> RAGLAND:
> I think you are wrong we simply have no idea what kind of human will be
> required for the world 100 years from now. I think on a purely
> philosophical level we can definitely state at least some things which
> will be "considered" to be a requirement 100 years from now. 100 years
> is not a long time and I imagine human beings will be pretty much the
> way they are in 100 years as they are now. I would imagine there will be
> upheavals which occur in that 100 year time span but this isn't evidence
> of humans changing evolutionarily since our past has been marked at
> various points with numerous upheavals. So despite the possibility of
> social-political revolutions and drastic political changes these things
> aren't indicators of changes in our evolution. But when one considers
> the scientific advancements which have occured in the last 100 years we
> can expect many more scientific advancements within the next 100
> years..even as upheavals occur.
>
> Yes, the economic environment has changed
> markedly over the last 100 years as has technology. But the kind of
> human being who naturally does "best" hasn't changed. It is still
> Darwinian evolution with the strong and powerful exploiting and crushing
> the weak. While the economic environment has changed as a result of
> technologies due to globalization man himself hasn't evolutionarily
> changed at all. This is what I've stated in the past as regards our
> biological evolution being outpaced by our cultural evolution i.e.
> technology, science.
>
> Humans will not "continue" to change evolutionarily merely as a result
> of time passing i.e. no intervention through genetic engineering. As
> I've also stated without genetic engineering the human species faces the
> certainty of destroying itself.
>
RKS:
Darwinian evolution is too slow to do much, if anything, in a one hundred
year time frame.  But what Hitler proposed was "unnatural selection" or
"breeding" which he would have based on his idea of evolution.  He thought
that the abundance of young should be tested in war periodically, and that
it was up to the state to weed out the unworthy eg they had a saying for
disabled, eg bipolar sufferers, "life unworthy of life".

I point out that such unnatural selection does not work because the selector
(in this case, the state) can not anticipate the future, and therefore may
mould the genome using flawed or out-of-date paradigms. I point out an
example of where Hitler's ideas fail - the computer revolution of the second
half of the 20th century, for instance.

> RKS:
> The more variations that we can carry into the future the better. They
> are like humanities eyes and ears that will sniff out new opportunities,
> novel ways of thinking, and create unimagined technologies, and the more
> we have, the clearer we can see - Hitler would have poked out our eyes
> and made a rigid population that snapped upon encountering the first
> bend in the road ahead.
>
> RAGLAND:
> I disagree the more variations we carry into the future the better. If
> through genetic engineering we have the ability to wipe out genetic
> diseases shouldn't we do so? If through genetic engineering we are able
> to eliminate aggression from our DNA shouldn't we do so? If through
> genetic engineering we are able to create a more complex DNA shouldn't
> we do do? If through genetic engineering we are able to augment certain
> aspects of intelligence shouldn't we do so? If through genetic
> engineering we are able to make people able to withstand space travel
> shouldn't we do so? Through genetic engineering some variations would be
> gradually eliminated but other variations would be created.
>
> If you are expecting Darwinian evolution to accomplish any of these
> things you are badly mistaken. Hitler wasn't interested in humanity
> taking control of its evolution. If anything his view was the exact
> opposite..let nature proceed without any intervention from human beings.
>
RKS:
Your first statement is paradoxical - I am advocating that the more
variations we carry through to the future the better, so you "agree", not
"disagree"?

Genetic diseases are not variations as such, but genetic flaws which are an
unwanted consequence of variation by mutation.  If they can be corrected,
then it seems sensible that we should do so.  But no-one suffering from
Cyclopia has ever lived to maturity (usually still born) so I wonder just
how successful this might be.  Some genetic flaws seem destined to occur
with some frequency no matter what we do.  But we could look at hereditary
genetic flaws.

MR:
"If through genetic engineering we are able to eliminate aggression from our
DNA shouldn't we do so?"

RKS:
First I want your written assurance that aggression will never be needed in
the future eg
that all countries will eliminate aggression at the same time and not store
up any genes of aggression;
that no alien visitors will ever show up on dear old Planet Earth;
that no animal will ever evolve to a point where they threaten humans.

Hitler was intervening - he eliminated the 'sickly', that is, the incurable,
the mentally ill etc by gassing them.  He tried to "rid Germany of the
infestation of Jews" and went on to try his hand at eliminating them from
the rest of the world (He suggested they should make a place for themselves
in Palestine, which they eventually did).

He would have supplied the method of culling the unwanted or unneeded excess
population, which is not exactly natural.  Who will make that decision, and
on what paradigm will it be based?

Kind Regards,
Robert Karl Stonjek.
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