3 ms·

What if in the future, the state, due to dwindling population growth creates humans from engineered eggs and sperms? The reasons to do this are obvious, no popu

What if in the future, the state, due to dwindling population growth creates humans from engineered eggs and sperms? The reasons to do this are obvious, no population, no growth, no profits. Also, what if, they engineer these "artificial" humans to die preciesly when they reach a particular age? The state can then accurately predict retirement benefits, design infrastructure, distribute benefits more uniformly

FpUser 3y ago
>"What if" replace it to "when". Hopefully we can avoid it and use the tech to fix health problems for existing people
mysterydip 3y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan's_Run https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan's_Run
pineapple_guy 3y ago
And what if we are already the product of this process from a long forgotten empire?
a-r-t 3y ago
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe...
- shadowgovt 3y ago
  It's funny to me (and I've done it too) that people mis-remember how Roy's finite life-expectancy plot worked. It wasn't a feature; it was a bug. The company marketed it as a feature, but in reality (before Rachael, maybe) they didn't know how to build Nexus-6 with more than a four-year life expectancy. When Roy finally tracks down his creator and demands he remove it, Tyrell admits that he can't. ``` Tyrell: You were made as well as we could make you. Roy: But not to last. ``` It's the realization that his own creator, despite all the marketing hype, isn't a god, but just another flawed mortal... that the two of them are fundamentally equal creatures in this mad universe... that pushes Roy past the edge into madness and eventual redemption, when he realizes that in the face of a universe so cold and uncaring about the life within it, it's only life that can care about life. All of it, in all its forms.
vsareto 3y ago
>Also, what if, they engineer these "artificial" humans to die preciesly when they reach a particular age? Pretty much a science fantasy, but what stops the population from engineering it back?
- masklinn 3y ago
  What stops the population from engineering fertility back in gmo seeds?
  - justrealist 3y ago
    GMO crops do not have terminator genes. Enforcement is via license, not biology. They aren't sterile (but 2nd generation crops often are less useful because it produces sibling crosses which lose the targeted benefits).
whatshisface 3y ago
Engineering people to die at a specific age is as far fetched as engineering them to live forever, so you might as well imagine the latter.
- unshavedyak 3y ago
  Speaking purely capitalist for sake of discussion, i wonder what would be more beneficial / ROI friendly? I suspect a steady supply of young humans would be more likely to bend to your intentions and goals than a smaller supply of humans that become more wise, bored, etc with infinite life. Plus infinite life seems a near super power. Would they just hand it to nobodies? Seems like at that point they could produce a special few that live forever while the rest of the plebs have a largely normal life. And heck, to extend your idea further; if it is equally difficult than perhaps you could do both, not one or the other. So make many mortals and a select few chosen royalty bloodlines that live forever. You get a population you can predictably control and forever royalty. .. sometimes i'm glad i wasn't born 500 years later.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - bee_rider 3y ago
    Without knowing much of anything about either technology, I still want to speculate that we’ll probably have pretty good AI based automation before we’re creating out designer humans in bulk. So the whole economic structure would have to be very different. Maybe AI’s will be specifically designed to serve humans, and maybe they’ll design particularly rebellious humans, as they present more novel requests.
- almatabata 3y ago
  I think you could achieve the former more easily than you think. If we suppose you can gene edit to have certain characteristics. Why could they not add birth defects like heart problems and cancer? They then die from a heart attack at 30. Of course the technology might never get there either but to me gene editing for a birth defect sounds easier than gene editing to live forever but maybe i underestimate the former.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
kuratkull 3y ago
"In Time" (movie) would be the more likely outcome: time-to-live is transferrable currency. But in the real world people already die at a predictable age - we are all statistics.
powersnail 3y ago
It might be a good solution to infertility; but since infertility is not the main cause of dwindling population, artificial babies probably won't be effective in solving the general population crisis. People who don't want to raise kids probably also wouldn't want to raise artificial kids. If the kids are put in state's care, well, current society can't take good care of existing orphans. How are we going to handle more parent-less kids?
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
  > If the kids are put in state's care, well, current society can't take good care of existing orphans. How are we going to handle more parent-less kids? I have two children whom I have tried quite conscientiously to not expose to the more toxic parts of our culture. They have, to my knowledge, never watched any of the sitcoms where some significant fraction of the comedy revolves around parents and other adults complaining about having children/families. None of the standup comedians of that ilk (supposing that's still a part of their schtick). I avoid anything that talks about how "your carbon footprint will be smaller if you just don't have kids". They weren't really aware of the term "overpopulation". Most of all, I've always talked quite fondly and genuinely of having become a father myself. And, now, even as teenagers, they seem to look forward to the idea of becoming parents themselves one day. I don't have a large sample size, and it's hardly scientific, but the biggest problem I think is that our culture revels in how awful parenting is. The act of believing that idea causes people to be incapable of enjoying it. I also suspect rather strongly that it is more than just some arbitrary meme that bounces around in everyone's collective heads, instead the idea itself causes people to fail to enjoy parenting and to avoid it. It becomes this self-fulfilling prophecy, should they fail to achieve lasting childlessness. Why should such a culture deserve to even survive? Your civilization requires that people continue to reproduce, but shows nothing but contempt for the concept. It shows contempt for itself. All of the very ideals this civilization embraces and exalts seem contrary to reproduction, and no one shows any awareness that that would have to change, let alone interest in making the changes.
  - powersnail 3y ago
    I'm not quite sure how your comment is a response to mine, despite you replying to me and quoting my words. I don't personally have contempt to parenthood or the act of reproduction, and I don't see how it's related to my doubt that societies would be able to take care of artificial reproduced kids, given the poor state of existing care for orphans.
rawgabbit 3y ago
That’s the plot of Bladerunner. We bioengineer a slave class with a fixed life span and prevent them from reproducing.

FpUser 3y ago

>"What if" replace it to "when". Hopefully we can avoid it and use the tech to fix health problems for existing people

mysterydip 3y ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan's_Run https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan's_Run

pineapple_guy 3y ago

And what if we are already the product of this process from a long forgotten empire?

a-r-t 3y ago

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe...

shadowgovt 3y ago
It's funny to me (and I've done it too) that people mis-remember how Roy's finite life-expectancy plot worked. It wasn't a feature; it was a bug. The company marketed it as a feature, but in reality (before Rachael, maybe) they didn't know how to build Nexus-6 with more than a four-year life expectancy. When Roy finally tracks down his creator and demands he remove it, Tyrell admits that he can't. ``` Tyrell: You were made as well as we could make you. Roy: But not to last. ``` It's the realization that his own creator, despite all the marketing hype, isn't a god, but just another flawed mortal... that the two of them are fundamentally equal creatures in this mad universe... that pushes Roy past the edge into madness and eventual redemption, when he realizes that in the face of a universe so cold and uncaring about the life within it, it's only life that can care about life. All of it, in all its forms.

vsareto 3y ago

>Also, what if, they engineer these "artificial" humans to die preciesly when they reach a particular age? Pretty much a science fantasy, but what stops the population from engineering it back?

masklinn 3y ago
What stops the population from engineering fertility back in gmo seeds?
- justrealist 3y ago
  GMO crops do not have terminator genes. Enforcement is via license, not biology. They aren't sterile (but 2nd generation crops often are less useful because it produces sibling crosses which lose the targeted benefits).

whatshisface 3y ago

Engineering people to die at a specific age is as far fetched as engineering them to live forever, so you might as well imagine the latter.

unshavedyak 3y ago
Speaking purely capitalist for sake of discussion, i wonder what would be more beneficial / ROI friendly? I suspect a steady supply of young humans would be more likely to bend to your intentions and goals than a smaller supply of humans that become more wise, bored, etc with infinite life. Plus infinite life seems a near super power. Would they just hand it to nobodies? Seems like at that point they could produce a special few that live forever while the rest of the plebs have a largely normal life. And heck, to extend your idea further; if it is equally difficult than perhaps you could do both, not one or the other. So make many mortals and a select few chosen royalty bloodlines that live forever. You get a population you can predictably control and forever royalty. .. sometimes i'm glad i wasn't born 500 years later.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- bee_rider 3y ago
  Without knowing much of anything about either technology, I still want to speculate that we’ll probably have pretty good AI based automation before we’re creating out designer humans in bulk. So the whole economic structure would have to be very different. Maybe AI’s will be specifically designed to serve humans, and maybe they’ll design particularly rebellious humans, as they present more novel requests.
almatabata 3y ago
I think you could achieve the former more easily than you think. If we suppose you can gene edit to have certain characteristics. Why could they not add birth defects like heart problems and cancer? They then die from a heart attack at 30. Of course the technology might never get there either but to me gene editing for a birth defect sounds easier than gene editing to live forever but maybe i underestimate the former.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

kuratkull 3y ago

"In Time" (movie) would be the more likely outcome: time-to-live is transferrable currency. But in the real world people already die at a predictable age - we are all statistics.

powersnail 3y ago

It might be a good solution to infertility; but since infertility is not the main cause of dwindling population, artificial babies probably won't be effective in solving the general population crisis. People who don't want to raise kids probably also wouldn't want to raise artificial kids. If the kids are put in state's care, well, current society can't take good care of existing orphans. How are we going to handle more parent-less kids?

NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
> If the kids are put in state's care, well, current society can't take good care of existing orphans. How are we going to handle more parent-less kids? I have two children whom I have tried quite conscientiously to not expose to the more toxic parts of our culture. They have, to my knowledge, never watched any of the sitcoms where some significant fraction of the comedy revolves around parents and other adults complaining about having children/families. None of the standup comedians of that ilk (supposing that's still a part of their schtick). I avoid anything that talks about how "your carbon footprint will be smaller if you just don't have kids". They weren't really aware of the term "overpopulation". Most of all, I've always talked quite fondly and genuinely of having become a father myself. And, now, even as teenagers, they seem to look forward to the idea of becoming parents themselves one day. I don't have a large sample size, and it's hardly scientific, but the biggest problem I think is that our culture revels in how awful parenting is. The act of believing that idea causes people to be incapable of enjoying it. I also suspect rather strongly that it is more than just some arbitrary meme that bounces around in everyone's collective heads, instead the idea itself causes people to fail to enjoy parenting and to avoid it. It becomes this self-fulfilling prophecy, should they fail to achieve lasting childlessness. Why should such a culture deserve to even survive? Your civilization requires that people continue to reproduce, but shows nothing but contempt for the concept. It shows contempt for itself. All of the very ideals this civilization embraces and exalts seem contrary to reproduction, and no one shows any awareness that that would have to change, let alone interest in making the changes.
- powersnail 3y ago
  I'm not quite sure how your comment is a response to mine, despite you replying to me and quoting my words. I don't personally have contempt to parenthood or the act of reproduction, and I don't see how it's related to my doubt that societies would be able to take care of artificial reproduced kids, given the poor state of existing care for orphans.

rawgabbit 3y ago

That’s the plot of Bladerunner. We bioengineer a slave class with a fixed life span and prevent them from reproducing.