Gene engineering

[KubeSix]

What do you think of gene engineering? Say they find your child is going to be handicapped, they can change that by modifying its DNA. Scientists also think you could "turn on" certain genes and "turn off" others through brain injections.

Here's a good example: A weight loss gene.

A team found a gene that regulates weight loss and how much a person/animal eats. They think that in the near future, you could lose weight through brain injections, which would turn on, or express, those genes and give them a high priority in your body. They've tried it on mice, and it worked. Not only did it lose weight, but it also ate less.

Here's the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXWHkvtMPVw#noexternalembed

Don't like your natural hair color? Hell, just get a shot...

This gene seems to be what's making "fast metabolisms" lose weight faster and gain it slower... (Lucky me, I hate shots... Looks like I'll never need it )

[lockesk]

i think if it was absolutely necessary. for example diabetes or alhzheimers because bothe are hereditary but to start to genetically change everything thats just ridiculouse

[Ryobi]

If it would be treated as a kind of plastic surgery, except on a cellular level, then I'm against it. The reason being, a person usually would commit to appearance altering surgery because they are uncomfortable with how they look, this is a mental problem not a physical problem and by allowing such a person to do this, it doesn't necessarily solve the underlying problem. As a medical tool however, it could save a lot of lives, which is both good and bad.

[KubeSix]

If it would be treated as a kind of plastic surgery, except on a cellular level, then I'm against it. The reason being, a person usually would commit to appearance altering surgery because they are uncomfortable with how they look, this is a mental problem not a physical problem and by allowing such a person to do this, it doesn't necessarily solve the underlying problem. As a medical tool however, it could save a lot of lives, which is both good and bad.

Right.

It could be useful if, say, the person has a hereditary illness as lockesk said, but to use it like people use plastic surgery... For some people, the weight loss thingy could be useful, say they absolutely need to lose weight soon or they'll die. But then, if someone were to use it just because they don't want to go on a diet, they'd just learn to become lazy and eat all they want without growing overweight.

[Ryobi]

Definitely, being able to quicken a persons metabolism would be useful, however it doesn't really promote a healthier lifestyle. Having a fast metabolism doesn't mean you can eat whatever you like or sit around forever instead of excersising.

[Raziel]

Too many people are looking at this the wrong way.
See if we look at this from a totally amoral point of view, we can see that we may eventually work in some animal dna.

Who doesn't want actual cat eyes and ears, Slinky sexy jaguar tails, Real life fur on their bodies(never be cold again!)
Jagged claws and expanded physical attributes.

And that's just for cosmetic changes. When the lines between animals and humans blur, imagine the kinds of environments our species could survive on!
Aquatic scaly babes living underwater, dolphin men life guards. Trained Genetically altered whales to deliver massive loads without wasting massive amounts of cash, eating plankton!

Flying angelic bird frea.....-Bird Men! and women soaring the skies dropping the biggest bird crap you've ever seen, were-wolves running to and fro dry humping..... uh... trees!, Ninja monkey people living in sustainable green tree cities.  

We'd also respect nature more, love each other (and probably eat some others but that's OK, they're just dumb animals), and  think of all the furries we'd make happy.
Bestiality will no longer be considered a crime!

hell , all the cos play geeks will be as close to the real deal as their budget allows!

Then racism and prejudice will be the least of our dying civilization's problems. The lovely anarchistic chaos.

(yes, part attempt at being the devil's advocate and part satire. sue me)
(Ok time for my actual post)

BUt seriously, Gene therapy is a long way from allowing people to freely change DNA sequences to whatsoever they please, there stands the matter of acquiring approval from the various governments, research groups, international councils, religious institution......etc....
We don't need to worry about this subject for a good long time. cause by the time it gets accepted as ethical, safe and commercially acceptable, it will be so goddamned  watered down,controlled and subsidized, that we'd be better off getting tatto's.

And sure the possibility of   people altering their genetic make up opens up some interesting options.
Augmented strength, perfect vision, hair color, athletic ability, built-in immunization and resistances to diseases,viruses and most sicknesses. Hell, what about intelligence augmentation and   even psychic powhaz! The possibilities are nigh endless if we are able to unlock the secrets of the building blocks of life.



However. the price we are going to pay is steep. Some GM plants may destabilize the environment,  endanger health due to built in pesticides, fast growing ones take too much nutrients from the soil. Whats to keep GM Man from being treated like a freak? The golden haired blue eyed Nazi dream  Aryan come to life! People would act irrationally as usual, Making scenes we last though were part of days past. Protests, doomsday pickets.
HOw long would it take a rally of angry protesters wielding picket signs full of  religious nonsense twisted to bring hate upon those that use these products.
They are of course an annoying minority.

we Arn't talking about growing Uberhumans yet. So lemme back track.

This  tech is playing with life. We must make sure that we have all our bases cleared before mass producing such potentially volatile science as a cosmetic.
There is a pretty big market for it though so its bound to happen sooner or later.

Faster metabolic rates would require an overhaul of the entire body to ensure that there is no rejection of the new genetic data right? Just asking.

There. short and well... short.

[KubeSix]

Yeah, it's bound to happen, if not publicly, at least for medical and governmental purposes. But playing with life to make life better isn't as bad as some may think. It's actually ok, imo. But losing weight overnight on a McDonald's diet isn't right XD

I wouldn't mind a different hair color and eye color :3 Cat eyes? Wings? sure, why not The only one I'm really against is the weight loss actually...

[Levinthross]

ther only thing i would be concerned for is genetig stagnation and what it would do to human spitituality and mentality

[KubeSix]

Genetic stagnation as in what? That it becomes overused and just another commercial product or that our genes get corrupted and we start having more and more problems?

[Raziel]

No. Genetic stagnation as in due to the continuous advancement of our tech and the rising standards of living, evolution would inevitably stop working due to the lack of stress on our species.

[KubeSix]

Oh, okay. Yeah, that could be a problem... But by the time we would actually have evolved significantly, who knows, maybe we won't even be using technology anymore

[Ryobi]

Was talking about this in Biology today, apparently one of the major concerns is to do with where scientists get the stemcells from in the first place. They 'grow babies' then kill them at 8 weeks and harvest the cells.

This is what I've heard.

[KubeSix]

Was talking about this in Biology today, apparently one of the major concerns is to do with where scientists get the stemcells from in the first place. They 'grow babies' then kill them at 8 weeks and harvest the cells.

This is what I've heard.

Actually, they've also been merging human and pork cells together so the pork gets pregnant with a baby that has stem cells functional for the human body and by doing that, they're not killing a human baby... Not much better, though... (That's a rough description, I'm not sure if that's exactly what they're doing, but it was something like that)

Stem cells would be great progress for science and life as a whole, but the only source is a living organism. I was talking about this with my brother yesterday.. Using unconscious clones, we wouldn't have to worry about such things. (I mention the same thing in the zombie dog thread, but o well) Basically, you grow 'empty bodies' that don't have a functioning brain and so, aren't really alive. It would be like an endless organ and body transplant farm and they could even harvest stem cells...

[Kadesh]

 You realize that if these injections really do come out, we're going to have even more crazy-asses celebrities running around?? Who, but the rich, are going to be able to afford that?

[KubeSix]

In the beginning, nobody. But as time passes by, it will become more and more accessible. After all, the gene injections were first researched for purely medical purposes.