JUGGERNAUT Posted May 7, 2004 Share Posted May 7, 2004 It's the end of the world as we know it Ahh .. nothing like a good Chicago story to scare the s*** out of us. In the news, Chicago: A stem cell from a diseased boy was used to create 5 disease-free embryos. Cells from the 5 embryos were used in cell transplants to treat the disease in the boy. The cloning process gives the highest prob that the transplanted cells will be readily accepted by the body in the effort to fight the disease. Well before you make plans for you 200th birthday by using new versions of yourself to support the eldest version, consider this .. Since this technology exists today & is certainly within reason for millionaires what is to stop someone say like Bin Laden from cloning himself today? All he needs is a lab & qualified geneticists to pull it off & he certainly has the $ to do that. Normally we think of cloning in terms of one, but I think this news brings the realization that the only thing that prevents 1 from becoming millions is resources. And here lies the perpetual resource machine of the human body. The cell division that takes place in an embryo is a marvel. In terms of resources it produces more than it consumes. In other words the cost to generate cell division is much less than the output of cell division. Relatively speaking of course. Hence a perpetual supply of edible food for an army. Where all this leads is that for a reasonable cost of time, money, & space it's theoretically possible for someone like Bin Laden to build a million man army of himself. When you eliminate all sense of morality from the equation you can literally feed & mature this army from an infant to an adult on embryos itself. There are issues of the 4 food groups but if you are essentially growing them to be suicide bombers it's not like you're concerned with long term health consequences. What's even worse, is that if he grows a million a year he can literally perpetuate his future losses. So now imagine Bin Laden with an endless supply of suicide bombers all bearing his resemblance. It's the end of the world as we know it & there's not a thing we can do to prevent it in time. I sure hope he doesn't give SOXTALK the credit for this idea. Of course as I write this from the American perspective I can imagine the rest of the world saying: Holy s***! The Americans have the ability to grow troops perpetually & feed them! They're like cockroaches! We'll never be rid of them! Want a boy or a girl? You decide. On the heels of the Chicago story comes what you would expect: Gender bender tech. Science now has the ability to manipulate the reproductive system to produce a boy or a girl. A family in Cleveland has done it. You can assume as the years advance that the tech will go from a better than 70% success rate to better than 90%. As you probably guess they do it before the embryos are created. Now if Bin Laden wants mixed pair of suicide bombers he's all set. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
israel4ever Posted May 7, 2004 Share Posted May 7, 2004 If Bush has his way, there will be no more stem-cell research! Jesus "told" him it's immoral. What a schmuck! (not Jesus, Bush!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JUGGERNAUT Posted May 7, 2004 Author Share Posted May 7, 2004 If Bush has his way, there will be no more stem-cell research! Jesus "told" him it's immoral. What a schmuck! (not Jesus, Bush!) No offense but if you understand the topic you would realize that the inevitable consequences of stem-cell reasearch & genetics in general is equivalent to pandora's box. Eventually someone will use the science for evil intentions & there's not a thing any body can do about it. Now one can certainly argue that letting it run wild (as your comment suggest is the right thing to do) will only speed us to that day. The only solution that has any remote possibility of preventing that day is Big Brother (the thought police). That sucks big time, but this might be the inevitable consequence of opening Pandora's box. Orwell might have been wrong about the date by say 30-40 yrs but he wasn't wrong about the outcome. This is not something you can control with blockades, ban with laws, or detect with satellites. This is stuff that can be easily hidden & cultivated in secrecy. I for one would prefer that it not be allowed to run wild so that we have time to both grasp the inevitable consequences & formulate a plan on how to deal with them. It may be too late as it is but we certainly shouldn't aid it's progression. One obvious thought that comes to mind immediately is that the very best minds in this area should no longer be allowed to roam free. Are they not a matter of national security now? Perhaps we can bargain a big brother approach on geneticists in exchange for safe-guarding our own freedom. But even that will not prevent the emergence of self-taught geneticists from springing up. Eventually even through trial & error they will obtain a level of production that is useful to someone like Bin Laden. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
israel4ever Posted May 7, 2004 Share Posted May 7, 2004 No offense but if you understand the topic you would realize that the inevitable consequences of stem-cell reasearch & genetics in general is equivalent to pandora's box. Eventually someone will use the science for evil intentions & there's not a thing any body can do about it. Now one can certainly argue that letting it run wild (as your comment suggest is the right thing to do) will only speed us to that day. The only solution that has any remote possibility of preventing that day is Big Brother (the thought police). That sucks big time, but this might be the inevitable consequence of opening Pandora's box. Orwell might have been wrong about the date by say 30-40 yrs but he wasn't wrong about the outcome. This is not something you can control with blockades, ban with laws, or detect with satellites. This is stuff that can be easily hidden & cultivated in secrecy. I for one would prefer that it not be allowed to run wild so that we have time to both grasp the inevitable consequences & formulate a plan on how to deal with them. It may be too late as it is but we certainly shouldn't aid it's progression. One obvious thought that comes to mind immediately is that the very best minds in this area should no longer be allowed to roam free. Are they not a matter of national security now? Perhaps we can bargain a big brother approach on geneticists in exchange for safe-guarding our own freedom. But even that will not prevent the emergence of self-taught geneticists from springing up. Eventually even through trial & error they will obtain a level of production that is useful to someone like Bin Laden. If someone intends to use stem-cells for evil purposes, they will do so whether it is legal or not, i.e. cloning. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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