Monday

[sobrique]

Well, today is monday. Good start to the week was forgetting to turn on my alarm clock. Woke up at 8am, looked at the clock and thought 'hmm, guess I'm on a late today' (housemates, I shall be back for Exalted about 18:30, which is a little later than usual).

Forgot my swipe card on the way in, too, and they have a new guy in the coffee shop, who's just made me a weak and watery large coffee. So, my week is already not going well.

But a late start meant I got to listen to about 10 minutes of 'Start the week'.

The subject they were discussing was 'enhancement' of the human race. It was a bit of a plug for a new book: "Enhancing Evolution: The Ethical Case for Making Better People" by John Harris.

But the key was this - we're enhancing the human race every day, by learning, developing technology, healthcare, and all manner of things. We give people glasses, and treat them for diabetes. What's so bad about 'vaccinating' them, so they can permanently be resistant to disease. He was talking about the fact that we're getting very close, scientifically speaking, to being able to grow from scratch new organs for a person, that are a 'perfect' biological fit. Given that we have a shortage of transplants (due no doubt, to increasing life expectancies) is it really so bad to use stem cells to increase the supplies of transplants, and reduce the 'complications'?

Anyway. Thought I'd pose a poll.

[Poll #1071548]

Comments

[tya.livejournal.com]

I don't want kids, but hypothetically, I'm in, why would I want my kids to potentially, suffer migraine headaches, pollen allergies, bad eyesight and possible other hereditary disorders which my family suffer?. Although GATTACA is an incredibly tedious film, it does raise some interesting ideas.