It's very nice for the disabled people who lost an arm or an eye.
But for normal people? Uhm no.

>>14678
>normal people

If a blind person can eventually get eyes that work twenty times better than biological ones, why shouldn't a "normal person"?

Why should the goal of medicine be to make people "normal" if they want to be better than normal?

I think DIY biopunks or biohackers are grate.

I wish more people would start becoming citizen scientists.

>>14680
> i think more people should become citizen chemists

BAM meth explosions everywhere

>>14679

Reminds me of Geordi from Star Trek TNG. His VISOR allowed him to see the entire electromagnetic spectrum as well as being able to comprehend the results into things such as metal fatigue. The downside was that, because he saw the world as a conglomerate of ridiculous colors and patterns, he could never appreciate the simple beauty of a sunset.

Also, that is less of a medical issue than an ethical one. All men are supposed to be equal; so all sorts of people get angry when certain men (invariably the filthy rich ones) gain advantages from technology.

>>14686
>Reminds me of Geordi from Star Trek TNG. His VISOR allowed him to see the entire electromagnetic spectrum as well as being able to comprehend the results into things such as metal fatigue. The downside was that, because he saw the world as a conglomerate of ridiculous colors and patterns, he could never appreciate the simple beauty of a sunset.
When it comes to perception, it's difficult to substantiate claims such as this. Does your ability to perceive color render you incapable of admiring black and white photography. When in a very bright environment, are you physically unable to put on sunglasses to see better?
That aside, there's many ways to augment human vision besides broadening the visible spectrum:
* Better acuity.
* Better night vision.
* Better motion perception, particularly in well-lit environments and at the fovea.
* Ability to see polarization.
That last one would make you shit your pants in awe.

>Also, that is less of a medical issue than an ethical one. All men are supposed to be equal; so all sorts of people get angry when certain men (invariably the filthy rich ones) gain advantages from technology.
This implies a preexisting problem unrelated to bioethics. It's not that those people are gaining advantages. They're just trading one advantage for another. There's a problem to fix at an earlier stage before you have to start to worry about the ethics of transhumanism.

>>14687
>All men are supposed to be equal

All men are equal in the eyes of the law, in regards to civil rights. But are all men really supposed to be physically equal?

Ever read Harrison Bergeron?

>>14686
>Also, that is less of a medical issue than an ethical one. All men are supposed to be equal; so all sorts of people get angry when certain men (invariably the filthy rich ones) gain advantages from technology.

Bio-socialism...

>>14696

I have read Harrison Bergeron; it's one of my favorites. In any case, my point is less about lowering every human to the weakest, but raising every human to the strongest. That is: everyone should be made to be as fit and strong as the most perfect natural human. The difference is between everyone having 20/20 vision and some people having cybernetic eyeballs that can magnify like binoculars.

It runs into a whole host of problems because human limits are the only equalizing traits of civilization. There's already a trend where richer countries tend to do better in the Olympics (due to better diet and healthcare, probably) even though Americans aren't biologically stronger than Ugandans; and richer countries have higher measured IQs (due to better education) even though Americans also are not biologically smarter than Ugandans.

But start putting augmentations to natural human biology into the mix, and it becomes a nightmare. How can "normal" people win gold medals or get into universities if the rich kids all have cybernetic limbs and brains? The world will become a plutocracy faster than you can say "homo superior". Worse yet is when it starts making logical sense to elect these augmented humans into office because they really ARE smarter than the everyman. Once they gain power, it would be too easy for them to see themselves as being so superior that normal humans are as worthless as cattle. It will be like black slavery all over again except the revelation that the oppressed minority has the same potential (and thus is not a lesser human) will never come because it isn't true.

>>14729
>everyone should be made to be as fit and strong as the most perfect natural human

But why should that be a limit? Imagine what could be possible if we explore modifying a body not to the limits of biology but to the limits of engineering. Such research could allow us to adapt people to live on other planets with little to no terraforming, for just one example.

>How can "normal" people win gold medals

This is a non-issue. The Olympic competitions already have rules against artificial chemical augmentation, artificial biological or mechanical augmentation can be handled in the same way. Add that to the fact that there are already segregated Olympic competitions, one for "normals" and ones for those with handicaps. A separate competition could easily be established for humans with augmentations.

Compare such a competition to an automobile race, which is a similar competition of human ability in combination with technological advancement.

>or get into universities
Why would they need to get into universities once such learning enhancements become widespread? Of course the technology would be limited to a few at first, but not for very long. Just look at how wide computers have spread in just a few decades. There are already devices that allow people living in places without power or running water to access the Internet. Does that not demonstrate the beginnings of technology as an equalizer?


People are already unequal in physical capability and skill. If it is not ethically unsound for another man to be able to bench-press a half ton with "natural" muscles while I am unable to, why then would it be ethically unsound for a man with artificial ones to bench press two tons while I and the other fellow cannot? If it is not ethically unsound for an unaugmented man to be able to perform differential calculus in his head while I cannot, why would it be unethical for an augmented man to outperform both of us?

There already exist people that are capable of doing things that I can't because they have more money than me. Why should I find the proposition unethical that those capabilities should extend to the bodily?

>>14731
>>14729

Your arguments are pointless. Money and opportunity already empower people beyond their means and create biased superiority.

Even if this wasn't the case, there would still be inequality due to genetic predisposition, so no matter which way you turn, however small the variable is, no men are equal.

Biohacking would only serve to amplify those differences, make them more apparent. They've always been there.

People who can afford tertiary education tend to be more successful later in life. People who can afford better nutritionists and trainers often do better at sports.
The tools, and the skills involved, change slightly but the world's always been a bit of a plutocracy.

Embrace it and grind away.

>>14733
>Your arguments are pointless. Money and opportunity already empower people beyond their means and create biased superiority.

>Even if this wasn't the case, there would still be inequality due to genetic predisposition, so no matter which way you turn, however small the variable is, no men are equal.

This was the point of my arguments, thank you.

>>14733

Just because there is a small difference doesn't mean we should just shrug our shoulders and allow there to become a huge difference. That's like saying: people are already starving in Africa, so why should we send aid? If we do not, a few more will starve than already do. We can't save them all so it's not worth the effort.

Avoiding a tumble down a slippery slope is exactly why such morality exists. So we know where to draw the line.

The illusion of a "utopia" that will bring peace and love and and end to scarcity is total bullshit. Here we are in the grand 21st century in countries where the service economy is the largest sector; and yet a few billion people in rural areas are still living and working exactly as they did three-thousand years ago: subsistence farming and a little bit of trade. Even if we hit the so-called technological singularity, it's not going to suddenly poof all of humanity into a golden age of civilization. Oh sure, SOME people will become immoral gods that rule from inside a computer or a remote-controlled android/cyborg body... but those billions of people in China and India and Africa and where ever else will be just as unaffected in their day-to-day lives as they have been. There will still be slums, still be starvation, still be poverty and disease and death... just OVER THERE, not HERE. The divide between the rich and poor will simply continue to widen until the rich become a completely different species.

I don't exactly mean to say that is a good thing or a bad thing (after all, I'm an upper-middle class, white-collar worker in the USA making so much money per year I don't know how to spend it all besides almost-literally tossing it out my car's windows; so I'm one of the lucky few in top) just that it IS A THING, and that such biological enhancements will be of no benefit to roughly half of humanity.

>>14739
>allow there to become a huge difference

The difference is already huge. Technological augmentation would not be any more severe than the difference already is.

Why should it matter whether or not the guy who is rich enough to hop on his yacht at any moment he likes and sail to Monaco, followed by a trip to Thailand to strangle a six-year-old prostitute to death, then go on to Japan to dine with CEOs and heads of state, happens to have a pair of bionic eyes that lets him see farther than I can?

>Avoiding a tumble down a slippery slope

There is no slippery slope here, because you are already living in the disaster you're foretelling. You're insisting that the sky is going to fall when the rubble of it is already around us.

>The illusion of a "utopia" that will bring peace and love and and end to scarcity is total bullshit.

Who was talking about utopia? All I'm saying is that the "immoral gods" you're talking about already exist, and that it makes absolutely no difference to the rest of society whether they're doing what they do from a penthouse and boardroom or a heavily shielded satellite with a virtual environment that houses their mind.