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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   31722 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 24, 2023

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Before the airplane, what technology had increased the maximum flight distance of humans?

As Nybbler pointed out, the maximum flight distance of humans is the same as it ever was -- inventing machines is much easier than altering human biology.

Because there are several examples of biological immortality in nature (just as there are several examples of flight in nature), and we've gotten pretty good at stealing ideas from evolution.

There are all kinds of weird organisms out there -- can you name some with significant features that we have managed to graft onto the human body in any sort of permanent way? Some kinds of fish are very long lived, but pretty well all of them can breath water -- this has been known for some time and many people would like to be able to do that too -- where are we on gills for humans?

Do you have an argument for why we will never run those experiments in the future?

If you want to be taken seriously, you first need to provide some evidence not that such experiments might be run, but rather that they might succeed. "Because I say so" or "anything is possible" are examples of things which are not evidence.

inventing machines is much easier than altering human biology.

Then imagine a small machine that repairs telomeres or something.

If you want to be taken seriously, you first need to provide some evidence not that such experiments might be run, but rather that they might succeed.

I really don't. If you go look at the thread, TheDag advanced that part of the argument. I'm not responsible for other people's arguments.

I just got annoyed by The_Nybbler's bad shutdown that amounted to "It hasn't happened, yet", which is a completely useless statement during a conversation about future tech, both true by definition but not relevant. I might add, that you also engaged in during your first response to me.

I have advanced plausible interpretations, but I've reached my limit, as I'm not the one that advanced this argument, and so I have no real idea what they were thinking.

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