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this whole article is hilarious. biology and genetic engineering is way way more complicated than anything we’ve done as far as software and hardware goes. perf
by mirceal 7y ago
this whole article is hilarious. biology and genetic engineering is way way more complicated than anything we’ve done as far as software and hardware goes. performing a few tricks does not equal we can enhance anything we want any way we want it. my guess is that we’re a few decades away from really understanding the underlying mechanisms that would allow us to truly enhance ourselves. some will say that we can edit DNA today - while that’s true we have a limited understanding of what we’re doing or what the effects might be. Evolution is great because it wipes out all of its errors and you only see the beautiful end product. Now, do you want to be a guinea pig and/or be the unfortunate outcome of these experiments?
also: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0667997/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0667997/
another point that a lot of people miss is that super intelligence means nothing if you don’t have the right environment and the right opportunities. being wealthy exponentially increases your chances of a good outcome and it’s almost orthogonal to your IQ.
yet another point is that if we continue to destroy our ecosystem no matter how smart individuals get we’re all collectively doomed.
- shpongled 7y agoI can pretty confidently say that we will never fully understand human cell biology/biochemistry. The interplay between proteins, genes, metabolites, etc is mindbogglingly complex. I say this as someone who works as a chemical biologist and uses CRISPR/Cas9 in my work to perform gene editing in cancer cells. We are still quite a ways away from performing real editing in humans, and even then it's gonna be a crapshoot. Most traits are polygenic, and we don't understand how tweaking one gene will effect distal biology.
- mirceal 7y agonever is a long time but I definitely agree with the sentiment of what you’re saying/describing
- joe_the_user 7y agoYeah, what people miss is that nano-machines have been stalled for a while despite being a clearly simpler problem than repurposing biological life. Silicon based computation really lots like extraordinary and particular situation which allowed humans exploit miniaturization fantastically. And people have been aiming to duplicate this success in other fields futilely for many years now. Editing DNA is far, far away from creating chips, which a ways from writing software. It's very likely well in the realm of "AI-complete problems".
- lanstin 7y agoNice phrase. The Ship Minds will do it.