Betty: while my consistent paradim has been improvement of oneself throuh
any means necessary... going in for a 300 year overhaul is having someone
else do it... I personally feel that is not right....
Evolution, by definition, is a gradual change... a change over time... clip
clip, elixir of life is too easy, and with everything else... will make
humans softer, so when my people make our move there will be little or no
resistence to our taking over the world.
Feral
____________________ The earth turns on a tilted axis - just doing the best it can.
Oh, true on the definition of "evolution" but what we've looked at are past
examples of evolution, perhaps the next step of OUR particular "evolution"
will be brought about by the self. Or, like most other things we do, it'll
bring about our own extinction. It's a 50/50 tossup, call heads or
tails.
The human capacity to learn is a slow process, and can be called "thought
evolution", occurring in bursts and spurts and periods of stagnation, often
much like "natural" evolution itself. It's trial and error, often
resulting in the absurd, only then to leap forward on the old design into
something more efficient and extraordinary. And sometimes, like sharks and
crocodiles, the ideal model is created rather quickly and effectively and
has no NEED for change, but even those "perfect models" were the survivors
of a plethora of bizarre and surreal natural designs that were then
scrapped by the laws of nature.
The search for physical immortality or even prolonged life isn't a wham bam
thank you ma'am event, it's been an ultimate goal of countless
civilizations who lacked the technology, so settled on spirituality. It
won't be an overnight thing. Technically we've already achieved what was
thought impossible hundreds of years ago by most of us living to be 90+ and
in relatively decent shape. Sure, there were people back then who lived to
"extreme" ages such as 90-100+, but they were RARE. The average lifespan
was no more than 50 or 60, and nowadays that's middle age for most of the
population (tho those wiley sprightly bastards still enjoy the title of
"senior" for discounts at IHOP and Denny's). We take that "miracle pill"
every morning with our OJ in the form of an antioxidant or multivitamin to
eliminate cell damaging elements and replace what our bodies don't
naturally give us anymore. I doubt that one day they'll come out with a
wonder pill to make us all live forever, but the gradual extention of life
span is an ultimate reality, even if WE dont' live long enough to see
it.
But my chips are on us blowing ourselves to oblivion long before then
____________________ Trapped in time. Surrounded by evil. Low on gas.
Yes, the search is a slow process... but once we discover it... we change
ourselves in an unnatural way...
We are changing as it is... but triggering changes that are not part of our
genetic make up... is dangerous... if we don't destroy ourselves first,
then I believe the genetic changes will cause major problems...
Feral
____________________ The earth turns on a tilted axis - just doing the best it can.
Hohenheim of Light~Full Metal Alchemist
DevilsRoad
Coward
Posts: 4 Registered: 31/1/2004 Status: Offline
posted on 1/2/2004 at 08:34 PM
Hmm...yeah. I would like to live for 500 years. I want to do so much that
a mere 40 years or so just won't cut it. As for living that long without
having sex...hmm...it could be done. I'd just go on a rampage before I gave
in. A big ...wild...one. Heh.
Umm... ok... now.. by a rampage... you mean rapine and pillagin?
ORRRRRRR.... do you suppose you will find willing donors before making the
"sacrifice"? No offense, but the donors are the sacrificers...
Feral
____________________ The earth turns on a tilted axis - just doing the best it can.
Hohenheim of Light~Full Metal Alchemist
Dolorosa
Extreme Fanatic
Posts: 856 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 4/2/2004 at 10:35 AM
I could never do it...
Longevity without life is not my idea of fun.
crap, Sex is the only thing really worth living for...well, that and
cigarettes or sunrises...but both are even better after sex.
dude...profundity strikes! boom!
____________________ In the valley of the Goats, the Goat Fucker is King
BlueLinn
Fanatic
Posts: 246 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 9/2/2004 at 05:19 PM
If individuals lived longer than was necessary, Feral and Bettie are right
in the sense that we would eventually outlive our usefullness. We would
grow soft. Though Our personal intellect would grow, we would also become
weaker. Not to mention the fact that if everyone lived forever, then where
would we have room for the younger generations?.. It is true, we love our
elders and we wish they would stay around forever, and some of us are
afraid of death or we are afraid of loosing our sexual reproductive organs.
However, on the grand scheme of things, we are to evolve, and we are to
die. True our evolution now can be based primarilly upon our kowledge and
upon our techknowledgy. And if there became a wonder pill for us all to
live forever that would be great. However, the end result would be mother
nature putting us back in our place. A giant catastrophe, humanity dying
off, or loosing the ability to reproduce thus thinning our population. We
can only grow to the capacity that our enviornment can support us. If we
get beyond that, then we either loose some population or we move to another
planet. But personally, I'd rather not see Humanity pollute the rest of
space. The stars are far better off without us, than with us in every nook
and cranney of the gallexy.
____________________ When the world is over, will we wonder how it began?
BlueLinn
Fanatic
Posts: 246 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 9/2/2004 at 05:20 PM
(sorry about the spelling errors)
____________________ When the world is over, will we wonder how it began?
Well BL hopefully by that time we'll have "fixed" ourselves, not still be
such an ecological burden, and will have finally driven through the heads
of the masses that population control is NECESSARY. Besides, it's the
nature of any species that once they've run out of room, and see a way to
GAIN more room (ie: a whole 'nother planet) then they do it and go continue
elsewhere. I believe that we've halted biological evolution in ourselves,
or at least slowed it down, and that if we intend to move forward, it'll be
with our brains and what we can concieve and create. Like I said,
thechnically everything about is NOW is natural, because everything we use
comes in some form from nature (even base chemical components of plastic).
Or technically we've been UNnatural since the day we harnessed fire and the
spear and the plow, as those elements were TECHNOLOGICAL evolutions that
allowed us to no longer be as prey to our enviroment and forced to bend to
our enviroment, and altered our evolutionary course from being another
predator in the grasslands to a more inventive creature with abstract
thinking. By bending nature to our will with agriculture and living in
larger packs who had specialized labor, we had fewer survival preassures
and were then able to sit and think, to create, to begin the first crude
forms of art, to experiment with making better tools, better dwellings,
better hunting techniques. To LIVE LONGER.
If, as feral says, that increasing our lifespan with a drug, treatment, or
surgery is unnatural, then we have been unnatural since the first small
bipedal primate knocked two rocks together, broke off a sharp point, cut
his finger, looked at his latest kill, and started hacking instead of
gnawing.
____________________ Trapped in time. Surrounded by evil. Low on gas.
tools change behavior... learned traits are different from bred traits...
Also... plastics are made from chemicals that have to be synthesised
first... the base chemical components of things like that are
derivitives... created from natural things, but in a process and conditions
that are impossible in nature...
____________________ The earth turns on a tilted axis - just doing the best it can.
/>
/>
Hohenheim of Light~Full Metal Alchemist
Zero
Fanatic
Posts: 459 Registered: 15/2/2004 Status: Offline
posted on 21/2/2004 at 08:48 PM
I was watching a movie where one of the characters had this theory about
life. It was something like: Art, music, writing, and everything else is
just something we do to past the time between the next time we have sex.
I'm all for living for 500 years but I'd rather have a lot of sex (and I
mean A LOT OF SEX) tonight and die right after before I'd give it up for
500 extra years of life. Besides in God Emperor Of Dune, Leto II had the
same problem with his manhood and regretted living that long without
getting any. truthfully i think we all would.
Inventing a surgical procedure that prolongs life already exists. We just
call it "fixing" people, "treatments", "options", "miracles". A person
with a defective heart valve would have a natural lifespan of maybe a few
years, but now we unnaturally prolong their life by replacing it. Or a
defective organ. Or a tumor or degenerative disease. We raise funds and
promote "education" and "awareness" to fight the natural process of death
in all sorts of cases. And there are people who find even the most common
medical procedure blasphemous and "unnatural". The world has already
launched a campaign against the SIGNS of age....laser face lifts, chemical
peels and hairdye. To my knowledge there is no facelift or chemical peel
tree. These treatments are not found in nature and go against the "natural
process" of ageing, altering our bodies natural outward "winding down"
process. So when do we launch the campaign against the always present and
all harvesting disease of death?
It's common to be wary of "new fangled" things in the world. When they
become commonplace is when they are no longer seen as bizarre, strange, or
freakishly unnatural. Prolonging the lifespan of the average human IS
natural, because we've already done it, and because they are dealing with
components already within our "natural" selves, simply altering them to
become something with a desireable effect which is extended life.
Either everything we do is natural, or then conversely everything we do is
UNnatural, we don't get to pick and choose based on what we base our fears
and concerns on. Granted you have EVERY RIGHT to firmly plant your butt on
one side of the fence or the other, but please dont' be suprised that I
totally disagree. I won't be hurling rotten pumpkins over to YOUR side
anytime soon, but I still disagree.
Honestly, I seriously seriously doubt that EITHER of us will LIVE LONG
ENOUGH to see the "treatment" brought to maturity and applied to John Q
Public. So whether or not either of us is 'right" or "wrong", I doubt
it'll ammount to shit within our lifetimes
____________________ Trapped in time. Surrounded by evil. Low on gas.
bettie*looks a little confused* I was just discussin... nothing to do with
rotten fruit, but aiding in an intellectual discourse by pointing out
things that may have been over looked... Sorry... pumpkin's a melon
____________________ The earth turns on a tilted axis - just doing the best it can.
/>
Same here bucko, just makin sure nobody's undies get twisted
uh....pumpkin is a melon? Does that make it fruit? I thought it was
squash and squash was vegetable. Same with tomato? I still don't know if
that's fruit or veggie either.
____________________ Trapped in time. Surrounded by evil. Low on gas.
well it miht be a squash.. but melon and squash... dunno if dey is fruit or
what... thought they were by themselves..
____________________ The earth turns on a tilted axis - just doing the best it can.
/>
/>
/>
Hohenheim of Light~Full Metal Alchemist
Meranda_Jade
Fanatic
Posts: 511 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 23/2/2004 at 11:22 AM
melons and squash are the same thing, only melons are sweet and squash
usually are not. pumpkin is a squash... and a fruit. the way to tell if
something is a fruit or vegetable is... all fruits have the seeds on the
inside, with the exception of strawberries. so a tomato is a fruit.
But I DO KNOW that peanuts aren't peas or nuts they're LEGUMES.
Who the fuck laid down these rules anyway....THEY should be forced to live
500 years so they get asked the same question over and over.
____________________ Trapped in time. Surrounded by evil. Low on gas.
Starlight
Extreme Fanatic
Posts: 618 Registered: 27/9/2002 Status: Offline
posted on 23/2/2004 at 07:38 PM
The following link seems to give a good answer as to what is a fruit and
what is a veggie according to a botanist's point of view. Plus, it also
explains why a tomato is technically a fruit and legally (yes really) a
veggie.