This reminds me of a line from Crighton’s “Jurassic Park” (paraphrasing): “We were so busy trying to figure out if we could do it that no one bother to ask if we should.”

Yikes…I agree with Liam’s sentiments. This is chilling, but no doubt our trusted government regulators, officials and leaders, who have done such a bang up job over the years responding to the energy crisis, preventing nuclear proliferation, managing the economy, dealing with the banking crisis, and on and on will be all over this and make sure that nothing really bad ends up happening as a result of this, er, wonderful achievement.
Best regards,
Mike

The battle will indeed be won. But who, precisely, will have won it?
Those of us who want to live forever young and expand out into the galaxy. Those of us who are sick of the zero-sum political spectrum of the liberal-left and social conservatives and who seek a real frontier to get free of this rot. There are those of us who reject the zero-sum mentality of “limitations” that was cited a week or so ago in this blog. We have as much right to pursue our dreams and goals as anyone else does theirs.
http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/05/combining-mhd-airbreathing-and-iec.html#disqus_thread
You will note my comments about the need for a frontier in response to previous comments about the development of aneutronic fusion for both energy production and space propulsion. My comment is at the end.
The reason for going into space is to create a society that is free of luddites, socialists, religious people, and any kind of rent-seeking parasites.

I’ve been saying for years that Bladerunner is more prophecy than sci-fi. Tyrell Corp…”more human than human….” Still, it’s a very long bridge between doing this for a bacteria and humans. It could indeed lead to some dark places, but on the other hand, it could rid us of diabetes, heart disease, autism and the inbreeding that gave rise to the Tea Party movement and most of our ruling class. C.S. Lewis was talented, but a bit of a drama queen….

Simple,
If you make it, you own it.
Of course with humans, you have a long development period from birth until adulthood, that sort of limits the engineering aspects , because of the time horizon. Unless of course you can accelerate the aging process to squeeze in additional generations in a shorter time span…

“The reason for going into space is to create a society that is free of luddites, socialists, religious people, and any kind of rent-seeking parasites.”
Man, you would love playing a game called “Bioshock”
captcha ” common stayed “

The reason for going into space is to create a society that is free of luddites, socialists, religious people, and any kind of rent-seeking parasites.
Sorry, but wherever you go, there you are. That is, you aren’t going to escape human nature. Anyway, it’s revealing that someone who endorses this kind of fooling around with the building blocks of life considers other human beings as “parasites” who must be disappeared to create a perfect society. That’s exactly what worries me about this kind of thing. That too is part of human nature.

Since we will never create a society in space, the point is moot.

Might it be pertinent to observe that the invention of the wheel and the invention of the Porsche were separated by thousands of years?

Luddites to pull back and liberals to push forward. And somewhere in the middle is where the real change is made. Two steps forward, one step back.
This sort of achievement genuinely excites me. Its potential to help is immense. But I appreciate Rod’s trepidation.

“The final stage is come when Man by eugenics, by pre-natal conditioning, and by an education and propaganda based on a perfect applied psychology, has obtained full control over himself. Human nature will be the last part of Nature to surrender to Man. The battle will then be won.”
I must admit that I’ve heard, or have had the impression, that such sentiments are not uncommon, but this is a very curious statement for a devout Christian to make. If you have true faith, then you know there is nothing that Man could ever do to prevent the ultimate triumph of Jesus Christ.
capthca: maoisms the

If this technology scales up sufficiently well, as in the fullness of time it undoubtedly will, what will that say about the existence of a material “soul”? Epicurus will have been right all along.
I think I will have a glass of claret and a wedge of Brie and contemplate the consoling epitaph of Kazantzakis: I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.

corrigendum: immaterial “soul”

The way humans mess things up, we’ll end up creating another virus that’ll wipe us all out after it mutates. Need I point out that all living cells have the potential to mutate? Ever heard of a thing called cancer?

Biological alife doesn’t scare me this is really a form of genetic engineering and not much different than what they produced through other means. In general natural selection will have likely produced much tougher customers than we ever could.
Self reproducing inorganic machines of the nano or macro varieties are what spook me. Imagine predator drones that reproduce and contain a programming error where they kill randomly.

R Hampton, Lewis was speaking ironically in that passage.

Rod
Sorry, but wherever you go, there you are. That is, you aren’t going to escape human nature.
I wonder how much of human nature is at least strongly influenced by our genetic makeup. We’ve had discussions here before about where such behaviors like homosexuality come from. There would appear to be at least some genetic component to addiction too. And then, of course, there’s the whole panoply of various mental disorders.
Is it too far fetched to consider that many things we consider defects of human nature may well be eliminated in this way?
Brave New World indeed.
My initial instinct is that, like every new technology, it has grave potential for both good and evil. Just looking at engineered microbes, this kind of technology could be instrumental in creating algae suited to the production of biodiesel. Or, alternatively, we could create horrific new bioweapons.
Side observation: was C.S. Lewis actually arguing in favor of public ownership of production and a single world government? Nobody had better tell the Tea Party activists who admire him
Roland de Chanson, while I admire your taste, I think the more Epicurean indulgence will be a nice cool glass of clear water outside on this lovely spring day.

Read the Bill Sun article in Wired Magazine from 2000 called Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us (google and you’ll find it). It will scare the bejeesus out of you. And make it hard to be sanguine about this lastest breakthrough.
Captcha: cars koshered. What do you mean, Captcha AI?

I do not often find myself in agreement with theists who express a fear of technology or express ideas that because we are born broken or corrupt, that we cannot trust ourselves. It is such a bleak and immature view of human nature that it borders upon the completely nonsensical to me. White noise is too kind a phrase.
But there is a point here. As Liam notes above. Just because we can isn’t a reason to do something. It is not that the ability to create synthetic life is, by definition, a bad thing. The question is what do we do with it? What is the application that will benefit people, to look at it from a utilitarian point of view. And if what we create is life, then are we not ethically obligated to treat it like any other living thing, including ourselves?
This has been a major concern of serious scientific writers for a long long time who frankly put the issues into far clearer relief than old CS Lewis ever could. Even modern sci fi ideas: from the Androsynth in the old Star Control games, to the Cylons of Battlestar Galactica (the new series firmly standing the serious science fiction of guys like HG Wells) to the machines of the Matrix, explore this. That our technological abilities may be increasing faster than our moral or ethical evolution can keep up with. In each of the sci-fi ideas I noted, the idea was the same: humans created life to serve human beings. But like all slaves, this new life rebelled and turned on their masters. The metaphor is a powerful one, and one that is increasingly important as our scientific prowess grows by leaps and bounds.
Again the real question is: WHY do we do a certain thing.
Ironic Captcha for an atheist like me: messiah the

So many bad things come from man’s fear of death.

“Is it too far fetched to consider that many things we consider defects of human nature may well be eliminated in this way?”
Funny, I consider those things to be those that make us human…
captcha: ” action maliced”

“So many bad things come from man’s fear of death. ”
It also drives us, afterall , if we were immortal who is in a hurry to do the dishes

Geoff G.,
A true disciple of Epicurus thou! As Pindar sang, ??????? ??? ???? (water is best)!
????? ?’ ? ?????. But wine is good. ??? ????? ????. (nothing to excess).

Rod, your comment at 2:58 is exactly right. Brave New World is the prophecy here, folks. If you haven’t read it, or recently, you must.

Sorry, but wherever you go, there you are. That is, you aren’t going to escape human nature. Anyway, it’s revealing that someone who endorses this kind of fooling around with the building blocks of life considers other human beings as “parasites” who must be disappeared to create a perfect society. That’s exactly what worries me about this kind of thing. That too is part of human nature.
Your reading comprehension is really poor. I did not say I wanted to kill those I consider to be parasites. I have no desire to harm anyone.
I said I wanted to LEAVE and create a new society SOMEWHERE ELSE that is free from the kinds of people I want nothing to do with. This is called seperationism. To object to separationism is to subscribe to a “Berlin Wall” mentality about human relationships and society.
The most fundamental human right of all is that of free association. The right to associate with whom you like and to have nothing to do with those you don’t. Any worldview that does not recognize this right is flawed to the core.
We want to live free and open lives in an ever expanding milieu. Synthetic biology is the first step towards realizing this dream because not only can it help us cure aging, it will become the biotechnological equivalent to Eric Drexler’s nanotechnology and, therefor, will make it easier for smaller groups of people to disassociate from the larger whole and create their own independent societies. Think of it as the technology equivalent to localism. As a “crunchy con” you should be in favor of the development of this technology because it will ultimately lead to “organic” houses and buildings that grow and self-repair on their own, just like any biological organism. It will also lead to biotechnological food factories that will allow someone living in a sub-urban home to really produce all of the food they could ever eat.
Imagine synthetic biology combined with the next generation of 3D fabber technology. I would think this would be a decentralist, crunchy cons dream. That is, if you truly believe in the self-empowerment of individuals and small groups. If you do not believe in this, then crunchy con is nothing but a scam.

A minute ago, I went out to get the mail and a guy was standing in the road. He said, “Ma’am?” and then proceeded to explain that he was the one who had caused the financial meltdown last year and who had made Alabama win the National Championship.
I said, “Is your name by any chance Abelard Lindsey?”

Re: It’s the first-ever wholly synthetic living cell.
It most definitely is not. It’s the first synthetic DNA, but the cell into which it was inserted was already a living one from which the original DNA had been extracted. There’s less here than is being hyped. Basically what we have here is a DNA transplant using synthetic DNA– that’s not trivial, but it’s also not the same as creating a living creature completely from scratch.

Re: I said I wanted to LEAVE and create a new society SOMEWHERE ELSE that is free from the kinds of people I want nothing to do with.
Not going to happen. You’re stuck with this world and the people in it, even if millions of them are total idiots. It’s all you’ve got and short of murdering all the idiots (or killing yourself and hoping you show up somewhere better) there’s no remedy.
I don’t know your religious opinions, but whenever I am tempted to hate this world, I remind myself that I am really hating God’s handiwork (yes, that includes humankind in all its idiocy) and that’s a long way down the road to blasphemy and the pride of the Devil.

If they create this person you worry about, what will animate it? Surely we are more than the sum of our physical components. Will God imbue it with a soul? If he does, then shouldn’t that creature be an equal with us? How will we be able to tell if said creature has a soul or does not?
Steve

This one goes out to Abelard Lindsey and all the pocket protector crowd who dream of a transhumanist future.

Abelard Lindsey: Those of us who want to live forever young…
Not likely to happen.
…and expand out into the galaxy.
Way unlikely to happen. I could be wrong on the first part (I’m not a gerontologist), but I have enough physics and astronomy to doubt expansion into the galaxy. I’m with Fermi on this one.
We have as much right to pursue our dreams and goals as anyone else does theirs.
Certainly, but no one has the ability, let alone the right, to attain an imposible goal. I may have the right, in some quixotic sense, to work towards the day when 2 + 2 = 5, but it ain’t gonna happen. I’m not saying that the goals you mention are on that level of impossibility, but it has yet to be shown that they are possible, in practice.
The reason for going into space is to create a society that is free of luddites, socialists, religious people, and any kind of rent-seeking parasites.
Expanding across uninhabited areas of Earth sure accomplished that, huh?
The most fundamental human right of all is that of free association. The right to associate with whom you like and to have nothing to do with those you don’t.
Sounds like George Wallace could’ve got behind that….
TTT: Since we will never create a society in space, the point is moot.
Bingo!

I hope the people who did this have read “Frankenstein” and “Pygmalion” and really thought about them.

Funny, I just read Japanese manga artist Osamu Tezuka’s early 1970s Resurrection, which deals precisely with that theme. Don’t let the “age 9-12″ reading level on Amazon fool you; it’s a complex, deep, and dark story which Philip K. Dick would have probably liked (or maybe even written.)

Or “At the Mountains of Madness” by HP Lovecraft.
Turmarion, other people’s religions always have the feeling they are trying to obtain an imposible goal. Transhumanism actually meets all the criteria of a religion.
captcha: parrish goat’s

Abelard Lindsey

Guys,
I don’t share this limits to growth down home society stuff that all of you are into. I’m into a pro-growth, free-market society with minimal taxation and regulation. I am pro-growth because that is what creates lots and lots of business opportunity and real, career oriented jobs (STEM and business). I like my travel, too. I like doing business in both Asia as well as the U.S. and am as happy in Singapore or Tokyo as I am in Portland, Oregon. I think this concept of loyalty to a single location is quite silly because I consider the whole world to be my home and playground. I short, I like my cosmopolitan lifestyle and I despise and want nothing to do with philosophical or religious worldviews that do not respect it. I believe in a globalized cosmopolitan society because I really do think it creates the greatest amount of opportunity for the greatest number of people (and this is the ONLY legitimate criterion to judge a society by).
I may have sounded harsh. In reality, I would be happy if we largely recreated “Reagan’s America” along with a few changes in medical regulation (abolition of the FDA and elimination of licensing of MD’s). The small to medium sized business lead growth of the 1980′s is the one that is best for the U.S. This kind of growth creates the greatest amount of opportunity for as many people as possible. I do not like the fake bubble growth we had from 1995-2007. I would like to see a flat tax rate of 17% and a roll back of all regulation back to, say, 1985. All laws should have sunset clauses and there should be a 50 year moratorium on all new regulation.
Peter Schiff’s worldview and the Austrian School of economics is what most resembles my attitudes towards economics and business culture.
With regards to space and life extension, I think you guys are completely wrong AND I’m willing to bet my life and future on it. Gerard O’niell and the L-5 Society presented a plausible case for space colonization based on boring 1970′s technology back in the, well, 1970′s. Contrary to disinformation, this concept was never discredited. It did not happen because the L-5 space people assumed that NASA and government bureaucracy in general would make it happen. Silly people. We are not so silly today. Believe me when I tell you that I know full well that nothing ever happens unless someone actually makes it happen. The reason why I think the space stuff is doable is because of recent developments in fusion research, being done by mostly private groups flying below the radar. This is not the Tokamak scan that you have heard about over the decades.
Philosophically, I reject the concept of limits, not only because they are bogus, but the belief in them creates the kind of stagnant society that leads to suppression of freedom of expression and, ultimately, freedom itself. I think this is very evil. I do not believe the purpose of life is to just exist and live life within a boring fixed pattern just like previous generations. No, I believe the purpose of life is to get out and always try new things and to explore all the possibilities the universe has to offer. I believe this as much with regards to my personal and social life as I do with technology and business life.
I firmly believe that America was founded on the pioneering concept of freedom and no limits. Americans being a people for whom the word “impossible” does not exist in their vocabulary. As you may or may not know, I lived as expat in various Asian countries for 10 years. This allowed me to see my country from the outside (which I think very few of you have ever had this opportunity and thus are not in any position to judge this). I can to view America as the pioneering country where the dreamers and misfits, the people do not want to plug into a fized pattern culture, can come and live their dream, no matter what it is. This, and nothing else, is what makes America special to me. If America looses this specialness, it becomes worthless as far as I’m concerned. If America becomes the limited society in the manner that many Europeans consider to be the ideal society (and many of you as well) it ceases to have any meaning for me. I certainly would no longer feel any loyalty to it. I would prefer to move back to China if this happens.

I wonder how much of human nature is at least strongly influenced by our genetic makeup.
I believe the proper answer is: All of it.
Altering the human genome changes everything, the creation of a “perfect” human-like being would be the creation of a new being. Chimps and humans are 96% the same, what a difference 4% makes!

re. Abelard Lindsey’s comments:
Wow! Claiming to have something in common with crunchies of all forms means you are incapable of reading them with any accuracy. Crunchies, or people who believe Wendell Berry is correct, basically believe the problem with humans is that we refuse to live within our limits. You claim that technology will help us escape limits. This is the same utopian nonsense that’s made human beings mess up so very much in the past.
Have you ever considered that, just because someone’s got a supposedly latest form of technology, absolutely nothing has changed? And that the same promise or set of promises has/have been made again and again, that finally, from this time on, with **this** the latest greatest coolest mostest form of technology, we’ll escape all limits: of the earth, of our paltry and foolish (and noble, and awe inspiring) human selves, of having to live with people who we don’t like, who are stupid, unlike us, ugly, unlike us; luddites, unlike us. This same basic spiel has been around since human beings have; we do make individual progresses, but still live within the same set of parameters; that one careful reading Oedipus the King can tell us more about being human than a thousand scientists’ optimistic sales pitches.
Capcha: sextants 50

I firmly believe that America was founded on the pioneering concept of freedom and no limits.
The very concept of property rights is a denial of “freedom and no limits,” is it not? And when America was founded those property rights included the right to own other human beings.

abolition of the FDA
The usefulness of free market idealism runs into a very firm boundary beneath six feet of dirt.

Sounds like a pretty cool experiment.
I’ll point out again the several of the things Rod worries about cancel each other out. For example, a world in which industrial civilization has collapsed for lack of cheap energy will not be able to support advanced genetic engineering.

John E, they could make the killer bugs one day and then the next day only a hissing noise comes out of all the oil pumps. We get eaten by killer germs while starving to death from lack of food which can’t be shipped to market. A doom twofer!

As long as we’re quoting Lewis here, let’s not forget his most relevant warning from “The Abolition of Man” — well, at least a warning for people like Venter, people who imagine themselves as being at least Daedalus-like:
“It is in Man’s power to treat himself as a mere ‘natural object’ and his own judgements of value as raw material for scientific manipulation to alter at will. The objection to his doing so does not lie in the fact that this point of view (like one’s first day in a dissecting room) is painful and shocking till we grow used to it. . . The real objection is that if man chooses to treat himself as raw material, raw material he will be: not raw material to be manipulated, as he fondly imagined, by himself, but by mere appetite, that is, mere Nature, in the person of his de-humanized Conditioners.”

For futurists, wouldn’t the easiest way to colonize space be to wait around until they can transmit their thought patterns across space (and even perhaps time)? I know that if I were a futurist with just the modest goal of living forever without limits, I’d be thinking right now about how to upload and eventually transmit my glorious self to machines and even creatures all over the universe and then (if there should turn out to be such a thing) the multi-verse!
Lucky universe! Lucky multi-verse! Here I come! Your new God! Just a few more bricks and I’ll have this blasted tower built…

Abelard Lindsey, I’d suggest looking at this site.
With regards to space and life extension, I think you guys are completely wrong AND I’m willing to bet my life and future on it.
Well, you’re betting that within your life span they’ll perfect life extension. We’ll see–you might want to start taking vitamin supplements….
Philosophically, I reject the concept of limits, not only because they are bogus….
Try jumping off a building and you’ll see how bogus the limit we call “gravity” is. The speed of light isn’t going anywhere as a limit, either. As to the rest, if I had the money, I’d bet a million dollars that manned intersteller space flight won’t occur this century (and likely never). All I can say, short of that, is we’ll see–but I’m not holding my breath.
John E. and MH, the real threat is from the soon-to-be sapient CAPTCHA. Something like in Colossus: The Forbin Project….
CAPTCHA: Air hearers Well, you can’t hear in a vacuum….

State sponsored disgenics is a far more real threat than any imaginary threat from eugenics. See Idiocracy.

Colossus: The Forbin Project was a great film. A little slow for some people’s taste, but worth seeing.
Well they always say that Libertarianism is the perfect ideology for a race of childless immortals. So it makes sense it gets coupled with trans-humanism.
government Bosnia – OK I’m getting creeped out.

Re: For example, a world in which industrial civilization has collapsed for lack of cheap energy will not be able to support advanced genetic engineering.
Quite true. This may turn out to be one of the consolations of global warming and the natural resource crises. We can hope that global environmental collapse puts an end to modernity before modernity puts an end to human virtue.
Old man Lewis was onto something in his ‘Abolition of Man’, and the depressing thing is that some people look at his image of the modernist dystopia and say, “Cool!”
Turmarion,
Honestly, why are you trying to argue with the freak who calls himself Abelard Lindsey? Either he’s a joker trying to pull your chain (and Rod’s, and mine) or he is what he claims to be, which means that he and I can no more have a meaningful conversation than a pigeon can meaningfully converse with a dolphin- our underlying moral universes are just too different.
In either case, you’re wasting your time trying to argue with him.

You poor lads – hows about we refocus on the THEOLOGY of this achievement?
As it happens – in every theology you can name, only GOD can create life.
Not Satan, not the Angels, not anyone but the Divine.
Except, of course, when MAN creates life.
The implications of this ought to be clear to anyone not EpiClosed:
The uniqueness of Creationism by God is now and forever completely refuted: God has NO special life-creating power that cannot be duplicated by man. The *quality* of that life might be disputed still, but the fact that MAN CREATED LIFE cannot be overcome in any rational sense, ever again, by anyone or anything.
Ironically, the “Intelligent Design” folks might be tempted to take some ephemeral hope that the fact of designed life creation, as designed by an intelligent MAN (not God), might imply that life might have been designed by an Intelligent…Whomever.
Except, of course, that the *uniquely divine nature* of such a designer has been utterly destroyed by the fact that a human created life, too.
Keep on avoiding the theology of this, lads, as long as you can, since theology just took a turn towards phrenology -
You know, the study of the bumps on your heads.
And that is what theBiboSez.
Bless you!
(Captcha: “the Cheekily” – Perfect!)

Old man Lewis was onto something in his ‘Abolition of Man’, and the depressing thing is that some people look at his image of the modernist dystopia and say, “Cool!”
Well, it is all just a matter of personal taste, isn’t it?

These guys did not create life. Someone let me know when they pull this trick without a “host cell”.

Abelard:
your ideas of “growth” and “freedom of expression” sound terribly boring. More years, more miles, more things. So, what do you want to “express” that we should be interested in?

Really. What could possibly go wrong? I for one, have complete faith in our scientific-governmental-industrial-financial-military complex. No one could possibly ever use something like this for evil purposes, could they? I am also sure that our military-industrial-financial scientists are good and pure men with only the noblest intentions. Furthermore, I know that they have complete control over every step in any process and that rational safe guards will be put in place by our leaders to ensure that nothing bad might ever, ever happen, either accidentally or intentionally. Yes, this I believe….I have faith…
As an addendum, I’d add one point: If I heard NPR correctly, the man hasn’t “created life”, nor has he made “synthetic” life, whatever that is. He began by using existing DNA. He skillfully altered and manipulated the materials he gleaned from existing life; not that that isn’t a clever trick.
captcha: “reapers return”

It must blow to be a transhumanist.
I mean having the knowledge that you will never get to live out your utterly warped, narcissistic techno-demigod fantasy and that you will end up suffering the impending doom of old age (if you’re lucky) along with the rest of us has got to suck.
Also, to mister Abelard,
“I AM ANDREW RYAN, AND I’M HERE TO ASK YOU A QUESTION”
Also: Get rid of certifying MDs? I am glad I decided to opt out of the pre-med path, LOL!

Re: We can hope that global environmental collapse puts an end to modernity before modernity puts an end to human virtue.
So then what– we can’t afford modern vices so we go to back to ancient vices? sorry, you can’t convince me that people were any saintlier in the past. In some ways they decidedly were not (you know– slavery, legal spouse and child abuse, etc.)

Re: your ideas of “growth” and “freedom of expression” sound terribly boring. More years, more miles, more things. So, what do you want to “express” that we should be interested in?
Jon,
Let me put that more precisely. A global Age of Scarcity will force us to make hard choices about which aspects of the modern age we want to preserve, and which we have to jettison. My hope is that we preserve what are real advances with real benefits (antibiotics, refrigeration, fertilizers, telephones, legal and social equality between groups, emancipation of women, abolition of servitude) and jettison the kind of pointless conspicuous consumption and social/moral nihilism that has been so bad for our character.

Re: If I heard NPR correctly, the man hasn’t “created life”, nor has he made “synthetic” life, whatever that is. He began by using existing DNA.
Other way round- he made the DNA and inserted it into a pre-existing cell. Your general point stands though- making the DNA is in some regards the simple part, and he certainly didn’t make the whole cell by scratch.
Re: your ideas of “growth” and “freedom of expression” sound terribly boring. More years, more miles, more things. So, what do you want to “express” that we should be interested in?
Carlo,
Amen, amen! This is the big problem I have with the proponents of overcoming all human limitations and assuming total control of our own destinies. To strip us of our limitations and of any objective values and purpose outside ourselves, is also to strip our lives of meaning. If freedom means simply doing whatever we want, then we are no longer able to say that one choice is better than another, and so it removes all POINT to our lives.

Re: Side observation: was C.S. Lewis actually arguing in favor of public ownership of production and a single world government? Nobody had better tell the Tea Party activists who admire him
Funnily enough, Geoff, C. S. Lewis appeared to be one of those Christian conservatives who actually had the temerity to value his Christianity more than his conservatism. And in fact, was willing enough to jettison his conservatism insofar as it conflicted with his Christianity. Would that more so-called Christian conservatives nowadays were willing to follow his example.

I will add that the true problem with people like Abelard is that they don’t understand what the REAL human limitations are, which is not that we cannot (yet?) jump on a spaceship and travel to Andromeda or live 500 years. The limitation that we definitely cannot remove, of course, is SIN.

Geoff: “was C.S. Lewis actually arguing in favor of public ownership of production and a single world government?”
Actually, although Lewis was in the Conservative party, much of his politics was socialist by current standards. Eg. he was in favour of redistributionist taxation, to reduce the inequality of outcome as well as opportunity. That just shows how far to the right the world has moved in economic terms since 1963.
Abelard: Transhumanist ideas are always amusing to read. Keep it up. Let’s have some Christian apocalyptics as well. And revolutionary Trotskyists. Hey, and some UFO enthusiasts. The more the merrier!

If only GOD can create life, why didn’t He stop those scientists?
See Golden’s work “Stop Those Painters!”.
While others fixate on poor old Lewis, my favorite dead author is Robert A. Heinlein, whose practical understanding of science and technology produced the most believable, readable (and prophetic, see waldoes and water beds) speculative fiction. I prefer his general vision of the future (assuming we solve the interstellar travel problems). Start with his “Future History” stories, the main collection being The Past Through Tomorrow.

Hector, the negative traits you site are the result of humans forming dominance hierarchies. Those at the top display their status through conspicuous consumption. A global age of scarcity will likely kick off resource wars where the better armed take what they want from the lesser armed. They will then continue to display their status.

Wow, thanks, MH. You put what I was thinking so concisely and saved me a lot of trouble! The people at the top of the heap always party as hard as they are able–this includes popes and bishops–and leave those at the bottom to starve and suffer along as best they can. The great thing about our current age is that there are enough excess resources to allow even those at the bottom to get along much better, even though the people at the top indulge profligacy of epic proportions. That’s a deal I’m willing to accept.
I don’t think you’ve fully thought through what you’re saying, Hector. Perhaps you would understand it better if you had children. Anyone who could look on his innocent babies while muttering “Roll on, the Apocalypse!” would be a most unnatural parent. No one in his right mind would dream of total social collapse as the ideal future for his children. Honestly, there are times when I feel sad that I no longer believe prayer changes things–when I hear of people who are sick, sad, out of a job, in need of comfort–but then, when I see some of the things that Christians pray for, I feel very happy to recall that wishing doesn’t make it so. Fer cryin’ out loud, people, if you’re going to wish, why not wish for something that won’t involve the deaths of billions and the abject suffering of billions more? This seems crazy to me.

sigaliris, thanks and I’m glad to help.
recaptcha: 27-yeard-old agility

Tumarion,
I looked at the website you linked to. It’s complete rubbish. I have no use or interest in non-libertarian philosophy.
The rest of you,
I don’t agree with Wendell Berry. I think the man is completely wrong. If you want to live the life he promotes, that is your choice and I respect that. I chose to live differently and that is my choice. I have as much right to live my choices as you do yours.
To strip us of our limitations and of any objective values and purpose outside ourselves, is also to strip our lives of meaning. If freedom means simply doing whatever we want, then we are no longer able to say that one choice is better than another, and so it removes all POINT to our lives.
Values, purpose, and meaning in life. These are so personal to me that it is incomprehensible to allow one’s life to be ruled by external definitions for these. By subscribing to purpose outside one’s own life is to march in someone else’s parade. I don’t march in anyone else’s parade.
Eg. he was in favour of redistributionist taxation, to reduce the inequality of outcome as well as opportunity.
This is just robbing Peter to pay Paul. It does not work and has never worked. All it does is destroy opportunity. You need to increase opportunity and wealth creation to reduce poverty.
What I don’t understand is your failure to understand that a growing economy is necessary for you to live your crunchy con SWPL alternative life styles that you are into. The more money their is in the system, the more money that flows out to the margins and allows people like yourself to live the alternative life style that you want.
There was a guy on Roosh V’s blog that pointed this out perfectly. He was from Latin America who came to the U.S. He was a free-lance writer during the week and DJ’ed in nightclubs on weekends. He made the comment that, although this keeping up with the Jones’s materialism is irritating (believe it or not, I agree with this), that the wealth culture of the U.S. allows him to live on his own in a apartment. He said that back home in Latin America, his preferred life style would not make him enough money, making it necessary for him to live with his parents. So, even if you reject the materialistic life style, you still benefit from its existence because it provides the economic base for you to go out on your own and live your own life styles.
I like my cosmopolitan life style. I like travel (both business and pleasure) and I like business. Why should I give up my chosen life, just to accommodate your worldview? The kind of small town, non-travel life style that you guys think is so great would drive me nuts! I would literally be out of my mind with boredom is I tried to live this kind of life.
What’s irritating about you guys and everyone else in the political/philosophical milieu is this notion that there is a single, correct life style and worldview and that anyone who does something different is bad and evil. The liberal-left is full of this mentality and so are all of the flavors of social conservative, including you guys.
I don’t want to live your life and I certainly want nothing to do with organized religion. These things just don’t for me. If I express anger in these forums, it is as response to this mentality that everyone must choose and live like you. I refuse to do this. What is wrong with a world where everyone minds their own business and gets on with living their own life? This is the best of all worlds and the one I prefer.
I’m not going to change my personal life style choices or philosophical worldview. People like me are not about to become like you. GET OVER IT!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/18/science/18tier.html
I’ve been thinking that writers are, as a rule, the apologists of the parasite classes. Some people specialize in creating wealth, others in taking credit for it.

The REAL culture war.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/21/AR2010052101854.html?sid=ST2010052103072

Great another reason for me to consider Arthur C. Brooks a quack besides his “who really cares” research.