Detweiler Vision vs Beowulf Code: "Right" and "Wrong"

Getting back on course my impetus in starting this thread stemmed from some interesting parts of ToF. Jack McBryde has some late-night musings that impinge directly on the subject of this thread that I found thought-provoking.

The first:

It wasn't the first time his thoughts had strayed in that direction, he realized slowly as he recalled past doubts about the wisdom of the Long-Range Planning Board's master plan, its drive to master the intricacies, shape the best instruments for the attainment of humanity's destiny.

Where did we change course? he wondered. When did we shift from the maximizing of every individual into producing neat little bricks for a carefully designed edifice? What would Leonard Detweiler think if he were here today, looking at the Board's decisions? Would he have thrown away a little girl whose father loved her so desperately? Would he have rejected Herlander's offer to shoulder the full financial burden of caring for her? And, if he would have, what does that say about where we've been from the very beginning?

And:

Is this really what we're all about? About having the Board make those decisions for all of us in its infinite wisdom? What happens if it decides it doesn't need any random variations any more? What happens if the only children it permits are the ones which have been specifically designed for its star genomes?

Lastly:

Hypocrite, he thought. You're a effing hypocrite, Jack. You've known—known for forty years—that that's exactly what the Board has in mind for all those "normals" out there. Of course, you didn't think about it that way, did you? No, you thought about how much good it was going to do. How their children, and their grandchildren and their great-grandchildren would thank you for allowing them to share in the benefits of the systematic improvement of the species. Sure, you knew a lot of people would be unhappy, that they wouldn't voluntarily surrender their children's futures to someone else, but that was stupid of them, wasn't it? It was only because they'd been brainwashed by those bastards on Beowulf. Because they were automatically prejudiced against anything carrying the "genie" stigma. Because they were ignorant, unthinking normals, not an alpha line like you.

But now—now that you see it happening to someone else who's also an alpha line. When you see it happening to Herlander, and you realize it could have happened to your parents, or to your brother, or your sisters . . . or some day to you. Now you suddenly discover you have doubts.

Continuing with the thread from my previous post here are some more McBryde musings:

Lastly:

McBryde kept mercilessly examining what the Alignment had become. Deep at the heart of him, he knew, he was still committed to the Detweiler vision he'd assimilated as a youngster. He still believed the galaxy-wide rejection of the notion of genetically uplifting the entire human race to become all that it could have been was deeply, fundamentally, and tragically wrong. It rejected so much, turned its back on so many possibilities, doomed so many people to be so much less than they might have been. He believed that, with every fiber of his being.

But, he admitted to himself now, letting himself truly face it for the first time, what you don't believe anymore is that we have the right to force those who disagree with us to submit to our vision of their future. That's too much for you now, isn't it, Jack?

And here he offers some interesting alternatives to what the Alignment could have done if they were truly committed to the ideals they say they are:

There's right, and there's wrong, and there's the choice between them, and that's part of the human race's heritage, too. And it's about the fact that if we're really right—if Leonard Detweiler was really right—about how the entire species can choose to improve and uplift itself, then why haven't we committed even a fraction of the resources we've committed to building the Alignment to convincing the rest of the galaxy of that? Maybe it wouldn't have been easy, especially after the Final War. And maybe it would have taken generations, centuries, to make any progress. But the Alignment's already invested all of those generations and all of those centuries in our grand and glorious vision . . . and it had abandoned the idea of convincing other people we were right in favor of killing however many of them it took to make them admit we were right almost before Leonard Detweiler's brain function ceased. For that matter, the way we've embraced and used Manpower and genetic slavery has actually contributed to the prejudice against "genies," damn it!

And here is where I believe McBryde hits the nail right on the head concerning how the nobility of the Detweiler vision got corrupted...

The arrogance of fanaticism. Of the ability—of the willingness, even the eagerness—to prove to the rest of humanity that Detweiler had been right. To rub the rest of the galaxy's nose in the fact that, as Leonard Detweiler's descendents, they were right, too . . . and that everyone else was still wrong.

That in their own persons they already represented that better, more capable human being, which was proof of their own superiority and their own right to dictate humanity's future to every other poor, benighted, inferior "normal" in the universe. That they'd been right—had the right—to actually expand the genetic slave trade and all of the human misery it entailed not for profit, but simply as a cover, a distracting shield for the high and noble purpose which justified any means to which they might resort.

And to create, evaluate, and "cull" however many little girls had to be thrown away to accomplish that glorious purpose.

Back on theme, ummm ... what was the question again?

amaroq wrote:So I wanted to toss these questions out there: is Mesa's ultimate intention more beneficial than it seems? Is Beowulf's strict stance on human genetic modification too restrictive?

We don't know how the Detweiler vision would turn out, but it's bone chilling to me. The fanaticism and willingness to embrace slavery as a means to their end suggests that however they begin their empire, it would likely end up very very ugly for anyone not of their top level manufacture.

The second question seems like the converse of the first. Is the Beowulf Life Sciences Code overly limiting? Jack McBryde seemed to think there was quite a bit of room between the two limits. I'm not a bioethicist, and I certainly don't know enough about what the Code does or does not prohibit. This is the more interesting question to me, although I suspect it's been discussed in depth somewhere.

Dca wrote:Back on theme, ummm ... what was the question again?

amaroq wrote:So I wanted to toss these questions out there: is Mesa's ultimate intention more beneficial than it seems? Is Beowulf's strict stance on human genetic modification too restrictive?

We don't know how the Detweiler vision would turn out, but it's bone chilling to me. The fanaticism and willingness to embrace slavery as a means to their end suggests that however they begin their empire, it would likely end up very very ugly for anyone not of their top level manufacture.

The second question seems like the converse of the first. Is the Beowulf Life Sciences Code overly limiting? Jack McBryde seemed to think there was quite a bit of room between the two limits. I'm not a bioethicist, and I certainly don't know enough about what the Code does or does not prohibit. This is the more interesting question to me, although I suspect it's been discussed in depth somewhere.

To be fair, when Leonard Detweiler first established Mesa and renamed his organization Manpower, Inc., the genies produced were indentured servants who worked on Mesa, and became free after a set number of years. Permanent slavery didn't start until later. I won't call it a good life, or an ethical decision, but there is no evidence that Leonard Detweiler intended the genetic slavery trade as it exists now in the Honorverse.

Okay, I’ve probably said a lot of this (if not most of it) someplace else at another time. However:

The Beowulf code does not preclude “genetic uplift.” When a Beowulfan geneticist says that he will “work right up to the limit” of the basic genetic material, what this specifically means is that he will not introduce nonhuman or synthetic genetic material and that he eschews any deliberate effort to produce Homo superior. He doesn’t object to producing people like Honor (who have inherent superior qualities) in order to colonize a planet to which humanity 1.0 is ill adapted, nor does he have a problem with the qualities injected into that individual being added to the gene pool in general. In that instance, however, he is working on a set of genetic modifications, using only human genetic material, to meet a specific environmental challenge. He isn’t setting up a standard, a pattern, a scorecard, whatever you want to call it, which defines a deliberately designed superior being; he’s modifying the basic human genotype into the baseline genotype suited to the environment in which the possessors of that genotype will live.


The Beowulf code is entirely prepared for genetic modification to deal with recognized disease states, and within the limits of the donor genetic material which is combined to create a human being, the Beowulf code is prepared to allow the parents to mitigate what they — the parents — see as undesirable characteristics and to enhance what they — the parents — see as desirable characteristics. There are some mods that a Beowulfan geneticist would not be prepared to perform, whatever the parents desired, however. For example, Beowulf’s experience with the consequences of enhancing human intelligence has indicated that beyond a certain point, the negative personal and societal consequences rapidly begin exceeding the positive ones. Both the Meyerdahl and the Wynton genetic mods included a sort of general intelligence enhancement, but not something that was designed to produce cognitive geniuses or idiot savants. It was, if you will, a generalist enhancement, which still carries what some people would argue are some potentially hefty negative consequences. What happened with Francesca Simoes is an example of the sort of direct, immediate, severely negative consequences Beowulf is unprepared to risk in the pursuit of greater — or more "targeted" — intellectual improvement. There are are bunches and bunches of less immediately negative consequences which have been well documented, not simply on Beowulf but in other places in the galaxy’s medical literature. The Alignment is prepared to accept those negative consequences in order to enhance specific desired consequences, and to cull dramatic failures (like Francesca) or entire lines (as almost happened to the Bardasano line) if it proves less than satisfactory or dangerously unreliable (to the Alignment and its purposes). At the same time, the Alignment is prepared to tolerate highly negative consequences — like a taste for sadism slaked using genetic slaves — if that seems advantageous to its purposes. This means, on the one hand, that the Alignment is prepared to “throw away” its mistakes, whereas Beowulf argues that medical ethics preclude the pursuit of a desired outcome at the likely cost of being compelled to decide to cull an individual or an entire line of individuals. On the other hand, the Alignment is prepared to build in negatives in order to achieve positives (as defined by the Alignment), which reminds Beowulf all to clearly of the Asian super soldiers of the Final War.

Beowulf is quite prepared for all of the various genetically enhanced genotypes running around the Galaxy to . . . cross pollinate, let’s say, and if you asked a Beowulfan geneticist what he/she thought the ultimate outcome of that would be, he or she would probably respond “a superior human being.” That individual would not have been designed intentionally to be a superior human being, and he would be an individual, not an entire population of Homo superior which would eventually supplant everyone else. Perhaps the best way to parse the difference between the Beowulfan and Alignment viewpoints is that Beowulfers are focused on the individual, whereas the Alignment is ruthlessly collective, arguing that the good of the species always trumps the good of the individual. This colors virtually everything about the two societies involved. Beowulfers are individualists, supporters of meritocracy, and yet believers in the complete legal and moral equality of all sentient beings (not simply humans) despite even quantifiable differences in their capabilities. The Alignment is collectivist, supports meritocracy as defined by the Alignment, and believes in a legal and moral system which gives superior rights to those of quantifiably superior genetic ability. The Alignment not only sees nothing wrong with the reemergence of a genetically-based racism; it sees the emergence of an openly genetically racist society as inevitable. True, the Alignment would argue that ultimately all humanity would be raised to the level of the Alpha lines, at which point the overtly racist system favoring the Alphas over any other lines would inevitably wither away. If you will recall, however, Marxism envisioned the withering away of the state once the vanguard of the proletariat had accomplished a fundamental shift in human nature and produced the true socialist man. Beowulfers, probably because they are accustomed to thinking of the individual as trumping the collective, rather than the reverse, would have exactly zero faith in the “withering away” of the Alignment’s genetically-based hierarchy.

Now, it can legitimately be argued that Beowulf, in eschewing a program of direct, explicit, targeted improvement of the human baseline turned its back on the potential to improve the human race as a species. That was, in fact, Leonard Detweiler’s position. And, for those of you who have asked, Leonard Detweiler probably would’ve been horrified by the Alignment’s current strategies and policies. Detweiler never envisioned the horrendous dehumanization of genetic slaves. In fact, he never specifically referred to them as “slaves” at all. Don’t get me wrong — for his time, and considering the culture from which he sprang, he was an incredibly ruthless bastard, perfectly prepared to create thousands or even millions of human beings who would be second-class citizens. He had, however, almost a patriarchal perspective on the genetic “indentured servants” he created, and the Mesa constitution’s provision for manumission of genetic slaves was inserted at his insistence. Moreover, he regarded the creation of the “indentured servants” as a priceless opportunity to incorporate superior characteristics into them and (through them, in the fullness of time) into all the rest of the human race. They were to be his laboratory, in which individually valuable genetic traits would be developed, enhanced, and conserved in the process of solving individual specific needs. In a sense, this was the same logic as the Beowulf code’s willingness to modify colonists to better suit them to their new planetary environments except that by commercializing the process on a large-scale basis, Detweiler was creating a far larger experimental population with a view towards eventually combining all of those individually engineered traits into a single genetically superior species. As part of his mindset, emancipated “indentured servants” were never supposed to become Seccies. Once they were emancipated, they were supposed to have the vote, to see their children fully integrated into Mesan society, etc. To be honest, that was probably the least realistic of his several unrealistic assumptions of what was possible, but it was fundamental to his own thinking and the moral system which justified everything else he was prepared to do.

After his death, the “Detweiler vision” was corrupted, as generally happens in a closed society which sees itself as a threatened/visionary minority surrounded by hostility and threats to its noble purpose. Moderation is normally the first casualty of that sort of environment, and paranoia and megalomania while not necessarily inevitable are certainly likely. Driven underground, confronted by Beowulf’s savage denunciation of genetic slavery (and Beowulf was the first to insist upon that term instead of “indentured servant”) and (in what became the Alignment’s opinion) vilified for simply desiring to improve all humans, the Alignment’s leadership started its gradual but steadily steeper slide into what it has become by Honor Alexander-Harrington’s day. The Alignment continues to see genetic slaves as a vast, readily available laboratory which can supply any desired number of test subjects. In the process (exactly as Beowulf argued would happen) the Alignment has so dehumanized genetic slaves that it never even occurs to its leadership to question what is routinely done to them. Indeed, to a point at which genetic slavery’s advantages as a way to corrupt and ensnare potentially valuable tools and as a mask or façade concealing covert Alignment operations and attracting any suspicious eye to the outward monster and away from the inward one, totally outweighs any moral compunction they might feel for what they have done to millions upon millions of human beings over the centuries.

If you asked members of the Alignment why this has happened — and if the member you asked was capable of recognizing the Alignment’s policies in this regard as an evil — the majority response would be that it is a direct consequence of Beowulf’s genetic Luddites' bigotry and fundamentalist unwillingness to recognize that genetic uplift — targeted genetic uplift — is the inevitable wave of the future. Those members of the Alignment will cling to that view with the same sort of fanaticism that prevented many a Marxist from recognizing the difference between Marxism and Stalinism, and they will justify the Alignment’s many excesses and atrocities in exactly the same way a Stalinist justified Stalin’s excesses and atrocities in the name of defending the Marxist revolution. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t members of the Alignment who, faced with something like a Francesca and Herlander Simões, wouldn’t turn out to be additional Jack McBrydes. It means that the initial vision of Leonard Detweiler has been not simply corrupted but institutionalized as a conspiratorial, revolutionary organization which measures the moral acceptability of any given act or strategy solely in terms of whether or not it believes that act or strategy advances the achievement of its “noble” goal.

Since I’ve already wandered somewhat afield from the topic I originally set out to discuss, I should also point out that Albrecht Detweiler and his sons are not clones of Leonard Detweiler. They are, in effect, the current generation of the steadily improved Detweiler genotype. Remember we’re talking about a prolong society here, and the actual age difference between Albrecht and Benjamin isn’t very great for that sort of society. Nor are the offspring of the Detweiler “sons” genetic duplicates of their parents. Albrecht was cloned, frankly, because by all of the tests the Alignment could apply, he was going to be an incredibly capable generalist and leader and the Long-Range Planning Board decided that given how far into the endgame of the Alignment’s strategy they were, it made a great deal of sense to provide an entire cohort of equally capable leaders to whom Albrecht could delegate areas of responsibility.

To get back to the topic I originally set out to discuss, I think that a great many people are seeing Beowulf and its code as overly parochial and uncategorically opposed to “pushing the envelope” on the improvement of humanity. Because of the human race’s experiences in the Final War, and because Beowulf has not forgotten humanity’s long history of prejudice, and because of Beowulf’s genetic level (you should pardon the phrase) devotion to the worth and inherent value of the individual, the Beowulf code is prepared to improve humanity one human at a time but unalterably opposed to creating some sort of template for what constitutes improvement and driving towards it on a species-wide basis. Beowulfan society (as it is structured in my own mind) is not anti-religion, although the percentage of people who believe in God (or a god) is certainly lower than it is in, say, the United States of 2014. To the extent to which Beowulf might be said to have a “state religion,” however, that religion would be the belief that human beings are incredibly complex systems and that anyone who believes that he can impose a single “superior” set of traits upon the human race is automatically limiting the height which the human race can attain. A Beowulfan geneticist would argue that however thoroughly a gene map may be plotted, the combinations and permutations inherent within the material are too complex, too chaotic, and too ultimately unbridled and unlimited for anyone’s understanding of all the possibilities to drive towards the one, best goal. No doubt much of that is philosophical, at least as much as “scientific,” but ultimately (in Beowulf’s view . . . and my own), philosophy, morality, and (yes, in my own case) religion are the basis upon which the possibilities of science must be assessed. Nuclear fusion happens constantly in nature; whether we want it falling out of the belly of a B-2 bomber is a philosophical and moral decision.

Ultimately, I’m fairly sympathetic to the Leonard Detweiler view of the possibilities and value of deliberate, targeted genetic “improvement” on the baseline Version 1.0 of humanity. What they’ve accomplished in their own Alpha and Beta lines demonstrates the potential for improving the human genotype. So do Honor Alexander-Harrington, Benjamin Mayhew, Yana Tretiakovna, and a gentleman named Jeremy X. However, despite any sympathy I may feel for Leonard’s original view and objectives for improving humanity’s DNA, I find Beowulf’s more limited view of what is acceptable far more likely to preserve humanity’s humanity.

It’s not my intention to paint the Alignment — or any of its individual members — as cardboard cutout, mustache-twirling Agents of Evil. I think they are agents of evil, but it isn’t because they have knowingly and willingly embraced evil. It’s because they are so consumed by their purpose that they are unable to recognize evil actions when they are the very ones committing them.

Your viewpoint, of course, may be quite different than my own. I’ve simply attempted to lay out the way in which I see and understand what is happening in the conflict between these two fundamentally and profoundly opposed viewpoints.

Thanks, that is very helpful.

runsforcelery wrote:...

Ultimately, I’m fairly sympathetic to the Leonard Detweiler view of the possibilities and value of deliberate, targeted genetic “improvement” on the baseline Version 1.0 of humanity. What they’ve accomplished in their own Alpha and Beta lines demonstrates the potential for improving the human genotype. So do Honor Alexander-Harrington, Benjamin Mayhew, Yana Tretiakovna, and a gentleman named Jeremy X. However, despite any sympathy I may feel for Leonard’s original view and objectives for improving humanity’s DNA, I find Beowulf’s more limited view of what is acceptable far more likely to preserve humanity’s humanity...

We see some of this in farming practices. Consciously selected and even consciously built plant strains can be very, very useful. But it is CLEARLY a mistake to think that we can consciously design the "best" corn and therefore can afford to get rid of all the other varieties of corn for the simple reason our consciousness cannot foresee every needed genetic contingency. Not even in principle in any area where chaotic processes enter in--i.e., most of Nature from time to time.

And by focusing on selected monocultures--even fairly large numbers of selected monocultures (though the textev is that there are not huge numbers of lines)--we limit, not expand, possibilities. We can only consciously design highly useful corn for a particular environment and when that environment changes, monocultures can get into extreme trouble because they can compete only in specific ways where Nature has near infinite possibilities for competition.

We are already seeing that side of conscious design from time to time in industrial farming. The Malignment really ought to be aware of this as well but appear to have the hubris to believe they can get out ahead and stay ahead. They are wrong to my mind. The wider, more flexible genetic community (e.g., "weeds"!) will almost always win out over the more limited monocultured "superlines" over time regardless unless killed off. Which is probably one reason the Malignment appears to have exactly that in mind as an integral part of their strategy. But consider how much of the time, energy, and resources in farming are devoted to killing off the competition. It's a never-ending task and in the end only applies to limited areas of the biosphere. That is what the Malignment is setting themselves up for. And any area they cannot directly and completely hold always goes right back to the weeds. Us!

Weeds (and us) are genetically really, really resistant to being put down and hold out in the strangest of places waiting their time. They'll even incorporate parts of the "built" genetic material into themselves to their own advantage (Roundup-ready genes are being found in weeds already, for example http://www.nature.com/news/genetically- ... ds-1.13517).

Beowulf has it more right than wrong. Expanding possibilities rather than limiting them is ultimately the superior genetic model simply because Nature is so incredibly vast and offers so incredibly many varieties of competition. In an interstellar human universe this is magnified at least exponentially.

Oh, and I haven't even mentioned parasitism and predation! These open up interesting additional possibilities for story lines!

Sticking stubbornly to the topic ...

amaroq wrote:So I wanted to toss these questions out there: is Mesa's ultimate intention more beneficial than it seems? Is Beowulf's strict stance on human genetic modification too restrictive?

Amaroq's first question is too vague, there is no single Mesan perspective.

runsforcelery wrote:Ultimately, I’m fairly sympathetic to the Leonard Detweiler view of the possibilities and value of deliberate, targeted genetic “improvement” on the baseline Version 1.0 of humanity. What they’ve accomplished in their own Alpha and Beta lines demonstrates the potential for improving the human genotype. So do Honor Alexander-Harrington, Benjamin Mayhew, Yana Tretiakovna, and a gentleman named Jeremy X. However, despite any sympathy I may feel for Leonard’s original view and objectives for improving humanity’s DNA, I find Beowulf’s more limited view of what is acceptable far more likely to preserve humanity’s humanity.

This does it for me too. Thank you sir.

The current Mesan perspective is corrupt; Albrecht's is wonderfully scary. It taps into our current-day fears just like the Borg does, or at least it does for me. Technology run amuck dehumanizing us all. What a perfect bogeyman for the storyline, it makes us think about the shades of difference here.

There is a lot of room for messing with the human genome beyond what the Beowulf Code allows and short of an organized attempt to create a super-race with the goal of taking over the known universe. I feel as conflicted about that as I did when I wrote a high-school paper about it lo those many years ago. My conclusion then was that it's inevitable, that somebody would do whatever you could imagine, because you can't enforce the Code universe-wide. That's a plenty slippery slope without adding a genetically improved Hitler to the mix. I desperately hope that we don't end up as monoclones of somebody's vision of the Homo s. 2.0, but I am resigned that someone is going to try.

So my answer to the second is that Beowulf is probably too restrictive, but we don't really know where the boundaries are. So better safe than sorry, except that there's no vote or rules that can be enforced well enough to prevent the inevitable. If we're lucky, we'll get off lightly, with the traditional genetic random mutations turned up to eleven.

Dca wrote:Sticking stubbornly to the topic ...
...


The current Mesan perspective is corrupt; Albrecht's is wonderfully scary. It taps into our current-day fears just like the Borg does, or at least it does for me. Technology run amuck dehumanizing us all. What a perfect bogeyman for the storyline, it makes us think about the shades of difference here.

There is a lot of room for messing with the human genome beyond what the Beowulf Code allows and short of an organized attempt to create a super-race with the goal of taking over the known universe. I feel as conflicted about that as I did when I wrote a high-school paper about it lo those many years ago. My conclusion then was that it's inevitable, that somebody would do whatever you could imagine, because you can't enforce the Code universe-wide. That's a plenty slippery slope without adding a genetically improved Hitler to the mix. I desperately hope that we don't end up as monoclones of somebody's vision of the Homo s. 2.0, but I am resigned that someone is going to try.

So my answer to the second is that Beowulf is probably too restrictive, but we don't really know where the boundaries are. So better safe than sorry, except that there's no vote or rules that can be enforced well enough to prevent the inevitable. If we're lucky, we'll get off lightly, with the traditional genetic random mutations turned up to eleven.

If chimps had taken over their evolution after splitting from protohumans and planned a super chimp based on what they knew about themselves, would they have built a chimp capable of out-competing other chimps? Probably. Bigger balls, stronger teeth, and even more aggressive tendencies--things chimps can see right away to be "super" traits might do it fine. Over the short term at least. Even then I have my doubts that they would supplant "wild type" chimps totally. And the wild types would likely be far more flexible in terms of adaptation to change including adapting to this new superchimp.

Of outcompeting humans? Almost certainly not. We are superchimps in ways they would never even see nor imagine.

Right here is the nub of the generalist superhuman fantasy. We can likely build superish-humans along certain lines who can outcompete other humans in certain specific environments. Change the environment and suddenly that superish-human set of traits might well be selected against. Consider a line of Honors as hunter-gatherers on a low gravity, low caloric-production world, for example. Not a likely survival candidate.

runsforcelery wrote:
At the same time, the Alignment is prepared to tolerate highly negative consequences — like a taste for sadism slaked using genetic slaves — if that seems advantageous to its purposes. This means, on the one hand, that the Alignment is prepared to “throw away” its mistakes, whereas Beowulf argues that medical ethics preclude the pursuit of a desired outcome at the likely cost of being compelled to decide to cull an individual or an entire line of individuals. On the other hand, the Alignment is prepared to build in negatives in order to achieve positives (as defined by the Alignment), which reminds Beowulf all to clearly of the Asian super soldiers of the Final War.

It seems like the Alignment is prepared to treat the human animal the same way we treat domestic animals. Humans have selectively bred these animals for centuries in some cases looking to enhance specific characteristics. However, we get negative unintended effects that the animal either has to live with or die from (i.e bulldogs' breathing problems and the fragility of the leg bones in thoroughbred horses). Beowulf is not willing to cross that line with humans while Mesa is (and has).

So, although I do feel there are many possibilities left unexplored due to the restrictions of the Beowulf Code, I would have to say that I'd rather not trade my moral and ethical conscience for a few more percentage points towards maxed potential of the human species. I'll deal with the Code's limitations to ensure that "humanity keeps its humanity" as RFC said.