[sciborg2]

Is it ethical to alter fetuses to produce human bodies with animal consciousness/intelligence?

Is it okay to fuck said sub-humans? To make them work in our fields?

Can we specialize their abilities while keeping them at dog level intelligence?

For legal purposes does this need to be done when the fetus is part of a woman's body? (Once the fetus is in an artificial womb what rights does it have? Or can we edit a developing fetus after it's been transplanted out of a womb?)

[Callan S.]

I suppose it's worthwhile starting from whether it's ethical to take an adult and labotomise them so as to produce a slave (the Underground RPG actually had this as a thing, calling them pre-frontals, as they had sold parts of their brains)

To me the thrust of it seems to arrise from capitalism worship and whatever 'there's a market for' is somehow fine and holy. So if there's a market for subhuman field workers and sex workers, hey, the question is whether we should, rather than what on earth got us thinking of doing just about anything to forfil a market?

[Royce]

What are we going to do with the slaves that are already here then? What will they do when they are replaced by a subhuman? There will be massive conflict between slave and subslave.

I think that subhumans exist already, working for nothing so my T-shirt reamains cheap!

[Madness]

Is it ethical to alter fetuses to produce human bodies with animal consciousness/intelligence?

Is it okay to fuck said sub-humans? To make them work in our fields?

Can we specialize their abilities while keeping them at dog level intelligence?

For legal purposes does this need to be done when the fetus is part of a woman's body? (Once the fetus is in an artificial womb what rights does it have? Or can we edit a developing fetus after it's been transplanted out of a womb?)

This strays right into some big feminist arguments. 'Fetal personhood' is a big deal.

1) I hope not because in many cases fetuses have been awarded rights in court well beyond a Mother's or a born child's.
2) I also hope not because it's far easier to fuck with us pre-existing humans (and, thought it's another argument, Royce makes a great point about 3rd World Labour satisfying your questions).
3) See 1). Why doesn't this subhuman production violate the Mother's rights?
3a) Precedent in court says quite a few but this really just depends on who is paying the lawyers.
3b) Hmm... I assume you mean legally because biologically the artificial womb part is mostly still theoretical, right? If we can, we will.

Good points, Callan and Royce. The Western Empire modifies those individuals with economic sanctions and culture though, not so much lobotomy.

[sologdin]

not to be a dick, but why subhuman and not mentally disabled human? (phrased that way, i think the ethics are self-evident.)

when i think of the former, i recall the island of dr. moreau and frankenstein, and have nothing but sympathy for the manufactured creatures.

on the other hand, most zombie narratives fit into the original fact pattern, as the origin of zombie stories is sorcerers creating slave laborers.

[Wilshire]

I'd say not ethical.

What about the reverse, to make an animal, like a monkey, as smart as what you are suggesting. Is it still ethical to treat it like an animal?

[Madness]

not to be a dick,

Non-issue here, solo.

when i think of the former, i recall the island of dr. moreau and frankenstein, and have nothing but sympathy for the manufactured creatures.

on the other hand, most zombie narratives fit into the original fact pattern, as the origin of zombie stories is sorcerers creating slave laborers.

I would add futars from Heretics of Dune.

But those narratives also suggest that creations turn on their creators sans some creator transformation of acceptance/something?

[sciborg2]

not to be a dick, but why subhuman and not mentally disabled human? (phrased that way, i think the ethics are self-evident.)

But "disabled" implies a problem, a distance between ideal and actual. If you're altering the fetuses before they turn into people, you're supplanting the ideal of a human with the ideal sex slave or worker bee.

[sologdin]

very brave new world, then? engineer the E fetus so that it enjoys heavy duty labor?

[sciborg2]

very brave new world, then? engineer the E fetus so that it enjoys heavy duty labor?

Well, I just wonder what the legal implications are. Does it fall under bestiality laws if you buy and then utilize the fuck buddy pet?

Is it human enough to give consent, but sub-human enough to make it okay to use in this manner?

[Wilshire]

very brave new world, then? engineer the E fetus so that it enjoys heavy duty labor?

Well, I just wonder what the legal implications are. Does it fall under bestiality laws if you buy and then utilize the fuck buddy pet?

Is it human enough to give consent, but sub-human enough to make it okay to use in this manner?

Different issue than making it. Once its there, I mean sub-human is still not an animal. I'm sure someone with autism can consent to sex, depending on the severity of the condition.

[sciborg2]

Different issue than making it. Once its there, I mean sub-human is still not an animal. I'm sure someone with autism can consent to sex, depending on the severity of the condition.

Definitely a different issue than making it.

Is it the human form that makes it unethical to use for labor purposes, whether than labor is unpaid factory worker or sex toy? Even if it's engineered to serve those purposes, and is more than happy to do so? Or will its...soul?...rebel against the encoded urges?

Of course if we do uplift animals this will get more dicey. We may need new definitions for what is and is not "bestiality".

[Wilshire]

As far as I know, having sex with an animal is considered bestiality.

So this then becomes a semantic issue. Are sub-human and animal sufficiency different categories that we could use to make that distinction?

[Madness]

Again, legally, this is an issue of self-hood, which ultimately depends on the lawyers involved.

Do we empathize with the fetus, the mentally adjusted human?

Is it the same thing when we influence decisions to join the army, wherein the lines of scientific consent get blurred quickly? If not, how are a soldier's rights different from fetuses? Then again, what rights do we grant fetuses in the first place (and by legal precedent, there are quite a few, again, over a mother's in many cases)?

Is it acceptable to make a meat machine? What "quintessential human line" do we stray across in these considerations and where does it lay?

Do we become both Tleilaxu and Inchoroi because we're lazy? Is it inevitable?

[Wilshire]

Do we become both Tleilaxu and Inchoroi because we're lazy? Is it inevitable?

I'd say that could be one far distant future. If given that technology today, people would abhor it, but with the slow evolution of it, I think changes will occur that no one notices over long periods of time until humans at large become... well like Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, sustained mostly by machines which do all their work. Machines provided by the Tleilaxu of course.
But that digresses from the original question .

Its already hardly acceptable to have sex with inanimate sex dolls. Prostitution is illegal, though pornography is rampant. I find it hard to believe that it will be socially acceptable to manufacture animate meat dolls, even if they are nearly entirely robotic let alone "partially" human.