Yea, but it's going to happen. As someone said before on the forum, China will probably say Fuck your morals and start manipulating DNA and the such. And, I don't think we're to far off. Probably have already been done, imho.

I'm the one who said that, but it still doesn't change much for we who live in the West. Keep in mind that nations and scientists doing unethical things can also be pressured economically. Your paper might not get published if it trespasses too much on what is considered ethical behavior.
I would consider the US one of the more liberal nations of the West in this regard, and look at the current situation http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/02/us-panel-gives-yellow-light-human-embryo-editing
Also, take a look at this statement from 2015 http://www.nature.com/news/don-t-edit-the-human-germ-line-1.17111
More specifically the quote

We are concerned that a public outcry about such an ethical breach could hinder a promising area of therapeutic development, namely making genetic changes that cannot be inherited.

These guys are AFRAID that negative PUBLIC opinion will hinder their own research. They're afraid that the fickle acceptance of the masses can turn into a massive hetz if a popular narrative so demands. This is what you work against. Look at how things are going on in the current zeitgeist. Organic movements are becoming more popular, the notion that natural = good, synthetic = evil is more popular than ever.
Unless your idea of the singularity is an AI that's really good at recommending porn, things aren't this straight-forward, there needs to be active involvement.

Quote from: tleilaxu on August 25, 2017, 08:40:37 pm

That is not enough for me. There is an ABSOLUTE to be attained, fellows. Democracy has stagnated for too long and secular humanism can be as much of a hindrance to progress as religion. We need radical change!

Post-humanism approaches, as does the AI/technological singularity. Radical changes will be upon us in a dozen decades or so, +/- a century depending on who you ask.

A dozen decades? That'd make me 144 years old by then. Doubt I'll be in greatest shape. I'm kind of triggered by the term post-humanism and its associations of neckbeards pretending CRISPR-Cas will make them immortal or that implanting a chip to open a security door is somehow is a huge step toward uploading your brain to the cloud and living forever in the digital Utopia (which is pure fantasy if you ask me), but if you really want to get there you have to do some things which are unethical by today's standards, such as experimenting with gene-editing human embryos.
The point is that it's not just going to come if we just sit here and wait, we have to get out there advocating for it, and that becomes a problem when the majority of the population starts thinking anything related to gene-editing is unnatural and IMMORAL.

Pretty divided opinions here. Might need to ask Bakker himself about this in the next AMA.

That is not enough for me. There is an ABSOLUTE to be attained, fellows. Democracy has stagnated for too long and secular humanism can be as much of a hindrance to progress as religion. We need radical change!

Quote from: Woden on August 24, 2017, 02:49:29 pm

The assumption of we are living in democracies is at best wishful thinking.
Aristotle pointed perfectly 2300 years ago how democracies degenerate in demagogies and ochlocracies. It is clear for me that this is our case, our democracies are so flawed that are not democracies any longer and had become some kind of mixed demagogy, ochlocracy and (last but not least) oligarchy.

Love this quote, from the associated wiki page:

"Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses"
- Juvenal (circa A.D. 100)

Explained: "Roman politicians passed laws in 140 B.C. to keep the votes of poorer citizens, by introducing a grain dole: giving out cheap food and entertainment, "bread and circuses", became the most effective way to rise to power."

I don't know if that's so much a flaw in democracy as it is a flaw in people. Engage, satisfied, and educated citizens shouldn't be so easily goaded, and yet, we have thousands of years of this history repeating. Very clearly, democracy isnt the best solution, but I still hold that people are the problem. I don't know how you fix that. More people doesn't solve the problem, and neither does less. At best, its a cultural thing, and specifically the US has fallen into the same trap as Rome 2000 years ago.

All our leaders more/less run on the same idea, and its not a new one: make people emotional and they vote for you. I don't want our leaders to be picked solely for their charisma and their ability to tap into the mobs emotions.

But the human condition is to follow these types of people. Its how we are wired. People make decisions based on emotions, based on TDTCB, not based on logic and reason. Alas, great leaders are great largely because they can make people feel a certain way, and therefore do certain things. As with Churchill, as with Hitler. The difference is not how they come to power, but what they choose to do with it.

Really cool that you mention the bread thing. A professor once told me that people don't actually care that much about who or what governs them as long as they have food on the table. This was the true reason for the Arabic Spring, she said. Economic problems had made food-prices sky-rocket, the reason was not that people were "hungering for democracy, freedom, and the total enlightenment of secular humanism" like the media painted it. I'm inclined to believe she was right, at least somewhat.

To me, and maybe I don't get the complete idea of this system, but it would just be a few making decisions for the masses. I think we fought a war a couple centuries ago to get away from that type of thing.

That's pretty much what democracy is though, except the ones making the decisions seem to more often than not be predatory power-seekers instead of people genuinely seeking the long-term success and proliferation of humans. The opinions of the masses are worthless when you can engineer narratives that have no basis in real world fact, but are only there to feed the narrative. The problem with not having democracy is that all autocratic governments to date have been nepotistic and corrupt.
Imagine having something like an Ark though, an AI that determines how things work. That might ironically be better for us.

Prophecy is a time loop by nature. If we trust Akka's dream, Celmommas saw Kellhus as he is in the future, decapitated and all.

Remember that the No-God can disrupt eternity tho.