Genetic engineering ?

JohnRoth wrote:
There was. 600 SD second wave being assembled for Raging Justice. There's no current textev about what it's going to be used for now that the 400 SD first wave got sent to the breakers.

The Manticoran (rather GA) force at Beowulf is deliberately out-system. That was a political decision to avoid the appearance of coercion during the plebiscite.

And are the mandarins insane enough to believe there would be a different outcome? One bad loss can be covered up, even if badly. A second one would probably lead to a revolt.

Based on what we know from Battle of Manticore, millions of naval personnel died at Manticore. Doing it again would really bring opposition.

Also, in most armies and navies, the first strike is made up of the best ships and personnel. The second state for Raging Justice was more for the takeover after the first wave ruined the Mantie navy.

Sending second rate ships would not be a good move.

The plebiscite has been held. There were no direct attacks. The GA is giving Beowulf Keyhold and Moriarty. Beowulf can produce a real lot of the missiles itself.

I think the nasty attack will take place somewhere else.

After all, if there was an Eridani incident, it could open up key Solarian planets to the same thing.

Did I miss something? The Beowulf referendum was going to be held, but I thought that was still futurewards.

ldwechsler wrote:

JohnRoth wrote:
There was. 600 SD second wave being assembled for Raging Justice. There's no current textev about what it's going to be used for now that the 400 SD first wave got sent to the breakers.

The Manticoran (rather GA) force at Beowulf is deliberately out-system. That was a political decision to avoid the appearance of coercion during the plebiscite.

And are the mandarins insane enough to believe there would be a different outcome? One bad loss can be covered up, even if badly. A second one would probably lead to a revolt.

Based on what we know from Battle of Manticore, millions of naval personnel died at Manticore. Doing it again would really bring opposition.

Also, in most armies and navies, the first strike is made up of the best ships and personnel. The second state for Raging Justice was more for the takeover after the first wave ruined the Mantie navy.

Sending second rate ships would not be a good move.

The plebiscite has been held. There were no direct attacks. The GA is giving Beowulf Keyhold and Moriarty. Beowulf can produce a real lot of the missiles itself.

I think the nasty attack will take place somewhere else.

After all, if there was an Eridani incident, it could open up key Solarian planets to the same thing.

phillies wrote:Did I miss something? The Beowulf referendum was going to be held, but I thought that was still futurewards.

A Rising Thunder and Shadow of Victory advanced the timeline past the scheduled plebiscite -- just barely. There have been no hints or clues in textev as to the result or any damage or destruction. The POV characters have generally been far enough from Beowulf that communications lag would keep them uninformed.

Weird Harold wrote:

phillies wrote:Did I miss something? The Beowulf referendum was going to be held, but I thought that was still futurewards.

A Rising Thunder and Shadow of Victory advanced the timeline past the scheduled plebiscite -- just barely. There have been no hints or clues in textev as to the result or any damage or destruction. The POV characters have generally been far enough from Beowulf that communications lag would keep them uninformed.

I also didn't give either outcome or immediate developments either in the Beowulf System or anywhere elce as reflecting the outcome of the referendum. We don't know, we only have RFC's mention of the 10 million casualties but no detail, not where or how.

Or indeed, why, or when.

To get back on topic:

Genetics has existed as a field for a bit over a century and we have moved from doing math problems on sweet peas and fruit flies to picking apart the human genome.

We have only in the last few years gotten the tool, CRISPR, to do editing. And yet there is already one genetic treatment being tested to cure a rare fatal disease.

A hundred years from now most of the diseases will not only be curable but probably erased from the genome.

The tricky part comes from deciding what is a "good" change from a "bad one. Blocking a disease is easy. How about stopping dwarfism?

Right now some deaf people (I hate the term hearing impaired. I am impaired being deaf in one ear but that is not the same as not being able to hear at all) are fighting treatments to allow people to hear. They are concerned about the destruction of their culture. So where do we go?

Would making short people taller be considered OK? Tall people are more easily accepted as leaders. How about blocking genes that promote obesity? If we can change some body shaping, how much is OK?

A lot of people like blue eyes. Would changing color be OK? After all, there are colored contact lenses.

And what about intelligence? Blocking things that limit intelligence are probably OK but that creates a tricky line. What is changing one gene could be the difference between an IQ of 100 and 120? (And please let's not debate IQ tests; I'm using the measurements as a marker between absolute average and above average).

What if by changing a few genes, perhaps taking them from some genius, you can push the IQ to 180? Is that OK?

Is improving looks a survival trait? Since we already have all sorts of procedures for improving looks with surgery, etc., would it be OK to program it in genetically?

There are a lot of details like that and the devil is in the details.

That's why the whole Beowulf Code is tricky. It is supposedly hundreds of years old and there probably have been thousands of what the originators would have considered violations.

Most of what's really going on is a power struggle and a public relations campaign.

ldwechsler wrote:To get back on topic:

Genetics has existed as a field for a bit over a century and we have moved from doing math problems on sweet peas and fruit flies to picking apart the human genome.

We have only in the last few years gotten the tool, CRISPR, to do editing. And yet there is already one genetic treatment being tested to cure a rare fatal disease.

A nit: we've had several methods of making genome changes before CRISPR; they just weren't as easy to use. Zinc finger nucleases come to mind. These techniques were in routine use to provide, for example, tailored lab mice.

ldwechsler wrote:A hundred years from now most of the diseases will not only be curable but probably erased from the genome.

The tricky part comes from deciding what is a "good" change from a "bad one. Blocking a disease is easy. How about stopping dwarfism?

Right now some deaf people (I hate the term hearing impaired. I am impaired being deaf in one ear but that is not the same as not being able to hear at all) are fighting treatments to allow people to hear. They are concerned about the destruction of their culture. So where do we go?

Would making short people taller be considered OK? Tall people are more easily accepted as leaders. How about blocking genes that promote obesity? If we can change some body shaping, how much is OK?

A lot of people like blue eyes. Would changing color be OK? After all, there are colored contact lenses.

And what about intelligence? Blocking things that limit intelligence are probably OK but that creates a tricky line. What is changing one gene could be the difference between an IQ of 100 and 120? (And please let's not debate IQ tests; I'm using the measurements as a marker between absolute average and above average).

What if by changing a few genes, perhaps taking them from some genius, you can push the IQ to 180? Is that OK?

Is improving looks a survival trait? Since we already have all sorts of procedures for improving looks with surgery, etc., would it be OK to program it in genetically?

There are a lot of details like that and the devil is in the details.

That's why the whole Beowulf Code is tricky. It is supposedly hundreds of years old and there probably have been thousands of what the originators would have considered violations.

Most of what's really going on is a power struggle and a public relations campaign.

None of this is relevant to the Beowulf Code. What it prohibits is the introduction of non-human DNA into the human genome and the creation of genetic supermen. You can get just about anything you want as long as it exists somewhere in someone's genome.

As far as I'm concerned, the first restriction basically smacks of essentialism - that is, that there's essence of cat in the cat genome that's different from the essence of human in the human genome. If you tried to advance that notion seriously you'd have every geneticist in the room rolling on the floor laughing.

RFC gives two examples of prohibited changes. The first is the woman with blue hair who shows up on the "Into the Fire" show. The second is the medic on the Charles Ward who has cat features. Both of them are from Mesan genetic slaves.

There's a lengthy discussion of the Beowulf Code and speculation about the Mesan Alignment's motivation somewhere, but I didn't note it at the time and I can't find it now.

ldwechsler wrote:To get back on topic:

snip...

Would making short people taller be considered OK? Tall people are more easily accepted as leaders. How about blocking genes that promote obesity? If we can change some body shaping, how much is OK?

...snip

I'm all for making people smaller, small people need less space and fewer resources, (clothes need less materials, houses & apartments need less headroom, all forms of transport can be smaller (or carry more passengers for the same size), all of which would have a lower impact on our one and only planet.

Yes, short people tend to be overlooked, (especially in our present bigger is better society) but there is a long history of small people being famous leaders or contributing to society in all sorts of ways.

JohnRoth wrote:

ldwechsler wrote:To get back on topic:

Genetics has existed as a field for a bit over a century and we have moved from doing math problems on sweet peas and fruit flies to picking apart the human genome.

We have only in the last few years gotten the tool, CRISPR, to do editing. And yet there is already one genetic treatment being tested to cure a rare fatal disease.

A nit: we've had several methods of making genome changes before CRISPR; they just weren't as easy to use. Zinc finger nucleases come to mind. These techniques were in routine use to provide, for example, tailored lab mice.

ldwechsler wrote:A hundred years from now most of the diseases will not only be curable but probably erased from the genome.

The tricky part comes from deciding what is a "good" change from a "bad one. Blocking a disease is easy. How about stopping dwarfism?

Right now some deaf people (I hate the term hearing impaired. I am impaired being deaf in one ear but that is not the same as not being able to hear at all) are fighting treatments to allow people to hear. They are concerned about the destruction of their culture. So where do we go?

Would making short people taller be considered OK? Tall people are more easily accepted as leaders. How about blocking genes that promote obesity? If we can change some body shaping, how much is OK?

A lot of people like blue eyes. Would changing color be OK? After all, there are colored contact lenses.

And what about intelligence? Blocking things that limit intelligence are probably OK but that creates a tricky line. What is changing one gene could be the difference between an IQ of 100 and 120? (And please let's not debate IQ tests; I'm using the measurements as a marker between absolute average and above average).

What if by changing a few genes, perhaps taking them from some genius, you can push the IQ to 180? Is that OK?

Is improving looks a survival trait? Since we already have all sorts of procedures for improving looks with surgery, etc., would it be OK to program it in genetically?

There are a lot of details like that and the devil is in the details.

That's why the whole Beowulf Code is tricky. It is supposedly hundreds of years old and there probably have been thousands of what the originators would have considered violations.

Most of what's really going on is a power struggle and a public relations campaign.

None of this is relevant to the Beowulf Code. What it prohibits is the introduction of non-human DNA into the human genome and the creation of genetic supermen. You can get just about anything you want as long as it exists somewhere in someone's genome.

As far as I'm concerned, the first restriction basically smacks of essentialism - that is, that there's essence of cat in the cat genome that's different from the essence of human in the human genome. If you tried to advance that notion seriously you'd have every geneticist in the room rolling on the floor laughing.

RFC gives two examples of prohibited changes. The first is the woman with blue hair who shows up on the "Into the Fire" show. The second is the medic on the Charles Ward who has cat features. Both of them are from Mesan genetic slaves.

There's a lengthy discussion of the Beowulf Code and speculation about the Mesan Alignment's motivation somewhere, but I didn't note it at the time and I can't find it now.

The Beowulf Code is more of a poorly defined guideline, than a rule that can be rigorously applied. You (probably) can't just find a gene for "cat features" and drop in in the human genome and get some macroscopic "cat features". You could probably drop the gene for cat L-gulonolactone Oxidase in and get that to work just fine.

However, you could also probably splice together a L-gulonolactone oxidase gene from bits of existing human genome.

ldwechsler wrote:To get back on topic:


Right now some deaf people (I hate the term hearing impaired. I am impaired being deaf in one ear but that is not the same as not being able to hear at all) are fighting treatments to allow people to hear. They are concerned about the destruction of their culture. So where do we go?

And therein lies part of the problem- the "culture"- or at least the perception of a culture within and without groups of people who define themselves (or others) based on those perceptions.

How many things can you think of that end up creating a sense of culture in humans? Blindness (either "natural" by some imparment a person is born with or inflicted by illness or trauma), deafness (same range), shortness, height, skin color, language, religious beliefs (or lack of) political beliefs, special skill sets- mechanical, mental etc mostly learned over time, paticipation in some activity, membership in a class or cast. The list goes on and on.

What is "bad"? What is good? The example of short (not dwarf but it was specificaly said "short") is only one position of why something is beneficial to humans- from a very specific point of view and I suggest it could reflect a sincere belief that the outliend conservation of resources by having people all "short"---or its just a point for argument.

You do realize that there are entire industries and belief systems built on making something out of others being different and there is a long history of violence being associated with both making a given difference important for some people or the being who are having things done to them or inflicted upon the for being different to break out of that situation? Race comes to mind. So does religion.

Should we pursue things like genetic changes that would eliminate things now considered congential birth defects? How about hair color. We don't really know. If we can change genetics does it have to be at the conception or pre-conception level or can you, eventualy, insert a change into a child or an adult that will correct some preceived error in their physiology?
Is that even possible without killing the individual? At our present level of understanding we do know that there are hundreds if not thousands of interactions between genes which do things to and for our bodies. It's not just snip this, substitute that, inject X into Y and you get B. It appears that genes turn on or off for affecting things at different stages of development and it is way more subtile than one tiny portion of the genetics of an individual- acting alone- does one (and only one) thing......except that there seem to be a lot of things that if you play with them will just kill you and we really have no idea what all of them are. That certainly exists for the early development of an embryo, I'm guessing that holds on a more differentiated bases for a child or adult.

The other question is who gets to decide what should be done. Politics, religion, personal power, "because we can"? The book Jurassic Park is one take on this question. The Alignment in the Honorverse is another. That is the problem, even if we can, should we and who gets to decide that they are going to do it and for what reasons and how do you keep others from doing things like creating the SuperSoldiers of the Final War or eliminating certain Undesirable traits or features from the human genome.

Way beyond my pay grade but I'm sure that there are a lot of people now out in the real world who would grab the chance to impose thier vision of humanity (and of course their personal status in the vision) on the rest of us.