Lazerus, you've decided to have the wrong argument. Alyrium never attacked gene therapy, prostheses, or the idea of human advancement. Claiming that he did so (which you seem to have extrapolated from his statement that transhumanists are stupid, and thus, he must think every idea that a transhumanist has ever had is stupid...this, of course, is a bit...not smart) IS is fact a strawman.
Considering that that's basically what Transhumanism is...no, it really isn't. It would be equivalent to him saying that any policy based around a strong government is stupid, and then launching into a detailed list of why facism is bad. He attacked a very broad idea, picking examples from it's craziest and most extreme supporters, and I countered by pointing out more moderate, reasonable examples.
If he wants to say that he was only attacking the absurd extreme, I'll accept that I misunderstood him and apologize. But until he says that, I don't think his arguments support that assertion.
What Alyrium was dissecting is the assertion, which is made only by people who know comparatively zero about living organisms, that "uplifting" is something that could actually happen. You treat "human intelligence" as if it is the result of a single or perhaps a small number of gene products, like green florescent protein, when in fact it is not.
Quote where I assert that. Or maybe you're overlooking the fact that I freely smacked down the idiot who claimed that, and only responded to Aly's claim that transhumanism in general was stupid.
He has rather convincingly demonstrated that engineering an organism from the ground up to superficially resemble a chimpanzee and have human intelligence would actually be easier than the stupid fantasy of "uplifting" chimpanzees that are already there. Consider the immense amount of time, effort, and money that went into producing a single "artificial" cell recently (in fact the significant achievement was in bringing a dead cell back to life with an artificially created genome which was created using the template of a closely related species' genome...and this genome is one of the smallest ones known to us).
Because I defended this...where? Oh right, I didn't, you're associating me with the 'tard who started this uplifting nonsense despite my smacking him down for that stuff twice in this very thread.
Is there a word for this fallacy that I see self-identified transhumanists on SD.net use all the time? "Assuming functionally infinite energy, humans will one day achieve anything that the laws of physics will allow!"
No. We really can't. Even if it were possible given practically infinite time, resources, and expertise, society will not appropriate the resources to create novelty organisms that satisfy your weird fantasies, for any number of practical, economic, and ethical reasons.
Never claimed this, smacked down the guy who did.
1) An artificial hip is made from artificial materials. Mimicking the biomechanics of a hip joint using plastic and rubber is easy.
...yes. That's my point. You argue that transhumanism is centuries away, I go "No, look, cybernetics are here right now!" and you roll your eyes and go, "Well, sure, if you wanted to do it the
easy way."
What, is using cybernetics cheating?
2) Gene therapy is fraught with problems, not the least of which is that it ends up not being permanent. It can also only really be used for certain genes and for certain types of conditions and is very limited in its application. Typically it is used to replace a gene which is fucked up
3) It is possible to grow relatively simple tissue, such as ears on the back of a rat. However those tissues are very simple and we rely on the preprogrammed instructions within the cell, and simply provide the correct environment. A far cry from modifying something's brain during its development.
Point out where I said it needed to be complex. Point out where I said you needed to modify the brain during development? Oh, right, I didn't say any of those things fuckwit. I asserted that small, simple modifications to produce minor changes to the body could have a far reaching societal effect.
You do not even know what irreducible complexity means...
I misunderstood you -- point conceded. I was attacking an argument you never made, my bad.
