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> “Some humans would do anything to see if it was possible to do it. If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying 'End-of-the-Worl

> “Some humans would do anything to see if it was possible to do it. If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying 'End-of-the-World Switch. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH', the paint wouldn't even have time to dry.” (Thief of Time - Sir Terry Pratchett). That's a quote that I find myself thinking about at least once or twice a month.

kirubakaran 8y ago
The flip side of that is: "Many were increasingly of the opinion that they'd all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans." - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
hisnameisjimmy 8y ago
Good god that quote is incredible.
- noir_lord 8y ago
  If you've never read Terry Pratchett's books you should check them out. I'd love to be able to read each for the first time again. In a very large part he formed my entire worldview from a comedic series set in a fantasy world (and I don't much like Fantasy as a genre), they are sublime.
  - colecut 8y ago
    Douglas Adams did this for me, but science fiction instead of fantasy
    - noir_lord 8y ago
      Understandable and they are often compared. For me it’s pratchett (strangely because I’m a massive sci-fi fan), his world is deeper, richer and the comedy is a backdrop to his view of the world expressed through fully realised and nuanced characters (while still very funny). I can’t imagine anyone ever building a more fully imagined world than discworld, not least because few authors write 41 novels in their lifetime (that’s just the Discworld - he wrote others, one has omnipotent world builders carefully putting in fossils, one whom gets in trouble for trying to sneak in a fossil holding a sign saying “ban nuclear testing” that was the first of his works I read an 9 year old me thought that was hilarious). I suspect a fan of either would find much to like in the other though :).
hodder 8y ago
This is also why I hypothesize that at least one human clone is likely to exist or have existed. Cloning technology exists, and humans have therefore probably tried it somewhere.
- wcoenen 8y ago
  Cloning primates is difficult because the proteins that guide chromosomes during cell division are not scattered throughout the cell like for other mammals, and this causes problems when the nucleus of an egg cell is replaced[1] Researchers only reported successful cloning of monkeys in January 2018 [2]. (So if cloned humans exist already, they were likely born in the last few months.) [1] https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2003/04/problem-cloning-primates https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2003/04/problem-cloning-prim... [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-01027-z https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-01027-z
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - hodder 8y ago
    Thank you for the links. I had wrongly assumed cloning humans would be pretty much the same as cloning sheep. Quoting the second article: “Technically, there is no barrier to human cloning,” says ION director Mu-Ming Poo, who is a co-author of the study." It would seem extremely likely the quote is applicable now. The paint is drying so to speak.
  - inciampati 8y ago
    That is an interesting issue. However, there is another technique to create cloned mammals that has is used industrially to create non chimeric mice from embryonic stem cell cultures. A donor blastocyst is used as a host. At a particular stage of development, implanting a number of ES cells from the desired clone into the center of the blastocyst induces the donor blastocyst to develop into the placenta, while the ES cells continue development as the fetus. This allows for engineering of the ES cells independently, without failure prone nuclear transfer. It would be interesting to know if this would work in primates. It may be difficult to maintain the ES cell cultures. It might also be riskier in some sense. I'm curious what others know about this.
camjohnson26 8y ago
Humans have an inner need to see their actions cause effects, so anything that requires low effort but has an outsized effect is going to be taken advantage of. I think that’s why you see otherwise pointless vandalism and why if you leave an insecure website out in the wild eventually someone will hack it.
aeturnum 8y ago
Made me think of this sketch based on a mediocre sci-fi movie[1] from a while back: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7rzIwrEqpw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7rzIwrEqpw [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Box_(2009_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Box_(2009_film)
781 8y ago
Some people just want to watch the world burn

kirubakaran 8y ago

The flip side of that is: "Many were increasingly of the opinion that they'd all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans." - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

hisnameisjimmy 8y ago

Good god that quote is incredible.

noir_lord 8y ago
If you've never read Terry Pratchett's books you should check them out. I'd love to be able to read each for the first time again. In a very large part he formed my entire worldview from a comedic series set in a fantasy world (and I don't much like Fantasy as a genre), they are sublime.
- colecut 8y ago
  Douglas Adams did this for me, but science fiction instead of fantasy
  - noir_lord 8y ago
    Understandable and they are often compared. For me it’s pratchett (strangely because I’m a massive sci-fi fan), his world is deeper, richer and the comedy is a backdrop to his view of the world expressed through fully realised and nuanced characters (while still very funny). I can’t imagine anyone ever building a more fully imagined world than discworld, not least because few authors write 41 novels in their lifetime (that’s just the Discworld - he wrote others, one has omnipotent world builders carefully putting in fossils, one whom gets in trouble for trying to sneak in a fossil holding a sign saying “ban nuclear testing” that was the first of his works I read an 9 year old me thought that was hilarious). I suspect a fan of either would find much to like in the other though :).

hodder 8y ago

This is also why I hypothesize that at least one human clone is likely to exist or have existed. Cloning technology exists, and humans have therefore probably tried it somewhere.

wcoenen 8y ago
Cloning primates is difficult because the proteins that guide chromosomes during cell division are not scattered throughout the cell like for other mammals, and this causes problems when the nucleus of an egg cell is replaced[1] Researchers only reported successful cloning of monkeys in January 2018 [2]. (So if cloned humans exist already, they were likely born in the last few months.) [1] https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2003/04/problem-cloning-primates https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2003/04/problem-cloning-prim... [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-01027-z https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-01027-z
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- hodder 8y ago
  Thank you for the links. I had wrongly assumed cloning humans would be pretty much the same as cloning sheep. Quoting the second article: “Technically, there is no barrier to human cloning,” says ION director Mu-Ming Poo, who is a co-author of the study." It would seem extremely likely the quote is applicable now. The paint is drying so to speak.
- inciampati 8y ago
  That is an interesting issue. However, there is another technique to create cloned mammals that has is used industrially to create non chimeric mice from embryonic stem cell cultures. A donor blastocyst is used as a host. At a particular stage of development, implanting a number of ES cells from the desired clone into the center of the blastocyst induces the donor blastocyst to develop into the placenta, while the ES cells continue development as the fetus. This allows for engineering of the ES cells independently, without failure prone nuclear transfer. It would be interesting to know if this would work in primates. It may be difficult to maintain the ES cell cultures. It might also be riskier in some sense. I'm curious what others know about this.

camjohnson26 8y ago

Humans have an inner need to see their actions cause effects, so anything that requires low effort but has an outsized effect is going to be taken advantage of. I think that’s why you see otherwise pointless vandalism and why if you leave an insecure website out in the wild eventually someone will hack it.

aeturnum 8y ago

Made me think of this sketch based on a mediocre sci-fi movie[1] from a while back: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7rzIwrEqpw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7rzIwrEqpw [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Box_(2009_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Box_(2009_film)

781 8y ago

Some people just want to watch the world burn