, to live with unnatural deformities and disabilities.

Here's the thing, though. No one gets to make that choice for other people. Natural procreation sometimes produces defects, to be sure. The ethics of that question are beyond this thread or forum. But an active choice on the part of one individual to irrevocably modify all future individuals descended from him? That's an atrocity. Anyone who does such a thing, IMO, should be labeled a hostis humani generis and promptly executed alongside pirates and slavers.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

24 minutes ago, SOXBLOX said:

an active choice on the part of one individual to irrevocably modify all future individuals descended from him

I agree that someone tampering with a fetus in hopes of creating a super (or even improved) person is unethical. 

Here's a conundrum:

A trope in cyberpunk is the person who modifies themselves. 

Should someone invent gene editing that works on adults - and the adult in question modify herself to become a superior long distance runner... Must she also sterilize herself? 

 

[kerbiloid]

No need. The steroids would do this for her.

[KerikBalm]

On 12/26/2021 at 4:18 AM, SOXBLOX said:

But an active choice on the part of one individual to irrevocably modify all future individuals descended from him? That's an atrocity. Anyone who does such a thing, IMO, should be labeled a hostis humani generis and promptly executed alongside pirates and slavers.

Let's say you have cystic fibrosis, a genetic disorder, and you modify you descendants to not have it? You think that should be a crime? I don't buy that premise.

Also, if genetic modification of people is a thing, it's not irrevocably modifying all descendants, just the next generation, which could then choose to undo it for the next.

Then there's possible technology such as extracting cells, inducing pluripotency and modifying them genetically, and reinjecting them (though this won't reverse things determined during development... It won't reverse a hunched back for instance).

Type 1 diabetes?

I have a family friend undergoing heart failure at a relatively early age due to a genetic condition, his son is quite worried about his future health now too.

If you could choose to stop this,and you don't, isn't that hostis humani?

OTOH, making some furry child that would always stand out, because you think that you are a wolfkin....

Yea, no

[Spacescifi]

31 minutes ago, KerikBalm said:

Let's say you have cystic fibrosis, a genetic disorder, and you modify you descendants to not have it? You think that should be a crime? I don't buy that premise.

Also, if genetic modification of people is a thing, it's not irrevocably modifying all descendants, just the next generation, which could then choose to undo it for the next.

Then there's possible technology such as extracting cells, inducing pluripotency and modifying them genetically, and reinjecting them (though this won't reverse things determined during development... It won't reverse a hunched back for instance).

Type 1 diabetes?

I have a family friend undergoing heart failure at a relatively early age due to a genetic condition, his son is quite worried about his future health now too.

If you could choose to stop this,and you don't, isn't that hostis humani?

OTOH, making some furry child that would always stand out, because you think that you are a wolfkin....

Yea, no

 

Well the irony is that technological habits actually do have an effect on the morals of a civilization.

Do not expect 21st century USA folks to have the same morality as 18th century USA folks.

So what I am saying is that morality of a civilization will allow for ALL the things it has a technological habit to do, no matter how dark or revolting it may seem to us to them it would be like Tuesday.

Our way of thinking would be considered.... old fashioned if not altogether alien to them.

Edited December 27, 2021 by Spacescifi

[SOXBLOX]

7 hours ago, KerikBalm said:

Let's say you have cystic fibrosis, a genetic disorder, and you modify you descendants to not have it? You think that should be a crime? I don't buy that premise.

Also, if genetic modification of people is a thing, it's not irrevocably modifying all descendants, just the next generation, which could then choose to undo it for the next.

Then there's possible technology such as extracting cells, inducing pluripotency and modifying them genetically, and reinjecting them (though this won't reverse things determined during development... It won't reverse a hunched back for instance).

Type 1 diabetes?

I have a family friend undergoing heart failure at a relatively early age due to a genetic condition, his son is quite worried about his future health now too.

If you could choose to stop this,and you don't, isn't that hostis humani?

OTOH, making some furry child that would always stand out, because you think that you are a wolfkin....

Yea, no

Good points. I wasn't thinking of medical cures; just the "furry-child" sort of superfluous modification. Thanks for pointing this out!

[SOXBLOX]

6 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

Well the irony is that technological habits actually do have an effect on the morals of a civilization.

Do not expect 21st century USA folks to have the same morality as 18th century USA folks.

So what I am saying is that morality of a civilization will allow for ALL the things it has a technological habit to do, no matter how dark or revolting it may seem to us to them it would be like Tuesday.

Our way of thinking would be considered.... old fashioned if not altogether alien to them.

Um, no. I do expect, and frequently see, "21st century USA folks" with the same morals as those from the 18th century. You've completely ignored religion, basic human impulses to self-preseve or help others, and the like. And since pre-existing morals influence the development of technology, most of the things we have the capability to do are permitted by our morals, because we didn't do things against our morals. I know you can find a thousand-and-one exceptions to this, but generally speaking, this is correct. I believe you have your premise and conclusion backwards.

One other thing I know is that human nature never changes. We have always dealt with the worst kinds of depravity in our species. Atrocities are nothing new. People will always try the revolting things. That's why people with half-decent morality will have to stop them.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

@Spacescifi - let's ask this question: should humans (as we now know them) create an offshoot that is more successful than ourselves, wouldn't they eventually honor us as we do the Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon?

 

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy; he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? Your gambols? Your songs? Your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar?

Would not these Children of Men be entitled to inherit?  To walk where we merely crawled? 

[Spacescifi]

1 hour ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

@Spacescifi - let's ask this question: should humans (as we now know them) create an offshoot that is more successful than ourselves, wouldn't they eventually honor us as we do the Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon?

 

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy; he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? Your gambols? Your songs? Your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar?

Would not these Children of Men be entitled to inherit?  To walk where we merely crawled? 

 

To be sure, I do not think a civilization can create a new species superior to the original as a replacement.

If we could MAKE a superior race, would we not gift ourselves with such power FIRST? Is that not easier than starting from scratch as it were. To make a superior we must already be such. Inferior cannot make superior, but what is inferior or what is a clone of a superior can come from a superior.

I do think making species that fulfill niche roles better than your average human is possible, but in all cases there would be a price to be paid for that niche, whether biological or psychological.

 

That's not even broaching the religious folks who will without doubt voice complaint or support fir such projects, likely both.

Edited December 28, 2021 by Spacescifi

[kerbiloid]

5 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

let's ask this question: should humans (as we now know them) create an offshoot that is more successful than ourselves

The worldwide corporative practices tell: no! Do not even hire them.

[Scotius]

It would make sense in one situation: If for whatever reason we would have to colonize a world not habitable for baseline humans. Maybe too heavy. Maybe contaminated by something nasty. Maybe with a deadly local pathogen. Offshoot of Homo genetically able to no-sell such threat thanks to genetic manipulation could be a reasonable solution.