Science Forums: dragonstar57 - Viewing Profile - Science Forums

in a perfect world we could steer the traits of humanity so that future people are an intelligent well adjusted capable well-meaning fit and all around representing the best of all of us this at its uncorrupted heart is a noble sentiment.
the problem is in the actualization of this ideal. a bad meme getting into humanity can be far more dangerous than any number of bad genes.
I can't think of a way of influencing peoples mating decisions in any fair way without lending validity to the idea that some people are genetically superior to others (perhaps a group of some sort to suggest genetically strong matches might bypass this qualm)

spin-1/2-nuclei, on 30 August 2011 - 12:37 PM, said:

it is more than alarming if you take the position that these people are genetically that way.
if people are genetically stupid taking in account the stupid and their reproduction and compare it to most of the intelligent I know who have sworn off having children this idea is truly terrifying.
it is my firm belief that intelligence does not truly exist (I have limited anecdotal evidence) I think all people are born equal of the mind (assuming no damage to the brain)
I think we will eventually learn that the rigid sheeple thinking is learned and can be unlearned.
when I was younger. I was not so different the only problem facing this world is arrogance
all our issues are nothing but varying faces of one thinking himself/herself better than someone else ergo this conversation is part of the problem.
perhaps we can teach people how to use their mind and think objectively.
sorry for this Naive optimism

TransformerRobot, on 7 May 2012 - 02:23 AM, said:

it depends on what you view the odds of evolution producing human like life (as in bipedal mammal like etc)
and the odds of the other having the correct bio markers to make them be attracted to one another.
I doubt that a planet identical to earth undergoing the same conditions throughout its entire history (geologically speaking) would produce humanoid life.
life is almost certain in the universe
intelligent life is likely
humanoid life if it exists is far less likely and would by the odds be much farther apart from one another

 mississippichem, on 14 October 2011 - 12:53 PM, said:

1. this is a devils advocate situation
2. there is no set change from child to adult and to pick an arbitrary line and then enforce it as if it had meaning would be hopelessly barbaric.

 Phi for All, on 14 October 2011 - 01:54 PM, said:

that is in no way a straw man as it supports the assertion that laws require a reason to be law and the logical one is that things that cause unjust harm is ileagal and what harms no one significantly should be legal stop with the horse shit children/adults concept show me a reason for any particular age or bench mark to used to indicate when this maturity forms and you will have a valid argument.

I think it is an assumption to think that humanoid life exists anywhere else in the universe.
there is very little reason to expect that other lifeforms would ever form into anything remotely similar in physiology to ourselves let alone be anything near compatible. nor be capable of being attracted to one another. after all we all can agree that star trek was unrealistic on many levels. in fact by current definitions Vulcan and humans were the same species (assuming that Spock was capable of having children)

I think the primary problem is the incentive It is hypothetically possible to a government to fund a large project such as this but you would first have to convince them that it is worth it. the secondary problem would be the economics of living there it would have to make economic sense for people to live there rather than conventional cities.
as for convincing a government it is necessary perhaps I would think it would make an excellent testbed for what ever systems they want to use on the first colony on
mars/the moon and second I would think it would make it might teach some important lessons about how to handle raising waters that threaten conventional cities (perhaps we could just dome them over.
also such a location would be (imo) very secure from a nuclear strike should a rouge nation acquire icbm's because 1.they would most likely target conventional cities first 2. because they have a large amount of water to act as a shield
but after all the problems brought up I have to agree 2b min and most likely more.
ps. where would the drinking water come from? I suppose it could be desalinated but that adds a lot more $$$ to the cost