Zero-transhumanism, high-tech medical developments?

[Vultur]

Ruling out transhuman-type things like stopping or slowing aging, what sort of medical/biological developments -- especially ones specific to infectious disease and surgery -- are likely possible? What's the 'far end' of what could be done medically without any transhumanism?

It's kind of a vague term, but I really do mean zero transhumanism -- a good number of medical techniques existing right now would be too close to the boundary for this society (many psychiatric medications, for example, since they actually change how a brain functions, though to a limited degree). This is intentional on the part of the lawmakers, to make the anti-transhumanism prohibitions harder to get around.

So far I have the following; do any of these sound too over-the-top?

-Computerized diagnostics, to the point that most ordinary/everyday medical problems are never seen by a human doctor; you describe your symptoms, the computer terminal takes some measurements (blood pressure, heart rate etc. -- the basic ones you get whenever you go to the doctor), and it prints out a diagnosis & prescription. Of course, it would flag any difficult or confusing cases for human intervention.

-Genetically engineered viruses that infect only cancer cells.

-Genetic testing of two people's gametes to the degree that any and all harmful genetic combinations (two cystic fibrosis genes, two sickle-cell genes, etc.) will be caught, cheaply and commonly enough that most couples have received this testing.

-Genetically engineered crops that are 100% edible, such as wheat where the stems and husks are also nutritious and high-calorie. (Though probably not directly as human food, for aesthetic reasons as much as anything -- but used for livestock and highly processed foods).

-Artificial food, synthesized from basic chemicals (monosaccharides for carbohydrates, amino acids for proteins, glucose for fats, though less directly, through pyruvate, acetylCoA, etc.; the same process used in cells, just done industrially).

The latter two are the most important to the story; the others aren't as crucial, though the genetic testing thing is a minor point.

[Norade]

Your crops would be very hard to grow and would deplete the soil as they leach out every nutrient they can. Besides why grow food when you can produce it enmass and then feed people no calorie fillers to add flavor?

[Vultur]

Your crops would be very hard to grow and would deplete the soil as they leach out every nutrient they can.

Well, obviously the plants can't just make food from nothing. But it isn't just that the stems etc. have more nutrients (though they do), more important is that they don't have the inedible stuff. For comparison, there's current work being done with cotton -- cotton seeds would be very nutritious, except that they contain toxic gossypol.

Besides why grow food when you can produce it enmass and then feed people no calorie fillers to add flavor?

Because there's a market for it. People will pay more for naturally grown food than chemically mass-produced food.

Artificial food is cheaper, sure -- but even so, even the soil-grown food is at least as cheap as food is for us -- the tremendous increases in farming efficiency have more than made up for the lesser amount of land available.

[Shroom Man 777]

So far I have the following; do any of these sound too over-the-top?

-Computerized diagnostics, to the point that most ordinary/everyday medical problems are never seen by a human doctor; you describe your symptoms, the computer terminal takes some measurements (blood pressure, heart rate etc. -- the basic ones you get whenever you go to the doctor), and it prints out a diagnosis & prescription. Of course, it would flag any difficult or confusing cases for human intervention.

Intriguing. But as a student NUERS who works in the hostipal often, a lot of the prescriptions and stuff done by the doctors don't just involve taking basic vital signs because a lot of those everyday medical problems might not manifest abnormal vital signs. A very big aspect of everyday doctor-ing involves interviewing patients and talking to them about problems. How would the machine measure, say, a headache? How would it ask the patient/person how long his perceived problem has persisted? You don't go to the doctor just to get your vital signs, but also to tell him your problems. Etc.

-Genetically engineered viruses that infect only cancer cells.

-Genetic testing of two people's gametes to the degree that any and all harmful genetic combinations (two cystic fibrosis genes, two sickle-cell genes, etc.) will be caught, cheaply and commonly enough that most couples have received this testing.

Basically something like Gattaca where they do genetic modification to remove bad traits? Workable, yeah.

-Genetically engineered crops that are 100% edible, such as wheat where the stems and husks are also nutritious and high-calorie. (Though probably not directly as human food, for aesthetic reasons as much as anything -- but used for livestock and highly processed foods).

The thing is, won't some parts of plants be naturally inedible? I mean, if the stem and the husk are supposed to be hard and tough to support keep the crop rigid and upright, then naturally they won't exactly be the "meatiest" of plant parts.

-Artificial food, synthesized from basic chemicals (monosaccharides for carbohydrates, amino acids for proteins, glucose for fats, though less directly, through pyruvate, acetylCoA, etc.; the same process used in cells, just done industrially).

The latter two are the most important to the story; the others aren't as crucial, though the genetic testing thing is a minor point.

Interesting. How about tofu and other artificial meat products currently available today?

[Vultur]

How would it ask the patient/person how long his perceived problem has persisted? You don't go to the doctor just to get your vital signs, but also to tell him your problems. Etc.

It would ask that question, just as a human doctor would. It doesn't *just* take your vital signs; I did say the person would describe their symptoms.

Basically something like Gattaca where they do genetic modification to remove bad traits? Workable, yeah.

Not quite: they don't modify the genome, but they can tell you what any potential problems would be. (Actual genetic engineering of humans is extremely forbidden in this society).

-Genetically engineered crops that are 100% edible, such as wheat where the stems and husks are also nutritious and high-calorie. (Though probably not directly as human food, for aesthetic reasons as much as anything -- but used for livestock and highly processed foods).

The thing is, won't some parts of plants be naturally inedible? I mean, if the stem and the husk are supposed to be hard and tough to support keep the crop rigid and upright, then naturally they won't exactly be the "meatiest" of plant parts.

Interesting. How about tofu and other artificial meat products currently available today?

Those are derived from plants (soy, etc.); this is meant to take the plants out of the equation. Still, they'd certainly have all those things.

I imagine the artificial food would largely be used in arcologies and space colonies. Elsewhere, regular food would hardly be more expensive -- they're good at intensive farming. (For one thing, getting through the climate crisis taught humanity enough about climate that it can be manipulated; they've turned the Sahara green, put big lakes in the US Southwest & northern Mexico, etc.; pretty much every place that isn't actually ice-covered is viable farmland, especially with super-cold-hardy genetically-engineered crops.)

With those two, I'm trying to set up a situation where food supply is basically never a problem; essentially an arbitrary number of people could be fed - I'm wondering if this is the most feasible way to go about it. It seems an almost inevitable development, but the question is how.

(There'd still be limits to the amount of food produced, but they'd be so high as to be irrelevant; you'd probably run into the waste heat problem that Niven's Puppeteers did first. Well, fresh water would be an issue far earlier, but desalination can solve that easily at this level of technology.)

[Sarevok]

I will point out that expert systems had been around in medical field since the 80s. Their limitations are well known and if you can make an expert system as good as doctor what you got is potentially a an artificial intelligence capable of solving any general problem. This is case a of having your cake and eating it too I am afraid.