4 ms·

Imagine a world where anybody can gestate a baby in a tank. It would be a boon to older couples, same sex couples, and many others. What happens to the inevita

Imagine a world where anybody can gestate a baby in a tank. It would be a boon to older couples, same sex couples, and many others. What happens to the inevitable baby who's parent's die before they can be decanted? They will stack up over time since who wants someone else's baby when you can get your own so easily. This will also be abused by some jacka## like Musk who wants to build a labor force for something distasteful. Imagine a Mars colonization effort with exclusively young people who were raised in a sealed environment and don't know anything that was not fed to them.

teeray 2y ago
> What happens to the inevitable baby who's parent's die before they can be decanted? This is already a problem for children of single mothers who die during childbirth. I’m not saying we have a solution to that problem (we are far from one), but it’s at least not a new problem.
NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
>Imagine a world where anybody can gestate a baby in a tank. It would be a boon to older couples, same sex couples, and many others. It would be a world where the Ghadafis and the Putins could breed armies of 100,000, a million, all raised in barracks and surveilled from birth. The critics would have no say, none of these children are theirs. The political enemies would become allies, just so they might have influence in where those armies are pointed. Entire crops of insect-people, superficially human, but psychologically tortured into compliance, outnumbering anyone who might want to put a stop to it. And don't get me wrong, I think the United States would do it too, even if it might need to hide it for awhile. >Imagine a Mars colonization effort with Imagine a Californian colonization effort with hundreds of thousands of psychopath soldiers exactly 15 yrs old, hopped up on roids, raised by a few hundred drill sargeants since they could hold their heads up, slowly marching through and getting rid of anyone who wasn't flagged as an elite. The reason you don't have stormtroopers doing this now is because there are only a few hundred of them who would be willing to do that at any given point at time. But when you can literally multiple humans with machines, then their numbers could grow quickly and to absurd degree.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > a world where the Ghadafis and the Putins could breed armies of 100,000, a million, all raised in barracks and surveilled from birth. The critics would have no say, none of these children are theirs You're describing peasant armies since time immemorial. > reason you don't have stormtroopers doing this now is because there are only a few hundred of them who would be willing to do that at any given point at time The reason is it's expensive to train and equip them. Human beings, particularly the ones used for cannon fodder, have historically been cheap.
- pjc50 2y ago
  > Imagine a Californian colonization effort with hundreds of thousands of psychopath soldiers exactly 15 yrs old, hopped up on roids, raised by a few hundred drill sargeants since they could hold their heads up, slowly marching through and getting rid of anyone who wasn't flagged as an elite. California is already colonized. What you're describing sounds more like some of the horrors of the DRC wars, which have seen the use of child soldiers. Moral horror is perfectly possible for those who wish to build it, without requiring any kind of artificial birth.
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
    There's a reason that these things happen in Africa... there are just more children to induct into an army, and fewer mature institutions to stand in the way. The US doesn't really have the former, and does have the latter. But artificial gestation would give it the former (to a degree not really seen in the modern world), even as the latter crumble.
dctoedt 2y ago
> Imagine a world where anybody can gestate a baby in a tank. Heinlein also explored that possibility a bit in one of his juveniles — in the novel, the tank farms were called "creches." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podkayne_of_Mars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podkayne_of_Mars

teeray 2y ago

> What happens to the inevitable baby who's parent's die before they can be decanted? This is already a problem for children of single mothers who die during childbirth. I’m not saying we have a solution to that problem (we are far from one), but it’s at least not a new problem.

NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago

>Imagine a world where anybody can gestate a baby in a tank. It would be a boon to older couples, same sex couples, and many others. It would be a world where the Ghadafis and the Putins could breed armies of 100,000, a million, all raised in barracks and surveilled from birth. The critics would have no say, none of these children are theirs. The political enemies would become allies, just so they might have influence in where those armies are pointed. Entire crops of insect-people, superficially human, but psychologically tortured into compliance, outnumbering anyone who might want to put a stop to it. And don't get me wrong, I think the United States would do it too, even if it might need to hide it for awhile. >Imagine a Mars colonization effort with Imagine a Californian colonization effort with hundreds of thousands of psychopath soldiers exactly 15 yrs old, hopped up on roids, raised by a few hundred drill sargeants since they could hold their heads up, slowly marching through and getting rid of anyone who wasn't flagged as an elite. The reason you don't have stormtroopers doing this now is because there are only a few hundred of them who would be willing to do that at any given point at time. But when you can literally multiple humans with machines, then their numbers could grow quickly and to absurd degree.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> a world where the Ghadafis and the Putins could breed armies of 100,000, a million, all raised in barracks and surveilled from birth. The critics would have no say, none of these children are theirs You're describing peasant armies since time immemorial. > reason you don't have stormtroopers doing this now is because there are only a few hundred of them who would be willing to do that at any given point at time The reason is it's expensive to train and equip them. Human beings, particularly the ones used for cannon fodder, have historically been cheap.
pjc50 2y ago
> Imagine a Californian colonization effort with hundreds of thousands of psychopath soldiers exactly 15 yrs old, hopped up on roids, raised by a few hundred drill sargeants since they could hold their heads up, slowly marching through and getting rid of anyone who wasn't flagged as an elite. California is already colonized. What you're describing sounds more like some of the horrors of the DRC wars, which have seen the use of child soldiers. Moral horror is perfectly possible for those who wish to build it, without requiring any kind of artificial birth.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
  There's a reason that these things happen in Africa... there are just more children to induct into an army, and fewer mature institutions to stand in the way. The US doesn't really have the former, and does have the latter. But artificial gestation would give it the former (to a degree not really seen in the modern world), even as the latter crumble.

dctoedt 2y ago

> Imagine a world where anybody can gestate a baby in a tank. Heinlein also explored that possibility a bit in one of his juveniles — in the novel, the tank farms were called "creches." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podkayne_of_Mars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podkayne_of_Mars